#that framework etc

[perfectlyripeclementine]

calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.

#nonbinary love #nblnb yearning #nb4nb #nblnb #wholesomeposting #yearning hours #ive been thinking about how some languages dont have a possessive tense #so you dont say “i have a thing” but rather “a thing is by me” #and like im not usually one for psycho linguistics and like critical thoughts etc etc etc #but i really like the framework of responsibility/commitment rather than ownership #i think about this mostly in terms of ecology #and relation to land #but i also love it as it applies to language shared between lovers #like i LOVE calling them mine or for them to call me theirs #but i'm also nonmonog and that was kinda weird to square for a while #and it clicked one time when i was talking about my neighborhood and i was like well #when i say my neighborhood or my city it's understood i'm not taking it away from anybody else #its understood i just mean the city where i live #so why cant we apply the same to lovers? #mine in the way i want to show up for you again and again #ok #done now

[munamania]

i need to sit in a silent dark room for approximately three hours doing nothing rn or i will never be normal again

#it's not even funny how much sitting in the dark would fix me rn. i can't finish this shift #list of things that have made me mad today. there r so many high schoolers in this stupid building why r u here. i dont hate them tho #theyre kids but theres so many go away. and their chaperones are all assholes. and ppl were in my way so much #and they were so loud this lady had to ask everyone to take a seat for like twenty minutes straight and it was just loud in the booth #bc we kept the lil windows open to keep an eye on the event #and ill admit a lot of this went away bc i was hangry and i managed to get some lunch but im so so so so so so so #like. overstimulated rn. i need to lay down. #everything is just so loud. and so next to me. and so obnoxious. and everything is in my way. and im sorry i love people i love #seeing people go about their day and do their silly little tasks but i am just soooooo brrrgrhgreghge rn. #abby talks #oh i was also briefly upset bc when i opened bereal (it's my new tiktok in that it damages my brain i think and i need to get rid of it) #she was there and even tho he wasnt i think she had a hickey which was a silly observation #but i took it extra hard bc im all emotional and in a goofy mood rn! #'i took it extra hard' lol #girl. come on. #my feelings were hurt by this potential maybe that i couldn't even tell #but it's literally fine. like who cares. i mean i do of course a little bit but the spirit of who cares. theyre silly and they suck so bad #cringefail couple. i support them under that lens #that framework etc

[baiwu-jinji]

One of the changes made in TGCF audio drama episode 6 is about the origin of the scorpion snake of Banyue. In the original version, the scropion spirit and snake spirit were forced to mate, gave birth to scorpion snakes, then were killed by the king of Banyue. In the revised edition, the ghosts of scorpion spirit and snake spirit lingered on after their death and went to find a ghost king in a faraway place to ask for his help for revenge. The ghost king combined their bodies into the scorpion snake to terrorize the people of Banyue for eternity.

I think this revision reinforced the theme in the story that ghosts and ghost realm, vilified and shunned as they are, stand for justice and fairness to a much greater degree than people might think. The Heavenly Realm headed by Jun Wu enforces order and maintains a semblence of peace and harmony in the world; it rewards perpetrators of violence and covers up any traces of violence. But if you want real justice, if you want to adress the wrongs done to you and seek revenge on evil, it'd be better to ask help from ghosts or even turn into a powerful ghost yourself.

The hierarchy of the world in Chinese myths puts the heavenly realm at the top, human realm in the middle, and ghost realm at the bottom, and most Chinese proverbs and idioms involving ghosts have negative connotations. TGCF challenges the traditional notoriety and lowliness attributed to ghosts in this sense.

#I could go on about this like using the Freudian framework #heavenly realm is the superego human realm is the ego and ghost realm is the id etc etc #tgcf #tgcf audio drama #jun wu #hua cheng

[bougiebutchbitch]

my toxic trait is that I think it would’ve been better character development if Naruto realised he didn’t actually want to be Hokage (functionally a deskjob except in times of crisis) and left with Sasuke on his redemption roadtrip, after which they both became vigilantes protecting the underdogs of the world from the corrupt power structures enabled by the very existence of militaristic mercenary societies like Konoha who can hire out super-strong child soldiers to protect the rich, in this essay I will

#do I think in-depth criticism of Konoha within the framework of Naruto is kinda pointless as it too often #skips over Doylian explanations for the choices that were made and ignores the fact that #this is still a shonen manga that follows a lot of basic-ass storytelling conventions about restoration of status quo etc #yeah #do I still get pissed off when I think about how much POTENTIAL there was for everything to build towards a mass shake-up #of all the incredibly problematic elements that make up Konoha #and how that concept was teased again and again #and then very little came of it? #YEAHHHH #morning blathering

[commsroom]

the "big picture" - whether that refers to some detached, calculated greater good; ruthless ambition and progress for the sake of progress; or even the dear listeners' cosmic indifference - as an antagonistic force in wolf 359 is so fascinating to me because of the way eiffel as a protagonist is set up to oppose it, just by nature of who he is. eiffel retains his humanity even under the most inhumane circumstances. his strength is in connection, and with that he's able to reach others who share his core values, but he's operating under a fundamentally different framework from the show's antagonists. he can never understand where they're coming from or be swayed by their points of view because, for better or worse, he can only see the world through a close personal lens.

it's an ideological conflict he has with all of them, but notably with hilbert: "you talk about helping people, but what about the real, live people around you? [...] that's your problem. you're so zoomed out." eiffel will never, ever see that "big picture" because he is so zoomed in. at his best, he puts things into perspective and grounds the people around him. at his worst, his perspective narrows so drastically inwards that he becomes blind to everyone and everything else. his failings are deeply, tragically human - they're personal, they're impulsive, they're self-destructive. they're selfish. no matter how much he might try to narrativize or escape from himself, he's still left with doug eiffel: "it's taken me this long to realize that running from everyone else means that you're alone with yourself." eiffel could never be convinced to harm others on purpose, but he has hurt people, and it's never been because he didn't care. the very fact that he cares so much, that he's incapable of reconciling the hurt he's caused with the things he values, is what keeps him from real growth for so long. where many of the other characters in wolf 359 will justify their cruelty in service of something they consider more important, eiffel is so caught up in vilifying himself and the fear that he's always going to harm the people he cares for without meaning to that he shuts himself off from the people who care about him and perpetuates his own self-fulfilling prophecy.

#wolf 359 #w359 #doug eiffel #someday i'll finish my essay about the big picture as an antagonistic force. it's only been on my list of things to do for uh. ever #eiffel really cannot be convinced by Big Picture ideology in any form because he's so. unambitious and inwardly focused #he's not self-reflective at ALL but he is self-centered #and in some ways that's genuinely a good thing #but it's interesting. that he vilifies himself and tries so hard to. externalize his redemption and see some humanity in others #as proof he might be able to be better. when if those people consider themselves villains at all then they consider it necessary #i'm not sure if i'm phrasing this the way i want to but his worldview is just. fundamentally incompatible. #when i think about eiffel i think a lot about. how self-loathing is also a kind of exceptionalism. considering yourself uniquely bad #is its own way of avoiding accountability. #idk. it's complicated. it's a lot. it's interesting that lovelace talks about the 'big picture' when she's briefly a sort-of antagonist #but her 'big picture' is personal and emotionally driven in a way no other use of the phrase is #and then of course you have hera in am i alone now. such a big big universe etc. #when she betrays that perspective immediately and directly by talking about it through such a narrow personal framework #one of the most direct examples of 'big picture' thinking vs. personal connection in that contradiction. but that's another post maybe.

[rollercoasterwords]

hey rae! you said you haven’t been reading many fics lately and i was wondering what were your favorite books you read this year :))

LOVE this question omg thank u 4 giving me an excuse 2 talk abt books <3 i'm gonna split this into fiction + nonfiction + poetry...will try 2 keep it somewhat concise but. fear it may get long...

fiction

the archive of alternate endings, by lindsey drager [favorite book i've read all year]

how to live safely in a science fictional universe, by charles yu

giovanni's room, by james baldwin

stone butch blues, by leslie feinberg

i'll give you the sun, by jandy nelson

and then i woke up, by malcolm devlin

on earth we're briefly gorgeous, by ocean vuong

cursed bunny, by bora chung

i have the right to destroy myself, by young-ha kim

infect your friends and loved ones, by torrey peters

the bloody chamber and other stories, by angela carter

at least we can apologize, by lee ki-ho

nonfiction

playing the whore: the work of sex work, by melissa gira grant

cistem failure: essays on blackness and cisgender, by marquis bey

gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity, by judith butler

essays against publishing, by jamie berrout

trans liberation: beyond pink or blue, by leslie feinberg

females, by andrea long chu

socialism: utopian and scientific, by friedrich engels

capitalist realism: is there no alternative? by mark fisher

whipping girl: a transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity, by julia serrano

poetry

soft science, by franny choi

grit, by silas denver melvin

in the pines, by alice notley

#would be happy 2 go more in depth on any of these re: what they're abt #what i liked etc...but just the list by itself is long enough lol #also wrt nonfic even tho it's my list of faves from the year...don't necessarily agree w all frameworks used in every text #esp. in capitalist realism + whipping girl but. still found them v informative + enjoyable #just generally speaking calling something a fave doesn't mean it shouldn't be read w a critical lens etc etc #ask #book recs

[communistkenobi]

another very silly writing rule I remember from high school english class was the idea that you should not repeat yourself in essays. books and essays that restate their main argument each time they present new evidence has always been very effective for my own learning, especially when the topic is complicated. the “no repeats” rule makes sense when it’s used to discourage students from trying to beef up word count and encourage students to properly synthesise their own arguments, but it was never explained to me in those terms, it was all just these writing axioms you had to follow to produce a “good” piece of writing

#book club #reading orientalism again and said has repeated his thesis statement dozens of times in the first chapter alone #and like it’s incredibly helpful that he does that #in fact I think one of the book’s biggest strengths is the fact that he constantly repeats his main argument every single time he describes #a new piece of evidence. like ‘see this fits my framework. and this. and this. and this. and also this’ etc #and I see it a lot in persuasive writing #relentlessly hammering your point is a certain style that cen be extremely effective #anyway just saying this in the sense of like #a lot of the issues with the ‘rules’ you learn in english #aren’t that they’re inherently bad it’s that teachers refuse to explain why #and just expect you to take their wisdom for granted at all times #I remember the no-repeats rule really hampering my ability to write early on in undergrad #and once I let go of it writing became a lot easier lol

[transmutationisms]

I’m seeing an increasing amount of theories about roman committing suicide and I’m honestly kinda confused as to why people are thinking that. I’ve never seen roman as a character that would make an active choice to end his life but I get that this is an unprecedented situation within the story bc of logan’s death. Do you have any thoughts on this?

yeah honestly not to be a cunt but i think these theories just fundamentally misunderstand both the show and roman as a character. like you said, roman doesn't consider himself an active agent in the way that would be required for him to commit suicide. in general roman doesn't actively seek suffering the way kendall does; roman accepts it passively and tries to suffer beautifully. like, roman would let someone tie him to a train track wearing only a torn nightie but he wouldn't jump in front of the train himself, ykwim? i think the suicide truthing is coming from either a very rigid prescriptive understanding of what 'appropriate grief' is and the belief roman isn't doing it 'right' ... which ... lmao. or, a misunderstanding of the pills situation: roman was taking his daddy's pills around because he was trying to consume his body and preserve it like a religious relic. it's not an 'addiction arc' (<- not even something that kendall has! because that's not how drugs are written on this show! but i digress.) like if roman commits suicide i honestly will have to revise so many judgments about what this show is trying to say, politically and psychologically. it's not the Characters Facing Consequences show it's literally the Characters Getting Away With Everything And Feeling Dead Inside show. IN MY OPINION

#obviously i don't 'read' real people's suicides this way but it's fiction and things mean things in specific discursive frameworks etc etc #you eat me i eat you

[agnesandhilda]

yaoi-ass dialogue notwithstanding it's interesting how episode nagi flips the striker/midfielder dynamic (where the midfielder is specifically subordinate to the striker, and all non-striker roles have connotations of impotency and I do mean that in every sense of the word) that blue lock has established so far. reo passes to nagi yes which is generally treated as a failure of proper (masculine) egotism in the main story but he flat-out makes nagi call him boss and nagi's just down for that. episode nagi does nothing to challenge this reading. nagi is the active player here but he's still serving reo

#bolo liveblogs #I sound insane I know but I PROMISE that the weird gendered connotations of the different player positions are there in the original manga #mostly as a byproduct of how thoroughly blue lock entertwines success as a striker/a ''correct'' egotistical mindset #with its overwhelmingly male subtextually misogynistic premise and themes #so if the midfielders defenders goalies etc are failing as men by being inadequately active/aggressive how exactly are they failing? #why are they being portrayed that way? #...okay to be fair charles chevalier throws a wrench in this in that he's a midfielder who is explicitly the most important player #on his team. to the point that the strikers have to orbit *him* and not the other way around. but he's an outlier and the bm v. pxg match #isn't over yet so we'll see where he fits into this whole framework

[icewindandboringhorror]

I find it kind of silly that so many of those "time based life rule" sayings are like ~deep serious guidelines~ of some sort, but then there's that one other Well Known Rule that's just like "hrmm can I eat something off of the ground or not"

#the duality of human condition.. two biggest concerns in the modern era are attempts at self fulfilling productivity #and also 'if i drop my sandwich can i still eat it :(' #Also while capitalism is often linked with/the source of hyper productivity culture - note that I do not mean the images in that context #'meaningful to you' does not have to mean 'productive within a capitalist system'. The point is not 'every waking hour of every day #must be spent in the most societally productive grinding mindset hyper efficency mode possible' but more like #if you've always wanted to learn french ever since you were a kid and you think it would be fulfilling to you (just because you like it #absent of any larger purpose like using it for a job/monetizing it somehow/etc.). and you've just spent like 5 hours straight on tiktok #or something mindlessly scrolling the internet. maybe someimtes it'd help for your own personal fulfillment in the long #run to try to - the next time you have 5 spare hours - work on learning french or something that is actually significant to you #as a person and that you'll be glad you worked towards. instead of weeks and weeks passing by and feeling you have nothing to show for it #or etc. AAANYWAY. The images/rules themselves are also NOT the main point of this post. More just the juxtaposition of them together #and the fact that 3 of them are serious seeming while one is so mundane it seems silly in comparison. #BUT even though they're not the main point . I still didn't want it to come across as if I was like promoting or buying into capitalist #productivity culture propaganda or etc. I don't find productivity tips like this inherently bad as long as they're kind of divorced from #those ideas. I think it's still important in life to have goals even if those goals exist outside of the typical expected framework. #I mean that's actually part of why a culture of chronically exhausted overworked deprived people is damaging because if you #'re forced to spend 85% of your waking time working at some job that is perosnally meaningless to you that brings you nothing that #youre only doing under threat of starvation and houselesness and etc. then of course you don't have much time for hobbies or things you car #about and of course you'll feel more aimless and personally unsatisfied and like life is not fulfilling or interesting. #Productivity and efficiency is GOOD actually. as long as it's able to be directed in ways that are actually meaingful to the community or #individual and bring some sort of feeling of fulfillment or progress or accomplishment and working towards a person's personal ideas #of happiness whatever those are. rather than just working away aimlessly so some guy you don't know can buy a 20th house or etc. etc. #ANYWAY.. lol.. Me overthinking things perhaps.. probably not as likely #that people see the silly little cat images and go 'WOW EVIL you must be a capitalist grind culture lover' like its pretty clear #thats not the point... but... just in case... lol.. I loooove to over clarify things that don't actually need clarification

[bellshazes]

i dont think this would fix anything or make people agree with me but if everybody kept in mind the historical context that "canon" as a term is the manifestation of legal and cultural structures which create and enforce specific rights to properties, physical and intellectual, as a requisite for the continued existence of modern capitalism. canonicity arguments are all derived from debates on who can decide what is true or not, and what version truth that entity makes everyone else subject to.

very catholic, as is the origin of the term! and it gained fannish connotations via ACD's holmes stories - a term co-opted to express this same struggle of legitimacy and power amidst the victorian anxiety about the post-industrial revolution ability of the increasingly literate masses to weigh in on literature, and, god FORBID, write and distribute their own!

"canonicity" is fundamentally about class, capital, and power and has been for over a century now even just within the domain of fandom. we cannot just escape "needing to get paid for art to live" or "not getting sued for violating copyright" by wishing very hard but i think about this every time fanon vs. canon stuff comes up. fanon is worse because it's such a voluntary embrace of the initial concept that sucks and turned even further inward among audiences.

#peter posts #im procrastinating on a report. anyway abolish truth etc #once im able to articulate an alternative framework for evaluating the complex web of relationships btwn author-text-reader it's OVER

[trillscienceofficer]

the entire thought process behind "One-Armed Scissor" was having B'Elanna being like 'I wish Seven would shut up forever', but then Seven goes 'the only solution to this problem I'm having is for me to remove myself from the equation' and B'Elanna is like, 'no that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard and you can't do that'

#and b'elanna is able to shift the whole framework of the problem because #of klingon religion and her mystical vision etc #i need a tag for when i talk about my fic at random. probably. anyway #b7

[peasantexchangeprogram]

ppl on booktok are like you GOTTA read this its the BEST book ever its a spicy mlm retelling of peter and the wolf 🌶️🌶️🌶️ the author is a working class millionaire and this is their 8th first debut!

#ok. now that i think abt it using peter n the wolf as a framework to comment on stigmas regarding predatory gay men etc. will be interesting #HOWEVER. not something that booktok will ever be able to preduce #mine*

[gideonisms]

I think the thing about ntn is, it's like making a friend who you broadly agree with on the most important things but who you HARD disagree with on some of the details

#ntn spoilers #i'm at the point where i can have actual opinions now i think. #paul. paul. #i loved the campal tragic moment i loved everything with pyrrha and nona's reluctance to remember the ways she'd been hurt the #compartmentalizing of identity the acknowledgement that sometimes we just are going to become someone vastly different #the question of whether love can overcome that or why love matters if everything's just going to change and end and restart again #and the conclusion that it did matter because it mattered in the moment #love as this huge imperfect force of acceptance for others vs love as a determination to cling to them the way you think they should be #all of that was so good #even the stuff with gideon kind of. felt like it belonged in a different book but i agree with the broad character strokes of like #the horror of what's been done to gideon the way she is trying to become a different person making her own terrible decisions etc #but still trapped in this awful framework for her life & death where she only matters as a symbol for others #and her reckoning with that is messy and awful bc of course it is! #but it did feel like it needed more space than the brief chapters we got & hopefully it will come to the forefront in the next book #like all of the elements didn't necessarily mesh well and i think the humor she was trying to go for with the silly name didn't really work #and the stuff with judith was like. the most boring way to handle that imo. did she have to be unconscious the whole book #she's got so much potential as a character #and! my top pet peeve when harrow lobotomy girl nonagesimus is like i'm going to find the real god you suck #iconic yes but it reveals #she's had the agency to walk away from john the whole book and has sat there listening and now is going to find alecto when? #like?? #the point of the lobotomy was that she is rejecting the framework for her previous life bc she's decided she cares more about the human cost #like??????? #if she was just sort of drifting in the river having alecto's dreams that's one thing but i refuse to believe #she wouldn't be trying to figure out where gideon was the whole time #maybe if she hadn't done the lobotomy i would buy it but she did do the lobotomy!!!!! she literally did do the lobotomy #you have to do a lot of work to get harrow from only caring about gideon's life and i guess religion kind of to just hitting pause on #thinking about gideon for an entire book! #this is not even my shipper brain it makes sense gideon has other priorities is in mourning for her previous self the things she's lost etc #but harrow literally did the lobotomy if u needed to get her to the 9th for plot reasons there were better ways to explain it!!

[scoobydoodean]

i mean in a show where someone gets killed nearly every episode, most of those people dying by the main characters’ hands, who “deserves” death and who doesn’t and who gets to decide that is always blurry. and is never addressed directly in the show, as that would question the authority of the main characters, which makes these discussions always a bit of a slope. i do agree that those people amy killed probably weren’t. the best picked to die. like she would probably be powerful enough to take on more “deserving” targets. but then again who gets to decide that etc. just to clarify, i’m not trying to disagree with you, i just always like to bring thoughts to the table and see what everyone else thinks. the girl next door certainly is an episode !

About Amy picking more "deserving" targets:

I don't think Amy actually cared all that much how "bad" the targets were tbh. I don't think she spent time evaluating and researching each victim through a Dexter-esque kill code before murdering them. She had no time for that—her son was actively dying, and if she wanted to save him, she had to kill quickly. She was still stalking and killing while Sam was actively hunting her because the situation was that urgent and dire. No—what Amy did is pick conveniently and opportunistically. She picked people who happened to be out at night, alone, whose deaths the police would have little interest in prioritizing. Her goal was never to act out vigilante justice—taking an extremely short amount of time to notice that someone was a petty criminal just helped assuage some of her guilt about it.

For the rest of it, let me give you three situations:

My child is being stalked by a serial killer. The killer comes to my house with the intention of killing my child. I kill that serial killer.

There is no enforcement of law where I live. Murderers run amok, able to stalk, murder, and even eat their victims and no one does anything about it. I decide to act as a vigilante to defend the victims of these killers from stalking, killing, and eating them by killing the people who I know are stalking, killing, and eating them.

I have a child who is dying and requires a heart transplant in order to survive, and I know that my child will not survive long enough to receive an organ donation on a very long waitlist. However, there are plenty of people around me who have working hearts, so I hunt down one of them and kill them and arrange to have their heart transplanted into my child.

These three scenarios become increasingly morally grey from one to the next (in fact, I have absolutely zero issue at all whatsoever with the first, and in its specific context, not much issue with the second), but the third is very very different from the first and second, is it not? And to me, a very obvious example of something that is evil.

Whether the target I pick in the third scenario is a person who’s never even jaywalked before or whether it's Tim who lives down the street who I knows deals drugs, or hell—even if it's a dude on death row—doesn't change the fact that the only one trying to and succeeding at trying to kill anyone at the end of the day is just me; that nobody threatened or wronged my child; that nobody was trying to steal their life. In this third scenario, there is no evil figure I am fighting directly against. I steal people's lives and essence in order to keep my child alive out of nothing more than selfishness.

While I agree it's easy to get into the weeds of vigilante justice, we shouldn't, because that isn't even what Amy was doing. She is not #2—she's #3. What she did versus what Sam and Dean do as a job (#2) are ultimately very different things in terms of the motives and circumstances involved, the victims, and the aggressors.

In the end, the whole discussion started with me bringing up a specific line, where Sam says that he and Dean would both murder strangers in order to feed their insides to a loved one just to keep that loved one alive, which is very very different from what they do on a regular basis in terms of circumstances and motives, regardless of if we're talking people who "deserve" to die or people who don't.

#mail #like death row guy certainly feels different from the others because... he's dying anyway. #still even that sort of concept ended up being something dean tapped out on. #but again just trying to point out the entire scenario is very different from what sam and dean do on a daily basis which is number 2. #Sam? Hm... he was going to kill Crowley for Rowena? But like. Also Crowley did a lot of fucked up shit. Killed one of his GF's etc it fits #pretty well into the vigilante justice framework plus he's gonna argue utilitarianism all over it since he's trying to get rid of the MOC #amy #7.03