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meraki-sunset · 5 months

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i have a question about hiveswap as im just getting into it, considering that the events of hiveswap and hauntswitch both take place in the late 1900s, whats the point exactly?

we already know whats going to happen and that all of the characters are doomed fail on their goals and then die no matter the outcome. the caste system is never abolished, HIC stays in power, both earth and Alterna get destroyed, and doc scratch continues his plan without a hitch

none of it seems to really matter or serve any purpose other than worldbuilding for 2 already doomed worlds (3 if you count the cherub portal implying a lost society of cherubs)

Well, it is. It is worldbuilding, that’s what precuels are. They add extra context to events you already know will happen, they add to how they happened, how we got there. That doesn’t make them pointless.

It may seem irrelevant at first glance, but Hiveswap actually has a very important role.

It sets the stage for the arrival of the players on both Alternia and Earth-A

The events of Hiveswap are happening with an equivalent distance in years between both Alternia and earth

Which means the Beta children are about to arrive in their meteors (1995 - 1996) a little after the time when Joey and Jude are having this adventure (1994), which means the Alpha trolls will get to Alternia soon too.

Both timelines are mirrored in time, they both have the same exact amount of time before the end.

We know the Beta kids hadn’t arrived yet to earth during Hiveswap because it’s 1994, and that the Alpha trolls hadn’t arrived either because Trizza is the heiress, and there can only be one at a time, so Feferi isn't there yet.

This series of events are necessary for Doc scratch’s plan, otherwise he wouldn’t have intervened, giving Xefros a surveillance free communication channel, so Joey and him aren’t detected by the authorities.

He needs them under the radar so they can (while trying to send Joey back home) connect people with each other, cause necessary problems, kick start important events.

All which will set the stage for the 12 troll player’s arrival.

What do I think it’s the most important event Doc Scratch needs Joey and Xefros to make happen?

Trizza has to die. There can only be one heiress at a time, and if Feferi is about to arrive, then Trizza has to go.

The events of Hiveswap/HauntSwitch will cause the death of the heiress, either fighting against the Condesce, at the hands of the revolted trolls Joey and Xefros will influence, crushed to death by Feferi’s own meteor, who knows. But if this is the "equivalent to 1994 on Alternia" and all that is happening it’s really happening as a mirrored version of Earth’s timeline, then the 12 trolls should be to arriving at different dates during the following year. Which means she doesn’t have much time left, as we know Feferi was the only heiress on Alternia during Homestuck. And we’re 13 years away from the end of the world. It needs to happen now.

It's the same tactic Doc used with Rose, Vriska and Terezi

The only reason he ever “helps” anybody it's because he needs them to make things happen.

He needs Joey and Xefros alive, he needs the rebellion to go through (even if it fails, it'll fail in a way that it's usefull for him), he needs Trizza gone so Feferi can come to Alternia and so the final stage of this plan of millions of years connecting dots and manipulating people to create a hostile planet for the new players to grow stronger that their predecessors, can begin. The rise of the new players.

I personaly think Tyzias might be the one to intercept Karkat or at least be involved in it.

It could be her, Joey or maybe someone else, but whoever intercepts him will have to know about the signless and according to Tyzias’s password (69) she already knows about him and she knows his symbol, and seems to be a follower in the down low. Tyzias also must knows how the singless promised that there would be another troll like him, and according to Doc scratch's explanation:

The followers of the summoner decreased enormously, but the Doc said himself that there were still some of them hidden and I think he was talking about Tyzias and her alies.

Sometimes we forget that there was intervention from the suferer's followers to ensure Karkat's survival

That’s why he has the sufferer’s symbol, someone who knew it gave it to him. And we know Tyzias knows.

The ectobiologist and team leader also seems to always be the last one to turn 13, (as well as the last to wake up as their dream self) so Karkat should be the last one to arrive, ending that chain of events.

Of course this all means that, by the time the end of the world happens, and asuming they’re all still alive, all Hiveswap trolls would be adults carrying duties off planet and would die the day of the apocalypse during the Vast Glub along with all troll Civilization.

The same would happen to Joey and Jude, assuming Joey is successful and returns to Earth. They would die on the 13th of April 2009 with the rest of humanity, not knowing they had a part in it or that their lost brother was the detonator of the end of the world.

It’s tragic in the end, but it’s necessary. Someone has to play that role.

They are the stagehands who prepared the stage for the first act of the play they were never meant to see.

And who knows, it may not be the end of them, maybe we’re too quick to assume they didn’t get saved somehow. By some random paradoxical event or deus ex machine that teleported them away from danger. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

It's been a while since i wrote an analysis, i really missed that ^u^

#homestuck #theory #homestuck theory #hiveswap #karkat vantas

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suzukiblu · 6 months

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Day four of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

"Dead," Tim says, because it's not like it's a secret in the community or anything. "Joker happened to him."

And a lot of other things. Sheila Haywood and Felipe Garzonas and Bruce's eternal control-freak paranoia and constant inability to just talk, to name a few. But Joker, in the end.

Still, Tim can't help thinking about the chances to have avoided what happened to Jason. Especially when thinking about what's currently happening to Kon.

If Kon gets taken advantage of or hurt or killed because no one's paying enough attention . . .

Tim takes another drink.

"That sucks," Kon says with a grimace. "No wonder Batman goes all weird mama Bat on you all the time."

Tim chokes on an incredulous laugh and also a mouthful of soda, because Bruce is definitely not that and this isn't something to make light of either, but–

But also, he thinks about how no one ever goes "weird mama Bat" on Kon. No one ever has, as far as he knows.

No one takes care of him at all.

Tim really, really doesn't like that. Kon shouldn't have to rely on working for people who think they can build custom-designed personal-use superheroes based off of stolen dead bodies and are constantly making clones that are just inhuman-looking enough to not be able to blend into society outside the lab, and therefore don't have a choice about where they live or what they do with their lives.

Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds, or at least not as malicious as it sounds, but it's still the results of what Cadmus is doing either way. Kon has the option of being a superhero, at least, but he also has a custom-designed face that looks exactly like the face of one of the most famous heroes in the sector and was given absolutely no idea how to either establish or support a civilian life, so that's just about his only option.

Aside from, again, just working for Cadmus for the rest of his life.

Tim definitely hates the world.

"Please don't call it 'going mama Bat'," he says to distract himself.

"Please tell me what else you'd call it," Kon says.

"Micromanaging," Tim replies matter-of-factly, and Kon chokes on a laugh of his own.

"What, is being Robin your after-school job?" he teases. Technically it is, Tim supposes, but he doesn't exactly think of it that way.

"I consider it more of an unpaid internship," he says, since explaining the whole "emotional support sidekick" thing would probably damage Bruce's Bat-mystique, and if he tells Kon the full story there he's basically telling all of Young Justice. Kon barely seems to understand the concept of secrets, much less the concept of keeping them. "Like I get an expense account but not a paycheck, you know? And sometimes we get cookies in the Batcave."

"Cookies. In the Batcave," Kon echoes, his eyebrows shooting up. "Are they bat-shaped?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Tim replies with a pleasant smile. Alfred doesn't usually bother with anything quite that on the nose, but according to Dick there are Halloween cookie cutters in the kitchen that he's not above bringing out when Bruce has been being especially ridiculous, so . . .

"Oh my god," Kon says delightedly. "Does he make them himself? Is there a Bat-apron? A Bat-oven? Or does he just order them special from the Bat-bakery?"

"There is not a Bat-bakery," Tim says, trying not to laugh again. Goddammit, Kon shouldn't be so fucking funny all the time. He's not even that funny, objectively; Tim is just a smitten idiot.

"So there is a Bat-apron?" Kon says with a smirk.

"I plead the fifth," Tim says, since explaining the novelty Halloween apron Jason bought Alfred when he was thirteen is not actually on the table. Details compromise identities, loose lips sink ships; all that.

"Listen, man, Cadmus doesn't have a bakery unless you count the test tubes they cook us up in," Kon says with a snigger, grabbing himself another slice. Tim thinks thoughts about incendiary devices. "They buy our cookies frozen or just get the industrial-sized pudding cans. Or make bread pudding, the bastards. So you gotta tell me about the Bat-cookies."

Tim winces at the thought of industrial-sized pudding cans and bread pudding, because that sounds absolutely horrifying and he never, ever wants to taste industrial pudding. Ever.

"Well, they're definitely not frozen," he says. "But Nightwing started being Robin a lot younger than I did and the last Robin started younger than me too, so I think I'm just reaping the benefits of younger kids needing after-patrol snacks and everyone else getting in the habit of it."

"I could get into that habit," Kon says musingly as he tears a bite off his newest slice. Tim immediately resolves to order takeout after every possible Young Justice mission that he can. Or they could go get ice cream or something, he doesn't know. "What do you think, wanna make me Bat-cookies sometime, Rob?"

Every weekend for the rest of their respective lives, although Tim would never actually say that. He's not even a good baker. He doesn't even like to bake.

This crush is definitely a problem.

"You're not Gothamite enough to handle Bat-baking, Kon," Tim says dryly, and Kon sniggers.

He also ducks his head a little, looking . . . oddly soft, for a moment. Tim doesn't understand why, until he realizes–oh. It's because he just called him "Kon", isn't it. He wasn't even thinking about it; just did it reflexively.

Tim is pretty sure he needs to ruin the credit of every single "responsible" adult in Kon's life for not naming him sooner. Well–Dubbilex can have a pass, considering he was also made by Cadmus and his own name is Dubbilex, so it probably never occurred to him that "Superboy" wasn't a perfectly acceptable name. And also he probably doesn't have credit either. But all the rest of them, definitely and for sure.

Superman is getting an envelope of powdered Kryptonite in his fucking mailbox, to start. Or maybe Tim could aerosolize it and pepper-spray him with it. That might work.

"You don't know, I could be," Kon huffs, putting on a mock-offended expression. "I was born and raised in a lab, I'm way tougher than the average guy."

"A Metropolis lab," Tim says pityingly. "Might as well be a kindergarten science class."

"Oh fuck you, Batboy!" Kon protests with a laugh. "Tell that to the next alien invasion."

"Aliens know better than to invade Gotham," Tim says. Kon laughs again. It's–weirdly nice, honestly. Usually Kon's too busy trying to act cool in front of whatever "audience" he thinks they have to actually, like . . . just talk all that much or anything. And also usually he gets offended really easily or starts being annoying about something he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does about or just . . . something.

Tim admittedly is less and less annoyed and more and more endeared by that kind of stupid behavior these days, but still. It's the usual pattern their interactions follow.

He guesses they're actually just, like, hanging out right now. It's not like there's a bad guy or a crisis or even any teammates around or training to do, so . . .

Yeah. He guesses they're just hanging out.

Kon decimates the pizza and wings, Tim pretends to be helping and takes a few mental notes on how much Kon is eating and what that may or may not say about his required caloric intake, and they just kind of keep . . . hanging out, really. And they talk, at least as much as Tim lightly interrogating Kon and subtly evading providing any personal identifying information counts as "talking".

Tim really doesn't know if the guys at school or Young Justice are more authentically his "friends", at this point, but at least Young Justice knows there are things they don't know. Everyone from school . . .

Not so much, with them. They all only know Tim Drake, and none of them have any reason to suspect the existence of Robin. Young Justice only knows Robin, but at least they know there is a Tim Drake somewhere, whether they know him or not.

Maybe they are the ones who are more his friends, thinking of it that way.

It'd explain why things never really go anywhere with civilians and he's developed this stupid inadvisable crush on Kon, at least. Though not why things fizzled with Steph, since she knows Robin better than anyone in Young Justice. If he should be having a stupid inadvisable crush on anyone, at least it could've been someone with an equally stupid and inadvisable crush on him.

Unfortunately, he and Steph have officially friend-zoned each other and also Kon exists, so Tim is having his stupid inadvisable crush on an alien hybrid metahuman clone in a terrible living situation with stupid taste in sunglasses and a mysteriously infinite-seeming supply of leather jackets. So now Tim is in this situation and his supervillain timeline needs recalculated, and also he's going to be buying Young Justice so much takeout to make sure Kon gets to eat something that isn't cafeteria food in a way he won't get offended by.

Hopefully, anyway.

"Well, I'm glad the new job's working out," Tim comments eventually, after some very careful conversational maneuvering, and Kon . . . pauses.

"I guess," he says after a moment, picking olives off the remains of his current slice and not quite looking at him as he says it. Tim resists the urge to absolutely pounce on the blood in the water and makes himself wait. "I mean, it's fine, it's not like it's bad there. Like, I don't love that it's my only real option and I don't love the same lab that made me out of DNA that it literally got out of a literal grave being in charge of me, but it's not like Westfield's still running the place or anything. So like, could be worse."

Tim hates the world. All of it. Seriously. Alfred's snickerdoodles get an exception and that's it. Nothing else.

"I'm sure it'll all work out," he says, because yeah, he officially needs to actually do something about this. He doesn't know what something, but something. If he doesn't, who else is going to?

Kon puts on a fake grin and says something stupid and easy in reply, the comment lighthearted and dismissive and a screamingly obvious coping strategy from someone who doesn't see any way out of their current situation but through, and Tim . . .

Tim finishes his Zesti and starts to think.

#timkon #tim drake #kon el #conner kent #dc robin #superboy #young justice #young just us #rinfic #wip: obligatory sugar baby kon #long post

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matan4il · 6 months

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Hi. I'm Polish and I want to educate myself. Last week I went to The Polish Jews Museum Polin in Warsaw, Poland.

I also read a lot of online leftist stuff.

Cam you tell me what were 2019 Gaza protests about? Why are you calling them "protests"? I thought they were largely peaceful.

Hi! Sorry it took me a moment to reply. You might have noticed that I'm getting a lot of asks, and I do try to research some things before replying. I'm glad you're trying to educate yourself, I hope you do so by more than just reading whatever anti-Israeli blogs are posting here, posts which de-humanize Israelis and Jews, and justify the violence and murder of our people.

Here's a few pics from the events you're asking me about, organized by the terrorist organization Hamas. In the first pic, please note that each "peaceful protester" is holding a weapon, including an axe (you mentioned the Holocaust... ever since I guided at our museum a Holocaust survivor from Libya, who was attacked by axe-wielding local Arabs half a year after the end of WWII, forever scarring his head and his hands, I never look at an axe in the same way):

And here's some of those "peaceful protesters" with cutters that would allow them to try and breach the fence on Israel's border:

If there's any doubt what would these Hamas terrorists have done if they had succeeded back then in crossing into Israel, we got the answer during the massacre of Oct 7.

On the surface, these "protests" were about Palestinian liberation. But on Apr 9, 2018 Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, admitted that he was staging these riots to divert attention away from the failure of the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah to reconcile. An internal Palestinian matter erupted as violence targeting Israel, allowing Hamas to depict itself as THE leader in Palestinian society.

Anyone telling you that these border riots were peaceful is trying to sell you something. Beyond selling you hatred for Israel, the biggest Jewish community in the world today, it's also meant to sell you an alibi. According to this, Hamas' terrorists supposedly had to use violence, 'coz they tried protesting peacefully, and that failed. But these were not actually peaceful protests. Hamas has never tried peace, and has never wanted to, since it's an antisemitic organization committed to the murder of all Jews. It's the same people who murdered over 1,400 people in Israel on Oct 7, who brutally raped, beheaded, tortured, cut off limbs, cut off intimate parts, burned people alive, and all in the name of an ideology that strives to kill every Jew in the world.

Does it sound like "protests" organized by this entity along the border of the Jewish state could have ever been peaceful?

The riots lasted continuously for almost two years, from Mar 30, 2018 to Dec 27, 2019. Since then, there were more riots by the fence, but they had been sporadic. So most of the time, people refer to that period when the riots were a constant. Here's a report on the violence taking place during the riots, released on Mar 27, 2019 (almost a year after they started. Click the pic for better quality):

Again, since you mentioned educating yourself on the Holocaust, I'll point out the swastika that these Hamas terrorists drew on that arson kite that you can see in the above screenshot. I can give you many more examples of how they use the swastika, for now I'll just include one more:

I found another report for you, from an intelligence and terrorism research center. It's from a much earlier point during the riots, posted on May 28, 2018. It mentions the violent nature of the riots, but it also identifies most of those killed when trying to breach Israel's fence up until that point. They're overwhelmingly members of terrorist organizations (not just Hamas). A report from Jan 21, 2019 had similar findings.

Something else to take note of is that Hamas actually paid people to join these violent riots. How much would people get paid depended on how bad their fate would be. Think about how cruel Hamas is being to its own Palestinian people... Hamas is estimated to be one of the richest terrorist organizations in the world (with most of the money going to Hamas' leaders). Here's a reminder that Hamas spent A LOT of money on the Oct 7 massacre, which it could have spent on the Gazans. A little over half of the Gaza population is kept in a state of poverty (the rest are Hamas members or affiliated with it, such as the wives and kids of Hamas terrorists). So, this terrorist organization intentionally keeps the people in Gaza poor, then offers to pay them if they go try to breach the border, and get injured or killed. That gives people motivation not just to participate, but to be violent, in the hope of attracting gunfire from the IDF. Hamas actively encouraged the Palestinians in Gaza to be violent, and to die.

Another piece of evidence that the riots were violent is that there were eight Israelis killed and over 380 injured during these "peaceful protests." If they had been peaceful events, and had been kept to the Gazan side of the border, there should have been no casualties on the Israeli side. This is Barel Chadaria Shmueli (on the right), who was killed by a Palestinian that got close enough to an IDF post along the fence to shoot him point blank:

There are also lots of vids showing the violent nature of the riots, here are two that I can embed, and one I can only link you to, and which reports on over 100 explosive devices thrown at IDF soldiers during that one day alone...

youtube

One last, but crucial thing that I'm going to add here... How do you think Hamas managed to breach the Israeli border fence on Oct 7? Hamas used the "peaceful protests" to study the fence and the soldiers guarding it, figure out where there were weaknesses and blind spots, and use that information to infiltrate Israel and massacre over 1,000 innocent civilians here (and over 340 soldiers trying to protect them). Without these "peaceful protests," all of those people would have been alive. In fact, according to one report, some of the explosive devices along the fence that were blown up by Hamas on the day of the massacre might have been planted there secretly during one of the more recent riots along the border.

I hope I managed to answer your question? Let me know if anything wasn't clear!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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spiderfreedom · 7 months

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I read a book a while back about the erotic appeal of 'women with penises' (don't close the page yet I promise it's useful). the book was called Ambisexuality. it's basically two things, a history of the sexual fantasy of a 'woman with a penis' and a study of transgender women sex workers in australia. content warning for sex work and children forced into sex work.

in the history portion, one of the things it talks about is how it seems that prepubescent boys who enter the sex industry in some cultures are basically taught to perform femininity. dressed like women, taught to dance like women, perfume themselves like women, basically appear cosmetically like a woman. since prepubescent boys don't look too different from girls, many adult heterosexual johns found this attractive. the presence of the penis was considered a positive, because male customers knew how a penis worked and could understand it. from the book:

References to the training of older boys and young men, in the twin arts of seductive dancing and sex work, can be found in many historical religious texts, not just of Afghanistan but as an aspect of cultures in many cities in South Asia and the Middle East until modern times. [...] The historical record also provides clues that the link between feminised males and sex work even existed in some hunter-gatherer societies. In North America, the journalist and critic, Peter Ackroyd suggests that some native Indian societies accommodated feminised male sex work. The Pueblo Indians for example, maintained a mujerado, a 'trained male prostitute' in each village, who identified as a 'man-woman, not as a male [source mine]. Similarly, records suggest that the berdache were males who took on the roles of wife, communal concubine, prostitute and participant in certain sexual rites of native Indian tribes. The berdache wore women's clothing, did women's work and in sexual relations with their male partners, behaved like women as far as possible. Many Roman brothels offered boys of different races, skin colours and professional abilities. Boys from the Middle East, for example, were prized for their dancing abilities and exotic appearance, while boys from Northern Europe were valued for their bawdiness and sensuality. Some brothel owners refined the process of procuring, raising and training very young boys to an art form. Boys considered to possess the appropriate attributes were purchased as young as two or three years of age and were raised and trained by their owners. Their sole purpose in life was to entertain men and pander to the sexual tastes of wealthy clients. Many of these boys were feminised during their training. They were beautifully groomed and perfumed, had unwanted body hair removed and wore their hair long and curly. Some were trained to perform for their clients - as dancers, mimes, singers and storytellers. All were trained in fellatio, sodomy and analingus.

it's disturbing to think about how femininity is conflated with being attractive to men, so much that you can take a prepubescent boy, dress him up like a woman, and apparently plenty of people go "yeah, this is the perfect sex object, like a woman but better."

it also had a section on how trans women and gender non conforming men who dressed femininely across the world were basically often forced into prostitution. since they could not find employment due to their gender nonconformity, the only place they could get money was as prostitutes. being feminine dressed also meant they could make more money than gay male prostitutes who dressed in masculine style. from the book:

According to some cultural historians, the reason why the xanith presented as women was to enable them to make a living from sex work. As will be seen later, the suggestion that this lifestyle is driven by 'economic necessity' probably belies a considerable degree of individual choice in the matter. For many, the rewards of sex work led to a comfortable lifestyle, which was infinitely preferable to other occupations which paid less, demanded longer working hours and offered fewer other intrinsic benefits such as personal gifts.

there's a myth that there exists a certain type of person who enjoys being prostituted, because of some social category they belong to. it has variably applied to women of the lower classes, black people, gay men, and in this topic, trans women. it exists to excuse the dehumanization of these groups who are excluded from normal labor markets, experience higher rates of poverty, and enter sex work to make money.

i've noticed some radfems have suggested that trans women prostitutes 'enjoy' being prostitutes, on the basis of quotes from bailey's book 'the man who would be queen' and taking twitter quotes from unverifiable 'trans sex workers' at face value. but i would be very hesitant to believe that. just in the same way you would not believe a woman who told you she 'loves sex work' without doing further research on her background to see if this statement is honest or produced by trauma, you should also consider the same for transgender women and gender non conforming men. especially since they are often forced out of legitimate labor industry for gender nonconformity.

the idea that trans women inherently love prostitution reinforces the idea that there are feminine people who it is okay to degrade and treat as sex objects, because they love it. the femininity is taken to be a lure to men and proof that they love being 'used'. there may be some portion who are 'erotic professionals' who love it, just like there are women who say they same, but there's a high rate of traumatic background from trans women who become prostitutes. and that's before whatever traumatization happens during prostitution.

in short, there's a dirty history of treating gender non conforming male people as the sort of perfect sex object, the ideal combination of feminine presentation and "comprehensible" male anatomy. radfems should not help this myth by repeating it mindlessly. all this does is spread the idea that a. being dressed feminine means you exist to lure men, b. there exists a 'perfect sex object' who wants nothing more than endless sex with strangers for money, whose trauma, poverty, mental illness play no role in their life, and c. therefore there is no need to include these people in efforts to exit the prostitution industry, because they "love" it after all. no human is a perfect sex object. accepting that it can happen to one group of people means you naturalize it and allow the possibility it can happen to you.

#sex industry #mypost #\ transmisogyny #radical feminism #i've seen this sort of thing and i don't think it's a good idea to reproduce about sex workers living in poverty working the streets #onlyfans is something else for another topic #but it's very disturbing to read this history of basically fetishizing “feminine boys” as perfect sex objects #and then compare that to how trans women/gnc men are overwhelmingly in prostitution #this is relevant to female people because it presumes that there exist 'perfect sex objects' and there do not

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anths-girl · 4 months

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I'm not one to try and write long-winded posts or like, get very passionately into a certain topic, or whatever. Mostly for the fact that, for one, my anxiety just makes me believe that nobody gives a shit about what little ol' me has to say about anything. And secondly, the few times in the past I DID kind of…speak up about things, I got such horrible responses that it just put me off ever actually saying anything at all, anymore.

But, BUT…sometimes I just CANNOT shut up. And this is one of those times.

I've lately started noticing this thing where, apparently, if you're asexual - and I AM very much asexual - you're not "included" in the "community," if you're a "straight" asexual. Like, go to my blog, see me posting pictures of like, Kirk Hammett with heart eyes emojis…BOOM, nope, you're not a "real" asexual. You're not valid. You're not included. Because I find men aesthetically pleasing, I'm…a fake? A fraud? Or, not actually asexual at all? Doesn't matter that, when I was 13, a guy I actually thought I liked, wanted to kiss me, and I fucking RAN AWAY. Or when another guy I also thought I liked, touched me, or hugged me or did anything physical, I would get nauseous and so uncomfortable that I pushed him off and made some vague excuses to just get the fuck AWAY. Or that, at the age of fucking 40, I am a virgin, I've never been kissed, AND I ABSOLUTELY DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING SEXUAL WITH ANYONE, EVER?

BUT, again, because I find MEN attractive (to LOOK at), and because I'm sex positive, I've watched porn (and YES, enjoyed it), like sexy movies, LOVE to read (and occasionally write) smut…I am not actually asexual? So…what? I'm just this broken, wrong…thing? That doesn't belong anywhere, because I'm not "attracted" to someone of my own gender? Even though asexual literally means I am not physically attracted to ANYONE? Because I am, according to "normal society," for all intents and purposes, labelled as "straight," I am not worthy of the "community."

The same "community" who is ALWAYS preaching inclusivity, and understanding and compassion? Well, shit, lately it's everything BUT compassionate. I've become wary, or even scared, of saying I'm asexual, because I'm afraid of ridicule. Again, I have pretty damn bad anxiety, and I get afraid when I just post a simple comment on things online, because I just don't have the mental energy to get into arguments or disputes. Though…it SHOULDN'T BE THAT WAY?! WHY does everything always have to end up being about people shunning others, who are different? Everyone talks about NOT hating or excluding people who are different…but then they turn right around and do EXACTLY that. The LGBTQA+ "community" is supposed to be a SAFE PLACE for ALL of us…and yet, now, apparently, the "us" is not…included? I can't be part of that "us," because, what, there's some specific set of requirements I'm meant to fullfil? I'm not asexual enough, because I'm not completely repulsed by sex as a whole, or because I'm a woman, who finds men attractive?

So now, what…it's right back to that mentality of hiding your true identity, because there's nowhere you fit in? Being ostracized because you're not ENOUGH to be part of something that SHOULD be welcoming to you?

Seriously, the world is regressing. Instead of being embraced and accepted for who you are…we get scrutiny, and told we're not good enough to be part of something that is supposed to include us.

So yes, what I'm trying to ACTUALLY say…it's sad and scary and LONELY, to be asexual. It's isolating. Because where we SHOULD be finding support and understanding, we just get hate and scorn. And one would truly think, that in this day and age, that wouldn't happen anymore. But like with everything, people just always have to ruin things for each other.

Because hatred towards people who are different? Will NEVER change. Humanity is still just too fucked up, for that.

#anths-girl posts #on a personal note #asexual #asexuality #ace #aspec #lgbtq community #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbtqa+#queer #sexuality #text #discrimination

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psychotrenny · 8 days

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Hello, please forgive me if this ask is uncalled for, I just figured you would be a good person to ask. What exactly in theory do people in communist circles here mean when they besmirch 'idealists'? I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with most theroy I've read and generally align with most leftist beliefs. But I would still consider myself an idealist because at my core I believe everything I do because I believe in working towards an ideal world. It makes me a bit sad to see the term used so harshly. I do believe that material conditions matter more than ideals , but I still think my beliefs are based on ideals at their core, am I misattributing the label? Misunderstanding something? Thank you for taking the time to read this if you did, I don't want to use you as my personal tutor or anything, I just want to understand something and wasn't sure who to turn to. Have a nice day.

I'm going to share an extended excerpt from Philosophy and Class Struggle by an anonymous South African theoretician who went by the pen name "Dialego". The whole thing is a very good read and not super long, and while naturally it focuses most on the South African liberation struggle of the 1970s it communicates a lot of guidelines and principles that are useful for any modern revolutionary movement. In any case the below excerpt is taken from the second chapter What Is Dialectical Materialism? and I think it answers your question most thoroughly:

It is sometimes thought that a “materialist” is a person who simply looks after his own selfish interests whereas an “idealist” is one who is prepared to sacrifice for a worthwhile cause. Yet, if this were so, it would be the conservatives of this world who are the “materialists” and the revolutionaries who are moved by “idealism"! In fact, of course, “materialism” and “idealism” do not refer to vague moral attitudes of this kind. They are terms used in philosophy to describe the only two basic interpretations of the world which can be consistently held. Everyone who studies the world around him has to find the origin of things. What causes things to move, or to act or to behave in the way they do? Are the forces spiritual in origin or are they produced by the material world? Some years ago a Calvinist minister ascribed earth tremors in the western Cape to the growing disquiet of the Almighty towards modern forms of music and dress! Whereas a materialist seeks to explain the world of society and nature according to the material conditions and processes at work, the idealist believes that events take place because of the existence of spiritual forces or “ideas”. An idealist might argue that apartheid in South Africa has been brought about by the “ill-will” or “evil intentions” of white people who don’t wish to face up to reality. For a materialist, on the other hand, this “ill-will” or “evil intention” still needs to be explained, and the real reason for apartheid is not to be found in people’s heads but in their pockets, in that material system of capitalist exploitation which makes apartheid highly profitable for financial investors, factory owners and the giant farms. It is here that the roots of the system lie. We often talk about the way in which for example “anti-communist ideas” weaken our movement by creating divisions in its ranks and this of course is true. But we must never forget that these anti-communist “ideas” don’t simply fall from the skies: they reflect and arise out of the material interests of monopoly capitalism and unless they are firmly rebuffed, they are likely to make an impact on those whose stake in society, however small, makes them vulnerable to anti-communist scare-mongering Thus we can say that whereas idealism looks for an explanation of the world in terms of the “ideas”, “intentions” or “will” of people, materialism considers that the source of all events and actions is to be found in material causes or, as they are sometimes called, “the laws of nature.” It is true that cruder forms of idealism ascribe things in the world to the “will of God” whereas more subtle forms of idealism put the cause down to the ideas which exist in the heads of individuals on earth, but in neither case do idealists seek an explanation in material reality. Whereas idealism believes that the ideas in people’s heads exist outside of and independently of the world of matter, materialism contends that people’s ideas, like all other aspects of their behaviour, are the product of material causes and can only be properly understood when these causes are discovered. Materialists in fact argue that man was neither created by God nor is his origin a sheer mystery. He developed out of the world of nature through a long process of evolution and his ideas are the product of the mental activity of his brain, itself a highly developed and complex form of matter. This does not mean that materialists are not concerned about people’s ideas. On the contrary, materialists are the only people in the world who are able to explain them properly. What materialism rejects are not ideas, or their immense importance in influencing the course of events. Rather it is the idealist theory of ideas which materialists challenge, because this treats ideas as mystical forces that somehow exist independently of material reality.

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aronarchy · 1 year

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Two notions of liberty revisited—or how to disentangle Liberty and Slavery

The modern liberal concept of liberty has roots in Roman law and the Roman understanding of the master and the slave. We need to unpick that heritage to imagine a better basis for our political aspirations.

David Graeber May 19, 2013

Our idea of human freedom, with its origins in Roman law, is permeated through and through with the institution of slavery. But its links to slavery twisted the meaning of “freedom” from an empowering notion of what it is to live with dignity in a society of equals to one of mastery and control. Understanding the history of the concept should help us to regain the first and fight the second of those notions.

The meaning of the Roman word libertas changed dramatically over time. To be “free” meant, first and foremost, not to be a slave. Since slavery means above all else the annihilation of social ties and the ability to form them, freedom meant the capacity to make and maintain moral commitments to others. The English word “free,” for instance, is derived from a German root meaning “friend,” since to be free meant to be able to make friends, to keep promises, to live within a community of equals. Freed slaves in Rome became citizens—and this makes complete sense because to be free, by definition, meant to be anchored in a civic community, with all the rights and responsibilities that this entailed.

By the second century AD, however, this had begun to change. The jurists gradually redefined libertas until it became almost indistinguishable from the power of the master. It was the right to do absolutely anything, with the exception, again, of all those things one could not do. In the Digest, the basic text of Roman law, the definitions of freedom and slavery appear back to back:

Freedom is the natural faculty to do whatever one wishes that is not prevented by force or law. Slavery is an institution according to the law of nations whereby one person becomes private property (dominium) of another, contrary to nature.

Medieval commentators immediately noticed the problem here. But wouldn’t this mean that everyone is free? After all, even slaves are free to do absolutely anything they’re actually permitted to do. To say a slave is free (except insofar as he isn’t) is a bit like saying the earth is square (except insofar as it is round), or that the sun is blue (except insofar as it is yellow), or, again, that we have an absolute right to do anything we wish with our chainsaw (except those things that we can’t).

In fact, the definition introduces all sorts of complications. If freedom is natural, then surely slavery is unnatural, but if freedom and slavery are just matters of degree, then, logically, would not all restrictions on freedom be to some degree unnatural? Would not that imply that society, social rules, in fact even property rights, are unnatural as well? This is precisely what many Roman jurists did conclude—that is, when they did venture to comment on such abstract matters, which was only rarely. Originally, human beings lived in a state of nature where all things were held in common; it was war that first divided up the world, and the resultant “law of nations,” the common usages of mankind that regulate such matters as conquest, slavery, treaties, and borders, that was first responsible for inequalities of property as well.

This in turn meant that there was no intrinsic difference between private property and political power—at least, insofar as that power was based in violence. Dominium, a word derived from dominus, meaning “master,” or “slave-owner,” is the term in Roman law that means absolute private property. It is the sort of property-right that today has been theorised as the model case of a “negative freedom”—that which you can do with no interference from anyone else.

As time went on, Roman emperors also began claiming something like dominium, insisting that within their dominions, they had absolute freedom—in fact, that they were not bound by laws. At the same time, Roman society shifted from a republic of slave-holders to arrangements that increasingly resembled later feudal Europe, with magnates on their great estates surrounded by dependent peasants, debt servants, and an endless variety of slaves—with whom they could largely do as they pleased. The barbarian invasions that overthrew the empire merely formalized the situation, largely eliminating chattel slavery, but at the same time introducing the notion that the noble classes were descendants of the Germanic conquerors, and that the common people were inherently subservient.

Still, even in this new Medieval world, the old Roman concept of freedom remained. Freedom was simply power. When Medieval political theorists spoke of “liberty,” they were normally referring to a lord’s right to do whatever he wanted within his own domains—his dominium. This was, again, usually assumed to be not something originally established by agreement, but a mere fact of conquest: one famous English legend holds that when, around 1290, King Edward I asked his lords to produce documents to demonstrate by what right they held their franchises (or “liberties”), the Earl Warenne presented the king only with his rusty is sword. Like Roman dominium, it was less a right than a power, and a power exercised first and foremost over people—which is why in the Middle Ages it was common to speak of the “liberty of the gallows,” meaning a lord’s right to maintain his own private place of execution.

By the time Roman law began to be recovered and modernized in the twelfth century, the term dominium posed a particular problem, since, in ordinary church Latin of the time, it had come to be used equally for “lordship” and “private property.” Medieval jurists spent a great deal of time and argument establishing whether there was indeed a difference between the two. It was a particularly thorny problem because, if property rights really were, as the Digest insisted, a form of absolute power, it was very difficult to see how anyone could have it but a king—or even, for certain jurists, God.

This genealogy of liberty allows us to understand precisely how Liberals like Adam Smith were able to imagine the world the way they did. This is a tradition that assumes that liberty is essentially the right to do what one likes with one’s own property. In fact, not only does it make property a right, it treats rights themselves as a form of property. In a way, this is the greatest paradox of all. We are so used to the idea of “having” rights—that rights are something one can possess—that we rarely think about what this might actually mean. In fact (as Medieval jurists were well aware), one man’s right is simply another’s obligation. My right to free speech is others’ obligation not to punish me for speaking; my right to a trial by a jury of my peers is the responsibility of the government to maintain a system of jury duty. The problem is just the same as it was with property rights: when we are talking about obligations owed by everyone in the entire world, it’s difficult to think about it that way. It’s much easier to speak of “having” rights and freedoms. Still, if freedom is basically our right to own things, or to treat things as if we own them, then what would it mean to “own” a freedom—wouldn’t it have to mean that our right to own property is itself a form of property? That does seem unnecessarily convoluted. What possible reason would one have to want to define it this way?

Historically, there is a simple—if somewhat disturbing—answer to this. Those who have argued that we are the natural owners of our rights and liberties have been mainly interested in asserting that we should be free to give them away, or even to sell them.

Modern ideas of rights and liberties are derived from what came to be known as “natural rights theory”—from the time when Jean Gerson, Rector of the University of Paris, began to lay them out around 1400, building on Roman law concepts. As Richard Tuck, the premier historian of such ideas, has long noted, it is one of the great ironies of history that this was always a body of theory embraced not by the progressives of that time, but by conservatives. “‘For a Gersonian, liberty was property and could be exchanged in the same Way and in the same terms as any other property’—sold, swapped, loaned, or otherwise voluntarily surrendered.” It followed that there could be nothing intrinsically wrong with, say, debt peonage, or even slavery. And this is exactly what natural-rights theorists came to assert. In fact, over the next centuries, these ideas came to be developed above all in Antwerp and Lisbon, cities at the very center of the emerging slave trade. After all, they argued, we don’t really know what’s going on in the lands behind places like Calabar, from which so many men and women were being enslaved and shipped to the Americas, but there is no intrinsic reason to assume that the vast majority of the human cargo conveyed to European ships had not sold themselves, or been disposed of by their legal guardians, or lost their liberty in some other perfectly legitimate fashion. No doubt some had not, but abuses will exist in any system. The important thing was that there was nothing inherently unnatural or illegitimate about the idea that freedom could be sold.

Before long, similar arguments came to be employed to justify the absolute power of the state. Thomas Hobbes was the first to really develop this argument in the seventeenth century, but it soon became commonplace. Government was essentially a contract, a kind of business arrangement, whereby citizens had voluntarily given up some of their natural liberties to the sovereign. Finally, similar ideas have become the basis of that most basic, dominant institution of our present economic life: wage labor, which is, effectively, the renting of our freedom in the same way that slavery can be conceived as its sale.

It’s not only our freedoms that we own; the same logic has come to be applied even to our own bodies, which are treated, in such formulations, as really no different than houses, cars, or furniture. We own ourselves, therefore outsiders have no right to trespass on us.

This might seem an innocuous, even a positive notion, but it looks rather different when we take into consideration the Roman tradition of property on which it is based. To say that we own ourselves is, oddly enough, to cast ourselves as both master and slave simultaneously. “We” are both owners (exerting absolute power over our property), and yet somehow, at the same time, the things being owned (being the object of absolute power).

The ancient Roman household, far from having been forgotten in the mists of history, is preserved in our most basic conception of ourselves—and, once again, just as in property law, the result is so strangely incoherent that it spins off into endless paradoxes the moment one tries to figure out what it would actually mean in practice. Just as lawyers have spent a thousand years trying to make sense of Roman property concepts, so have philosophers spent centuries trying to understand how it could be possible for us to have a relation of domination over ourselves. The most popular solution—to say that each of us has something called a “mind” and that this is completely separate from something else, which we can call “the body,” and that the first thing holds natural dominion over the second—flies in the face of just about everything we now know about cognitive science. It’s obviously untrue, but we continue to hold onto it anyway, for the simple reason that none of our everyday assumptions about property, law, and freedom would make any sense without it.

To understand the history and, ultimately, incoherence of the notions of liberty grounded in Roman notions of dominion is to potentially free ourselves to re-imagine liberty. For example, to recognise the forgotten “obligations owed everyone in the entire world” inherent in our freedoms; but also to resurrect the older notion of liberty as the state achieved by citizens acting together in determination of a common good.

#repost of someone else’s content #graeber #history #ancient Rome #medieval Europe #slavery #mind-body dualism #racism #antiblackness #liberals #liberalism #classical liberalism #capitalism #private property #social contract #natural rights #consent of the governed #anarchism

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faithfullyfound · 3 months

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Happiness, Who Cares?

In today's society, most people will say that as long as you're happy, you are fulfilled. That as long as you're doing things that make you happy, these things must be good. It does not matter if in the process these things hurt you because according to our flesh, as long as we do things that we like or find pleasure in it doesn't matter. However, happiness is fleeting and the heart is deceitful. As Christians, we may think that drinking, smoking, partying, meaningless sex, gluttony, gossiping, jealousy, etc. are ok because it's not like anyone is dying. But as we sin we actively are hurting ourselves.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

Last week I was on a prayer retreat and it was one of the times where I felt God's presence most. It was freeing and fulfilling because I was in God's presence I was surrounded by God's love, in the people I talked to, during church, during testimonies, and just in prayer with Him. Something I have struggled with all throughout high school is feeling behind. I have never had a boyfriend, I'm eighteen and have never had my first kiss, I've never gone to a party, I've never smoked or drank and because of this, I have always felt behind. Subconsciously I have thought that people constantly look down on me or feel bad for me because I've never had a relationship or done any of these things. I constantly felt inadequate compared to my classmates and unlovable. This is what led me to the sexual sin of masturbation. I thought I was not hurting anyone, but I clearly was hurting myself, and my relationship with Christ. These insecurities surrounding my self-worth also manifested in social anxiety. These insecurities are not a battle between me and myself but instead God and Satan. Because God has already established my inherent, intrinsic value constantly throughout, Psalm 139.

Our goal in life should not be to find fleeting happiness through the accumulation of things, or living a lifestyle that is perceived as desirable. Instead, to find fulfillment in the Lord doesn't mean our lives will always be wonderful (look at Job). But our ability to find comfort in the Lord and in community with other believers gives us the peace we seek all the days of our lives.

Proverbs 4 talks about two paths in our lives. "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday. But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom; they don't know what makes them struggle" (Proverbs 4:18-20).

Happiness is nothing compared to the eternal peace and love found in the Lord. Lord, I pray that whoever is reading this learns to love you and find you. I pray they know that their sins do not define them. That Your love and goodness, that their identity in being a child of God gives them this fulfillment. I pray that if they do not know You they open their hearts to receive You and Your love. Amen.

#God loves you and your sin doesn't define you #christianity #christian girl #christian faith #bible study #faith in jesus #christian blog #jesus saves #jesus #happiness #peace

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ayashitetsuko · 7 months

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Izzy the Hierophant: The Major Arcana that reminds us to get back to work

As a tarot student, I am fascinated by the interpretations made by fellow tarot enthusiasts in the Our Flag Means Death (OFMD) fandom, on which Major Arcana card best represents Izzy Hands. Popular fanmade decks such as The Cat Bandit Tarot by artist Jennie Planet see him as The Devil—a force that keeps the lovers apart—and Judgement—beating Ed down when he was already at his worst. Valid as they are, these interpretations see Izzy as a negative influence, but I like to offer an alternative take.

I see Izzy’s energy and role in the canon (and eventually, in my personal life as the viewer) as the Hierophant. An energy often found uninspiring, but when used correctly, it can help people make their dreams come true.

In her book The Holistic Tarot (2015, North Atlantic Books), tarot master Benebell Wen uses Tradition, Conventionalism, and Institutionalism as the keywords that explain the Hierophant card.

“The Hierophant is a holy man, an important figure in his society … People rely on him to be a channel between heaven and earth. In a reading, the card typically indicates a desire to follow conventions and norms, a traditionalist—one who holds traditional values,” she writes.

The Hierophant is often seen as the card that calls for querents to be conservative. Instead of thinking outside the box, it expects them to open the manuals and follow the instructions. When discussing making our dreams come true, the Hierophant energy is often seen as an obstacle—curbing creativity and exploration in favour of traditions.

We did see these traits displayed by Izzy in various scenes, such as in Episode 4 when he demanded Ed to come up with a defensive plan after they noticed a Spanish ship coming their way or when he threatened to blackmail Lucius for … you know what he did.

While these scenes might cement Izzy’s role in the story as the Bad Guy, his role is also a reminder of the importance of maintaining a structure—even on a pirate ship. Because this structure, no matter how dull it is, enables us to function and create the impact we want in our personal and professional lives.

The Hierophant energy

The Hierophant card is known for having a restrictive–perhaps even oppressive–energy. In my early days as a tarot student, I tended to roll my eyes whenever it showed up. It was not the kind of nuance I wanted as a young person. But eventually, I learned how the Hierophant energy could positively impact one’s life when used wisely. Instead of preventing progress, it can help with it.

As someone who works in the tech startup community, I regularly meet people driven to succeed. Buzzwords such as “innovation” and “disruption” are being thrown around lightly; everybody wants to be the next big thing that changes the world. Big ideas, even the most unrealistic ones, are cherished and encouraged.

But people are being brought back to Earth rather quickly in this industry. There are even statistics to prove it: Up to 95 per cent of startups fail simply because they cannot find product-market fit, according to various sources. In layman’s terms, they create products and services that nobody needs. This is why startups are commonly advised to implement rigorous market research and product testing to prove that their ideas work; to have the discipline to do more than just talk.

On an individual level, the Hierophant energy is one I tap into to achieve my goals. To be productive, I need to run my days smoothly. This means clearing my housekeeping tasks before leaving home, logging off social media during work hours, and ensuring I eat my vegetables to stay healthy. They are boring AF, but they provide me with a structure to keep the machine well-oiled.

When I look back on my life, all the times I managed to achieve and create something good for myself (and hopefully others) are when I stopped daydreaming and started implementing the Hierophant energy into my daily life. While it is important to explore new ideas, all of them will be pointless without the structure that ensures it is being developed properly.

Now, back to Izzy

One might see Izzy as a traditional pirate who is resistant to change. I mean, what the fuck is even a retirement? It does not exist in this line of work.

This context places Izzy as a counter to Stede Bonnet’s “fresh, groundbreaking” ideas about piracy. It is easy to see Izzy and his beliefs as outdated and needing disruption. But we must remember that piracy is a dangerous business. While pirates generally entered the business with a ready-to-die mindset, a structure that allows the crew to be functional and prepared to handle risks should be appreciated instead of being seen as a threat.

This is especially more relevant in a situation where a leader struggles to function properly. Ed is a smart and gifted captain, but his short attention span and mood swings have made it hard for him to function on some days and for the crew to maintain their trust in him. His wit may have allowed them to survive another day, but will it be sustainable without a system to ensure that? What happens when he is having his moment? At the very least, they would need a plan.

This is a calling for us to look into our own lives and see: In which area do we need a first mate to yell and remind us to focus?

This article was first published in Above All Else: An Appreciation of Izzy Hands, a zine dedicated to Con O'Neill's Izzy Hands from Our Flag Means Death.

#izzy hands #our flag means death #tarot #tarotblr #izzy hands zine #above all else #fandom zine #contributor spotlight

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dearweirdme · 1 year

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Why are some still in denial that it was really Tae and Jennie in the video? I was a Taekooker but when those leaked photos came out last year I realized that all those TK selca that Tae and JK has been postings, that everytime Tae mention JK nonstop on his live and the TK selca he posted on Mother's day...all those were just Tae doing fan service. And those times he mentioned anything that is gay pride related? I realized he was only queerbaiting.

Hi anon!

Your message was the politest in my inbox this morning, so I'll be taking your ask to respond to some of the comments I've gotten.

I believe it was Tae and Jennie in that video and even if not it doesn't actually matter, because it is clear that the message they want to convey is that it's them. So either way it's to show that Tae is dating Jennie (a woman) and Jennie is dating Tae (a BTS member and a man).

From your ask I deduce that you have in fact seen interactions between Jk and Tae that you thought might be something beyond friendship. You changed your mind when Jennie rumors/evidence started to show up. What do you think closeting looks like? let me tell you, it is exactly this! There are so many examples of queer celebs coming out, when they have beforehand been seen 'dating' straight (Sam Smith, Ricky Martin, Kristen Stewart and many more... just google closeted celebs). There are also many accounts of such celebs admitting that them dating straight was a lie.

Why is your reaction to Tae queercoding (which is what he does) that he must be queerbaiting? WHy isn't your reaction that he must be closeted? Are closeted celebs not allowed to queercode? Are closeted people supposed to behave according their closet? How is that fair? A person's closet is never (!!!) by their own choosing. One might decide that for whatever reason them staying closeted is safer, it is never what they truly want.

I live in a very small country, in which queer people are thankfully able to live openly. It's by no means perfect, but people feel safe enough to be open. I can easily come up with a multitude of queer national celebs. Singers, tv-hosts, actors... queer people are represented well here. How many openly queer South Korean celebs are there? Very little, especially amongst idols. Does that statistically make sense? Does SK have less queer people than other parts of the world, or is the SK society less likely to accept them and they therefore are forced to be closeted?

Accusing a long time rumored queer-coding man of queerbaiting is so harmfull. It takes so much bravery for them to be even a little bit open, for society to then blame them of using their own lgbt community for clout is harsh. Even without Jk in the picture I would still consider the possibility of Tae being queer, because of his queercoding. Some of you might think you are protecting him of 'evil taekookers', but all you might be doing is solidifying his feeling that being queer is not safe for him.

For people... 'concerned' about my mental state, not to worry. I don't write this blog because I want to "insert myself in Taekook's relationship" (whatever that might mean), neither do I want to live out my own queer identity through them (I am not queer). I write about these things because I want the world to change. If my son were to be queer I want him to be able to just be. Not discussing queerness and all things that go with it wont change anything. If all I ever do through writing my blog is make one person change their perception... than that will already be a victory.

If anyone want's to read more about closeting or queercoding, please let me know. I will gladly direct you to some articles.

#anon #and yes Tae is my absolute favorite person #I will ofcourse still love him if Taennie does somehow turns out to be real #but it won't because it isn't #just watch tae and Jk reunite publicly soon after tae returns to SK #he can't stand people not knowing he loves Jk with his whole heart #taekook #queer coding #closeting

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dee-the-red-witch · 1 year

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Trans Day of Remembrance

CW's: gun violence, and a whole lot of personal rage. It's our day of remembering those we've lost. Those taken from us too soon, of which there are far too many.

It's a day I wasn't planning to celebrate or post about at all. I haven't actually, to my knowledge, lost anyone I know in my circles of friends/family. I don't work as a freelance journalist anymore, haven't in years. I shouldn't be having to cover news, much less news like this. And then, Colorado happened last night. I won't link the story here or name the killer, and right now, we don't have identities for the victims.

And already I'm seeing the same speculations that happen every time there's one of these incidents.

That the killer was mentally ill. That he himself was closeted somehow. That there was nothing that could have been done. That these were the actions of a lone individual. None of which is true or matters. If there was no targeted campaign of hate against LGBTQ+ folk, this wouldn't have happened. If hatemongers were properly curtailed and deplatformed online, this wouldn't have happened. If we fucking did ANYTHING about gun culture in this country, this wouldn't have happened. If people were taught that you don't need to hate and kill what you fear, this wouldn't have happened. If so much of mainstream culture wasn't a toxic pile of hatred, this wouldn't have happened. If politicians that supposedly support us actually did anything other than make us an issue to swing poll numbers with, this wouldn't have happened. If we, en masse, and I mean you too, dear cis/straight reader, pressured society to actually DO A GODDAMN THING this wouldn't have happened.

But you didn't, so all we have once more is grief and rage and pain as yet more lives are taken from this community far too soon. According to the Human Rights commission, 32 people were murdered so far this year solely for being trans. Those numbers, of course, don't include last night. And those numbers always tend to run low, because of inaccuracies in reporting or deliberate attempts to cover up the fact that victim was transgender. That's just in the United States. Worldwide, the numbers are far higher. And as always, the numbers disproportionately affect trans people of color far more than any other demographic.

This should be radicalizing you. The fact that it hasn't is even more infuriating. If you're our allies, quit speculating on a killer that wanted us dead. Amplify our voices instead so that the world sees us as human and not a fearful monsters to be killed. Raise your own voices as well to help change policy, to get all of us the protections and rights we deserve.

Do me a favor today- don't give in to speculating about a brainwashed man who decided to murder multiple people and shout down those who do. I'll be posting their names following this paragraph, but here's the full article covering those who lost their lives so far this year. Go read it. Sit with it. BE UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT IT. And make changes so it doesn't happen again.

In memoriam:

Amariey Lei

Duval Princess

Cypress Ramos

Naomie Skinner

Matthew Angelo Spampinato

Paloma Vazquez

Tatiana Labelle

Kathryn "Katie" Newhouse

Kenyatta "Kesha" Webster

Miia Love Parker

Ariyanna Mitchell

Fern Feather

Ray Muscat

Nedra Sequence Morris

Chanelika Y'ella Dior Hemingway

Sasha Mason

Brazil Johnson

Shawmaynè Giselle Marie

Kitty Monroe

Martasia Richmond

Keshia Chanel Geter

Cherry Bush

Marisela Castro

Hayden Davis

Kandii Reed

Aaron Lynch

Maddie Hofmann

Dede Ricks

Mya Allen

Acey Morrison

Semaj Billingslea

Tiffany Banks

Let their memories be a blessing. And let us do better.

#trans day of remembrance

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 months

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"I am in vigorous accord with George Bernard Shaw, who once wrote that "Imprisonment as it exists to-day is a worse crime against the prisoner than any crime the prisoner commits against society." For of all the possible forms of starvation, surely none is more demoralizing than sexual starvation. If one becomes sufficiently hungry or thirsty, one naturally suffers a great deal; but usually only for a comparatively brief time. Relief is always in sight - even if it come in the desperate form of death. But to be starved for month after weary month, year after endless year, in a place where "every day is like a year, a year whose days are long," for sexual satisfaction which, in the case of a lifer, may never come, this is the secret quintessence of human misery. Is it any wonder, then, that the prisoner should seek relief in any available form? To the man dying of hunger and thirst it makes very little difference that the only available food and water are tainted. Likewise it makes little or no difference to the average prisoner that the only available means of sexual satisfaction are abnormal. It is merely a matter of satisfying as best he can the hunger which besets him. I mean a hunger not only for sexual intercourse, but a hunger for the voice, the touch, the laugh, the tears of Woman; a hunger for Woman Herself.

...

There is, to begin with, the fact that the prisoner is almost completely deprived of contact with women. Except for monthly visits, he rarely sees a woman; and he certainly does not have the chance, once in a dozen years, of obtaining sexual intercourse with a woman. This almost complete lack of the female in the prison world has a very debasing effect. Woman is, speaking generally, the civilizing, the refining, the cleansing agent of the community. Deprived of contact with her, the prisoner inevitably becomes coarsened, ill-mannered, lowered in any number of ways. But the most far-reaching effect of this absence of woman from the scheme of things is the sexual starvation from which all prisoners suffer in varying degrees of intensity.

Symptomatic of this condition is the inevitable trend toward matters of sex in the conversations of prisoners in shop and yard. No matter on what high level it begins, it invariably ends in risque anecdotes, bragging stories of sexual adventures in former days, intendedly humorous quips about sodomy, oral copulation and masturbation, in which the very quintessence of wit is taken to consist in accusations of sexual depravity. The oral copulators are variously referred to as "muzzlers", "fairies", "fags", "pansies", and the like; the passive participants in sodomy are called "punks", "gonsils", "mustard pots", or even more direct physical terms are used.

These two types of homosexuality are generally held in a species of good-humored contempt. The active participants, on the other hand, who are known as "wolves", "jockers", "daddies", etc., are generally looked upon with comparative respect, chiefly because their behavior is essentially male; and also because these "wolves" are usually rough-necks; and the tougher you are in prison the more you are held in respect by the average prisoner. The frequent recurrence of these countless quips and anecdotes based upon sexual depravity indicate to what a great extent the mind of the prisoner is obsessed with sexual matters. For men do not talk and joke so frequently or so interestedly about a particular matter unless it is very much on their minds. That sexual matters do preoccupy the minds of prisoners may perhaps best be indicated by the remarkable fact that, in twelve years of imprisonment, I think no day ever passed in which I did not listen, countless times, to jokes and conversations of this type.

A paragraph of these wisecracks would portray the state of mind of the prisoner better than a dozen pages of roundabout exposition; but even in these days of free sexual exposition there would follow an avalanche of censorship. So I can only say that when a man comes to the shop in the morning looking as if he had had a bad night, sotto-voce quips in racy terms inform him that he ought to give up masturbation.

The hunger for Woman is expressed in the most extravagant terms; her bodily parts are referred to in phrases pregnant with sadistic longing. Never, not even among the English "Tommys" during the War, have I heard the pungent four-letter words of sex used with such zest as in the prison. And when a man is seen giving a fellow convict some candy or a package of cigarettes, it is considered humor of the highest order to ask, "Is he your 'boy'?" or "You must be sleeping with him!"

This constant preoccupation with sexual matters, which is one of the inescapable results of sexual hunGer, is an important factor in the prison environment, as will be seen. When the newly admitted, constitutionally homosexual prisoner finds that he is not looked upon with the degree of loathing and suspicion with which he is looked upon in the free community, and when he realizes that here, in a world of men without women, is a fertile field for his abnormal activities, he naturally avails himself of his opportunities and thus not only satisfies his own abnormal desires, but also becomes a major factor in bringing out and strengthening the latent homosexual tendencies of his new associates. And the more constitutional or environmentally created homosexuals who come to prison, the worse it is for the sexual well-being of the other inmates; for it is infinitely easier for such men to find willing collaborators in their vices than it is for the "wolves" to seduce the otherwise normal young prisoners. These "fairies" and "gonsils", moreover, are responsible for a great deal of the ribald joking about sexual affairs among inmates. Being as they are for the most part brazenly effeminate in their actions and mannerisms, they are the never-failing butts of the jokers; and since many of them become perfect imitations of the female "gold-digger", they naturally come in for a vast amount of the badinage and wise-cracking current among pimps and whores in the outside world.

There is one other important factor which makes the prison environment so favorable to sexual depravity. This results from the fact that convicted criminals are, of all persons, the ones least likely to have exercised much control of their sexual appetites in the years before they came to prison. Years of self-indulgence certainly do not build up in the prisoner those powers of self-control and resistance which would be so valuable to him during his prison life."

- Victor F. Nelson, Prison Days and Nights. Second edition. With an introduction by Abraham Myerson, M.D. Garden City: Garden City Publishing Co., 1936. p. 143, 149-151.

[Nelson, thought he had served many terms in prison in New York and Massachusets, was particularly hostile in his writings to male-male sex and relationships in prison, and is fairly typical for the period in his sexist beliefs in women as 'civilizers' of men and that homosexuality is a form of moral and psychological perversion. In this he is actually slightly more reactionary than some other prison memorists of the period, such as Chester Himes, who acknowledge their needs and desires, recognize 'homosexuals' as not being dramatically different than themselves, and engaged in sex with other men or had prisoner friends who had.]

#words from the inside #prisoner autobiography #prison community #convict code #wolves and punks #prison days and nights #victor nelson #history of crime and punishment #reformatory graduates #american prison system #sex in prison #history of homosexuality #research quote #reading 2024 #life inside

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rhaenyras · 7 months

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The truth of the matter is most of these bogus Israeli propaganda stories would not work unless majority of Western audiences already have a deeply racist/orientalist/islamophobic view of Palestinians and the general Muslim/Arab world.

In what other world would unsubstantiated claims of mass rape and beheaded babies be taken as fact unless the people amplifying such horrendous lies look at Palestinians as implicitly evil and inherently barbaric ? Everyone wants “nuance” and “discussion of the facts” unless it’s Palestinians.

“Beheading” was deliberate choice of misinformation btw. Conjuring up images of ISIS in Syria and Iraq to justify the slaughter and occupation. Its clear as day that anyone who has the intellectual capacity of a 5th grader and above that’s what the Israeli goal is.

you're so right. racism and islamophobia are very pivotal aspects of the western world's long-standing unwavering support of israel. the mainstream narrative according to which the palestinians are muslim terrorist barbarians on a quest to destroy the symbols, lives and values of western civilization is the ever present boogie man that the u.s.-controlled mass media will conjure at will to scare europeans and americans out of their wits. racist narrow-minded ignorant white christians won't even take the time to debunk half of those lies via other independent unbiased sources. they'll simply feel too scared to hear the "enemy's" side to the story. you'll never hear a counterpoint that's gonna be equally sympathetic and intellectually honest to palestine's cause and its losses in this unbalanced polluted environment where only one side gets to manipulate and dictate the narrative. and im sorry to say that racism and islamophobia explain most of the intentionally blind and intolerant attitude of the western society in this conflict. like. think about it. even the rave thing. it's been on international headlines for days now. heads of state, celebrities and spokespeople all over the world are outraged at the idea that white christian young men and women with similar values and upbringing as ours lost their lives while they were attending something as simple as a recreational event that we consider part of our daily lives and absolutely typical for a young european kid to attend. it struck a nerve with the international community because it reminded us of ourselves, of our own kids and friends and siblings. it could even have been us. hence the disproportionate outrage. palestine's overdue retaliation after decades of unlawful occupation and apartheid suddenly got personal as soon as europeans and americans were able to relate to the israelis who tragically died at a mundane social gathering. because we have started to see ourselves as the potential victims of that one particular attack. but why don't we register the same amount of personal wrath and public outcry when palestinians are constantly killed in unspecified circumstances by the israelis? as a matter of fact, this happens way more often than the other way around, like, statistically. then why don't we feel like it's such a huge loss of life and potential? well, because those lives looked nothing like us and the mainstream prejudiced zionist islamophobic narrative did nothing to make us think otherwise or to compel us to show other ethnic groups some semblance of empathy.

#i argued with my father just this morning over these very double standards that he has bought from the media's distortion of the whole story #besides....zionism is inherently racist because it postulates the existence and relevance of ancestral races as monoliths #that do not interact or mix with each other to create new communities and social demographics #i mean...for real??? that's so anachronistic #ask #anon #anonymous #palestine

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lez-exclude-men · 1 year

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Hello. So this is a question i'm going to send to multiple radfem blogs. What would you say is a crucially important role women have in society that isn't childbirther/care taker? I've asked this on other sites and it has so far stunned everyone, and i hate the idea that my existence is only valued because i can be used as a broodmare. So i'm looking for any answers other than that. How would society crumble without women?

Uh women are people? We build and create, we're smart and resourceful.

This question is so weird like.

"a crucially important role" - what do you consider "crucially important"? Women are engineers and architects, biologists and artists, craftspeople and artisans. Women can build bridges and dams, create councils and grow food, test soil samples and track the migration of geese. We're capable of performing every crucial role in society.

"Women" - why are you asking this question singling out women? What crucially important role do MEN play in society that can't be done by a woman? Why do we as women need to justify our existence?

"in society" - what is your definition of society? Because, at least in my interpretation of your question, you're conflating advanced modern society with evolutionary "purpose".

You say you hate the idea that your existence is only valued because you can be used as a broodmare. Here's my suggestion: get a gun, then go shoot whoever told you that. Then pursue whichever career or hobby interest you, travel, taste new foods, talk to different people, explore new areas. Your purpose in life is what you want it to be. We have approximately 60-80 years to spend on this earth. Breathe. Drink water. Touch grass. Plant grass. Plant different grass. Maybe plant some flowers. Watch the bees and butterflies pollinate them. Hear the thunder and witness the lightning as a storm waters the grass. Feel the rain on your skin. Marvel in the simple wonders of the world, and take pride in knowing you helped something flourish. Or don't. Do something else, something that has meaning to you, something that inspires you, something that makes you laugh, makes you cry, teaches you something. Ride a horse, write a letter, draft plans for an art museum (ik I've used several engineering examples, I'm just literally in an architectural engineering studio keeping my best friend company while she figures out how to put air ducts in an art museum. Lol)

Society is one of those words that means something slightly different to almost everybody. According to Google one definition is "the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community". I like this one. People just living together, doing things together. You are people, I am people. The amount of structure and order in how we live together can vary, but what matters is that we're together. We love each other, hate each other, feel ambivalent about each other. But we're all here, at the same time. Isn't that marvelous?

Which brings me to how you mentioned the "caretaker" role. Humans are social creatures, we thrive in taking care of each other. I think it is stupid to consider this a gendered thing. Everyone interacts with someone, everyone can take care of someone. Many radfems get angry because men to take care of only other men, while women tend to take care of everyone. And sometimes we don't want men to take care of other men because we think some men don't deserve it. We struggle with how society is currently structured, forcing women into a lower class. Most radfems I know combat this in their daily life by uplifting other women, making sure their needs are met. We want to see each other succeed and be healthy and enjoying life. But ultimately, when there are people existing together, no matter if they're men or women, there will be society, and someone will be taking care of someone else. Men are caretakers too. Humans are caretakers, because that's what being a social creature is.

On that note, what does your community directly around you need? What struggles and issues are your neighbors facing? If you're struggling for purpose, this is another good place to start. How can you make life better not just for yourself, but for your neighbors too? Talk to people outside of the internet, get to know their struggles and passions, needs and wants. Share your own. Find out what matters to you and your neighbors, and what you can do towards that goal or issue.

"How would society crumble without women?" How would society crumble without men? Would society crumble without men? Does it matter?

We can spend hours coming up with imaginary situations and philosophizing. And perhaps there is some value in that. But right now, my best friend wants my opinion on which floorplan incorporates air ducts in the most tasteful way without disrupting the utility of the museum's main room. So I'm going to go participate in society by offering her my opinion, and I hope you find some purpose, however big or small, in your part of society as well.

#lezpost #radfem #answered #ask #anon #feminism

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kgeluap · 4 months

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What an episode within an episode.

I saw the different shades of his, even creating a split of an identity named Joey, who was heartless, self inflicting, damaging, where it seems like people were out to have him sexually as a sex exchange of some sort where even the Feds were involved, suicidal, reckless, where my mind went for real, a long long episode of this. He would go to a post every weekend, one was a house, where cocaine would be, and somehow he was the “anchor”, never heard this word in my life. Maybe someone who keeps the drug dealers protected? He has no ties to the drugs but keeping it safe to sell in my opinion. Each week Joey would heard a group of people who were selling to sell, in this episode. Like it was crazy to believe that men and women made it a living, selling drugs and living a lavish life style. This was a constant episode I would experiences every end of the week and I still have no clue why someone like Joey was involved in it. Get this, I’m living this separate life here in the Philippines doing my own thing and at the same time I’m sucked into this drama in the background. Joey was a cheater, a swinger, hurting everyone it loved, disappointing his father, creating a world of chaos for his mother, his younger brother would call him a loser and hated his sister. Joey hated his life and seemed like he was living his life with an audience watching him and I would be this person Joey would hurt the most, and nothing I could do would change how hurt he was as he ruin his life. For months, I was entangled in this with some shine light of stillness where I was married and I was involved in his investments and he was involved in my business, in writing, in posting on social media, my WordPress was being read by a secret society it was intense, I was one of the first rfid humans, and I was working a long side Paris for the Paris Accord to keep peace and harmony and diversity in the for front, fighting evil human satanists who would put a spell on those who loved people of color in power to hurt people of color in power, all while letting a small group in on what was happening, like I was someone who was famous and none of it would be real unless I was married to Jesse. What a trip, reflecting on this. These was a whole team, cheering me on, working like I was a leader and a beckon for an enterprises in global communication of health and safety, some black mirror shit. There is a whole team out there who have analyze me from head to toe, socially, politically and scientists in medicine calculating each bit I took, medication I comsumed, who would remotely test my body fit and constantly trying to train me like an astronaut. Don’t get me started, astonauts were involved in my rfid human “trial” I guess and the CIA, would know my every move since they have been watching me and made perdictions of my whole life. I mean, this is why I thought I was highly profiled because someone like Jesse, would do something like this and be my paired human partner in rfid who was “meta man” in Hollywood.

It didn’t stop there, the KKK, was also involved, and the white Supremist in power wanted to be involved and even envied me with the amount of power I had, seeing people work for this. I felt officially official underground because nothing caught up to me in the end, not even my paired partner, which was the height of the chaos causing all of this to be sadistic when he started reporting all my emails and texted for a restraining order against me which got into the hand of sorcerers who hated me, because Jesse, hated me after all of this and they took matters into their own racists hands and annialated me. It felt like my string of light was in the hands of Sarah, and she was pulling it out of my body, causing me to think ways to commit suicide. Like jumping from the Ledge of a 14 foot building, opening the door of a running car and jumping out, doing something for me to instantly die without having a trace that she was the one causing it. I am so glad I overcome her evil sorcerery. And I am afraid that those moments like that would not be the only moments and I for see myself feeling that again in the upcoming future. This was already my fourth time experiencing this. All because Jesse wanted time with me and I have yet to see him in person and she is jealous that I am a threat to her love story with Jesse, who excliames to me “I hate my life”.

I’m here reflecting because I was so out of body for months until now. And I’m like, ummmmmmmmm, wow, glad I’m okay. And woah, what is my life. And ok, that was satanic and sadistic, Jesse is cursed to be in a marriage with Sarah, and Sarah is out there cursing me after Jesse found refuge in being with me.

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