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luminalunii97 · 10 months

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Some tankie bs detection

I saw this post on my dash. The user is blocked now. But just to educate people so that they won't fall for idiotic claims online, here are a couple of facts:

1. The Islamic Republic is not anti imperialist, they're anti USA. The regime is very much in love with Russian imperialism. At this point, Iran is an unofficial russian colony. And by the support of their imperialist father figure they have their small version of imperialism in middle east. Ask Iraq and Lebanon.

2. There's no "safety" when it comes to economy in Iran. The "national sovereignty" is called "those fvckin thieves in power" here. Iran's regime is one of the most corrupt regimes by international index. Rent, nepotism, embezzlement and money laundering are serious issues in Iran. Done only and only by the governors and people in power. Social class is not only a thing, there's a raging gap between rich people and those in poverty. And the gap is getting bigger and bigger by month. If you have connections in government or you are in the government, you'll get richer and richer. Other wise, soon enough you'll be in poverty too. Many families, including mine, who used to be considered middle class, have incomes lower than the poverty threshold now.

About 15% of Iran's economic failure including inflation is on the sanctions. The rest is on the corruption within the regime.

Iran's banking system is also a corrupted organ. The so called Islamic banking is anything but Islamic. The loan interest rate is one of the highest worldwide, 23%, so that often you have to pay back more than twice the money you've received. It's called Riba in Islam and it's Haram. According to the regime themselves, the banking system in European countries, even in the USA, is more Islamic than us. The fact that some of the biggest embezzlement in Iran has been done by bank managers should give you a picture of how they're drinking our blood.

None of this is on USA imperialism. It's all the Islamic Republic.

3. The Islamic Republic doesn't support Palestinians. The regime is extremely racist and anti Arab. I dare you talk about this with an actual Arab. IR don't give two shites about Palestinians lives. The regime is antisemitic. That's what they are. Palestine is just an excuse to attack Israel. In the past 20+ years of my life, living in Iran and dealing with these posers, not once we've been educated about Palestine and Palestinians lives. Everything I know, I've learned from online resources and documentaries make by Palestinians. The regime doesn't talk about Palestinians when they pose as supporters. I'm pretty sure they don't know or care to know anything noteworthy about Palestine, considering my knowledge of the human rights violations there is always more than basiji people of my country, and I don't even know that much. All the regime talks about is how Israel should be eliminated. IR supports a terrorist organization called Hamas, not Palestinians.

4. Let's forget about everything I said so far. I wonder if tankies like the op has any ounce of humanity in them! The regime has been oppressing women, violating every type of human rights and murdering lgbtq people and other-thinkers for the last 40 years. The spectacular environmental disaster in Iran is the direct result of regime's policies and neglect. This is a case of human rights violation since it's ruining people's lives, especially ethnic minorities, like Arab farmers in south.

No religious minority is safe in Iran, be it atheist, Baha'i, Jew, christian, or Sunni Muslim. They commit crime against children, through labor and through war. IRGC have little regards for human lives in general but it descent into no regards at all for ethnic minorities.

They have MASS EXECUTED 30,000 leftists (members of Marxist Communist parties and their supporters) within the first decade of their autocratic rule. It's unbelievably funny to me when foreign leftists support a regime that has executed many of their fellow thinkers and still arrest and torture any left activist in Iran.

To say the reason the 1979 revolution happened was to get rid of western influence and to establish a democratic free independent government is true. But the Islamic Republic is not that result. Don't be fooled.

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sourwolf-sterek32 · 1 year

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Broken Without You

Summary: After witnessing the death of your best friend Henry and his little brother, you're close to giving up and ending it all. Until Joel asks you to join him and Ellie on their journey across the country and gives you a reason to keep fighting.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: language,

Previous Chapter

Chapter 7-

An hour later, you found yourself riding on horseback through the tall wooden gates of Jackson.

The whole community was surrounded by walls, keeping Infected and bad guys out. The place was huge. Bigger than you expected.

There were buildings everywhere. Houses lining the streets, some made before the outbreak, others newer that were constructed after. There were people everywhere, men, women, children and elderly all walking around and going about their lives. There was even a giant Christmas tree in the middle of town.

You glanced over your shoulder at Ellie, the two of you sharing one of the horses. She was looking around the community with wide eyes, seeming as shocked as you were while she took it all in.

"Tommy!" Joel suddenly shouted.

You quickly looked over just as Joel dismounted his horse and jogged across the street where a man with black hair and a denim jacket met him halfway before they engulfed each other into tight hugs.

You smiled softly watching the brothers reunite before you glanced over at Ellie who almost had a sad look on her face.

"It's okay. We'll get you back to your family soon." You reassured, although after overhearing the whole 'Firefly cure' thing, you weren't sure if that story about her parents was true.

Ellie simply nodded, but didn't say anything as she watched Joel and Tommy.

After a meal in the cafeteria Tommy and his wife Maria gave you, Joel and Ellie a guided tour around Jackson.

The community was bigger than what you first thought. They drew power from the dam nearby and had a working school, laundry, even used the old bank as a jail. They even had proper sewage, plumbing, water heaters and lights. This community actually worked. You had heard of places like this, but you never thought they were real.

"Hey, Joel, check it." Ellie called out, looking at the sheep in the yard before glancing over her shoulder at him with a grin. "Baa."

"So, are you in charge?" You asked, looking over at Maria.

"No one person's in charge. I'm on the council. Democratically elected, serving 300 people, including children. Everyone pitches in. We rotate patrols, food prep, repairs, hunting, harvesting."

"Everything you see in our town, greenhouses, livestock, all shared. Collective ownership." Tommy added.

"So, uh, communism." Joel said bluntly.

Tommy scoffed, "nah. Nah, it ain't like that."

"It is that. Literally. This is a commune. We're communists." Maria shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal, but you had to stop yourself from laughing at the look on Tommy’s face.

Joel smirked at his brother, finding his shock rather amusing before Ellie suddenly ran over to a young foal sticking her head out the window of the horse stable.

"That's our newest one. Couple months old. You wanna pet her?" Maria asked, following Ellie to the stables while you, Joel and Tommy trailed behind.

"Yeah, what's her name?" Ellie asked, patting the foal gently.

"Shimmer."

"Shimmer. You're so beautiful. Y/N, come pat her!"

You walked over to the stable window watching Ellie gently stroke the horse's forehead with a bright smile on her face before you leant forward and started to pat the foal too.

"Well, I'm sure they'd like a shower, some new clothes. We can put them in the empty house across the street from us." Maria said from behind you.

A shower? That sounded like heaven.

"Yeah. It's a pretty decent place. Pretty much untouched since '03, but it's got the heat going in it. Could be worse." Tommy explained.

"Oh, trust me, we have been." Ellie said over her shoulder.

"We've been doin' fine." Joel muttered almost defensively.

You glanced over at him for a moment, taking in the frown on his face that had been permanently there since the cafeteria. You weren't sure what had put him in this mood, you thought he would be happy now that he was back with his brother.

"Well, I'll take Ellie over there if you two wanna catch up?"

Tommy glanced over at his brother who nodded, "yeah. Okay."

Ellies head snapped in his direction, "Joel."

"You'll be fine." He reassured, but she didn't seem too keen on being separated from him.

"I'll come with you-" You began to say, but Joel cut you off.

"No. I need to speak with you."

You looked over at Joel, noticing his serious expression and suddenly it made sense as to why he was in a bad mood. He had just found out that you used to be a FEDRA soldier and clearly wasn't happy about it.

Shit. You should have seen that coming.

Ellie sighed, but followed Maria out the sheep yards, leaving the three of you standing by the back of the stables.

"You like whiskey, Y/N?" Tommy suddenly questioned.

"Who doesn't?"

He grinned, "Jackson has it's very own bar. I helped build it myself, right over there. You guys wanna get a drink?"

"Like that's even a question." You responded causing Tommy to laugh.

"We'll join you soon. Y/N, a word." Joel muttered, nodding over his shoulder for you to follow him.

It was only a matter of time before Joel questioned you about FEDRA. You were surprised he had waited this long to say something, but he mustn't have wanted to say anything in front of Ellie, which you were relieved about.

"I'll see y'all in there." Tommy said, already walking off to give you guys some privacy.

Joel watched his brother leave before he turned his attention back to you and folded his arms across his chest.

Well, this conversation wasn’t going to be good.

"When were ya plannin' on tellin' me that you're a fucking FEDRA soldier?" He asked, getting straight to the point. "Were you ever gonna tell me?"

You shrugged, "probably not."

"Jesus Christ." He swore softly.

"Hey, don't get angry at me. It was your stupid rule to keep our histories to ourselves."

"Do not try and turn this around on me." He snapped, pointing at you harshly.

You scoffed, "Ellie told me about the things you used to do. You aren't so innocent either."

Joels eyes hardened, and you raised your hands a little in defence.

"Easy. We've all had to do things we didn't like to survive. I get it. Why do you think I joined fucking FEDRA in the first place, huh?"

Joel didn’t say anything for the longest moment, his hard eyes glaring down at you before he eventually looked away and stared down at a rock on the ground like it had personally offended him.

"Henry said he gave up Kathleen’s brother so he could afford treatment for Sam." He eventually said, his voice now quieter, calmer.

"Yeah, he did. Times were tough, food and medicine were hard to come by. KC FEDRA might be bad, but they paid well and gave us a roof over our heads and Sam was able to get his treatment. I did what I had to do. Same as you."

Joels expression softened a little at your words, but that's not what you wanted. You didn't want his sympathy or pity.

"I get it. But don't lie to me next time."

"Oh, that is rich coming from the man hiding the biggest fucking lie of them all." You responded, folding your arms across your chest.

"What?"

"Ellie. She's immune, right?"

The look on Joels face was enough of a confirmation, confirming your thoughts from that morning when you overheard the two of them talking about a vaccine.

"You aren't taking her across the country to reunite her with her parents. You're taking her to the Fireflies to find a cure." You explained and Joel looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"If you tell anyone-"

"Relax, I'm not going to tell anyone. You and I both know that they'll shoot her on sight if she shows them the bite mark. She's been bitten, right? That's how you knew she was immune?" You asked and Joel sighed but nodded.

Neither of you said anything for a moment as you tried to process all that information. Would the Fireflies be able to create a cure? How do they even know how to do that? You had a lot of questions, but you didn't ask them. Instead, you turned and began to walk off in the direction of Tommy's bar.

"Where are ya goin'?" Joel called out.

"I need a drink to process this information. You coming or what?" You asked, glancing over your shoulder at him.

Joel exhaled deeply, but nodded and quickly followed you down the street until you reached the newly build bar. There was a wooden sign hanging on the wall above the front door, the words 'Tipsy Bison' written on it.

"Damn." You observed, walking inside and taking in the fancy interior.

"Like it?" Tommy asked from behind the bar with a grin.

"It beats the old dive bar in KC that's for sure."

You followed Joel over to the bar, taking a seat while Tommy poured his brother a drink.

"Been a long time." Joel admitted, running his fingers over the wooden grain bar top before looking over at Tommy. “Doesn't seem like you aged much."

"You, on the other hand..." Tommy didn't finish his sentence as he handed over the drink and turned to face you. "How do you take your whiskey?"

"On the rocks."

Tommy nodded and made quick work of another glass, sliding it across the bar and you grabbed it before it could fall off the edge. You took a sip of the drink and couldn't stop yourself from sighing in delight.

"This beats the shit you stole from that old couple." You commented, leaning over to Joel beside you causing him to snort softly.

"Working on raising some hogs too. Once we get bacon, I mean, what's even left?" Tommy asked, taking a sip of his own drink.

Joel shook his head in disbelief before he stood up and walked across the room, taking in the decor on the wall. "Christmas trees and bacon? Pretty decent setup."

You nodded in agreement, swirling your whiskey around in the glass in front of you wanting to savour every drop. You could feel Tommy staring at you from behind the bar and you lifted your head, but he quickly looked away.

"Just say whatever you want to say." You sighed, taking another sip of your drink.

Tommy glanced back at you, looking guilty for getting caught staring before he glanced over at Joel across the room who was now looking over at you too after hearing what you said.

"There a problem?" Joel asked almost protectively.

"No. No, of course not." Tommy answered, quickly shaking his head as he looked between you and Joel. You could basically see the gears turning in his head, but you had no idea why. "So, umm, are you guys... uh, are you guys together?"

Joel practically choked on his whiskey, coughing and spluttering from across the room at his brother's question before he shook his head.

"No, no, we're not... we aren't-" Joel stuttered before you cut him off.

"We're not together. Just met on the road." You simply answered and a look of relief washed over Tommy.

"Oh, good. Good. For a minute there, I thought… doesn’t matter. How is Tess by the way?" Tommy asked, looking over at his brother.

Tess? Who the hell was Tess? Did Joel have a wife back in Boston or something?

"She's fine." Joel answered, regaining the ability to speak as he cleared his throat.

"Alright. Good then." Tommy nodded, before asking. "And the kid?"

You looked over at Joel who met your gaze briefly, and you wondered if he would tell his brother the truth about Ellie.

"Oh, yeah. She's the daughter of some Firefly muckety-muck. Tryna find her family somewhere out here." Joel answered, shrugging his shoulders. "I was headin' in this direction, so..."

"Really? Goodness of your heart?" Tommy asked in surprise.

"There was a payment." Joel admitted. "So you know where they might be? These Fireflies?"

"Well, they got a base down at the University of Eastern Colorado. It's a week's ride south. But it is severely fucked up between here and there. Infected, raiders. It's not exactly an easy trip."

"It should be easy for us, right? I mean, we've made it this far and I've heard mostly good things about you." You said, looking back over at Tommy who walked around the bar and sat down on the stool beside you.

Everything Joel had told you about his brother, as little as that was, Tommy sounded like a decent man. Ex-military, hard worker, loyal. But, the only thing that hadn't sat right with you was the fact that Tommy had gone radio silent on Joel which was why Joel came looking for him.

He hadn't told you much, but you gathered that Tommy had stopped contacting via radio when he left Boston and Joel feared the worst. Turns out Tommy was perfectly fine with this whole new life, community and wife, all of which Joel knew nothing about. That was the only part that didn't sit right with you.

"Yeah, I can't go." Tommy responded, looking down at the glass in his hand.

"Y/N and I made it across the country. The three of us can make it from here to Colorado." Joel explained, walking over and leaning against the bar beside his brother. "What, 'cause your wife won't let you?"

There was an edge to his voice when he said 'wife', and you felt as if you shouldn't be here listening to this conversation between the brothers.

"Joel." Tommy warned.

"She the one who kept you off the radio? Is that why you stopped messaging me back?"

"After I ditched the Fireflies, Maria and her crew found me. They're good people. They didn't have to take me in, but they did. And all they ask is that I follow their rules."

"I'm your brother." Joel stated, anger starting to seep into his tone.

"Yeah, I'm aware."

You knew you shouldn't cut in. This wasn't a conversation you should be part of, but you couldn't stop yourself from speaking.

"Wait, so let me get this straight. You leave Boston with the Fireflies and then you just suddenly stop contacting Joel? What the fuck? Do you have any idea how worried he has been?"

"Y/N, it's okay." Joel tried to say, but you shook your head.

"No. That is not okay. You can't just go fucking MIA on your brother. He thought you were dead, Tommy. Fucking dead. Don't you get that? He has travelled across this dangerous country to try and find you, fearing the absolute worst. And then he finds you in this luxurious community, living happily with a wife he never knew about. Didn't you think to, oh, I don't know, tell your brother that you were okay and ask him to come join you? What were you going to do, just never contact Joel again? Never see your own brother again?"

You hadn't meant to say all of that. But once you started to talk, it all just came tumbling out, but you weren't sorry for it. Tommy needed to know how much his actions had impacted his brother because you knew Joel sure as hell wouldn't admit any of that.

"No! I was going to contact him soon. I was going to contact you soon." Tommy insisted, looking away from you to stare at his brother. "But they're protective of this place, and for good fucking reason. Folks find out we're up here, and wrong people might show up."

"So is that what I am? Am I the wrong people?"

"Joel..." Tommy sighed, but didn't finish his sentence because you all knew there was nothing he could say to make up for what he did.

"Those things I did, Tommy, those things that you judge me for, I did those things to keep us alive."

"We did those things. And they weren't 'things.' We murdered people." Tommy pointed out, sparing a quick glance at you to gauge your reaction, but Ellie had kinda already told you about that. "And I don't blame you for it. We survived the only way we knew how. But there were other ways. We just weren't any good at 'em."

Joel shook his head, "if you knew the shit that I've been through, Tommy, tryin' to find you these last few months-"

"I'm gonna be a father." Tommy suddenly said, cutting his brother off. "Maria's a few months along now. So I just gotta be more careful. To be honest, I'm scared to death. But I don't know. I feel like I'd be a good dad."

Joel didn't say anything for the longest time as he glared at his brother, but the anger in his expression had dimmed down and shifted into something that you couldn’t quite place.

"Guess we'll find out." Joel eventually said, leaning over the bar and pouring himself another glass.

Tommy frowned, "'I guess we'll find out'? That's all you got?"

"What else am I supposed to say?"

Tommy suddenly stood up until he was practically toe to toe with his brother. You quickly stood up as well, not liking the sudden anger in the younger brothers’ eyes.

"Just because life stopped for you doesn't mean it has to stop for me."

There something you were missing here. You knew it, but now was not the time to ask, especially with the way Joels body had turned so tense he was almost shaking with rage.

"We'll grab some supplies and be outta your hair in the mornin'." He muttered, not wasting another second before he marched off and slammed the door open, walking out.

You stood there for a moment watching the bar door swing from the force he had barged through it before you turned your attention back to Tommy who looked angry and guilty at the same time. It wasn't a good look on him.

"Congrats on the baby." You said sarcastically, chugging the last of your whiskey and slamming the empty glass down on the bar top before you turned and began walking towards the door.

"Y/N... I'm not the bad guy here."

You stopped in your tracks and turned to face him.

"You abandoned him. The world literally ended, and you abandoned your brother. You kinda are the bad guy."

"I didn't abandon my brother." He said defensively and you scoffed.

"That is exactly what you did."

You didn't wait for him to argue any further, instead, you walked straight out the front door, slamming it closed behind you with a loud bang.

Next Chapter

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communistkenobi · 5 months

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Hi, you tend to have well-thought-out political opinions (I don't always agree with you, but your reading liveblog were the kick in the ass to make me read Orientalism, and you have managed to change my mind more than once), maybe might have a better answer here than me.

Is there an ideological reason that American (b/c it typically is, god help me) left-of-center types love electoralism so much online (and offline too, tbh. College continues to deal new and fun kinds of psychic damage), but only in the context of the general national elections? I so often receive various extensive breakdowns of reasons that I MUST vote for Biden in 2024, but less about the benefits of, like, getting really invested in my city council elections or the school board.

We have so many freaking elections for goddamn everything because the US/Canada are fuck-off huge that it's super easy to argue for the importance of participating in electoralism and instead I (especially recently) see so many people picking the worst hill to die on, that I really struggle to. Well. Understand why.

I’ll speak mostly to Canada since that’s where most of my formal knowledge comes from and also because I live here lol. Also a lot of what I’m talking about is coming from books I’ve read - Still Renovating by Greg Suttor for example is a pretty in depth history of social policy (primarily housing) in Canada, it’s very dry but is useful for this conversation. This is off the dome and not meant as a PSA or anything, it’s my own perspective, if people want sources for what I’m discussing I can go dig those up, but I’m just putting this disclaimer at the top in case this post leaves my circle.

To answer your question, my instinct is that it’s because north american democracy is increasingly necrotic and disconnected from the general public (with the usual list of caveats about how much liberal capitalist democracies have ever been “for the people”). Reading up on social policy in Canada directly post-WWII is pretty bleak when comparing it to today - social housing used to be a robust part of the housing market, people were paid far better and had far more economic security, our healthcare was freshly socialised and invigorated, the promises of the Keynesian welfare state were generally being met (for a predominantly white middle class electorate, of course), and so on. Even conservatives were basically on board with these things in the 60s, at least in Canada, although that obviously did not last long. And over the decades we have become entrenched in neoliberal cutbacks, the gutting of public institutions, the sale of public space and utilities, the downloading of responsibility for social welfare onto provincial and then municipal governments who have smaller budgets and more limited institutional power, the massive expansion in public-private partnerships, the militarisation of the police - these things really kicked off in the 80s/90s in Canada and have showed little signs of stopping or even really slowing down since (something that also obviously happened in the US). People make the joke that if libraries were suggested as a policy goal today it would be called a communist plot, but it’s true - all of the shit the government offered us forty years ago is unthinkable to even suggest now. Life in general has gotten more difficult as private wealth and deregulation has taken a progressively stronger hold on domestic affairs. This happened slowly over the course of decades, and as political horizons shrunk in terms of what you could expect/demand of your government, there was a real air of this being inevitable, not a result of conscious political decisions but just some organic outcome that no one had control over (“the invisible hand of the market”). Democratic civic responsibility demands we vote as citizens of our country, but for all the reasons outlined above plus a bunch of others I’m sure I’m forgetting, the liberal conception of democratic participation shrunk to the ballot box alone.

And while we all joke about everyone having the historical memory of a goldfish, I think the pandemic made this a deeply dissonant position to hold onto - we saw the government seemingly awake from a long slumber to exercise its might. It placed eviction bans on landlords, enforced mass quarantines and social distancing measures, provided economic relief to people who lost their jobs, stationed itself inside every building and public space to enforce mask mandates, rolled-out universal vaccination programs that were mandatory if you wanted to keep your job - we saw the government flex its power in labour, in housing, in healthcare, in civic life, and at the border in a way previously unheard of, particularly for people who were not alive to experience the welfare state of the 50s and 60s and even 70s. The state revealed itself as the life-structuring force it always had been before receding again, telling everyone to go back to normal as if nothing had happened, as if millions of people had not died in a global plague, as if it had not just demonstrated to everyone in the country that the state can at the drop of a hat order your landlord to stop evicting you and your boss to give you paid time off. This of course didn’t really happen in the US, or at least not nearly to this degree, which resulted in the deaths of over a million people.

So now when politicians perform this same incapacity to do anything, when they trot out hyper-specific policies that might benefit a couple thousand people at most, when they make stupid non-promises and shrink away from even mild forms of social democracy (eg Sanders-style campaign promises), I don’t know how much people buy it. I’m not particularly optimistic about the pandemic radicalising large amounts of people, but I think even if it doesn’t, we saw what happened! And we’ve all seen a million fucking articles about how people don’t want to go to work anymore, about labour shortages, we’ve seen essentially every sector of labour go on some kind of strike in the past two or three years - there is popular organised political participation happening far away from the ballot box, and is only growing in power by the day. Socialism is now a word that exists in the national consciousness, something that was unthinkable even a decade ago. Currently right now we are seeing an international conversation about (and global popular support for) indigenous sovereignty, we are seeing a full-throated articulation of what a LandBack policy would look like, and this comes on the heels of the national Canadian conversation of residential schools and missing and murdered indigenous women. Decolonisation is now a household term. In the case of the US, we are seeing people make the very obvious point that America can conjure billions of dollars to bomb hospitals and civilians, but any social policy to help its own citizens is too expensive, pie in the sky fantasy nonsense.

And by the same token, there is organised right-wing and fascist violence happening in the streets, massive increases in hate crimes, insane political stunts and demonstrations like the Freedom Convoy and 1 Million March 4 Children (inspired by the Capitol Hill storming in the US), Qanon plots to kidnap and execute elected officials - things that right wing parties are actively encouraging, particularly the PPC and CPC. More and more we see that electoral politics is the domain of the far-right, whose culture war issues have the best chance of being realised through the sacred portal of the ballot box. Democrats can’t even offer people legalised abortion now!

I think this is why liberals are in a state of hysteria. A healthy liberal democracy does not require constant, unrelenting reminders to “vote your ass off.” Liberals are very much aware, even unconsciously, that voting does less and less of what they want every single day - you see this openly admitted to by American liberals, who are now doing Hitler % meter calculations about which fascist to vote for come the next federal election. Voting itself is what matters, even as they openly, frantically admit it will do nothing but slightly delay the inevitable.

So to like directly answer your question: I think it has less to do with federal elections as a specific political strategy and more just an expression of anxiety about the fact that voting does not do what you want it to do, or what it once did - perhaps encouraging larger questions if voting does anything at all. If national federal elections don’t do anything, if you voting for the most powerful position on the planet doesn’t really change very much regardless of who’s in power, what is the point of voting at all? So I don’t think they are articulating an actual political strategy or way of doing politics, because by their own admission it’s not going to do much of anything (while at the same time being an existential crisis). I’m in a similar boat to you, I vote in smaller elections where I feel they will do some measure of good (in part because municipalities are responsible for so much more of civic life than they were a few decades ago), I have engaged with the Ontario NDP for several years (although that has come to an end now because of their position on Palestine). Electoralism is a compromise, it is an avenue for potential good, but not always, or even most of the time.

Thankfully there are other avenues for politics - labour organising, protesting, mutual aid support networks, getting involved with community work, even something like local neighbourhood councils. Those are places of political potential, and a single person’s presence in them can make a legitimate noticeable difference (speaking from several years of heavy involvement in community orgs). I have never really felt like I was making a change while voting, but I have felt that way helping community members not get evicted, or offering them free daycare a few times a week, or running programs from lgbtq kids who don’t want to go home after school. Those things legit save peoples’ lives, a lot of them are low stakes relative to their benefit, and they help stave off the alienation and loneliness I know everyone feels. Obviously you run into the same structural problems you would everywhere else, it’s not a paradise by any stretch of the imagination, but they are so many avenues outside of voting that do actually help people around you.

And I think if liberals admit that these actions are more powerful, more effective than voting, they are admitting to themselves that their core beliefs are wrong, that the communists and anarchists are correct and have been correct long before their dumbass was born. They can no longer point to any institution that gives a fuck about them as a defense against left-wing critiques of liberal electoralism. I think that is part of what animates their hysteria, their temper tantrums, their screaming about the only thing to do is do nothing at all. It is a full-throated defense of self-defeat. They are wailing as everything they believe in dies. I’d be pretty upset too if that were me! Luckily I grew out of that when I was like 19

#asks #and thank u!!! super happy you’re reading orientalism it rules

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iammyowncryptid · 9 months

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On the subject of Ghost King Danny

It doesn’t make any sense.

Hear me out. Why on earth would ghosts live under a monarchy of all things? During Pariah Dark’s rule, sure, he’s a tyrant. But in what world would they then willingly submit to another monarch?

Maybe the Observants want that, bc they’re little power hungry shits, but everyone else? The Zone has several different forms of government just from what we see in the show. The Far Frozen is a tribe. Walker’s whole thing is a facist dictatorship. Princess Dorthea has a monarchy. Everywhere else we see is just. Anarchy. I’m sure there’s Presidencies and communist outposts and other forms of government farther out in the Zone. Everyone’s kinda already doing their own thing. The Zone isn’t one united thing. Especially if you also call it the Infinite Realms it can’t be all one united thing.

Maybe the title of High King is more of a figurehead position, used to simplify allegiances and interactions between the dead and the Living Realms. But I don’t think it makes an ounce of sense for Danny to actually, you know, govern.

I might care a little bit too much about history, but monarchies just leave a sour taste in my mouth. Also ‘random white boy goes to an undiscovered realm and becomes their leader’ is a pretty common colonist trope. Take Narnia, Road to el Dorado (love that movie but it IS literally based on the lies Spanish colonizers used to justify taking over the Aztec empire. Fuck Hernán Cortés. Soundtrack slaps though.), I could keep listing. Don’t make my boy into a colonizer. He��s better than that

Just. Please think critically when using this trope That’s all I ask.

#danny phantom #ghost king danny

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alpaca-clouds · 10 months

Text

A bit of storytime

Okay, this week I wrote about some pretty heavy stuff in regards of capitalism and all of that. So, let me end the week with something more light and maybe just a bit inspiring.

I want to tell you the story of how my roomie radicalized herself.

Now, my roomie and I are living together for about three years now. And when we met she made a big big point about being centrist. And about making fun of everyone and, quote, "hating all people equally".

You should know, my roomie is female, queer and disabled. Her boyfriend is also disabled (like badly disabled - he is blind and in a wheelchair). But she still was very, very centrist and in the lines of "police is actually good" and "communism is a bad word".

By now she isn't. And the story of how it got there is kinda a funny one.

When we moved in together, I was already starting to identify as anarchist, while she did not want to hear anything about that. In fact she made a rule of not discussing politicis with me. And she stuck by that. While I was radicalizing myself further through seeing how capitalism failed us in the pandemic, she... didn't.

That was until June 2021. When she suddenly came to my room and was like: "So, the police is actually bad, isn't it?" I, dumbstruck, was like: "Uhm, yeah. Obviously. Where does this come from?" And she replied: "Yeah, I just heard what they are doing to the indigenous people in the USA and Canada. And that is bad, right?"

Me, who at that point had been following indigenous rights movements for a good while was like: "Yeah. Sure. Uhm, do you want some reading material on that?" And while she did not want reading stuff, she took the podcasts I offered for it eagerly.

I still got curious, though. Where did this come from? So I did some prodding. Asking her about it. And it turned out... It came from true crime.

June is not only pride month, it is also indigenous peoples month. And one of the true crime channels on Youtube she was following did a whole month worth of videos on MMIW, which also went into how the police are not following up on those cases or are, at times, responsible for what is happening in the first place.

And this was, what convinced her that, indeed, the police might not be a good thing.

Now, outside from giving her those Podcasts recommendations, I did not do a thing. I did not go all anarcho-communist on her or anything. I just... let her roll with it. And rolling she did. In the end she came out on the socialist-communist end of it. Because it turns out that you barely can learn about decolonialisation and indigenous rights, without ending up at this point.

Why am I telling you this?

Mostly, because I found it kinda wholesome. The fact that she did not go and end up left-wing because she realized the harm done to herself by the system - but because she realized the harm done to other people and found it unaccaptable.

It is also showing one thing: Usually the entire pro-capitalist worldview needs just one little crack to crumble.

Personally I found, that for many the crack is climate change. But as you can see... It is not the only possible crack that can happen.

Which is why it actually is important to teach people. And be it online.

We also need action, yes. But also education. Because education is our friend.

#anti colonialism #anti capitalism #decolonisation #left wing #communism #education #anarchism

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 5 months

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This is dark but do you think Comics!MK have any surviving extended family or is he truly the last of his family?

I like to think he has cousins but their parents didn't flee to America like Elias did so he hardly sees them

MCU Marc doesn't talk to family for very different reasons obviously

I got an ask!

Now this is a truly difficult question to answer for a lot of reasons, but I will do my best!

Comics Moon Knight has a LOT of re-writes. Moench only included Randall in Marc's known family. He was killed off before Moon Knight even had his own official comic (See the Incredible Hulk appearance, which I will review someday in the hopefully not too distant future). We don't get a lot of references to Randall in Moench's run after that. Like at all. In fact, there is so little discussed about Marc's family in Moench's OG run that I'm pretty sure that people forgot about his brother all together unless Marvel decided they needed to do something and then we got a quick "Oh yeah and then this happened" moment.

Zelenetz gave us Elias Spector and more of a family backstory. We got the story of how their mother died when he was very young, which is going to be retconned later on in Lemire's run when we see his father dying much earlier in Marc's life and his mother still being alive. We get no mention of Randall in this. There are a lot of people at the Shiva/Funeral, but since Elias was a prominent figure in their community (Rabbi), it's hard saying who is family and who is community.

As far as I am currently aware (I haven't dived through ALL the comics in a VERY long time and my re-read is slow and steady), no other family has ever shown up or is mentioned.

HISTORY LESSON!!! (TW Holocaust)

Elias Spector, as noted by Zelenetz, is from Czechoslovakia. Those of you that got a bit more of a history lesson than what they bothered to toss at you in high school, may recognize that this country has been through A LOT. So much so that it has been split, reunited, renamed, taken over, given independence, divided, and renamed and split over and over and over again.

It is safe to assume that his family lived there for a few generations. It's hard to say when they arrived there, but Jewish history is…strife with certain parts of Europe inviting Jewish people in then going "Just kidding" and kicking them out (or killing them) immediately afterwards.

And with the history of Czechoslovakia's REPEATED wars and revolutions and divides…. Who knows the history of the Spectors of if they all settled there or if they had been divided over time.

But what we DO know…

According to a census. In 1921, the Jewish population was 354,342. In 1946 it was 55,000. This was not because they decided to move.

The numbers continued to drop. By 1990, it was 7,800.

The German occupation started in 1930 and was not a pretty picture from the start. In 1939, the Jewish population realized this was not going to go well and desperately started to get out, but 78,000 had already been killed. Many were sent to surrounding camps where Typhus epidemics along with brutal conditions started to wipe them out even before 'the final solution' was put into action. Getting dark here: of the 15,000 CHILDREN that were sent to Auschwitz, only 93 came back.

In 1948, Communist Russia took over. Russia does not have a good history with their Jewish population.

In fact, the 40 year period of this occupation is called "Communist Holocaust". Jewish people were forbidden from practicing their religion and Jewish leaders were forced to leave, convert, or die. Children were prohibited from learning their own culture or religious practices.

So do I think that Moon Knight has any cousins surviving in Europe that didn't flee to America like Elias did?

It is with a very heavy heart that I have to given an honest answer: No.

Is it possible that maybe some of the family left with Elias and came to America or went to England? Maybe. Possibly some made it to Denmark or one of the few places that tried to help get a few out. But if they stayed in any of the countries that were occupied, I don't think they made it. And this may have given another reason behind Marc's anger at his father's unwillingness to do anything about the anti-antisemitism that he witnessed.

Perhaps Marc saw the children with extended family and wondered why he didn't have any. Or why they had no pictures or why his mother and father wouldn't talk about those that were left behind.

If he DID happen to have ANY family that survived, Marc probably has no idea where they are or how to find them or who they are. After the Holocaust, the surviving Jewish population was so scattered and left without homes to return to. The countries that they had fled did not welcome them back. Many didn't want to go back. It has only really been recently with the modernization of the internet that efforts have been made for survivors to reach out and try to find out what happened to their families.

With their father and mother gone, I wonder how much about his family Marc actually knew. The REAL question is: Would Marc, Jake, or Steven make an effort to try to reach out? Would they want to find survivors? Would they feel guilty? Would they be able to even talk with the surviving family? Would they want to?

I don't think Marc would. I think this is one more burden on his shoulders and he doesn't want to be a dark shadow on the surviving family tree. I think Steven would be curious and attempt to dig up records to find out what happened to his father's town or people, but I don't think he'd reach out. Jake doesn't travel. Jake's home and people are New York. I think his soft heart would feel the loss too much to want to know. But I do think that if he found any family living in New York, he'd wander by to say hello.

That being said: What about their daughter? Is she being raised Jewish? Marlene certainly is not Jewish. Or at least she was never given that designation in any of the comics that I can recall or in Moench's run. Even if she is not being raised Jewish, perhaps she would be the one to reach out. A generation reaching out to another to find answers and connection. And maybe through her, it would bring the Moon Knight system back to their own connections.

I can see Jake curiously looking at pictures of grandparents and aunts and uncles and saying "Look I have my Great Uncle's mustache!" only to be reminded that his mustache is very much a fake mustache and him quipping back that he has the same taste at least. I can also see Steven being delighted to trace his roots back and saying "The Spectors are survivors." I think even Marc might be able to sit down with his daughter and recall stories he had heard growing up about the town his family comes from and the people there.

And that does bring me a bit of optimism and hope. That they can share good things about a past that they used to look at and find only pain in. That maybe it would finally let them talk about it when it was something they couldn't talk about growing up. A way for him to say "I have generational trauma, but at least I can start to let it heal through my daughter."

SO.... That's a really long answer to your question, and maybe not the one you were looking for... But it's honest and probably more than Marvel will ever give us (I fear what Marvel might do to the history if they tried).

Thanks for asking!

#moon knight #Moon Knight comics #Got asked #Ask away #Seriously people my inbox is always open #Always happy to talk about Moon Knight #I left out a LOT of history here but I didn't want to write a novel

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vacuouslyfalse · 1 year

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hey! i saw a short comment you made about it, and i’m curious about your thoughts on complete/absolute prison abolition & anarchism.

Sure. So, prison abolitionists are entirely correct about their basic thesis - prisons are state-run torture facilities that are a net drain on society. The prison system is a horror that needs to be changed.

I don't really think the immediate, absolute abolitionist position makes any sense, though. I have yet to receive a satisfying answer on how to replace the prison system.

My own approach looks something like this:

Put fewer people in prisons.

The most obvious example that gets cited is drug users, and I tend to agree that all drug use should be decriminalized. People should only be sent to prison if they are actively hurting the people around them.

2. Don't put people in prison for as long as we currently do.

Mandatory minimum sentences are evil, maximum sentences should be lowered. Old people should not be in prison for things they did as teenagers.

3. Make prisons themselves nicer.

Going to gesture vaguely at the Scandinavian model for this one, but: having your freedom massively restricted is bad enough. Getting beaten, raped, and everything else that happens in most prisons traumatizes people to the point where they are incapable of having normal lives if they get out. It is also a moral atrocity.

4. Address the socioeconomic causes of crime.

Without getting too deep into it, the link between poverty and crime is obvious and well-established and there's a fair amount of evidence that suggests we can drastically reduce certain types of crime via a better social safety net.

In addition, any sane society that wanted to reduce recidivism instead of virtually incentivizing it would put a lot more effort into reintegrating ex-prisoners into society and getting them jobs.

Anarchism is a bit of a catch-all word for a lot of different ideologies and tendencies. Getting it out of the way at the start, there's a lot of intersection between primitivism and anarchism, and I have very little patience for this. I think primitivism is a mixture of stupid and evil, and it is basically never worth engaging with.

I tend to agree with non-primitivist anarchists about most subjects. Authority is not to be trusted, states are pretty much always doing fucked up things, etc etc. I also can't help but notice that a lot of very effective groups that focus on immediately trying to help people are anarchist-aligned, which I respect a lot.

I think I don't really respect it as an ideology, though. The bits of anarchist theory I've read are... honestly worse than the communist theory I've read, and I don't even like communist theory. There's a lot of vague gesturing at stateless organizing without any real idea of what that might look like in a world with 8 billion people, in a concrete sense.

#ideology #an incomplete critique but whatever #at some point i have to stop writing and just post the responses or else things will keep sitting in my drafts

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potuzzz · 10 months

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So are you one of those Western communists who assumes the USSR was great and that modern Russia is also awesome, purely because your own country is a capitalist hellhole, so it's enemies must be saints?

No my friend, I, like all Westerners, was raised to believe the USSR was a frigid starving 1984 hellscape.

I hope you will forgive the length of this, this is a good question prompt and I want to answer it as fully as I can. TLDR at bottom.

What very slowly changed my reluctant mind was slow exposure to the facts. I was a nerd and a sucker for dry information. I think this one simple study was pretty pivotal in my new understanding:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/

(The third page, labeled 663, has a very nice table that sums it up nicely)

Slowly over time I learned that the USSR had better life expectancy, nutritional intake, education, healthcare, real wages, democracy, mental wellness, social mobility, and even seemingly unrelated things like culture, interpersonal relationships, and sex, when compared to the U.S. and other peer capitalist nations. All in SPITE of their dire circumstances, and the many privileges of their capitalist bandit peers. More humane prisons, less drug addiction. A more efficient and ethical economy, better technological development. Incredible strides towards uplifting ethic and national minorities oppressed under the tsarist empire. Incredible strides towards gender equality.

I do not assume the USSR was great. The simple facts illustrate this. And, likewise, all socialist countries are far better in these critical metrics when compared to capitalist peers. China especially has taken these victories even further.

After the 1991 capitalist coup and the Union's dissolution, all of these metrics SHARPLY fell in the former Soviet states. Poverty, drugs, alcoholism. Life expectancy sharply fell. Depression and misery. Capitalist Russia, while it fared better than other countries in the Eastern Bloc and in Central Asia, was by every metric immediately worse compared to Soviet Russia.

Now, this is where it gets a little spicy: Russia today has slowly but surely returned some of these metrics to their prior status ever since Putin took power.

There is a lot of bad to say about Putin, particularly his queerphobia. However, in the 2 decades he's been in power, many social safety nets of Russia, many calcified remains of the Soviet bureaucracy that were being chipped away by capitalists have been preserved or even restored. Socially, things have continued to largely decline and become reactionary. But many ordinary people in Russia enjoy cushy, dignified lives, ESPECIALLY compared to American counterparts.

Modern Russia may be capitalist, and it may have some unsightly problems, but it is leagues better than the United States, and so yes, the fact that they foil the United States on a world stage is invaluable. Yes, I would support an equally evil country foiling the United States simply on virtue that the rise and fall of empires leaves lots of room for radical change, this is plain pragmatism. But I do not find the evils of Russia even remotely comparable to the evils of the U.S. I also strongly believe in the imminent leftward potential of Russia as a country that has a precedence, nostalgic reverence for and calcified remains of a socialist system, not to mention their burgeoning relationship with China only going to further disseminate socialist ideals to combat the Nazism that leaks in from the Baltic states.

Now, to speak on other countries briefly:

As I mentioned, I would indeed critically and pragmatically support almost any entity for the short term goal of toppling and containing the U.S. Empire. There are other clearly non-socialist states, movements, individuals and other entities I support in this World War against the U.S. I went from despising the Westernized monarchy Saudi Arabia as violent, arrogant vassal of the United States to celebrating their step towards peace with the theocratic Iran, both because I always enjoy peace-making but because I think Saudi Arabia would be an excellent turncoat despite how much I dislike them and nearly everything they do. In hindsight I flirt with enjoying the Trump presidency because I truly think it accelerated the rot that is destroying this Empire whereas another Obama would have prolonged it another cycle, even though Trump was and is a terrible person, especially in power. The fascist Taliban were created BY the United States to destroy socialist Afghanistan, and yet I pinch my nose and celebrate them retaking Afghanistan in lieu of the American occupiers because it is all part of the long bloody process that will lead to a socialist Afghanistan one day soon. I am well aware of the socially conservative and otherwise reactionary views of many who, even as Useful Idiots, will play a pivotal and passionate role in toppling the US hegemony.

Yes, it is a shame. No, it is not preferable. But I believe this World War and the process of geopolitical development is incremental. There will be new challenges that arise after the death of the US Empire, I would not be surprised if for a century after its death we were still dealing with Western Wokeism and the social conservatism it creates as reaction.

One problem at a time.

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

TLDR:

I do not assume the USSR or, to a significantly lesser degree, capitalist Russia is better than the United States; the fact is they simply were and are, by every metric.

That being said, yes, I also critically support any enemy of the United States no matter how foul, because quite simply that is the logic one must follow to win a multi-faceted war against a powerful mutual enemy such as this. I also have faith that as the US Empire dies that the natural tendency of societies to become more progressive will resume, as the US suppressed all leftward movement across the world for 30 years straight, yet the second they began losing their grip we've seen a damaged and distorted but always still alive Left resume its inevitable march in non-Western countries across the world. The big tent zero-standards anti-imperialism of today will, after more conflict and reassessment and redevelopment, become the pro-socialism of tomorrow, especially with China as the new most powerful country.

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ghelgheli · 3 months

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agree with everything you said but iran is not imperialist. ethnonationalist theocracy sure but where are you getting imperialism from. empire =\ imperialist, would you call russia imperialist?

The Iranian state is not even half a century removed from being a formal empire: Pahlavi Iran was "The Imperial State of Iran" and recalled imperial possessions lost to Tsarist Russia another century prior. But setting aside nomenclature, which is fickle and floats—It's exactly that ethnonationalism which forms the logic of what I have been calling imperialism, even if there are not formal imperial possessions involved.

The consolidation of "irani" national identity through the 19th century went together with heightening of the core's exploitative and even colonial relationship to its periphery. This relationship can be traced back centuries to the earliest period of "reclaimed" Iranian rule of the region in the case of e.g. the forced displacement of Kurds to Khorāsān under early 16th century Safavid shahs. With the latest, industrial stage of Iranian statecraft and nation-building, the economic nature of this exploitation has been accelerated and what autonomy the peripheries previously had is restrained by the growing military apparatus the IRI commands.

The country's oil reserves are heavily concentrated in the province of Khuzestan, home to the city of Ahwaz/Ahvaz and most of the nearly two million or so Iranian Arabs. This is a region that is obviously of great economic significance. Strikes in 1978 played a major role in precipitating the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, and in a pattern that will be familiar to the people who know, many of the communists and worker's parties responsible were put down by the subsequent IRI that owed its existence to them. Labour rights in the region remain suppressed; little of the wealth extracted from factories there is seen by the ethnic minorities that compose much of the working population, making its way instead to the private monopolies of the core; Ahwaz itself is sickeningly and dangerously polluted as reward for the riches it yields. What is this exploitation but imperialism?

And what of the constant harassment and material extortion of Kurdish kolbars carrying goods across the mountains in Kurdistan? The pāsdārān/IRGC often "confiscate" the possessions of people working to move essential wares within their families and communities, if they don't kill them outright, citing border violations if they make any excuses at all. This only exacerbates the ongoing economic deprivation of both Rojhilat/Iranian Kurdistan and Kurds in nearby parts of greater Kurdistan, whose economies and societies are disrupted by the border. Seems pretty imperialist to me.

Meanwhile, the national hero Qassem Soleimani is in fact reviled by many of the people who actually lived in those regions of Syria and Iraq that were his remit. He was known not only for his opposition to US imperialism and campaigns against Da'esh, but also for overseeing violence against protesters in the region and serving as the figurehead of Iranian intervention in local people's movements. Exertion of military force on other nations beyond the boundaries of the state, in the interest of developing its political and economic sphere—what would you call this?

Don't misunderstand me: the solution is not reactionary intervention in Iran, and anyone who tries to leverage these facts to advocate for US-collaborationist separatism is just a would-be comprador. But the political economy of Iran relies on an ongoing imperialism that is only the latest stage of an imperial legacy.

#ask answer #vatan #iran #no comment on the russia part of the ask #whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent etc etc

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apas-95 · 2 years

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Maybe this ask is inconvenient and you really can ignore this if you wish to, and sorry, also. So, I grew up in a family with a very communist father that partook in communist parties and stuff during the dictatorship, which huhh to say it influenced my current world views in an understatement. Regardless, I don’t want to make you read a page about my dad (for obvious reasons), the thing is, I grew up seeing communists who I judged to be radical that pretty much disliked Stalin (and Trotsky, apparently, since my dad was talking shit about him some days ago), and therefore, I grew up believing “well, if he is hated even by the biggest (and some times kinda annoying) communists that I ever met, then he must have been absolutely horrible”. Now, it is incredibly stupid of little old me to go to some person on the internet and ask for advise or recommendations, but now I’m curious, how can I know “The good the bad and the ugly” of Stalin? The question sounds kinda stupid but it’s like, I want to read about the guy. I will say, I am terrified of falling into suicide radicalization (specially since I live in a southern country that lives with the effects of imperialism and dictatorships to this day), but I also want to have better ideas on stuff. I hope this makes sense.

Anyways, you have any reading recommendations? Ones that have a balance of information, criticism and idk praise? I am thinking about reading Rosa Luxembourg’s works, but yeah, that’s kinda it besides my current “to read” list. Anyways, thank you for the attention if you read this.

So, as a quicker read, I'd suggest 'On The Question of Stalin':

The Communist Party of China has consistently held that Stalin did commit errors, which had their ideological as well as social and historical roots. It is necessary to criticize the errors Stalin actually committed, not those groundlessly attributed to him, and to do so from a correct stand and with correct methods. But we have consistently opposed improper criticism of Stalin, made from a wrong stand and with wrong methods. [...] Stalin’s merits and mistakes are matters of historical, objective reality. A comparison of the two shows that his merits outweighed his faults. He was primarily correct, and his faults were secondary. In summing up Stalin’s thinking and his work in their totality, surely every honest Communist with a respect for history will first observe what was primary in Stalin. Therefore, when Stalin’s errors are being correctly appraised, criticized and overcome, it is necessary to safeguard what was primary in Stalin’s life, to safeguard Marxism-Leninism, which he defended and developed.

A longer work more deeply going into Stalin's history is Ludo Martens' book 'Another View of Stalin'.

A snappier, but perhaps less informative read is Domenico Losurdo's book.

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mangoshorthand · 7 months

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five has set my standards high for men 🫢 and i’m going to hold out for a partner like him.

It depends on what precisely about Five you would want to match your real life partner to, but in general I would advise against this. I was going to answer this simply but then I went into a full blown ramble so I'm sorry

Being fictional is Five's biggest allure...

Five is not real and that's a biiiigggg point in his favour. You will idealise him to the point that no real man could ever match up. Imagine a man saying that some super smart and sexy anime girl was his standard for IRL women. We'd rightly tell him that it was an unfair expectation.

If Five was a real flesh and blood man, tied to corporeal form and subject to the curse of existence, I promise you he would not live up to the standards set by the Five in your head. The truth is, Five can never fart on you in bed. He can never have that really irritating habit that makes you want to punt him through a wall, and he will never accidentally hurt you with a clumsy word or leave the dishes in the sink or whatever. He'll never criticise you for any of your bad habits either. Real men do all those things because they're human. They deserve your love and consideration. Don't hold out for a fantasy.

...but if he weren't fictional, he'd be a one man communist uprising considering all those red flags

We romanticize Five partly because he is an asshole. His sarcasm is amusing and acerbic tongue is attractive, mostly because we know there's tenderness underneath it. We have a uniquely intimate insight into his life, past and personality by virtue of him being a fictional character who we have seen when he thinks nobody is watching. We don't have that with real men. Romanticising assholes is something patriarchy has taught us. Just look at the Beauty and the Beast myth that replays itself in our culture again and again ("I can change him! He's different when we're alone, I swear!"). We like to imagine that Five would begin by being a dick to us like he does everyone else, but gradually we would end up being the special person who would bring out all the tenderness we know he has underneath. This is fine when it's a fictional character who we know for sure has all that tenderness underneath, but with a real man whose soul we can never know like we know Five's? No way. I can promise you that you should run a mile from a real man who sarcastically insults people and use their intelligence to put others down. A similar point to Five's violence. This is a character trait you should not excuse in real men. In real life, men who are violent to others will almost certainly be violent to their romantic partners. This is another bonus Five gets for being fictional: he lives in a fictional reality where his violence is justified and nbd because it's a world of comic-book morality.

Alright Mango, you fuckin' killjoy, what can I hold out for then?

Having said all this, I think Five does have some qualities you can admire in IRL men. I've said on this blog many times before that I think I find Five hot because he reminds me of my partner in terms of personality as well as looks. So this is what I think you wouldn't be unwise to look for in a man: 1. Someone with intelligence and competence. There is nothing sexier than someone who has faith in their own abilities and wields that knowledge with confidence, like Five does.

2. Someone with leadership skills without needing to dominate: Five sometimes falls foul of the latter but is usually pretty good at taking control of a situation whilst also hearing everyone out and using the knowledge of the entire room.

3. Someone with a sense of humour. Five's cynical little comments and charming phraseologies (e.g. "Chatty Cathies," "A nap and a schvitz, what more does a man need?") would be adorable in any man.

4. Someone with a mature outlook. Five is just happy living a comfortable life. He likes his creature comforts but he takes pleasure in the simple things. He isn't really competitive anymore because he truly doesn't feel like he has to prove anything. This is partly a result of his age, I think, so I would forgive a younger man for not having this outlook.

5. Someone who cares about his appearance: Five isn't vain, but he dresses carefully and intentionally for the occasion. It not only looks sexy, it shows that he has self-respect.

6. Someone who speaks to you the way Five speaks to Dolores: Five treats his (ex)partner with respect and fondness. He clearly worshipped Dolores when they were together but he didn't patronise her either. He spoke to her like an equal. And after the relationship ended, he never let anybody speak badly about her.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

#number 5 imagine #five hargreeves imagine #number five imagine #fictional men #fictional men are better #fictional men can't fart #let men fart

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