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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all).

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

#politics for ts #long post #anonymous #ask

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gloopyteazsblog · 3 years

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Ranting Time!!!:

Marapets is EXTREMELY racist, misogynistic, fatphobic, ableist, is an insult to people living in poverty or have lived in poverty in the past, mocks anorexia, participates in cultural appropriation, and is way too inappropriate and misleading for children.

But what is Marapets exactly? Marapets is an online pet website for kids that allows you to take care of your own pets, play games, explore the world it takes place in, interact with NPCs or other players, dress up your characters in costumes or clothing, and take part in quests. It's also pretty well known at this point for being almost a blatant rip-off of an older pets website called Neopets.

Racism and Cultural Appropriation: Marapets has turned people's cultures into simplified costumes for your pet to wear, and most of these costumes use colors that represent actual skin colors or colors that are normally used to mock poc (People of color).

Examples:

The Native Costume: Your pet's fur color becomes red with little white stripes and the usual idea of what Native Americans traditionally wear.

The Chinese Costume: Pet fur color turns yellow with the stereotypical idea of what Chinese People wear. This changed later on, when the fur color just turned red and white instead, but it still has the same old outfit.

The Pilgrim Costume: Pet fur color is now a more peachy, white skin color, with the usual Pilgrim Outfit.

The Sports Costume: All the other pets' fur colors are still a more peachy or greenish color, except for one pet, who wears the basketball costume and now has a brown fur color. Looks like the stereotypes continue.

The Voodoo Costume: Just Google it yourself, and you'll probably understand why this is cultural appropriation.

The (Other) Native Costume: Yet again, just Google this.

Of course, there are even more racist costumes like the ones mentioned above, and many of these costumes are in fact retired, but this should still be taken into account. If you want to see more examples of this, then I would suggest that you check out the Marapets Wiki and Izzy's video about Marapets, where she goes into even more detail about this depraved shit, along with how the artists are treated and the creator's reaction to any kind of criticism. The reasoning for why many of these costumes are retired (Judging by the Marapets Wiki yet again), is because of the lack of popularity or because of the fact that they just aren't appealing anymore? So basically, it's just a bunch of excuses for this, instead of taking accountability and explaining why this shit is very racist and disrespectful to the actual people out there who have these kinds of cultures.

Ableism, Fatphobia, and the treatment of anorexia:

The Mental Costume is an example of the ableism in this game. The way physchopathy and mental illness is treated is very disturbing. They present people with mental illness as the kind who need to be in an insane asylum, with a lack of freedom while being treated like they're starving savages who don't have any sense of control and need to be kept away from society completely. Their reasoning as to how these pets have mental illness is also pure bullshit and misrepresents people with mental illness. I'm sure that theirs even more signs of ableism in this game, but I would suggest that you try and find this for yourself if you truly want to.

Fatphobia: Characters who are obese are treated like lazy, cheating, drunken, dirty, or extremely hungry pigs. Many of these traits are normally combined into one character, and they also misrepresent obesity. These characters are constantly being portrayed as bad people or as the kind who just make excuses for themselves when it comes to their weight. And no, I'm not trying to deny the fact that these kinds of people do in fact exist in the world, but the way this game handles subjects like these, is very inappropriate. Not all people with larger body types are unhealthy in that regard, not all overweight people are overweight because of their own habits or actions, and not all of the people who are unhealthy because of their weight who participated in bad eating habits and used to exercise every once in a blue moon, make excuses for themselves. We need better representation of people who are overweight or just have larger body types, without constantly excusing their issues as completely normal, either. (I encourage that you all take a look at the "Obese Fairy's" bio as well, but as a fair warning: It's probably going to make you pretty uncomfortable.)

Anorexia: Remember how I was just talking about ableism not too long ago. Well guess what? This is also extremely disgusting and disgraceful to people with issues like mental illness. Except this time, it's anorexia! (I'm not entirely sure if Anorexia is a mental illness or a disorder though, so please take some the stuff I say here with a grain of salt, but I would still argue that this is somewhat like the kind of ableism I was just talking about.) Anyways, yes the Skinny Costume was a thing, and it honestly seems a lot more like Anorexia tbh. And the fact that it's just used as a costume doesn't really help Marapets's case either. (This part is also going to lead me into a couple other points that I have against this game as well, so just keep that in mind.)

The treatment of people living in poverty: The misrepresentation is also a serious problem in this aspect as well. The Hobo Costume of course frames homeless people as dirty hobos, along with one of the NPCs in this game. The Homeless Fairy is a character that doesn't have an actual place of his own, because of some sort of serious issue that occurred, and he only appears to want fame. The Trash Fairy is a character who was an alcoholic and had a gambling addiction, causing her to lose her job and become homeless. She was portrayed as a cheater, overweight, and dirty. This character was later on revamped into the Lazy Fairy, who is still portrayed as a dirty, obese, lazy, homeless, and a cheater as well.

The Inappropriate Content and other Misleading Shit: First of all, the fact that children playing this game have probably seen the Skinny Costume and now feel bad about their bodies, even if they are completely healthy, is pretty gross. Even though the characters with the costume on look pretty sad, the name is still pretty iffy, and the fact that society normally expects for people to be skinny in order to be healthy, doesn't make the situation any better. There's also the issues surrounding plastic surgery originally being in this game, presenting toxic beauty standards, along with some of the more provocative clothing and the misrepresentation that I've already gone over. Some of this information came from a site that I don't exactly remember the name of, but when I do, I'll be leaving it in the Sources section. Then there's also the Guillotine Fairy, the Headless Pet Costume, and the other overly bloody and violent shit that could probably be found in this game.

Conclusion: This game is extremely toxic and not appropriate for its target demographic. And I've barely even scratched the surface of this situation. I really hope that you will all do your own search when it comes to finding some of the information that I haven't presented in this post. If you have any questions for me about the things that I've just discussed, don't be afraid to ask! And thank you all for taking the time to read this, and I hope that you have a good day.

Sources: Izzy's video about Marapets, that one website that I forgot the name of, the Marapets Wiki, and Google Images.

#Marapets #Please read #Yay more racism/s #fatphobia #Rant #Please kill me #this took me too long

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skiasurveys · 4 years

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393

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? um,,? I would assume I was a young adult ig?

2.Which is worse, failing or never trying? never trying, b/c you would never know if you were good or not. 3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do? idk..man because we feel forced by society 4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done ? I hope not. 5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world? I wish people would stop flexing. 6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich? spending time with my loved ones tbh, and making art. 7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing? rn i am in college so 8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently? no different. 9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken? a little, im trying to fix it. 10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things? doing things right..i always think im gonna be a failure. 11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do? I would let them know that she is my friend and i find it disrespectful of what theyre saying. 12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? Honestly, dont worry about what others say. do what you want. 13. Would you break the law to save a loved one? yeah i would.

14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity? Yeah look at most art lol 15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people? Im not sure... 16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy? because were all just different people? 17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? travel really. I want to see more of the world and cultures.

18. What’s holding you back? money.

19. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of? yeah my fathers death.

20. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why? maybe the UK? and Idk its different and i dont wanna live in the us. 21. Do you push the elevator button more than once? not really. 22. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton? joyful 23. Why are you, you? life experiences.

24. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend? I think i have but i do have a lot to work on. 25. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you? losing touch. it sucks when you can feel them slipping away right from your fingers and you cant change it. we live in a world where face time is a thing so when someone moves it doesnt feel that much different. 26. What are you most grateful for? My mom 27. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones? fuck. Never make new ones. 28. Is it possible to know the truth without challenging it first? idk..? 29. What is your greatest fear? Has it ever come true? Drowning. lol

30. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now? it wouldve been either when my friend hurt me or when my dad had died. so yeah. 31. What is your happiest childhood memory? vaca with dad

32. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive? im not sure.. 33. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose? idk. 34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever? Of course, sometimes the best people are the people you dont have to make up a lot of words. 35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars? Cus humans. 36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil? yes and no. we all have our set of morals. for sure murder is evil..i would hope everyone would agree. 37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job? yes. even tho i just got it but like i hate working LOL. 38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing? more work i like to do 39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before? yes.

40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in? what

41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today? i would try to see them all lol

42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous? Of course LOL

43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living? alive is just doing ur boring ass shit every day but living is like actually doing what u love lol 44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right? you just know tbh 45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake? because we dont wanna look stupid or hurt others. depending on the mistake. 46. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you? dress better and be more active with my social media career. 47. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing? right now 48. What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love? i love art, i always have. it just lets me express myself without feeling weird. 49. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday? i will for sure b/c i just started working at this shit job so ill for sure remember this. i better not be here in 5 years or ill kms. 50. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you? myself but i always ask ppl for advice to help me. so both?

#survey #deep questions

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arr-jim-lad · 4 years

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So I've been asking around 'cause I'm really curious to hear people's thoughts-we all know how much you love Dio, but do you have any heroes-from whatever series/media-who you love to think about just as much? Like, which characters do you find the most intriguing to you, because of motive, personality, or the themes they represent (ie Miles Morales and how he represents the pressure of expectations, something along those lines?)

While DIO is probably for SOME BLOODY REASON my #1 comfort character to draw, as well as the first character I ever gave the prestigious title of ‘waifu’ to, he’s not actually my favourite Jojo character, as I still love Kakyoin much more.

The reason I don’t write as much about Kakyoin (though I have posted meta stuff about him a few times) is because I think he’s much more straightforward of a character than DIO and there isn’t that much to explain. I assume people understand Kakyoin because he feels more like a real person, unlike the absolute unhinged batshit insanity that is DiO’s tWiStEd MiNd lmfao

However, no character surpasses Basara Nekki from Macross 7, who I devoted an actual shrine to; (not depicted: the other 4 production cels I own)

He’s an extremely introverted, extremely stubborn musician pacifist, and one of my favourite characters of all time and I wrote an actual 15+ page essay analysis of him. People dismiss Macross 7 often and judge Basara in extremely shallow and unfair ways, purely because he’s not a character who’s openly friendly or extroverted enough for them to understand how he thinks and functions - which feels very personal to me because him and me are VERY alike (though I have grown since then and became much more openly friendly, but so did Basara in the sequel OVA, Macross Dynamite 7!!).

People on MFC (a figure collecting forum that I frequent) are so familiar with my love for Basara that, when he FINALLY got his first proper figure announcement last year, the entire comment page on that figure’s entry page was flooded with people being incredibly excited and happy for me specifically lmao

I wrote many other shorter pieces on various aspects of his character and the plot of the show in general, and one time I wrote a pretty long post on MFC specifically about why he’s such an important character to me. Here are some excerpts from it that I think answer your question pretty well;

I think that Basara is a character type you rarely see as a main protagonist, especially one that is this well executed. His flaws and strengths are wonderfully balanced. It really felt like watching a kindred spirit in this show and it just meant a lot to me to see a character like this written so well.

But there’s one more extremely important thing to Basara.It’s something a lot of people criticize, but I think it’s one of the most important and well chosen aspects of his personality, and another reason as to why I was so moved by his character: Basara doesn’t change.

He grows a little here and there, he learns a thing or two like everyone does, but he largely remains the same character throughout the series, because the series starts off with him already having developed his ideals and chosen his path. Some may call this poor character writing but to me, that’s one of the most inspiring things about him.

Growth and change are not one and the same. You don’t always need to change in order to grow. Sometimes you are perfectly fine the way you are. Sometimes you are right and those telling you that you need to change are plainly wrong.

Basara doesn’t change because he doesn’t have to change. He was right from the get go and he knew it.He failed again and again, and again and AGAIN, nearly every episode throughout the series was essentially another failure, and he faltered once or twice, but picked himself back up and he tried again.

There is a reason why “Try Again” is the song that saves the galaxy.

(…)

The message Basara tries to send through with his music is also very similar to the one I try to send with my art;His songs are songs of understanding, togetherness, peace, happiness and passion. Of leaving your past behind and working on your future, and of never giving up.

I’ve seen complaints that he doesn’t act like a person who would try to send such a message, but these people act like they’ve never met an introverted artist. I’ve been told I’m blunt, distant and sometimes intimidating because I don’t like to spend time among people, but that’s just the nature of an introvert. My art speaks for my soul - just like Basara’s music speaks of what is truly within his heart.

He is a positive, passionate and good-hearted person, and by actively telling people to listen to his song it’s clear that he wants them to know this.

If you are familiar with my mascot / fanstand, Luv, its full name is actually Charging Love Heart, which comes from Totsugeki Love Heart, a Fire Bomber song that I believe to be one of Basara’s first, as well as favourite songs.

The song is incredibly cheesy, but in such an epic, positive and genuine way that you can’t help but really feel the message that Basara is trying to get across with it, and it remains one of my absolute favourite songs of all times. I like to imagine that my art is a visual representation of the same kind of feelings.

PS; I know I said no character surpasses Basara but actually I think him and Kakyoin are on a roughly the same level tbh I really do absolutely love Kakyoin

#LEGIT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING THIS IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I WAS ABLE TO TALK ABOUT BASARA #basara nekki #macross 7 #jimsplaining #Anonymous

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