#obviously the fash was like

[chamerionwrites]

Possibly The most surprising thing I have discovered on the internet is the number of people who will unironically refer to others as "degenerates" without expecting anyone reading this to immediately assume that they are a straight-up fascist

#i don't mean the actual nazis though alas there are an eye-opening number of those on the internet too #i mean the 19yo purity wankers who will vaguely gesture at lefty talking points while freely tossing around 'degenerate' as an insult #apparently without recognizing that this sets off like 1000 warning sirens for anyone w the slightest familiarity w fascist rhetoric #bonus points if they actually use the phrase ''degenerate art'' #genuinely i have spent my entire internet life immediately blocking anyone who does this on the assumption they are an Actual Nazi #only to discover an alarming number of Kids These Days doing it????? to a point i don't think it can just be undercover fash????? #obviously the purity wank is itself concerning regardless of what political talking points they have learned to parrot but i just. #the multiple overlapping layers of accidentally-right-wing lack of self awareness are. TRULY incredible to witness. #my posts

[tigergender]

Remembering the toxic hellscape that was 2015-2019ish SU fandom and just how much hate the show got is really insane when you rewatch the show after it's been a while. Like the show is good what the hell were any of these people talking about

#do NOT quote me on those numbers i pulled them straight out of my ass #like the ending was rushed and the diamonds didnt get to be fully developed but liek #the whole reason that was the case is there was an entire 6th season planned #and then the show got axed early because rebecca sugar and crew refused the back down on the rupphire wedding. #and even rushedness aside like the point of the show was never that you should hug fascists and forgive people no matter what #the diamond were rose's (and his) dysfunctional family whose personal suffering became the basis for the cruelty of gem society #bismuth in The Real World would have been right to want to kill the diamonds as a force of revolution #but the point of the show is that even the most complicated people are still people who can change. even if you dont forgive them #even steven quartz universe the most loving boy in the world very obviously does not like being around the diamonds. but that is how it is #it was a children's show that emphasized compassion and communication and family as themes. of course steven didnt kill the diamonds lol #i really fully believe the stevenbomb format (which was not the crew's choice or fault) cooked peoples' brains #you had months between major arcs so every wrongdoing by a character had months to be warped and misinterpreted and so no resolution could #ever satisfy fans who were festering with their own opinions for way too long #like these arcs looking back are not that long and they resolve in fairly reasonable manners but they took fuckin forever in real time to #wrap up #and ppl on the internet with no other hobbies than arguing made the fandom suck to be in and gave su a bad name #even if you dont like steven universe i think the amount of vitriol thrown at the show is/was fucking INSANE for what it is lmaooo #people were so so jolly to accuse rebecca sugar (a jewish lady) of being a fascist/fash sympathizer and paint every writing shortcoming or #morally dubious character action as a sign of pure fuckin evil #ok that was a long ass fuckin rant in the tags i am so sorry i'm just kind of opinionated on this matter as i am all matters #i've been rewatching su with my dad lately and this very normal and well paced and fun watchthrough experience has been illuminating #just how insane and uncalled for the hellish discourse sphere around su was/is #i say was/is i have no idea what su discourse is like nowadays. i'm too scareds to look in the su crit tag

[tinderfishboy]

not going to make a real post about it bc i feel like im being mean but i just have to say people have to get normaler about drag queens and its bothering me

#i am talking specifically about Fan Behavior bc there is a … particular demographic that gets Real Weird #obviously also like yes right wing fash but like they should just kill themselves we know how i feel abt them #so thats not what i was talking abt. that goes wo saying #if i was talking abt anti-drag freaks i would not worry about being mean. i would tell them to kill themselves!

[miniangelwings]

i always dm people who i know are wrong about something but i have a glimmer of hope that they would be willing to listen about it and lemme say that it goes 100x better than trying to talk to them in public

#like obviously dont argue with fash there is literally no point there but you'd be astounded the amount of people who just say shit because #they literally did not think about it at all. like you give them critical thoughts to ponder and they're like wow i was in the wrong. #frequently. #however if you try to do this in public they will get defensive and shut down. #and absolutely refuse to acknowledge that they might be wrong because they don't want to look like a bitch. #mansplaining as an act of gender expression.

[lwcina]

like i really think people cant imagine political action beyond voting and boycotts

#like obviously dont give jkr money #but like u cant vote out fash and u cant boycott capitalism. #how are u spending all ur time and energy talking about the racist terf game and not about whats impacting ur local trans communities #so many states are criminalizing transness right now how are you responding to thay??? #focus on real things instead of Dunking On Prople Online

[wanderingtycho]

By far one of my favorite things about the way Disco Elysium handles politics is that Libertarianism is treated as an absolute joke. Like the game is obviously sympathetic towards communists, but there are elements of sympathy towards the moralists and fascists as well. Not sympathy in the sense of “oh can’t we all just get along, we’re all human” BS, but sympathy in the sense that you are able to understand a persons thought process that would lead them to embrace moralism or fascism. Even if that thought process is deeply flawed, and leads to horribly off kilter conclusions, going through the centrist and fash quests gives you meaningful insight into the appeal of those ideologies.

But Ultraliberalism? The game just laughs at you, repeatedly and mercilessly. As it should, you’re a cop so poor a guy you’ve known for one day has to pawn some fancy hubcaps so you can afford rent, yet all you talk about is your grindset. Your hustle, how you’re gonna disrupt the market and groove your way into the lap of luxury. It’s delusion, utter stark raving madness, and characters treat you as such.

Kim is at a loss for words whenever you crank on your libertarian spiel, Evrart calls you a retard, you have to *trick* the mega-rich light bending guy into giving you mercury mining stocks because he’s simply too perplexed by you. Joyce, last of the self identified Ultras, doesn’t take you seriously. Sileng just goes along with it the same way he goes along with any of the other nonsense you can spout, because he’s on his own hustle, and there is no loyalty among charlatans. The only character who is wholeheartedly onboard with the money engineering and the visionary wave making lifestyle is literally named IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL.

But you see, all these things are just incidental, where the game makes it most potent jab at libertarians is when the vision quest stops. Notice I said *stop* not *end*. The communist quest line ends with a Rhetoric check in order to ask The Most Important Question about Communism. The fascist quest has you look yourself in the eye with an Endurance check to see if you can stomach the truth about yourself and your Vöws. The moralist quest ends with a heart wrenching Empathy check as you beg the iron grey and soulless enforcers of the status quo to please god help this district before war breaks out in the streets. There’s real personal stakes for Harry in all these disparate paths he can walk, what does Ultraliberalism get?

You and Kim look at a statue covered in tinsel and disco balls, Kim asks you why you went through with all this, and no matter what response you pick he’s like “Right, yeah, okay. Anyway, let’s finish the case.”

That’s it, no grand moment of pathos, no red Savoir Faire skill check to see if you really are the baddest hustler in the neoliberal hood after all. It’s completely limp, flaccid, lackluster. The game treats all the effort you put into this as exactly what it is: sad, cringe fantasies of a poor old man who’s huffing copium over the embarrassed millionaire mythos.

Disco Elysium doesn’t give libertarianism a poignant, profound conclusion because it’s an ideology undeserving of such treatment. It’s a hyper-capitalist cult mentality of toxic positivity and confirmation bias, a way for desperate people to trick themselves and other chumps into thinking they can bootstrap their way into wealth and prestige. It goes past wishful thinking into pure delirium, the game doesn’t engage with it seriously because it doesn’t have to, the only people who sincerely believe any of its tenants are morons and the clowns who sucker them.

#disco elysium #politics #this one is a tad more mean spirited than the last #I just really hate libertarians they’re so nauseatingly obnoxious #it’s a shame disco came out before NFTs were the latest trend those mooks glommed onto #imagine the kind of jokes we could’ve gotten out of Harry trying to send monkey jpegs over the radiocomputer

[librarycards]

Is there a word for like, the phenomena of many people in academia positions calling themselves "anti psychiatry" but having a really shallow take on it that is openly reactionary and hostile to disabled people. Like they'll say "adhd isn't real" not in a "the way mad people critique and reformulate concepts of adhd takes precedence over the way the medical establishment does" way but in a "stop whining addict you are not medically corrupt but morally corrupt" way that is really obviously hostile to the self-actualization of the disabled. Or they have tunnel vision on deligitimizing all pharmaceuticals. Which seems like a very unthorough and flawed way to critique the medical industrial complex. Companies are lying about drugs, mis-prescribing them, AND with-holding them. You can't just ignore the last one. Entire countries are held hostage by threat of pharmaceutical copyright embargo, and these types could care less. Anyway what's their deal. They seem like fash wellness types in "anti psychiatry" clothing.

this is a dangerous pov that has been embedded in the antipsych movement for a very long time, and continues to be perpetuated by people whose antipsych scholarship doesn't have a strong disability studies conceptual framework. the most (in)famous figure representative of these views is Thomas Szasz, who believed, in short, that "mental illness" was an abdication of patient "personal responsibility" and an excuse for "malingering." He correctly identified mental illness as a sociocultural + medico-legal construct, but chose to blame persons experiencing psychosocial distress/difference for the insufficiency and danger of pathologizing labels, rather than the structural violence that undergirds both discourses and material realities of what is understood as "mental illness."

Personally, I think that this genealogy of antipsychiatry is libertarian in origin, distinct, though not disconnected, to bodymind fascism / wellness-reductionism. Szasz and his ilk are notable in that they believe/d in absolute bodily autonomy and self-determination, with the caveat that such autonomy is predicated upon the absence of social supports for people experiencing distress, and on the absence of compassion for those using violent language in an attempt to make sense of their lived experiences. The reason that I make this distinction is that Szasz is Jewish, and fled Hungary for the US in the 30s. He made the (correct) connection between the Nazi genocide of "undesirables" (including psychiatric patients) and state classification, incarceration, and "slow" genocide of Madppl globally and transtemporally.

But to return to your question: with this, as with pharmaceuticals, there is a fundamental discomfort at all levels of scholarship and discourse with identifying neoliberal capitalism as the enemy of self-determination, joy, community, and, like, an actual future for all life on this planet and beyond. The claim that pharmaceuticals are uniformly evil is a hackneyed way of attacking capitalism for those not yet ready or willing to acknowledge that, even absent a given pill or brand name, the structural violence that we associate with them would remain and simply morph. The fundamental danger of any and all medical "treatment," particularly that which involves significant alteration to an individual's bodymind and/or potential incapacitation, is that medico-psychiatric institutions function as zones of exception for many of the "rights" we are taught that we enjoy. Under the sign of patient, typical assumptions around autonomy, dignity, and equality –– while never fully existent in the first place –– completely vanish. Of course, it is far easier to blame individual people, companies, etc. than understand that disabled/Mad liberation will never exist without total abolition.

Equally, however, it's important to understand that "academics" discussing the abuses of big pharma or questioning the ontology of mental illness, as it were, are not somehow magically separated from psychiatric survivors. The academics dismissed as being unaware of the "real" struggles of psychiatrized people are oftentimes psychiatrized themselves, and their perspectives, writings, and movements are grounded in lived experience. People with academic degrees are not immune from emotional reactions rooted in trauma and anxiety, and in fact, to try to separate "emotion" from academic "reason" is a dangerous eurocolonial practice. In short: many who write, correctly, of the dangers of pharmaceutical companies and practitioner pocket-lining are and have been subjected to these abuses firsthand. This doesn't mean that a wholesale rejection of all medication is, like, "good." But it means that scholars are people –– people with more specialized knowledge in a given area than your average random person, but people nonetheless.

So, to conclude: there are a bunch of things going on that lead to the pervasiveness of reactionary antipsych perspectives. Sometimes, in the case of libertarian or fash (to say nothing of religiously-specific fascism) approaches, there is a willful refusal to distinguish pathologization from material need/suffering, and the assumption that eliminating diagnostic markers will simply neutralize the problem of mental illness-qua-human vulnerability. Other times, conscious objection to myriad genres of oppression under the (neoliberal capitalist) Med/Psy industrial complexes are shoehorned in with these reactionary approaches.

Overall, there are longstanding movements designed to oppress/abandon/eliminate disabled / Madppl in which scholars, wittingly and unwittingly, participate, and given the average joe's utter ignorance of any kind of antipsych thought, it is very difficult to address these issues with rigor and honesty.

Lastly –– I highly recommend doing more reading in critical Mad studies if you're interested in well-thought-out perspectives on Madness, antipsychiatry, and disability justice! Scholars like Liat Ben-Moshe, Jijian Voronka, Margaret Price, La Mar Jurelle Bruce, J. Logan Smilges, sarah madoka currie, Bren LeFrançois, Alexandre Baril, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Eric Stanley, Therí Alyce Pickens, Erica Hua Fletcher, and many others do incredible Mad work explicitly informed by disability and abolitionst frameworks! (and so do I –– at least, I'm trying!)

#antipsychiatry #saneism #ableism #psychiatry #eugenics m #nazi m #ask #anonymous #academia

[absul]

i feel like wayyyy too many ppl think of transmisogyny as a ~special word~ just for trans women, and is why they then try to make up a ~special word~ for trans men

transmisogyny is simply the combined oppression of women and trans ppl. women are oppressed on the basis that they are women. trans ppl are oppressed on the basis that they are transgender. it’s similar to why the word misogynoir exists.

obviously, when one person is a part of multiple minorities, the bigotry that they face from both/all sides combine in incredibly nasty ways.

there is no ‘special‘ word like this for trans men not because they don’t face specific forms of transphobia(obviously they do), but because men are not oppressed solely on the basis that they are men. a point i see a lot in these discussions is ‘but men of color are oppressed!!‘ and the answer is yes, they are, because they are people of color. the word you are looking for for the oppression that moc face already exists. you’re thinking of racism.

not even the majority of terfs truly believe ‘CIS men bad,‘ when they say things like that they undeniably just mean trans women. terfs will absolutely not hesitate to buddy up with transmisogynistic men as long as they hype up their egos. similarly, they will side with fash men for their transmisogynistic views AND their eurocentric(read: racist) beauty standards, because the two go hand-in-hand, believe it or not

again. trans men are oppressed because they are transgender. not because they are specifically men. men are not oppressed on the sole basis that they are men. the word to use is still transphobia, because the oppression they face is because they are trans.

#screech #transmisogyny mention tw #transphobia mention tw #racism mention tw #i brush over a lot of shit here just lmk if you need something else tagged #i'm not arguing with ppl over this btw #i'm just trying to settle this gross misconception #but if a transfem has made a post that addresses this exact point already please link it to me so i can rb it and delete this #i just haven't seen any. i would very much like to

[copperbadge]

Current Events Reading Reccs

I had a couple of people asking me about my “current events” reading in general (news aggregators, podcasts, etc) so I figured I’d just list them off here. 

I don’t read any tumblrs that are specifically focused on current events, I just kinda get news from various people I’ve followed, but I’ve found in general it helps to find people for whom the news is a hobby, not a consuming habit. I have communists and anarchists and prison abolitionists on my dash, but they aren’t people who have made that their identity, which removes the “You are insufferable” factor. So I guess find fandom weirdos with strong political views and follow ‘em. 

Also I want to state at the top that part of why I’m on top of shit that I get through Tumblr is that I have a policy of never reblogging or reacting to anything until I have 1. read the article being linked and 2. done my own research. This has saved me a vast deal of embarrassment, because sometimes I’ll save something outrageous to research and before I can even research it, it’s been rebutted. I cannot stress how important the process of reading and research is -- you can’t get your news from headlines and particularly not clickbait you see on Tumblr. 

As far as I know there’s no single tumblr clearinghouse for good high-level current events reporting and analysis (the analysis I think is a vital part) but if folks have resources they use, drop ‘em in the comments or reblogs.  

Anyway, some mailing lists I belong to are:

Quartz Daily Brief: finance and tech, mainly. Back when they were for-pay I paid for them, this newsletter was that entertaining. I believe they’ve now gone fee-free but they sometimes link to paywalls. I get it as an email newsletter, that’s just a link to the web version. 

Breakfast with ARTNews: Obviously a bit niche but I really like keeping up with the art world and they cover art crime too. The link is to the all-newsletters signup page, I only belong to Breakfast. 

The Futurist: This is the most insufferable nonsense masquerading as news ever. The ads are indistinguishable from the content. But it does help me keep a finger hard on the pulse of what irritating tech bros are into. Watch scams unfold in real time! 

I also follow a number of local interests -- community centers and neighborhood organizations primarily -- in Chicago, so those are always good to hunt up. Most major cities have a “citycast” podcast (just search “citycast [your city]” in your podcatcher) that is also good for local news.  

Some websites:

Longreads: Since longform.org went under, the best place to find the current longform pieces that everyone’s talking about.  

Brand Eating: Extremely niche, but I really love reading about “brand” food trends. It covers new food releases and sales and such in the areas of packaged food (potato chips, candy, etc), fast food, and casual dining. It’s also great as a resource for cheap eats. 

I stopped reading Bon Appetit recently (they ran this appallingly sympathetic story about a dickhead hiring manager) but like, honestly, if you want to track food trends, the BA email newsletter is kinda the way to go. If you’d like good food news in podcast form, I recommend The Sporkful (it’s in the podcast list). 

I used to read the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Fortune Magazine (which mostly scraped the not-awful stuff from Forbes) but I’ve cut it down to just the Trib; I don’t really need Fortune to keep me current and the NYT has morphed into a creepy proto-fash nightmare. The Trib has pretty good national/international coverage so if you don’t have a decent local paper it’s not bad, but I don’t know how much access you get as a nonpaying reader (I subscribe). 

Podcasts:

Quartz has a podcast, Quartz Obsession, which is off-and-on in terms of when episodes come out but very interesting when they do. 

Planet Money is a once-weekly podcast about economics, and has a daily show called “The Indicator” which is daily “small bites” current events coverage. 

The Late Show and the Daily Show both have an “ears edition” podcast that’s just the show audio; I’ve stopped listening for the most part but if you want good cultural commentary, that’s the place to go. 

The Journal by the Wall Street Journal is a weekly podcast focusing on one or two news stories, generally pretty relevant. 

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is a panel show but it’s a fun way to get bite-sized news you can look up later in more detail if you want. And it’s taped in Chicago! If you listen you can hear me in the audience laughing. :D (I’m going to another taping in a few weeks!) 

Behind The Bastards is actually a history podcast but if you’re listening current he does a bit of current-events commentary, and also I just really like it as a podcast.

Stuff You Should Know is a trivia podcast but they occasionally do current-events stuff.

The Sporkful is pretty good about current food news, although I run hot and cold on it.

I used to listen to a really good “professional” medical podcast, but it went full paywall when it started to offer certain forms of professional credit, so I found The House Of Pod as a very good free replacement. It’s not really for non-doctors, but as a non-doctor I still find it accessible and informative. (For medical history and curiosity, I do highly recommend Bedside Rounds, but I wouldn’t call it a current events cast.) 

So that’s how I get my news -- it’s not what I would call fully comprehensive but it’s reasonably informative! 

#bread-tab #auressea #tigerist #current events

[neechees]

Speaking of racist authors who's scalp I want decorating my home, but Rowling literally keeps pulling that thing where she backtracks the alleged meaning & intentions of her own work by saying "well actually I meant THIS the whole time" in the books to try make it look more politically "savvy" (in her mind) or steeped with meaning than it actually is, because she is literally too stupid and short sighted to actually write those things, & usually its also to try get out of some sort of criticism, & she's done this at least 3 times.

Like first was the whole "Gandalf is gay" shtick when this was her shallow, lazy attempt at trying to look "diverse". Second time was when she was like "well actually Hermione wasn't WHITE, I think she was Black" which, absolutely wasn't true considering she describes all her Black characters as being "tall" and athletic (which, Hermione is not) and she would've given her a stupid, obviously racist name if she always intended this.

But the most recent time was her allegeding that she based the death eaters off of trans activists? This obviously isn't true since she's already repeatedly talked about the specifically nazi & fash influence on the death eaters, and then when people critisized her for her antisemitism & lack of logic on how the death eaters operate, she attempted to "prove" this wrong by tweeting about visiting the auschwitz memorial museum (in relation to, again, it's specific influence on death deaters) to try insist she was sensitive to what she was referencing. If she intended this from the beginning, she would've brought attention to it because she literally just so stupid & knows it but tries to "prove" otherwise. So the whole thing example NOW is just her appealing to her fash t/erf clown crew to try seem more intelligent than she is.

#cw harry potter #<- block that tag if you do not wosh to see content discussing/critisizing this bigoted shitshow #i know this can all be very upsetting #we also knows she doesnt plan ahead & she says she NEVER retcons anything #like how she deals with the time turner problem with all the turners just very conveniently being destroyed randomly #& theres a bunch of other plot holes & inconsistencies in her work & shes just not a good author #& shes literally SO goddamn stupid she knows doing the backtracking thing sometimes makes her look smarter #to OTHER brainless idiots so she keeps doing it #transphobia tw #antisemitism tw #nazism tw #antiblackness tw

[thorraborinn]

i follow odin (NOT as a folkish/odinist freak, to be clear), which often feels like it raises some weird conflicts as a newbie anarchist. like, considering his whole. situation it seems likely that pops up there would happily accept cops, fash, etc. into valhalla, if only to pad out the troops, yknow? it doesn’t seem like he goes out of his way to only ghost-enlist good drengir or anything. you ever think about that? what’s your outlook on valhalla in general?

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. There's a real contradiction here. A lot of people are going to have different ways of dealing with this, and yours might be different from mine, but I'll share what I can and maybe it'll help.

I guess I should be up-front and admit right away that I don't believe in Valhöll. And I'm glad I don't believe in it, because I also don't like it. I think it's better to just state that outright than to do what some heathens do and either reinterpret it until it's something that makes sense to them, but barely resembles any of the sources about it; or try to argue that "real" heathens didn't believe it themselves (surely, some did and some didn't). We're gonna have contradictions and differences with each other and with our predecessors because we have no centralized religious authorities, and this is all a good thing as long as we can be cool about it and respect difference.

Side note: while I personally don't think it's helpful to reinterpret Valhöll into a place where the downtrodden get rewarded for all their unseen and unappreciated struggles and sacrifices, I at least have more in common with a person who does believe that than with someone who actually believes in the Eddas' description of Valhöll and thinks that sounds good.

Disbelief doesn't get me out of needing to think about it, it just moves the problem. If what I believe is that it's a projection of the ideal life of the aristocratic warrior conqueror, I can disbelieve in Valhöll but still have to deal with the aristocratic warrior conqueror who was a historical reality. Obviously Valhöll is the one thing everyone "knows" about Old Norse culture and it completely dominates the discussion about afterlife concepts but let's think about why that is. Our main sources of information about the mythology at all were produced by the same group of people that Valhöll was most relevant to: the warrior aristocrats who laid the groundwork to establish the kingdom of Norway. The whole thing is an extension and idealization of their way of life, running on magic rather than the slaves, farmers, other workers, and women with rare exception, whose work was needed to keep the aristocracy afloat here in the living world. We don't get nearly the same volume of myth that might have been more relevant to those slaves, farmers, other workers, and women. As much as that sucks and isn't fair to either them or us, it's the reality, and we're better off accounting for that absence than ignoring it.

I don't actually think someone consciously invented Valhöll, I think one root of it is extrapolation from an idea we see elsewhere, that a person's experience following death is somehow continuous with the manner in which they died. So someone who drowns in a shipwreck has an afterlife in the sea; Hel might be characterized by illness and famine because those are ways that a lot of people get there. I expect that the idea of Valhöll started out the same way, that people who died in violent conflict remained in violent conflict after their deaths. In that case it isn't inherently a reward or punishment, and its later glorification comes about because the tradition passed through many people who glorified violence. I also think that a lot of what we think we know about it was actually embellished in retrospect by the Christian descendants of these people, and was probably done in such a way as to exaggerate the manly valor of anyone who would consider being hacked to death every day until the end of time a sort of "heaven." But we also shouldn't rule out the possibility that heathens themselves developed it as they developed their own identity in contrast to Christianity.

But once it emerged into the ecosystem of spiritual beliefs it probably served a bunch of needs that would have solidified its position. As many have pointed out, it probably helped people deal with the fact that they'd never see their dead children or even be able to give them a proper funeral in accordance with whatever their local custom was, including offering grave goods and putting the remains with the rest of the family, or somewhere accessible in the landscape. The aspect I've usually emphasized is that it was probably extremely useful for warlords who needed to convince children to die for them. Around the turn of the millennium it may have become more relevant to make promises of a good afterlife, as Scandinavians became increasingly aware of what Christianity was offering. Indeed, since we get some indications that some Norse people believed in reincarnation, this might be the time period where the concept of the afterlife being permanent consolidated.

Fortunately we do actually get an alternative view of something very similar, but from people embodying a different ethic. Þórólfr Mostrarskegg was a wealthy and powerful aristocrat known for his generosity in Norway during the time that Haraldr fairhair, the semi-legendary first king of Norway (and a central figure for the warrior-aristocratic context we're examining), was expanding his empire. Þórólfr harbored a fugitive (Björn Ketilsson) who had been declared an outlaw by Haraldr, and as a result had to flee Norway himself, choosing to uproot his own life and lose a great deal of his wealth and power rather than fail to offer aid to a fugitive. Þórólfr and his entire homestead fled to Iceland. He was kind of an over-the-top blowhard but continued to be known for his generosity. His son Þorsteinn took over the farm when he died and took after his father. It isn't specified that Þorsteinn had a specific habit of freeing slaves, but it is said that he had a retinue of some 60 freedmen. When Þorsteinn died, a shepherd saw the mountain Helgafell ('holy-mountain'), near Þorsteinn's farm, open up to reveal a huge feast and celebration happening inside, and he saw that Þorsteinn and his comrades who had died with him were going to go sit down across from his father Þórólfr. To be clear, these guys were still aristocrats. The ability to free slaves means they also had the power not to, and I don't want to romanticize these guys. But they still rejected violent conquest and chose personal loss for the good of others, and the afterlives they're depicted as having (basically Valhöll but connected to the land they lived in, and without all the violence and weird class elements) is surely related to that. This is all part of Eyrbyggja saga (no, it may not be reliable historical fact, but it is how they were remembered, which is important for its own reasons).

So I guess the reason I'm bringing this up is that we're all pretty good at reminding each other "there were a variety of beliefs" but we don't always have an opportunity to examine what they actually were, and what there position was in an ecosystem of beliefs, symbolic power, social values, political conflict, etc.; or why some of those beliefs were more likely to be written down, copied, and selected as important by later authors.

There's also a contradiction here, because Þorsteinn drowned while fishing. If Norse people all had the same concept of an afterlife, he should have gone to Rán in the afterlife, but they didn't all believe the same stuff. There's also one thing about these guys that might make the example less helpful -- in case you couldn't figure it out from their names, they were super into Thor specifically. We don't get a lot of examples of regular people who worshiped Odin, he wasn't big among the people who went to Iceland whose experiences were written about by their descendants. If we had something like the Icelandic sagas but for Denmark, maybe we'd have a broader and more nuanced understanding of these things.

I guess to summarize the main point I'm trying to make so far is that we don't need to turn off the criticism for something just because it's projected into the realm of the supernatural or afterlife or whatever, considering that the actual once-living people those ideas come from are subject to that criticism. Heathens have a really bad habit of acting like they believe there was, like, a cohesive Old Norse Religion and if we're to belong to it than we're handed a predetermined package of beliefs, and a lot of the arguments and discourse are about what's in that package. But that just isn't true. A lot of the lore we have has more to do with regional rulers trying to one-up each other, which generates change and innovation rather than being a witness to what came before them. And some of it is even shrouded in the same fake conservatism, the same "back in the good old days when [thing that never happened]" that we still have today. I have a lot of other thoughts about Valhöll so if any of this is confusing or if it would help to go deeper on something I've said, let me know, but this is getting unwieldy now.

I think there's more to be said about what an anarchist is to make of Odin in general (in addition to what I've already said), but my thoughts on that are less cohesive and I've come to fewer conclusions. In some cases we may be better off sitting with those contradictions than trying to resolve them. One thing I'll offer is that I think that when the gods do unambiguously bad, twisted shit in myths it's because it's supposed to hurt. Like, I think it's supposed to feel like when you yourself think about a time when you've done something fucked up and repeatedly ask yourself why you did it or why you can't go back and do it different, because the only way to give those moments any kind of meaning is to be transformed by them into something better than you previously were. Some of Hávamál is even explicitly framed as hoping the audience will learn from Odin's own fuckups (Háv 11-13: "Don't drink too much"; Háv 13-14: "There was this one time when I drank too much...").

I tend to interpret the Ragnarök story as being about how allowing the breakdown of communal relations based in mutual respect and solidarity, in favor of personal advantage or even out of a sense of duty, inevitably leads to total system collapse, ensuring that any "victory" is Pyrrhic; and about how literally having this spelled out for people won't necessarily prevent them from rushing headlong into it even in their attempts to avoid it. IMO, it's a mythic playing out of ideas and emotions that pertain to living in a blood-feud culture, where honor fuels an engine of ever-escalating violence that leaves no room for anything but tragedy on every side, often in the name of "doing the right thing." (incidentally, the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace is the product of peoples who grappled with the same problem, but actually made it out to the other side). If that's true, then not only does Norse mythology not present a single, coherent, monolithic religion; it actually contains within it, along with lot of other, sometimes conflicting things, a desperate grasping toward something better, and any modern person whose identity is formed in relation to them is also taking on a responsibility of carrying that on. Anyway I'm definitely in the weeds now so I better stop but the stuff I've described in this paragraph is kind of constantly running in the background whenever I read about Odin as a narrative figure and is the more religiously interpretive side of why I can't with any einherjar=good.

#ask #anon #heathenry

[ardourie]

also like not to center myself in this too much or overstate how close you & I are or anything but like. we quite regularly publicly interact on here, u made a post addressing me by name several days ago, you fairly often screenshot my comments/asks & put them under your posts. I'm quite obviously a loyal follower even if people don't know we're mutuals and I'm also so, so so publicly & demonstrably transfem. like they do literally just have to bury their head in the sand to pretend u have no transfem friends

exactly and its so. just. oh my god most of my closest friends who i literally grew up with are trans women, majority of the girls im friends with are trans women, the girls who have been in my life for years have been accused of being afabs or self hating even with mutuals who i wouldn’t particularly call friends most of the women around me are trans as are most of the men 😭 like this argument of “hes a terf!” falls apart immediately if you spend ten seconds on my blog seeing who im close with and talk to frequently if i was a fash terf why wouldnt i just openly do that and be that horrible person

#💌

[trans-girl-nausicaa]

So I'm basically pro-guns in the same way you are. However I do wonder about the logic of "fascists and cops have AR-15s, so I do as well."

When it comes to cops at least, in what scenario are you gonna be in a shootout with the cops who are that heavily armed, and not be killed from being outnumbered, or arrested and imprisoned for life?

I feel like I'm missing the point. Is it more about safety in numbers? (Hence encouraging more left wing gun owners) or something else. Fully earnest enquiry.

First of all I must say that obviously I do not want to be in a shootout with the cops. I comply with all laws in my locale, including gun laws.

However I believe on principle that these jackbooted enforcers of the capitalist state should not have superior armaments to the working class.

there are a few cases of cops executing no-knock raids, not identifying themselves as police, and getting shot at. In cases where it was clear that the resident believed they were under threat of a home invasion, and not aware that they were shooting at law enforcement, the charges were dropped. For example: Adrian Perryman and Henry Magee.

Cases such as these will hopefully make police departments less likely to carry out the barbaric practice of no-knock raids.

When it comes to fascists, I think that one is fairly self-explanatory. They just literally want us dead, so I want equivalent (or better) weapons, training, and equipment. And not only for myself, but for my comrades and for all marginalized people. We are not safe, and I am concerned that the fash are going to continue to become bolder and more violent. The only ones who keep us safe are us.

Is an AR-15 “necessary?”

Well, I hope not. But if it becomes necessary for me, then there will be no time to acquire one and train with it. So I am training with mine at this time and hopefully it is not too late.

You may have seen footage of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club defending a drag show while armed with AR-15-style guns. Some might call that overkill. But the performers and patrons were kept safe. So perhaps it was necessary.

In short, yes, “safety in numbers” is very important.

[lighttailoring]

For Some Reason I have been thinking about Syril & Dedra doing some sort of nerd shit together like a card game or a puzzle. Obviously it's never going to happen in the show because they're too busy being fash but idk, brain worms

I wonder if Dedra had any toys or games growing up at all; it's hard to imagine her as a child. We know Syril's childhood must have been lonely but he does have that little collection of toy soldiers. Did he collect other stuff as well? Did he play cards with Eedy maybe?

(also it's just kind of fun to imagine them playing Magic: The Gathering)

#syril karn #dedra meero #syril x dedra #keero

[namethatghostling]

the most important thing abt any of my favs is they have to kinda suck in some way. like i dont just mean they have to be flawed in the way all well rounded characters should be flawed i mean that they have to have at least one crucial trait that would make them just insufferable to hang out with. this is especially important for women characters.

with poison ivy its obviously that at the end of the day shes a weird eco fash that would absolutely have posted about how the real virus is humans and now nature can finally heal at the beginning of the pandemic if not for the fact that she is absolutely not online.

for harley its that shes a recovering true crime girlie.

#also that shes exactly the type to come hang out but then spends the entire time youre together talking abt her loser bf of the moment #like shell be like im talking to this guy rn hes soo cute and then show you the crustiest nothing dude #whos also probably concerningly older than her and wearing the same skrillex shirt or smth in every photo #and shes looking at u like isnt he cute heehee and u have to sit there on ur dyke ass like .............. #this is what i imagine pam suffers thru before they get together

[kendrixtermina]

I encourage everyone to take a look at that one zionist propaganda plaxbook

look at it - this is what they think of you.

Some of it is kinda dated-ish & more specific to 2009 but some of these talking points are still being parrotted by zionist trolls on this very website as well as bought-off politicians.

Highlights include:

Admitting they're saying what they're saying because it polled well in focus groups (ie. not because its true... indeed when you know the reality, it's very infuriating to read. For example, this is the reality for arab-israelis) And no one will believe this depiction of Palestine as a totalitarian cross between ISIS & North Korea after seeing all these videos of all the women doctors & normal instagrammers they have there....

"We know we don't actually want a 2 state solution, but we need to pretend to in order to fool those stupid peace-loving westerners." (obviously not in those words but... that's what they're saying.)

"The side that says peace most wins... so lets blame them for all the war"

"This might be difficult to sell to Americans because it sounds too much like Jim Crow"(!!!)

"Your best allies will be white males. Women, blacks & poor americans disagree with us because they know nothing about the middle east, we must "educate" them" - Yep, according to the israel lobby, women & blacks support Palestine cause they're dumb. * facepalm* Two pages after using the women's rights canard to shill Israel, too...

The biggest threats are "educated young people who are good at smelling propaganda", and "rational, well-informed & calm" Palestinian Activists. It says a lot about Zionism that it considers Education & Rationality its greatest enemy. No one ever became MORE zionist from education & active thinking. They also complain that Jewish uni students don't really identify with israel even though they experience rising antisemitism. That tells you all you need to know. Having a rogue fasho state claiming to be acting in the name of jews doesn't protect anyone from antisemitism... It looks more like Israel & the fash right are partners, like Hitler & Mussolini swapping German- & Italian-Speakers from each side of their borders (after the annexation of austria) so each can have a "purer" ethnostate.

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #watermelon #israel #usa #european union #israel palestine war #israel hamas war