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inkskinned · 2 years

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i. about 2 weeks ago, i was told there's a good chance that in 5 or so years, i'll need a wheelchair.

ii. okay. i loved harry potter as a kid. i have a hypothesis about this to be honest - why people still kind of like it. it's that she got very lucky. she managed to make a cross-generational hit. it was something shared for both parents and kids. it was right at the start of a huge cultural shift from pre to post-internet. i genuinely think many people were just seeking community; not her writing. it was a nice shorthand to create connection. which is a long way of saying - she didn't build this legacy, we built it for her. she got lucky, just once. that's all.

iii. to be real with you, i still struggle with identifying as someone with a disability, which is wild, especially given the ways my life has changed. i always come up against internalized ableism and shame - convinced even right now that i'm faking it for attention. i passed out in a grocery store recently. i hit my head on the shelves while i went down.

iv. he raises his eyebrows while he sends me a look. her most recent new book has POTS featured in it. okay, i say. i already don't like where this is going. we both take another bite of ramen. it is a trait of the villain, he says. we both roll our eyes about it.

v. so one of the things about being nonbinary but previously super into harry potter is that i super hate jk rowling. but it is also not good for my mental health to regret any form of joy i engaged with as a kid. i can't punish my young self for being so into the books - it was a passion, and it was how i made most of my friends. everyone knew about it. i felt like everyone had my same joy, my same fixation. as a "weird kid", this sense of belonging resonated with me so loudly that i would have done anything to protect it.

vi. as a present, my parents once took me out of school to go see the second movie. it is an incredibly precious memory: my mom straight-up lying about a dentist appointment. us snickering and sneaking into the weekday matinee. within seven years of this experience, the internet would be a necessity to get my homework finished. the world had permanently changed. harry potter was a relic, a way any of us could hold onto something of the analog.

vii. by sheer luck, the year that i started figuring out the whole gender fluid thing was also the first year people started to point out that she might have some internalized biases. i remember tumblr before that; how often her name was treated as godhood. how harry potter was kind of a word synonymous for "nerdy but cool." i would walk out of that year tasting he/him and they/them; she would walk out snarling and snapping about it.

viii. when i teach older kids creative writing, i usually tell them - so, she did change the face of young adult fiction, there's no denying that. she had a lot more opportunities than many of us will - there were more publishing houses, less push for "virally" popular content creators. but beyond reading another book, we need to write more books. we need to uplift the voices of those who remain unrepresented. we need to push for an exposure to the bigotry baked into the publishing system. and i promise you: you can write better than she ever did. nothing she did was what was magical - it was the way that the community responded to it.

ix. i get home from ramen. three other people have screenshotted the POTS thing and sent it to me. can you fucking believe we're still hearing this shit from her when it's almost twenty-fucking-twenty-three. the villain is notably also popular on tumblr. i just think that's funny. this woman is a billionaire and she's mad that she can't control the opinions of some people on a dying blue site that makes no money. lady, and i mean this - get a fucking life.

x. i am sorry to the kid i was. maybe the kid you were too. none of us deserved to see something like this ruined. that thing used to be precious to me. and now - all those good times; measured into dust.

/// 9.6.2022 // FUCKING AGAIN, JK? Are you fucking kidding me?

#witches and wizards #kids need to be able to play games without knowing the extended universe #playing was easy #i knew i wasn't gonna be able to explain chronicles of christomancy #but we could pick up a stick and run around #nd say we were magic that would be enough backstory #and i think the last time i felt that sense of community #was the summer of pokemon go #it's about cross-generational connectivity bro #yes there are insular communtities but EVERYONE had fucking read harry potter #which is me saying - i think maybe people don't miss HER or the ACTUAL BOOK tbh #they miss... feeling connected #think about how so many people felt so weirdly ashamed and lost after Game of Thrones ended -#they did SUCH a bad job that the entire community just... vanished.#where beforehand people would have GoT weddings #we are just animals who love stories and love feeling like we speak the same language #btw i am not on twitter so i hadn't seen some of the shit she was doing #and then when i was 19 she published the ''american school'' hogwarts stuff #and was reading it casually bc again a huge nerd #and in it shes like ''the british taught the natives their more civilized magics''#and that was like..................... oh okay. okay. so.....

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 2 months

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ATSV Fun Fact!! - Mumbattan Cultural Details

Gayatri & Inspector Singh follow the Sikh Religion

Have you ever heard of Punjabi Sikhs?

If you don't know - Sikhism is a religion that originates in northern India, specifically Punjab.

The turban Gayatri's father wears - along with his last name 'Singh' implies that her father is most likely a Punjabi Sikh.

I notice this the first time watching ATSV and was like 'wow that's so cool :)'

It only hit me today that 'Oh wait I don't think a lot of people know about this very-specific, rarely-mentioned religion maybe i should say something,'

And because I LOVE yelling about world culture, LET'S GO!!!

[a SHORT essay where I explain the basics of Sikhism, a religion built on equality and justice. And details in The Singhs design, and exactly why Sikh Representation matters]

So What's Sikhism about?

Often mistaken for Muslims - Sikhs are actually a non-Abrahamic religion, with 20 million followers worldwide.

But even with so many visible practicing members, most people know very very little about this beautiful religion!

Sikhs believe in equality and unity - and defending the oppressed. Their book of faith, The Guru Granth Sahib Ji, is called 'Guru' for a reason - Sikhs see the book as not just a code of conduct, but as a living, breathing teacher for every practicioner;

From Wikipedia on Guru Granth Sahib: Sikhs since then [1708] have accepted the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred scripture, as their eternal-living guru, as the embodiment of the ten Sikh Gurus, the highest religious and spiritual guide for Sikhs. It plays a central role in guiding the Sikh's way of life.

The Guru Granth Sahib is the spiritual leader of Sikhism, and it's treated as such.

That's why in Gurdwaras - their place of worship - it's treated as such, being clothed and held in ornate structure, constantly fanned throughout it's readings (the fan you can see in the left picture).

They believe that by following the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, they can cultivate compassion, peace, and harmony in their communities, while diminishing 'Mara' - concepts like hatred or violence.

Sikhs believe that every Sikh should revere themselves as champions of unity. And because of this many Sikhs have the same last name -

Kaur for women (Meaning Princess) and Singh for men (Meaning Lion).

Having the same last name also does away with the Indian caste system, making it another point of equality.

In ATSV Gayatri last name is Singh. However from my understanding, her name would most likely be Gayatri Kaur in reality.

I think they kept her last name as Singh as a deliberate choice to keep her initials as GS, like Gwen Stacy.

So is Gayatri Sikh?

Maybe - most likely.

But we can't be sure. Mainly because of her hair.

Gayatri has a short bob haircut, and while that might not seem like it matters, it does!

In Sikhism there are the '5K's - different aspects Sikhs wear to show their faith.

Notice the first one?

'Kesh' is the practice of leaving ones hair completely uncut. That's why you may see a lot of Sikh men with long, long beards!

And hence, the large turbans.

It's done as respect for God's creation - leaving it unaltered.

[Fun Fact! - Rastafarians, a Jamaican religion, also don't cut their hair for this reason. Think Bob Marley. Rastas call God - Jah]

So, Gayatri having short hair means she doesn't keep Kesh.

However, Sikh is a super accepting and open religion, and it's main focus is on acceptance of difference, not conformity - so she could entirely follow the faith without doing all of any of the 5Ks.

Also, if you're curious about the steel sword K - Kirpan, yes that's a thing!

Sikhs of all genders are encouraged to carry a small ceremonial blade with them.

Instead it's a symbol of the commitment to fighting for what's right - and defending those who cannot defend themselves.

A Kirpan can ONLY be used to defend the life of yourself or others, which is incredibly rare.

Why is this all so rad, cool, and important?

If you haven't noticed by now, Sikhism is a religion driven by justice. Not just in theory, but in really life as well.

That's why you may see many Sikh police officers and politicians, even here in the West. Most of them wearing the emblem on their turbans.

In fact, Canada has SO MANY Sikh politicians, that in 2019 they elected 18 of them.

For centuries Sikhs have been dedicated to justice, and developing systems of support, whether that be political involvement or feeding those in need.

The biggest Gurdwara (a place of Sikh worship) The Golden Temple feeds over 100,000 people A DAY.

For FREE.

It's a practice called Langar. A communal meal anyone can enjoy. And of course, Langar food is vegetarian.

Making Inspector Singh a Sikh - and showing him saving people and being warm to his daughter on screen is great representation for a community so often overlooked! Despite the fact they are over 20 million practicing Sikhs.

It's a great detail for Indian and Punjabi representation in specific. It accurate shows their beliefs and commitment towards helping others, no matter the cost.

And from what we can tell, this choice came later in development. We know this because ALL of his concept art shows him with a turban, not keeping Kesh.

It seems like someone later on down the line said 'Wait if his name is Singh I think he's Sikh and if he's Sikh then we're gonna have to redesign him and make that obvious oops'.

That, dear audience, is why you always have an Anthropologist in the writing room. Or some amateur anthropologist like me :)

-------------

I hope you enjoyed reading this, I really enjoyed writing it!! Sikhism is one of my favorite religions and if you have never heard anything from the Guru Granth Sahib I HIGHLY recommend it, it's very optimistic and compassionate. Sikhnet(.)com is also a great resource!

I have no idea if this will pique anyone's interest, but I hardly ever see Sikhs reflected in media and I know many many people may confuse them with Muslim, especially since many women Sikhs keep kesh and cover their hair as well.

But if you ever wanted to know the difference, here it is! If you read this far, thank you SO MUCH. And if you're a Sikh and reading this, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

As usual, here's a photo of Hobie for your travels.

BYE.

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gay-jesus-probably · 11 months

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Seeing as the Gerudo turned on Ganon, he might not have been that much better of a ruler.

First of all, we literally have no idea, because the only ancient Gerudo that we actually get to interact with is Ganondorf himself, and he has nothing to say about his own people. The ancient Gerudo sage doesn't count btw, she doesn't have a name, we never even see her face, and she has literally nothing to say except repeating the exact same dialogue as the sages for the other races. The narrative does not treat the ancient sages as people; they are four completely interchangable weapons that are owned by the royal family.

And secondly, I don't care how Ganon ruled them; the Gerudo only get one man every century, if their king sucks, they've obviously got their own system of government to fall back on. I have no idea what kind of authority the sages had among their own people, but honestly I'd say if the four of them were in charge of their respective people, then they were just puppet rulers appointed by Rauru, given that all four of them happily agreed that to sell their entire race into servitude the second Zelda asked them. Say what you will about Ganondorf, but I fucking know that if he was told the Gerudo people existed for the sole purpose of serving the glory of Hyrule, he'd drop kick Zelda into the fucking sun.

And don't get me started on the implications of the cultural differences we see between the independent Gerudo and the annexed Gerudo. The background Gerudo characters all have their own models, and we can clearly see that the ones siding with Ganon have their own unique looks - for example, the amazing lady with the mohawk that summons the molduga swarm in that one flashback. And men are never mentioned in these flashbacks at all, which implies that the Gerudo genuinely didn't care about settling down. Ganon even speaks derisively about marriage, implying that it's very rare for Gerudo women to make serious romantic commitments with men. It implies that their culture is more along the same line as their portrayal in OOT - they are a closed culture. Men trying to force their way into their areas are arrested, and mocked for being entitled dumbasses. Outsiders are only welcome if they can prove that they respect the Gerudo as people, and aren't just there to try and pick up chicks. It's never outright said, but OOT also makes it pretty clear that the Gerudo women just aren't interested in marrying outsiders - close relationships occur with other Gerudo, Hylian men are only considered useful for making babies.

Meanwhile the Gerudo we see serving Hyrule are all trying to measure up to Hylian beauty standards, and appeal to their men. Their one goal in life is to meet a man and get married. Men are welcome in their lands, and only kept out of the town itself... and even then, there's a small army of guys trying to force their way into the town anyways, which is brushed off as just haha, boys will be boys. No men allowed isn't even about independence, it's just a silly romantic tradition.

Of course this is just a fictional culture in a game world, but it's still really fucking uncomfortable that the 'evil' Gerudo are the ones that have independence, both politically and socially, and display a unique culture that refuses to tolerate disrespect from outsiders. Meanwhile the 'good' Gerudo are the ones that canonically exist to serve a kingdom where 95% of the population is light skinned (even setting aside the unfortunate implications, just saying one race exists to serve a different one is super fucked up), they have classes on how to be more appealing to Hylian's, and their entire social structure is built around finding a Hylian man to marry, making them all inherently dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Even their biggest value of 'women only' is treated as a joke; men trying to trespass in BOTW are just shoved back out the door, letting them keep trying all day if they want. The crowds of men plotting to force their way in are laughed off as a joke. Nobody cares that there's a guy running laps around their city walls and trying to trick women into being alone with him. I mean for fucks sake, in TOTK we find that the creepy guy trying to lure women away has taken advantage of a massive disaster to get into the town, and he's still there once things return to normal. You can't kick him out, or alert anyone to his presence. And the Gerudo just tolerate Hylians blatantly ignoring their boundaries. For fucks sake, TOTK even reveals that the seven legendary heroines they've been revering the whole time were actually completely useless and unable to achieve anything... because they needed the eighth hero, a Hylian man to teach them basic tactics and do all the heavy lifting.

TOTK does not respect the Gerudo people in the slightest. It doesn't respect anyone who isn't Hylian or Zonai.

...This got a little off track, but the point I'm trying to make is, no, I don't consider the Gerudo turning on Ganon to mean anything. The entire game does not feel like the real story of what happened, it feels like the propaganda version of history meant to make Hyrule look as good as possible. I genuinely cannot believe that we're being told the real story about the Imprisoning War, because none of it feels real, and we don't get to know any details that might have made Hyrule look even slightly imperfect. We're told that Ganondorf is evil because he hates Hyrule, and he hates Hyrule because he's evil. The Gerudo people followed Ganondorf and saw him as a hero of their people, then suddenly he was their worst enemy. Hyrule is a perfect kingdom that has strong, equal alliances with the other races, but also all of the non-Hylian races exist for the sole purpose of serving Hyrule, and their leaders are expected to swear eternal loyalty and submission to the Hylian royal family. King Rauru and Queen Sonia united all of the races in peace and equality, which is why they're sitting on the world's supply of magical nuclear missiles, and every member of the Hylian royal family is allowed to walk around wearing them as cute accessories, but everyone else only gets them at the last second, and they all need to outright swear to only use that power to benefit Rauru and his descendants.

There's just so many fucked up contradictions, and so many hints of something more nuanced going on... but the story refuses to acknowledge any of it, and just keeps aggressively pushing the narrative that Hyrule is the ultimate good and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I don't even believe that Ganon was a bad king honestly; we never hear why his people stopped following him. We also never even see if the Gerudo people turned on him at all; all we know is the ancient Gerudo sage wanted him dead, and given that she also happily sold her people into slavery, she's not exactly the most trustworthy source of information. All we know is that Ganondorf was a hero to his people, only one of his citizens is ever shown having an issue with him (and her motives are never explained), and then he lost the war and was sealed away, leaving his people open to be conquered by Zelda and annexed into Hyrule. By the time we see any Gerudo actually opposing Ganon (apart from the ancient sage), it's been ten thousand years since the war, and all anyone knows is the Hylian version of the story.

#tears of the kingdom spoilers #tears of the kingdom #ganondorf #the secret bonus reason for me arguing about this so much is that it's interesting #on a surface reading TOTK is a really boring story. nothing changes nobody learns anything there's no nuance #the game explains the entire story to us in the opening cutscene. idk why they bothered with the rest of the game #you could walk down those stairs in the intro and kill ganon immediately and it'd be pretty much the exact same story #if i take the game at face value then there's literally nothing to talk about. i just straight up do not care.#but analyzing all the fucked up implications nintendo accidentally included? now thats a story to talk about #i dont think ganondorf is secretly a really nice guy. i think he's more interesting if he's actually a complete bastard #but he's a complete bastard that has a point and if the game wont acknowledge that then i will #sure the people he's fighting against seem nice. but they're not actually good people #i mean ffs zelda certainly doesnt seem concerned that she last saw link taking a fatal blow for her then jumping into a bottomless pit #she doesn't even consider that he might be dead. or just unable/unwilling to fight after being horrifically wounded #at least BOTW had the decency to ask Link if he was willing to risk his life to fight ganon

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dduane · 8 months

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Re: Magic systems

kosmonaunt asked:

I have the weird hyper-fixation of wanting to know all their is about The Speech and just how everything works!! I love learning about how power systems work, and it helps since I’m trying to develop my own. I’m always stuck on soft or hard magic systems. Since I don’t know all there is to really know about my system. Do you have tips on crafting magic systems? How do you feel about someone being inspired by pieces of your system?

Inspiration is fine! What you want to make sure you do with whatever inspires you, though, is to work hard to make your own take on it different from or better than what you borrowed. Around here we refer to this as "the magpie principle:" if you're going to pick up and play with/make off with a bright and shiny idea, you need to be working to produce something even brighter and shinier as your part of the "exchange". Whether or not you succeed at this (or can succeed), either sometimes or never at all, isn't the point. The point is to always be trying.

As regards building magic systems: there were three different ones in the foreground or background of my first novel alone—all of them with features that at this end of time I can recognize as being inspired by elements of magic systems in other writers' work. But by the time I'd more fully developed them, each had become something unique. The system I'm probably better known for—the system based on the wizardly Speech and its use—sprang more or less automatically from the increasingly complex answers to the question, "What if there was a manual that could tell you the truth about/the secrets of what makes the world go?". (Because once you answer one question, another pops up. "Where did that manual come from? What're you supposed to do with it? What's wizardry for?" Etc., etc.) I've spent the last few decades, on and off, answering that question in ways that (intentionally) mirror the main characters' exploration of the art of wizardry, and what it means to engage in the business of errantry in a world that mostly thinks wizards are a fairy tale.

Before getting into describing my own approach to building a system, I needed to take a little time to look around and make sure I knew what you meant when you mentioned hard and soft magic. My best guess is that you're referring to what a lot of people are calling "Sanderson's Three Laws of Magic" (fairly enough, as Brandon calls them that himself). I had a look, and have come to the conclusion that they're more general guidelines than laws... as in each of his three essays on the subject, Brandon no sooner names his basic laws/principles than he starts punching holes through them to make room for systems that don't follow them rigidly. (And frankly I find this kind of endearing.)

With his first one, in particular, I have no quarrel at all: the concept that in one kind of magic, which for his purposes he defines as the "hard" kind, rules are extremely important. (Which is why I'm kind of horrified that he apparently got dogpiled about this take on a Worldcon panel, because to me it seems so intuitive. Some of the best fantasy storytellers I know, like this one, would agree with him.) Then later he gets on to the equally valid ideas that limitations on magic are really important, and that culturally interconnecting multiple systems is useful; and here too we're in agreement. This is reassuring to me, considering that I built my first four systems—all of which feature approaches resting on similar concepts—while Sanderson was between four and six years old. :)

People using Sanderson's Laws will look at the three systems in the Middle Kingdoms books and classify them as varying sorts of relatively hard magic, with their power rooted in two or maybe three different sources. (The blue Fire is a gift of the Divine, nearly lost since ancient times and much damaged, but now slowly being recovered: sorcery is a language-based art in which no one's terribly sure where its power comes from: and the so-called "royal magics" probably started out as a blood sorcery that over centuries was shifted toward very specific uses by the power of the demigod-descendants who employed it.)

The Young Wizards novels, though, feature an extremely hard magic deeply rooted in science and (more or less under the hood) very, very rules-intensive... while its power relies on correct use of the language used to create the Universe, and the active cooperation of the Powers still busy about that work. And this is the reason why, though people are going to naturally be curious about the Speech itself, no one's going to hear very much from me about its actual words.

This is because the Speech is canonically described as so powerful that its use is something you can feel in your body and mind (and theoretically your spirit): bone-shaking, life-changing, unmistakable. And there's no way that made-up words on the page can realistically be expected to evoke physical sensations like that in the reader... or like the sense of the universe going silent around you, leaning in to listen, as you speak your spell. The careful writer knows that it's unwise to attempt to produce responses in the reader that, when they fail, will only emphasize how that thing is not happening, and stands a good chance of shattering the illusion one’s trying to weave.

So a Speech-word gets dropped here and a phrase there, but no one's ever going to get enough of it out of me to try to build a spell. Readers are better at doing that work for themselves in their own heads, out of hints and whispers. Over ten books and their interstitial material, there are plenty of those scattered through the text: not to mention the most basic principles of wizardry, which are laid out before the end of the first chapter of the first book in the series. So I'll leave you to get on with deducing what you can from canon.

Meanwhile, if I was about to build a new system, I'd look at my main characters—in the setting of their home cultures—and ask myself for answers to these questions:

What do they want more than anything?

Why can't they have it?

What kind of power will help them get it?

When they do eventually get within reach of the power / the desired thing... what will its achievement cost them?

And will they pay the price?

...Because the payment of such prices is where you find out what your heroes are worth. (Or aren't.) The above arc succinctly describes, in broad strokes, both The Door into Fire and So You Want To Be A Wizard, and a good number of the books that follow them. (Because why abandon what works, or try to fix what's not broken?) :)

With answers to the questions above you can start feeling your way toward what you need—always looking closely at the cultures your characters spring from, and how those cultures will shape their response to the magic they seek. (Or that finds them.) Maybe it's no surprise that the preferred arc structure of a writer who was a psychiatric nurse will be deeply involved with questions of motivation: because motivation is at the heart of almost all human behavior. Find the motivation and you find the character's heart—and, often enough, what kind of magic they need to make their desire and intention overflow into triumph.

...There are quite a few "How to design your magic system" pages out there. You might glance at these to see if there's anything useful in them for you:

How To Build An Amazing Magic System For Your Fantasy Novel

How To Create A Magic System In Six Simple Steps

Building Your Magic System: A Full Recipe

How To Create A Rational Magic System

However, my favorite is the "So You Want To Write A Functional Magic System" page at TV Tropes, which is nicely arranged yet also completely nonprescriptive—a pick-'n'-mix jar of prompts, things other writers have done that've worked, and generally useful ideas. (And try not to vanish too far down the many interconnected rabbitholes...) :)

Now get out there, build the world, and make the magic(s).

#magic systems #building magic #magic #writing advice #fantasy

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blackautmedia · 9 months

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The Problem with the Gerudo | Orientalism in Legend of Zelda

EDIT: Because I made an updated and more in-depth version of this now that Tears of the Kingdom has been out longer, I've posted the updated link here in place of the original.

With the release of Tears of the Kingdom, we have to have this discussion again. The desert vai outfit was racist, not that the game removed it to address that, but the Gerudo are built entirely on orientalist tropes that go beyond just the outfit. We also talk about orientalism as shown in works like Aladdin and Ducktales.

Some Excerpts:

I'm not saying to abandon the idea of queering Link entirely, but only to understand that Legend of Zelda relies very heavily on a number of euro-fantasy tropes that rely on presenting numerous non-white people as exotic playthings and to consider the position that puts queer non-white folks in.

The entire scene of Link getting the Vai outfit and questioning the man giving it to him is built on transphobia.

This isn't queer expression, it's racial exoticism. They're not imagined as people with a society that makes sense, everything around them being so fixated on finding men and having Link and other white guys infiltrating their space.

Orientalism at its core is an imagined vision of real oppressed people by a dominant group in a way that excludes them from their own portrayal and reinforces real-world systemic oppression.

Entire fictional groups in Zelda such as the Rito, Twili, Zonai, Gorons, and Deku Scrubs to name a few incorporate racial coding in addition to the Gerudo. That recontextualizes how we look at say how the Deku are portrayed in Majora's Mask where they're jungle dwelling savages boiling this monkey alive because they think he kidnapped their princess. This is where racial coding comes into play because Nintendo is using a racial trope commonly used to depict Black and several native indigenous people as barbaric.

The Gerudo in Ocarina of Time are depicted as a race of desert-dwelling thieves. You're formally introduced gameplay wise when you have to sneak around their hideout and free these men who were seduced by what the game presents to us as dangerous but irresistible women. Despite being a group of almost entirely women, their society is patriarchal as the in-game lore states the lone man born every century is destined to be their leader. The Gerudo also go out into Hyrule to go find boyfriends.

Ocarina of Time is one of the earliest Zelda games to portray a human or human-like version of Ganon, the man of the desert he's repeatedly called, but they use racial coding with his human counterpart and make him an Arab man with some other cultures mashed in, which they also conflated with Islam to characterize him as evil and dangerous.

Ocarina of Time goes a step further as the recurring symbol of the Gerudo shown here is an altered version as seen on the mirror shield obtained in the spirit temple. The original symbol is a crescent moon and star very closely resembling the symbol of Islam. A common orientalist trope that does this is the conflation of Arabs with the religious faith of Islam. This was changed alongside prayer chanting used in music for the fire temple on some N64 cartridges and subsequent ports and the DS remake of Ocarina of Time.

The fact that Nintendo is a Japanese company doesn't magically make them immune to these issues, especially because 1) orientalism doesn't only encompass Asian people and 2) Even the term "Asian" encompasses countless subcommunities each with very distinct histories.

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hyp-fixator · 22 days

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Misc. Headcannons as a little treat and also cause I'm bored. (Most are region based!)

Hyperlaser tends to like writing as a coping mechanism. He keeps everything in a single storyline in a book that will forever stay a work in progress. ^ All it is is him putting his life into a different perspective. Most of the time I feel like the book would be pretty boring, just a day after day after day kind of thing. Noticing the little patterns around him, noting down what he eats, how he rested, etc.

All demon horns, if expressing strong emotions, can emit sparks and/or electric currents in the direction of growth. These sparks are harmless and are more of a pulse of light if anything. ^ if strong emotions are felt and the demon has injured/broken horns, the sparks/electricity can escape through the injury, and depending on the severity can cause a sparkshower. ^ these sparks also crackle like static electricity, while the glowing pulse going up the horn(s) is a faint hum. (This is partially inspired by horns glowing when the Phighters phinishers are ready, though when that happens it's kinda like when you go into a rage in dnd. A bunch of built up power erupts and the horns pulse so fast they look like they're glowing)

And now the faction headcannons!

BlackRock is a tourist attraction most of the time! With the mountains and valleys, it tends to feel a lot like Banff National Park in Canada. ^ tons of expensive as hell food, shops, ect all meant to trap and drown people.

Blackrocks economy is the worst out of all the factions. Many people have to eat only a few times a week, and when they do, it almost always tastes like gasoline and/or dirt. Of course, with the tourist traps, no one knows unless they move there how bad the cuisine is. They probably steal recipies from neighboring factions.

All of Blackrocks labs are built into the largest mountains, the only way in and out being the massive steel doors.

BlackRock was of course named after the mountains in the region, which are made out of a slick black rock. The most common tourist souvenir is a piece of this rock from the mountains.

there's of course the more mountainous places in BlackRock, but most of the population resides in the center of the faction which is protected by the mountains surrounding the massive city like a bowl. ^ this city resembles downtown japan and New York times square, but x100 more busy and advanced in their technology.

this city tends to only be visited by the tourists who are dead set on going, as it's not very tourist friendly with its inhabitants and the stores are more than expensive. Their cornerstores arent even that good either.

BlackRock doesnt celebrate anything, and is more secluded when it comes to their culture.

At playgrounds center is just an urban town, always resembling one of those classic movies based in the 1970's/80's. ^ the outskirts of Playground is a massive and dense forest system, where plenty of secrets are held. Most of them are hideouts though.

Playground is a heavily community based faction, and it doesnt have many big cities. The capital is one of the only cities, and even then many still prefer the towns and neighborhoods scattered across the faction.

There's also a few large lakes around the faction, so beach culture is a fairly big staple.

Playground doesn't usually celebrate a lot of things as a whole faction, and more rather everyone has massive parties and celebrates with their own family and friends. Party-hopping happens quite a bit because of this

The thieves den is the second most visited faction, and the calmest of them all. A permenant fog covers the ground, giving it an almost eerie feel, though it fluctuates with the weather.

Community is also a fairly big staple, though it's more in business then personal connections. ^ there is plenty of farmland and tons of street markets open almost all the time.

The Thieves den, without much competition, easily has the best cuisine out of all the factions with all the freshly grown and harvested ingredients, along with talented chefs.

The capital of thieves would most likely look a lot like those old chinese towns, but I wouldnt be suprised if theres a bunch of Korean inspiration in there as well.

Festivities are not very common, but when they do happen, Theives den goes all out with some of the most light and decoration crazy celebrations. Most times the capital holds it, and almost always it ends up being the whole city decked out to celebrate.

The theives den also has plenty of bars and pubs/hotels scattered around the faction, and they all reside fairly close to each other.

The lost temple is the driest faction of the four, residing in small towns around a massive desert, usually based around water pools and oasis.

Most of the buildings are made of sandstone and chiseled with delicate details.

Of course the church of the true eye resides somewhere in the capital, most likely hiding behind a different name.

Lost temple is probably the most menacing faction specifically for how uneasy the air around it is. Naturally theres some very nice and safe places and experiences to go to, but if you take a wrong turn it's very easy to end up in the wrong side of town.

markets are also fairly common, every other street has at least a few stalls up daily.

the more populated areas are definitely a little more "yee haw cowboy" esque, having taller buildings and such.

#phighting #phighting!#phighting roblox #phighting headcanons #phighting headcannons #hyperlazer phighting #phighting hyperlaser #hyperlaser #hyperlaser phighting #lost temple #Theives den #blackrock #playground

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t-top-apologist · 7 months

Text

At the end of the day the average civilian wishes to be catered to like an old money steel baron or perhaps one of those chaps from Downton Abbey. The entirety of modern society has come together to enable this, mass-producing cheap facsimiles of fortunes that should rightly either be built on child labor or perhaps serfdom.

Their lawns, taking up what could otherwise be used to grow crops or serve as "outdoor garage space," exist to ape the wide ranging estates meant for the nobility to chase down a fox while adorned in silly jackets. Their houses sport columns and stupid windows meant to imitate three different classical artforms at the same time because of something called "economies of scale." They even have male-centric social clubs meant for parlour games, discussing sports, and dining with friends, in this case franchised out under such names as "Buffalo Wild Wings."

This aping of the upper class continues to the hire of "artisans" to do relatively simple work deemed too complicated to warrant the time of the average citizen. It's not that the jobs are too taxing for your average person, but rather that the market has crystallized around the desire to live like budget royalty. Therefore they take their wafer-thin computers to artisans (now more commonly called "experts" or "Apple geniuses") for repair and have democratized the position of carriagemen to 22 year old dealership lube techs named Ryan who will turn a 15 minute job into a 30 minute endeavor thanks to frequent vape breaks and a brief brush with what the industry refers to as "a misplaced drain bolt."

The mid-40s project manager and mother of 3 is no less competent when changing oil than her grandfather before her who knew what "Valve Lash" is, but what separates the two is a series of wars in the 1900s that required an entire generation of men to become very familiar with operating and repairing machines better than the Germans and Japanese (an exercise that Chrysler would later abandon in favor of the phrase "if you can't beat em, join em").

This conflict ended with a surge of able-bodied men finding themselves returning to their project management jobs (like their granddaughters after them) but armed with captured German weapons and a comprehensive understanding of tubochargers. Just as a line can be drawn from troop drawdowns to political violence, there's a distinct correlations between GIs returning home and the violence with which Ford Flathead V8s were torn apart by inventive supercharging methods paired with landspeed record attempts.

Give a man a racecar and he'll crash it on the salt flats in a day. Teach a man to repair a racecar and it will sit in the garage of his suburban house for a few years in between complete engine rebuilds required by what can only be described as "vaporized piston rods."

Of course this hotrodder generation created the circumstances we live in today, as the market saw their fast cars cobbled together from old prewar hulks and simply stamped out new ones from factory, faster and more convenient for the next generation than building one from scratch. Now the project manager mother of 3 drives a 4wd barge with climate controlled seats boasting more computing power than the moon mission and an emissions-controlled powertrain with more horsepower than her grandfather's jalopy and her fathers factory muscle car combined. And she doesn't care at all.

Yet Amongst the average civilians there walks a rare breed: people who know how to change their own oil. We the chosen move among you silently, bucking the system, operating outside the cultural helplessness and trading in forbidden knowledge in almost-abandoned forum threads (flame wars over conventional vs synthetic).

While we do have a marked air of superiority about this, I can't say I haven't stooped to imitating the rich myself. I've been known to wear a silly jacket from time to time.

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wisteria-lodge · 1 month

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badger primary + rapid fire/actor bird secondary

Hi! I’ve passively loved this system for a couple of years now but it’s only now that I’ve discovered that you actually do real people sorts! Anyway, I am pretty sure of being a Snake primary, but I’ll have you be the judge of that.

My Dad is a double Snake, however, my Mum I think is a Badger/Lion and this obviously creates a lot of conflict between them. I really care about both of them and though me & dad understand each other better on a fundamental level, he can also be quite a harsh and manipulative person (he has the typical Snake secondary thing where he tells you whatever you want to hear until you get close to him or he’s exhausted enough to let the masks drop, and at that point he becomes quite harsh, which my Badger/Lion mum does NOT like, and she especially doesn’t like how “fake” he is), and my Mum always reacted very negatively to my behaving like him.

A Double Snake and and Badger Lion could easily have periods of looking very similar, and very in sync, and then just… circumstances change and they couldn’t be more different. That’s a tricky one to navigate. So you’ve got a bit of cultural negativity surrounding Snake secondary, noted.

So I kind of spent most of my life feeling torn because the two people I cared about the most had very opposing expectations of my personality

Definitely getting inklings of a Loyalist primary (Badger or Snake.)

my Mum’s love in particular felt very conditional even though she was always very supportive of all my intellectual endeavors.

I spent the first 18-ish years of my life with “saying whatever I need to get what I want” as my primary strategy in life

Definitely sounds quite Snake secondary (sounds a lot like your Dad’s Snake.)

and constructing a “cool, popular girl” personality that would give me enough social capital to get whatever I want.

Oooh, have we got some Bird secondary going on? Because this sounds like it could be Actor Bird. The very conscious way you went about building “Cool, Popular Girl” (even using words like “constructing”) and fact that this persona has a name, probably had a costume, and is purpose-built for a specific environment, not a specific person... sounds very Bird.

What I wanted, though, wasn’t anything particularly ambitious: I’m very conflict averse so I made shit up to avoid conflict.

I associate this with Snake and Bird, the two “I move” secondaries. They’re water, flowing around obstacles. Lions and oddly Badgers are far more likely to pick fights.

I wanted to be have strong “ride or die” friendships with people I could protect and who could protect me in turn (I first wrote “group of friends” but I now realize that I kind of struggle with groups of people - I just never have the feeling of being part of a group, just having ties with individual people, so I guess I want to be part of a group in the sense of having ties of affection and loyalty with several people who also have them with each other).

This is such heavily Snake primary-coded language, that I’m kinda wondering if that’s on purpose, and you’re looking for a specific answer from me… :)

However, because what I got from my mum and, quite honestly, the media I liked was basically “my personality=villain.” I tended to seek out other people perceived as “villains” as some way because I felt that they would accept me more easily.

I wish it weren’t the case, but you’re right, that’s a common thing. Especially if you’re a Double Snake or a Snake Bird, which I think are your two most likely sortings right now.

I also really hated people who treated their friends badly or arrogantly and tended to bully them

I mean that’s the human thing, but it’s definitely something that would bother a Loyalist (Snake or Badger primary) a LOT.

there was this one swotty girl who was constantly looking down at her friends and treating them badly, and I just decided to make her life living hell because I was so morally affronted by it.

I’d love to know exactly what your strategies were, because that would tell me a lot about your secondary. But there does seem to be a suggestion that there was a Mean-Girls-stye *plan* here, which kind of makes me think Bird.

Another friend also abandoned us and found another friend group where everyone was basically in love with him and he was using them for attention seeking purposes and I also reacted to this quite harshly.

“Abandon” is a very dramatic word to describe a friend [entering a slight fuckboy phase?] and switching friend groups.

The thing is, I also tended to abandon some people, which doesn’t clash well a Snake primary, I guess? One of my HS friend groups were really quite asshole-ish, and I ended up ditching them, but that was because I felt like they were treating other close people (of theirs, not mine) badly?

Okay. So here’s what I think is going on. You’re a Badger. Hear me out.

Yes, I think that your Badger looked like a Snake for a good long while. But you’re close to your Dad, and your Dad’s a Snake, and young Badgers will do that, look like authority figures or beloved people in their community. It really hurts you that your parents are not a united unit, not a community. A Snake would have an easier time just having separate relationships with each of them, even if they didn’t get along. Same thing with your friend that switched friend groups. That’s a very Badger way of looking at the situation. The Snake thing would be, well - he’s your friend, and it doesn’t really matter what group he’s him. But a Badger would want him to stay in the better group, the group that was better for him.

You hate it when people mistreat their group. You hate bullies (Captain America style.) That’s all Badger. You also talk about multiple, conflicting groups of friends, and that whole “Cool Popular Girl” - I mean, it’s not exclusive to Badger primaries, bit it is definitely a very common way for High School Badger primaries to present.

I had also decided to start taking school and stuff more seriously and I just kind of felt like their affection would be conditional on my bad bitch persona, got scared and ran? It was a long time ago, I don’t really remember.

This is Bird secondary thing. Getting “suck” in a persona, and worrying that people only like you / you only have value because of it.

The turnpoint came when I met my first serious boyfriend, who is definitely a Snake secondary but I’m honestly not sure if he’s a Snake or a Bird primary.

The so far elaborately constructed web of lies and reputation building that was my life led to the downfall of our relationship, because it combined with some external circumstances made trust difficult

You have a complicated relationship with Snake secondaries, but you yourself are a Bird. “Construction,” “reputation building,” the web metaphor… it sounds like a Bird. That’s just not how Snake secondaries think.

what I somehow got out of it was a deep fear of betrayal and abandonment

and possibly Burned your primary a little bit (probably another reason you’re picking Snake for yourself, Burnt Badgers look like Snakes.

and the impression that if I wanted people to love me and stay by my side, I should be very open about who I am (so that I’m sure that it’s me that they’re loyal to and not their personal image of me), and just try to be the kind of kind, morally upstanding person that people couldn’t fault for anything.

These are two mutually exclusive goals. If you’re totally honest and open about who you are (the Lion secondary thing) - then you will absolutely ruffle some feathers and rub people the wrong way. It’s a totally different approach than being the “kind [person] that people couldn’t fault for anything.” (Which is more of a badger thing.)

Forcing myself to act like this led to a plethora of mental health issues because being very open about who I am is just… not who I am?

You also just set yourself for failure. There is literally no way you could have achieved what you set out to achieve. And how is “forcing” yourself to act a certain way more open and genuine? It sounds like you built a Badger secondary model out of fear, and just sat in it for a while.

And it was very anxiety-inducing for me. Even now, when my mental health is much better and I’ve settled into who I am, I like showing off my playfulness and wit and keeping the rest of my personality behind a neutrally charming mask.

And that’s… good? Normal? That’s also very Bird. Just have a charming, Badger-flavored ‘customer service’ face that you wear as you go through the world. Go into Neutral when you feel comfortable. (Birds go into Neutral very much like Snakes do, but the change usually isn’t as dramatic.)

Also, my success until that point was based on a lot of improvisation and quick thinking, and while I kept that to a point, it also always led to a bunch of moral panic because in my head, being this kind of person is what gets you abandoned.

Rapid-Fire Bird. There’s a little bit of your Bird coming through here, in that you want a foundation, you don’t want to just do the Snake thing.

Anyway, I was a psychology major (I always liked understanding how people tick and how to get them to see or do what you want them to without having to explicitly argue with them or convince them)

Very Bird.

but I felt alienated with the “bleeding heart helping profession!!” people around me.

I am not at all surprised that the profession skews Badger secondary, and that it did not feel at all good being around all those Badger secondaries... when you’ve got such a messy relationship with your Badger model.

I eventually settled for doing research on children growing up in harsh circumstances who develop externalizing symptoms, but it was just because throughout my life I met a lot of people like that and a lot of my close people are “misunderstood” because they sometimes behave harshly due to their harsh upbringings, so I wanted to vindicate them in a way, as well as vindicate myself because I cared about explaining why people sometimes act less than morally and yet can still be loyal and worthy of love and not automatically “bad people”.

I love this for you. It seems like this would just fit into your primary so nicely. You’ve got a category of people, who are your people and you’re going to vindicate them, and protect them - especially from other people seeking to dehumanize them. It’s so Badger, but in that lovely universal way.

In the meanwhile, I kind of developed a Badger primary model, I guess, in that I do dedicate a lot of my time to helping people

… or you were a Badger all along…

and being kind and open and inviting

yeah, that has absolutely nothing to do with being a Badger primary. I’m serious. That’s just your neutrally-charming mask.

but whenever this is put to the test my Snake loyalties always always come first.

I honestly haven’t seen this so far. The only individuals you’ve talked about are your parents (who bothered you by not being a group, your fuckboy friend (who left the group) and your first boyfriend, who you broke up with.

And I also still always get morally outraged when people are disloyal to their close ones or treat them badly,

This your primary talking. (your why, what gets you out of bed in the morning)

whereas the general kindness and the work I put in towards making sure the world is a kinder, fairer place is just something that I do, no emotional attachment to it, and I don’t expect other people to do it at all.

This is your badger secondary model talking. (how you go about doing things, how you present to the world.) Both Badger, yes. EXTREMELY different.

I honestly don’t think a lot about morality, aside from the generic “be kind and try not to fuck people over unless you really have to”

I mean, you did just say. “I also still always get morally outraged when people are disloyal to their close ones or treat them badly.” I think you just must not consider that sort of thing… really morality, in some way. But Badgers get their morality from their group. Their highest moral good is to make sure the group is doing okay. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

rationally constructing a system of morality or trying to arrive at some kind of internal hunch both feel kind of empty to me?

Because you’re not a Bird or Lion primary? Of course it does.

Now, as for the secondary, my knee jerk reaction is to say Bird because I’m in research, and ever since childhood I’ve always been a very logical person. I’ve eventually learned to be quite systemic in my problem solving process because I need it for research, but what I like about this career is the problem solving aspect of it, like you have a goal (for example, an effective psychosocial information or the acquisition of a certain kind of information) and you have to figure out how to get to that information. Basically the most efficient way of getting from A to B.

I make sure to be systemic and thorough and analytical because it’s the most surefire way to get things right in my line of work, but I also take pleasure in kind of categorizing and putting information in order, and connecting it along different lines. I also really care about proper methodology and not half-assing things to get the results that you want, because I think that the results that you want are the results that are accurate and useful in the real world, not the ones that make you look better.

Wait, am I a double Snake?

Okay, now you’ve got ME worried - I must have really screwed up explaining something, because how can you write something THAT bird secondary, love systems as much as you do… and arrive at the conclusion that you’re a Snake?

What I know for sure is that I absolutely do not identify with “knowledge for knowledge’s sake”, but I do have a really broad criteria for what “useful knowledge” is because I’m capable of thinking quite abstractly, so I can see the utility of almost anything.

That is very, very, very Bird. I’m starting to see the problem though. “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake” is an older phrase that owes more to the parent system than I would like, but it does essentially mean “no knowledge is wasted, the most useful way to solve problems is to preemptively hoard knowledge.”

What I am really also passionate about is presenting things in the right way. I love writing, and I love public speaking, because I get to put myself in the other person’s shoes, imagine how they will “receive” what I’m saying and then tailor my presentation or short story or whatever to lead them to the conclusion that I want them to reach. But I dislike manipulating people with this: the conclusions that I want them to reach are the ones that I personally consider accurate, not the ones that benefit me.

First thing, you sound like an absolutely incredible person, and by pretty much any metric you want to use, a *good* person. (And no, that’s not because the way you’ve written this is manipulating me. This is my little game, I’m good at it.)

What I can tell you that tailoring a presentation to an audience - that’s just a Rapid-Fire Bird who knows their stuff doing trick-shots, and I bet it’s beautiful to see. You are delivering information in a way that the audience can properly take in, because you know both your audience and your information well enough to do that, and that is incredible.

My knee-jerk reaction is always to improvise, but I feel like this makes me come off as a “fake” person if I change my mind on what I said later (I change my mind A LOT), so I try not to say what sounds good in the moment because it will bite me in the ass later and lead to a reputation of a flaky, fake person, I guess?

Not 100% sure what you mean here. Changing your mind… is just a personality trait, it doesn’t really have to do with why you do things or how you do them. I think you would call tailoring your presentations improvisation, and I really wouldn’t. It’s not improvisation, it’s just looks like improvisation because you’ve come up with a hundred different ways to say this thing, and then on the day you can pick the one that works the best. If you had to do the same thing, but not in your preferred subject matter/environment, it would be basically impossible.

But I also really pride myself on my logical and thorough assessments of situations, and I tend to like thinking things through when I get the chance for it, often postponing decisions until I’ve thought about all the eventual longterm consequences of all the courses of action I might take.

Bird.

What trips me up is my trauma-induced fixation with being “honest” and avoiding “lies”, which are more about their eventual inefficacy and worthlessness and less about their moral rightness or wrongness (and also because manipulative=bad, as my Mum spent all of my life saying). My line of thinking is, “Things built on lies or self-delusion always crash down and burn, and it is right that they do so that more stable and honest things can take place”

What are you building on lies? If anyone’s work has a solid foundation, it’s yours. And as we’ve previously discussed, even IF you were doing your mom’s brash Lion secondary thing, wouldn’t that be in a lie in itself, because it’s not your natural presentation, it’s something you need to force yourself to do?

but I also kind of use it to do shady shit - like I don’t feel morally wrong in hitting up a man in a relationship, because if he really cares about his woman the only person who’ll get burned is me and if he doesn’t I saved her the trouble of wasting more of her time on him?

This is actually a really interesting aside, because it’s you telling me how you handle a moral issue (that makes it a Primary thing.)

Is it wrong to hit on a married man? Your answer is No: either you get turned down because he’s staying faithful, and that’s your own personal risk, or he cheats, in which case he’s kind of … dehumanizing himself? And therefore you are doing his partner a favor because she can now get rid of this unhealthy member of her community. There’s a logic there, and it’s a kind of ruthless Badger primary logic.

So not sure if Snake or Badger secondary?

Bird.

P.S. After some self-reflection, I realized that I’m probably not a Bird secondary

I’m listening.

because I really hate following plans and situations where I have to rely on concrete skills and not abstract problem solving terrify me. OTOH I am very proud of my general ability to assess a situation and act appropriately.

Not sure how you’re distinguishing between “concrete skills” and “abstract problem solving.” From what you’ve been telling me, it sounds like you need the concrete skills before you can do the abstract problem solving, as in they work together.

I’m also known as the person who changes PowerPoint slides in the middle of a conference based on whoever’s speaking before her and adapting her speech accordingly, which freaks the shit out of my coworkers, so I guess any “planning” type is probably out for old me

That’s the most Rapid Fire Bird thing I ever heard. You made a plan. The PowerPoint and the speech exist. You’re just adapting them on the fly, based on previously-existing knowledge. I’m starting to think that you’re one of those Bird secondaries who is SUCH a loud Bird secondary, that it can be hard to get your head the idea that your skills are skills, and not sort of neutral abilities that everyone has.

my latent distaste towards being a Snake secondary is my burny oppressive bullshit against anything that’s not “stalwart honesty and consistency” that I’ve been imposing on myself for years.

which I really wish you didn’t feel like you had to.

Because I do love winging it and just saying whatever’s the most situationally appropriate thing regardless of how much it reflects me and I’ve just been treating any kind of play acting like a recovering alcoholic treats drink so I no longer even remember how it feels anymore lol.

I hope you find a way to play with your Actor Bird, at some point. One more little thing before I sign off though - thinking of actions as “situationally appropriate” is a very Actor Bird secondary thing to do. Snakes don’t go that big. Snakes think - what response do I want from this person, in this moment, and how do I get it? They also constantly reset. Snake secondaries have this “seducer” reputation because they generally are better one-on-one, or in small groups. Even Snake secondary actors will talk about the way they perceive the whole audience as one “person” … it’s all very interesting, but a very different way of approaching the world than the way you do.

#submission #shc #sortinghatchats #badger bird #badger primary #burnt badger primary #bird secondary #bird secondary vs snake secondary #actor bird #rapid fire bird #wisteria sorts #sortme

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kontextmaschine · 2 years

Text

People loved their work once, and it didn’t matter if they worked in the public sector or in the private one. The men who worked in the CCC would take their grandchildren to see the forests they planted, while the men from the auto plants would point out the cars they’d built as they passed them on the new interstate highway system. The women who fastened the engines on the wings would watch the B-17’s fly off to make a liar out of Goering, and the women who taught in the public schools would point with pride when one of their old students got elected mayor. Work was about making money, certainly. It was about feeding the family and keeping the roof where it was, and maybe having a little left over at the end of the day, or at the end of the week, for some amusement. Maybe a trip to Lincoln Park or White City or a hundred other places, where you could take a moment and enjoy the cool of the evening, music riding the nightwind from a dance pavilion down along the lake.

But it was also about Doing A Job, and doing it well, which was different than simply Having A Job. It was about making good cars and strong steel and sturdy furniture. It was about learning a craft, even if what you were doing wasn’t recognized as one. There was a craft in tightening rivets, or feeding the open-hearth furnace, or planing the wood just so. You had your craft, and the person next to you had theirs, and, when all the work was done, and all the craft was practiced, and practiced well, there was something you could look at with pride and say, that is something I have given to the world. Job well done, as they used to say. You could teach seventh grade civics and then, one day, you’re on a podium outside of City Hall. That kid right there, you could say. That kid is something I have helped give to the world. Job well done, as they used to say.

Unions were greatly responsible for the pride that people took in the work they did, especially in the middle of the last century, when unions helped build the most formidable middle class in human history.

There was an autoworker, Ben Hamper, who wrote a column in the Flint (later Michigan) Voice, which was the alt-weekly Michael Moore first made his name by running. A lot of his columns got collected and repackaged in an excellent book, Rivethead, that I read in college.

I read it in a class with Stuart Blumin, who was my favorite professor and de facto advisor. He was an American historian, focused on labor and class and the development of capitalism, you could tell he was heavily influenced by EP Thompson and the Communist Party Historians Group over in the UK.

He was quite open that he had expected Communism to ultimately triumph, and that he had been wrong about that, and in subtext that he had wanted it to ultimately triumph, and didn’t think he had been wrong about that.

Anyway, Rivethead. The story is that Hamper was born in 1956, a fairly clever kid growing up in Flint, Michigan, the chronological and geographic apex of American industrial unionism, where everyone’s dad worked for GM.

And he could have gone to college but he gets some girl pregnant and so he goes to work on the assembly line not even really out of obligation or Catholic guilt or whatever but because that seems as good a life course as any, it’s what every man he’s known does, under the mighty UAW the pay’s on par with the kind of “educated” jobs you could get anyway, why not.

And so he goes to work on the line and eventually he ends up writing a column about it, and he talks about the color of the factory culture, playing soccer with rivets for balls and cardboard boxes for goals, drinking mickeys of malt liquor in your car on lunch break, the absurd fursuited mascot “Howie Makem, The Quality Cat” that GM would feature at rallies and shop-floor tours, being laid off in economic downturns and put into the “job bank” where you get paid waiting to be rehired in the next upswing, developing a perfect rhythm with your partner, training into a rhythm so perfect you can each trade off doing the two-person job yourself for 4 hours while the other one goes out to a bar on the clock, the dignity and solidarity of the American worker.

And time goes on and eventually his marriage fails but he takes it in stride, and his column gets recognized and he takes pride in that and then eventually he has an epiphany, and a complete breakdown, which are basically the same thing. And the inciting incident is when an older line worker, some guy he’d looked up to as a model of quiet, philosophical stolidity, just shits himself and is barely coherent enough to even notice this and he realizes the guy hadn’t been a Zen master, he’d just been checked-out mindless drunk on the line every day.

And he realizes that the rivethead life is destroying him, that the only thing holding it together was a budding alcoholism, and that it’s doing the same to all his co-workers, and looks back and realizes it had done the same to every grown-up man he knew, his father and uncles that growing up he had looked up to as models of masculine strength and fortitude really had just had their spark snuffed out and the life beaten out of them long before, and whatever pride they took in the cars out on the road was a defensive attempt to locate in an external form the sense of self-value that had been exterminated within them.

When Marx talked about “alienation”, well.

And he went crazy, and couldn’t bear to work on the line anymore, and there’s no redemption, that’s where the book ends.

And that was a theme that cropped up again in Professor Blumin’s class, that there were two great working class traditions that echoed through the ages, and they were

avoiding work

and

drinking

Back in the premechanized age of small-group workshop manufacturing, workers would celebrate “Saint Monday”, which was to say just not showing up for work, hung over after the weekend.

(This was riffing off of Catholic feast days, or holy days, from which we take the word “holiday”, and as time went on counted an increasing share of the days of the year. There was a reason that poor workers were aligned with the Church, and nobility, in “Altar and Throne” coalitions resisting the development of industrial capitalist liberal democracy.)

In the ‘80s, the crap time of American auto manufacturing, one trick that was passed around (pre-internet, so by word of mouth largely) was to look at the codes stamped on car bodies, which would tell you what day of the week they were manufactured, and to avoid Mondays and Fridays. Because those days had the highest defect rates, because the workers tended to be drunk, or hungover, or absent.

And back in the workshop days, you’d drink at work. Apprentices would be sent out for growlers or buckets of beer, there were elaborate rules of who in the hierarchy of workers was expected to buy rounds for who and when. And there was hellacious resistance to attempts to get them to knock this off, as the industrial era kicked into swing.

Those great satanic mills, where women and children worked in shifts at great water- or steam-driven sewing and spinning machines, stories of little kids getting their hands mangled by the machinery? One of the major reasons women and children were preferred was because they would actually show up on time every day, and stay sober around all those hand-manglers.

And I mean, this maybe sounds like an argument for socialism. Though not of any actually-existing- variety, as capitalist propaganda will be glad to tell you, Soviet work culture, at least when the morale thrills of the Revolution and Great Patriotic War faded from personal to institutional memory, was all about shirking and vodka.

So those complaints about how America celebrates Labor Day instead of May Day, ignoring the true meaning of labor - solidarity - in favor of mindless distraction? Psssh. Labor Day is a celebration of the truest, most ancient, most fundamental traditions of labor: not working (especially on Mondays), and getting drunk.

Happy Labor Day!

#working class #holidays #stuart blumin #labor day

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drabmakyo · 1 year

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Did you know that I write a lot about memory, skunks, uploading consciousness, political maneuvering, skunks, aliens, skunks, queerness, identity, emotions, and skunks? It's true! I'm very proud of them. You can read books best described as

Given the chance to live forever in a world not built for death, what do you do?

Given the inability to forget—all your joys and sorrows, all your foundational memories and traumas—how do you cope?

Given the ability to create a full copy of yourself—down to every single one of those memories—to do as they will, to individuate and live out their own forever lives, or merge back down and meld their memories with your own, what paths do you take?

and

If I had a nickel for every time I accidentally wrote something with heavy plural undertones that I hadn't intended but nonetheless made me doubt my identity, I'd have two nickels! Which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice.

The Post-Self Cycle is a tetralogy of meta-furry¹, gender-weird sci-fi books. From the very beginning of the consensual dream of the System, the members of the Ode clade, all forks from the same core personality, have dealt with fear each in their own way. Do they search for greater ways to control their lives? Do they hunt for yet deeper emotional connection? Do they hone their art to the finest point?

From roots in political turmoil to the building of a new society, the story is there to be found, and the Bălan clade is there to tell it.

Digital versions come with illustrations from five artists — Iris Jay, Jade Laclede, Floe, CadmiumTea, and johnny a.

Available as paperbacks, ebooks, and free to read in the browser. Omnibus ebook and illustrated hardcovers coming soon!

Book I — Qoheleth

"All artists search. I search for stories, in this post-self age. What happens when you can no longer call yourself an individual, when you have split your sense of self among several instances? How do you react? Do you withdraw into yourself, become a hermit? Do you expand until you lose all sense of identity? Do you fragment? Do you go about it deliberately, or do you let nature and chance take their course?"

With immersive technology at its peak, it's all too easy to get lost. When RJ loses emself in that virtual world, not only must ey find eir way out, but find all the answers ey can along the way.

And, nearly a century on, society still struggles with the ramifications of those answers.

Features the bonus novella Gallery Exhibition: A Love Story.

Madison finds a way to address not only the joys and terrors of integrated simulation technology, but also tackles questions of gender and identity while telling a pretty gripping mystery story in the process.

— Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Book II — Toledot

"I am saying that you trust me — really trust me — and that life in the System is more subtle than I think you know. You let me into your dreams, my dear, and your dreams influence this place as much as, if not more than, your waking mind."

No longer bound to the physical, what lengths should one go to in a virtual world to ensure the continuity of one's existence?

Secession. Launch. Two separations from two societies, two hundred years apart. And through it all, so many parallels run on so many levels that it can be dizzying just keeping up. The more Ioan and Codrin Bălan learn, the more it calls into question the motivations of even those they hold most dear.

Madison Scott-Clary . . . trusts her readers to be able to understand a completely different culture and existence than our own, and makes it compelling to do so.

— Payson R. Harris

Book III — Nevi'im

"Do you know how old I am, Dr. Brahe? I am 222 years old, a fork of an individual who is...who would be 259 years old. I am no longer the True Name of 2124. Even remembering her feels like remembering an old friend. I remember her perfectly, and yet I do not remember how to be earnest. I do not know how to simply be."

The cracks are showing.

Someone picked up on the broadcast from the Dreamer Module and as the powers that be rush to organize a meeting between races, Dr. Tycho Brahe is caught up in a whirlwind of activity. And as always, when the drama goes down, there is Codrin Bălan to witness it.

When faced with eternity in a new kind of digital world, however, old traumas come to roost, and those who were once powerful are brought to their knees

Growth is colliding with memory, and the cracks are showing.

These characters are so well realized, so fleshed out, that I can’t help but to gush about how their interactions with each other inform the central plot of the book.

— Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Book IV — Mitzvot

"To be built to love is to be built to dissolve. It is to be built to unbecome. It is to have the sole purpose of falling apart all in the name of someone else."

Even the grandest of stories can feel small and immediate when it's just one person's life.

One of the most well-known names from one of the most well-known clades on the System, the avatar of political machinations and cool confidence, has been brought low. With help coming only from Ioan Bălan and the most grudging of support from her cocladists, all True Name has left to save herself is the ability to change.

Features the bonus novella Selected Letters.

Mitzvot drills down deeper into the lives of its characters and shows us that between the world-shattering projects that change the very understanding of the System, they’re just people trying to live their lives with love and purpose.

— Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Keep an eye out for Clade, an anthology of short stories from nine authors set in the universe, coming later this year.

----------

¹ That is, about members of the furry subculture rather than just furry characters.

#post-self #sci-fi #meta-furry #books and reading

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nerdieforpedro · 5 months

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Sard'ika Sessions

Session Four

Din Djarin x plus size female reader

Fanfiction 18+

Sard'ika Sessions Masterlist / Main Masterlist / Din Djarin/The Mandalorian Masterlist

Word Count: approx 2.9k

Summary: The anticipation is high before the fourth session starts and communication is key. You're eager that another session begins soon and so is Din. It turns out he's even built something for this session. A promise is made between the two of you, intertwining your passions further.

Warnings: Angst! (because I'm mean sometimes), beskar kink (at this point - it is), thigh riding, restraints, non-canon Mandalorian lore, Din being a soft Dom, HANDS, fingering, edging, aftercare

Notes: I tried something a little different in this chapter and created a sub-culture within Mandalorian culture to have some freak in them. They're an entire clan of people who use and worship weapons. I'd be more surprised if no one ever thought "Hey, can you put that in there?" Since humans have been asking that since the dawn of time. Two more weeks Space Buddies! 🖤 Also I didn't have this one beta read but I did run some ideas by @legendary-pink-dotand she helped me sort things out.

The two of you had worked out that you’d have forty-eight hours together in a week.. The Mandalorian took a bail jumper bounty in the meantime while you continued to work at the guild, counting down the hours. Day one through three wasn’t bad, you were still in the afterglow of the last session. Despite the mishap that occurred during your last encounter with your Mandalorian, he was not only coming back to see you, but has guaranteed forty eight hours of his undivided attention.

Day two through seven was worse because you knew the following you’d have him to yourself - a warrior feared in multiple star systems. It made you a bit more giddy than normal and your co-workers took notice, not that they hadn’t picked up on subtle changes. A steady confidence in dealing with different hunters that usually would push your buttons more easily followed by swift exits to your home. They teased you about a lover which you denied harshly because it was an agreement between your Mandalorian and yourself.

With Din as he had told you to call him.

Day four had been especially difficult because he came to claim his reward for the bail jumper and mentioned needing to speak to you outside when you were on your break. After exchanging his credits and going outside to secure the jumper who was on carbonate, you told your colleagues that you were going to take a short respite. No more than ten minutes. That wasn’t unusual, so you went around the side of the guild where Din leaned against the wall. Your steps were slow toward him, really you felt like running but didn’t want to kick up a suspicious amount of dust you’d have to get off your uniform later. Your Mandalorian nodded in your direction and turned to face during your approach and reached out both of his hands, holding them when you stood before him.

“You wanted to talk?” You asked, you wanted to use his given name, but felt that except when you two were alone and without the possibility of eavesdroppers, it should not be used. His thumbs stroked the back of your hands, pressing into them slightly and he kept shifting his weight between his feet. Normally, he was steady and still. Was he nervous? About what?

“Sard’ika, a few things. I will need access to your home. I was able to customize something we can use to benefit us both. The final setup will need to take place in your home, preferably when you are at work to not spoil the surprise on the day before we are to have our fourty-eight hours together. Is this alright?” He questioned softly, he realized that he was making an odd request, but he believed what he said to be the truth and he did have a promise to keep. Din did not want a repeat of what happened during their last session. He told her that he would prepare her and that’s what he planned to do. He heard you chuckle,

“That’s fine Din. I’m looking forward to it. I-” Din studied your face, ‘she’s thinking about something again will she tell me?’ His mind starts to run through appropriate responses but then he remembers you haven’t finished your thought.

“Yes Sard’ika?” He held your hands a little tighter, not squeezing them, just firm to let you know it’s okay to tell him whatever it is. You look directly at his visor, when you do that, he feels like you’re looking at him and seeing him. The Mandalorian is rationally aware that it’s impossible, but feelings are telling him something entirely different.

“Din. I know our last sessions had its issues, but I want you to know and remember that I trust you. I take it whatever you’re going to set up I shouldn’t peek at until it’s ready?” You suggested and he nodded, “I just,” you step closer to him, almost chest to chest. You want to press yourself against his beskar but resist the urge. You’re outside and need to go back to work. “I’m glad you came back and are willing to continue our sessions.” You pause, unsure if you want to voice it.

Din releases your hands and places them on your shoulders, touching his helmet to your forehead as he’s done many times now. He infers what you mean and understands the hesitation. The two of you have become someone more than just session partners but haven’t discussed what any of it may mean, especially after the last session where it likely would have been easy to leave. He knew he couldn’t though, he needed to draw you close and ensure he hadn’t hurt you. Beyond that, he envisioned you writhing with pleasure from him, from what he was able to strum from your body. There were times he thought of you aboard the Razor Crest, holding Grogu as the three of you traveled to parts of the galaxy known. But he felt it was much too soon for those types of conversations. The Mandalorian still felt he needed to convince you that he wasn’t going to seek his carnal pleasures elsewhere.

“Sard’ika. I would not have left you and especially now, I want you to experience losing yourself. I will not betray your trust. Take care during your shift.” He stood back to his full height, tears formed in your eyes and you sniffled. Closing your eyes enabled you to hold back the waterworks to wave goodbye before returning to work completely unfocused. Din watched as you walked away, determined to have you reach an exalted state.

Day seven came and you went to work like normal, but when you came home, Din was there. He greeted you at your door and ushered you in. It was perplexing, you knew he was going to be there but it was still a surprise for it to actually happen. After removing your shoes and getting something to drink, you headed into your bedroom and saw some large piece of equipment in the middle of the room. It was covered by a large black sheet, as tempting as it was to peek, you promised you wouldn’t so you refrained and showered. Din ate when he heard the water in the refresher, he had eaten lunch when he arrived and put the equipment together but it was dinnertime and his stomach growled. He made the mistake of entering your bedroom to grab one of the toy bags that he was going to double check, but saw you naked body from the back, standing in front of the dresser getting a gown out he assumed to put on. You looked back at him, and turned to face him. You did not cover yourself and walked toward the middle of the room. Din held his hand up to indicate it wasn’t time yet. He was a stickler for staying on time.

The session began that evening right at midnight with Din sitting on the edge of the bed similar to your first time and your thighs spread over his beskar. The contrast of your warm flesh and cool metal combined with the friction as he moved his right knee up and down to have you bounce against it. Work yourself into a sopping frenzy, gripping his shoulder pauldrons to rock yourself. It was when the rough fabric of Din’s gloves circles your clit that you screamed his name, pressing yourself against his chestplate. His large hand was in the middle of your back, steadying you as the climax washed over you. Once, you had settled you went to move off his thigh and he continued to hold you close.

“Not yet Sard’ika. I’m going to have you sit elsewhere.” He then allowed you to sit on the bed as he stood and took a few steps toward the appliance in the middle of the room. It was quite large and you don’t know if he had put it together here or maybe he did some finishing touches before bringing it in. Pulling the black sheet off, he folded it and retrieved a bag of toys before returning to it and extending his hand to signal to step over to him.

Its size is what shocked you first. It looked like a basic chair except wide you thought to accommodate her hips, but it was tipped back slightly with stirrups at the top and bottom? Were the things at the top stirrups? There were leather buckles though so maybe not. It looked like there were two different levers near the bottom and two gears in the base of the chair that she could see. “Din, what is it exactly?” You asked, genuinely confused, you still stepped forward and took his hand.

Your reaction wasn’t unexpected, most are unaware of what the modified device was used for. Originally, it was built to extract information from enemies of Mandalore but as with most discoveries, a second purpose was found. Turns out, depending on the inclinations of the being in the chair, it would be used to bring pleasure. As Mandalorians focused more on their weapons and arms, such devices fell by the wayside but in Din’s travels he had come to know some clans of Mandalorians who used such devices between paramours and riduurs. He reasoned that he could use this to have you focus so set sensations while better pinpointing what your spots were. “Meshla, you do trust me do you not?” Your nod serves as confirmation as he sat you down, holding your hands as he did earlier that day.

“I will restrain and stretch you a bit, but it won’t be painful. Just a bit uncomfortable. The goal is to identify more of your pleasurable centers so I can utilize them before entering you.” The explanation was reasonable and at this point, you were a bit curious to see what he’d be able to do with contraption. Din had you move your butt all the way back into the curve of the chair and the lean back, raising your arms back and over your head, He secured them snuggly into the leather bands, he was able to fit one finger in between your skin and the leather so as to not chafe you. His visor settled on your breasts, rising and falling with your chest, he then looked at your face and hummed as he does when he’s pleased. Your face is watching him, curious but not anxious as you had been. For this is grateful, he doesn’t want to frighten you. Pulling up your plush stuffed chair, he sat in front of you watching as your nipples hardened under his gaze, waiting for him to do something, but he is stoic.

The silence tells him that you do trust him after all.

He lifts your left leg and sets it on the flat metal bar that extends to the stirrups where the heel of your foot goes. He leaves your right leg slack, removes his gloves and traces the curve of your face, continuing to watch your body react. Aware of the effect of his hands on your skin, his hands move to your breasts and he supports their weight. Thumbs circle your tender nipples earning a soft moan from you before one hand palms your stomach, having you wiggle your hips slightly.

“Sard’ika, be as loud as you like. It’s only the two of us in here.” He spied a small pool of arousal in the base of the chair and was pleased. Swiping two fingers down, pressing them into your skin before arriving at your inner thigh and cupping your cunt, not inserting any of his fingers. Just letting your slick coat his hand and his second one left your breast, cupping your face to have his visor face you. “Say my name Meshla.” Two fingers plunged into your dripping hole with little resistance.

“Din! Yes, please…more Din.” A small nod after your plea was rewarded with slow pumps inside of you, your hips kept still at first, but then started rolling with his fingers, using both the restraints and your one foot that he decided not to bind. Din’s hands teased both your breast and core, adding a third finger to stretch you, testing for your reaction. You groaned slightly, but continued to ride his fingers, “Maker they’re so thick, Din-Din-Din…” You began repeating his name over and over, twisting your body to find a deeper angle, but your Mandalorian curled his fingers within you and you stopped for a moment at the new sensation. He scanned your face, looking for any discomfort and when he didn’t see any, moved them even faster and coupled it with pressing his thumb to your small bundle of nerves circling it. Screaming his name, you rode his fingers slowly, stopping when the waves stopped, your head hung temporally before he tilted up.

“Perfect Sard’ika. I could continue to watch you use my hands for hours.” A deep chuckle leaves his helmet and both sets of your lips quiver, he didn’t remove his fingers so he spreads them out as much as your walls will allow which isn’t very far.

“Din, I can’t just have your fingers alone. I need more.”

“I have a request then. While we continue to have our sessions, let no other touch you like this.” A thumb grazes your sensitive clit and you hiss. “They will not see the expressions, hear the carnal melodies of your body,” Din pressed his helmet to your forehead as his fingers started moving slowly again, “feel the soft flesh that forms around me, enveloping me, nor shall they know what glorious whimpers you possess.” Your hands form fists as you long to press yourself against his beskar, sit yourself in his lap as you had before and be closer to him. The restraints which hadn’t bothered you were a sudden hindrance, the squeals of pleasure he was pulling from your sensitive cunt mixed with his deep tone had you on the verge of your second orgasm, but he stopped.

“Din, why, Maker why?!” You yelled in frustration, he tilted his helmet and you huffed, aware he was edging you even more.

“Sard’ika tell me you understand? Do you agree? You may try to ride my fingers, but the result will not be the same.” The smirk was evident from his voice just to spite him, you tried to ride his fingers and he kept them still, painfully still to where you stopped after a few flicks of your hips.

“Din, you’re…I understand and agree. There’s no one else. The same goes for you as well, correct?” Your eyes trained on his visor as he remained silent. Then, he pulled his fingers out until only the tips were left.

“You would be correct Cyar’ika. No one else gives me any desire to attempt such things. I wonder if I’ve gone mad at times.” A quick thrust upward makes your back curve from suddenly being filled again by him, the warmth scratching the pulsing itch inside of you. “And even more worrying is that I am fine being mad if it means I can be the only one who sees you like this and the only one who hears. No others for me as well.” Din speaks your name softly in contrast with how roughly his fingers are writhing within you, he doesn’t say your name often but when he does sends a spark down your spine and a second orgasm washes over you more intensely than the first. Your eyes flutter this time around and your body more slack.

Din stands and releases your wrists and ankle, revealing slight marks on your wrists but nothing that should last more than a few days. Your body felt like jelly, barely staying on the chair. Din felt you slump and supported your torso with one arm and slipped another arm under your legs, carrying you over to the bed and setting you down. Your arms reached weakly for him, barely reaching his shoulders. “Relax Sard’ika. You need to rest before we continue. We’ve got plenty of time, this is just the first day.” Allowing your arms to drop back to the bed, you relaxed and Din covered you with blankets, pulling them up to your neck.

The Mandalorian retrieved some towels to clean the chair and sat at the edge of the bed, watching your sleeping form. He then makes his way to your kitchen and removes his helmet, making himself some soup and eating some leftover food from your fridge. Din made sure to keep an eye on your bedroom door. He closed it when he left you sleeping, but remained vigilant in case you woke up. Upon finishing his meal, he washed the dishes and tried them, putting them back and returned his helmet to its proper place over his head. Din spread himself across your couch and looked up at the ceiling. How much further was he willing to take this? How far did he want to take these sessions? She would ask eventually to see more of him, to know more of him. What was he willing to reveal to her and how long would this continue?

Questions that swirled around in Din’s mind before his eyes closed to rest.

Previous: Session Three

Next: Session Five

Space Buddies tag list: @rhoorl @for-a-longlongtime @trulybetty @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @maggiemayhemnj @missladym1981 @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @morallyinept @sherala007 @yorksgirl @beabliss-deactivated20231205 @daddy-dins-girl @mandoisapunk @saturn-rings-writes @magpiepills @mrsmando @djarins-cyare @goodwithcheese @fhatbhabie @beefrobeefcal @sp00kymulderr @laurfilijames @secretelephanttattoo @megamindsecretlair @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @anoverwhelmingdin @theincredibleinkspitter

#pedro pascal characters #fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x plus size reader #din djarin x reader #Sard’ika Sessions #din djarin smut

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terra-feminarum · 1 year

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Patriarchy is crumbling right now

There's a window of opportunity for patriarchy to collapse, right now. I argue it's actually collapsing as we speak.

Traditionally, patrilocality has been a huge part of patriarchy. When married, a woman moved in with the family of the husband. She now became the daughter-in-law, having the least power in the family unit despite being the one who actually secured the future of that family unit with children. The most tedious tasks were given to her, her voice didn't have much value. After all, she was a stranger among the family - the husband, his parents, his brothers who were loyal to each other, not her.

Nowadays women in many cultures are still considered to enter the husband's family to some degree, via sharing his family name. This tradition is crumbling as we speak and in many parts of the world women don't even consider moving in with the husband's family of origin. Couples get their own place, which is called ambilocality. This takes away power from the husband's family. The wife doesn't automatically become an underdog now. This is huge.

Ambilocal nuclear family is far from a feminist utopia, but I consider it a rupture in the fabric of patriarchal society. It is new. Power for men hasn't been built in it's structure, like it is in patrilocal systems. More and more nuclear families act in less and less patriarchal ways, even if the husband still can't do dishes and he still watches porn.

Another rupture is single parents. Many will go through divorce. Children can now live with both of their parents who live separately, or often, just their mother. I wish all mothers had a large community to support them and I ache for them for having to carry such a burden alone, but this is a step towards something else.

The patriarchal family structure is in shambles. In so many countries women have the right to own bank accounts, go to work, to decide where they live.

We are on the verge of women freeing themselves from the patriarchal family structure for good.

Let's not stop with nuclear family. Let's not wait for harsher times when many might revert to the old ways and just go live with their husband's family if money is tight or the society is unsafe.

Now it's the time to build something else, and we need to think something that is as stable as a family, the main social structure, the unit you are loyal to your whole life. We are taught women can't form relationships like that with each other, unless they're sexual in nature and that's the one exception which people will still consider less real than heterosexual marriage.

No, I'm not talking about lesbians or bi women but women in general. How would your ideal female-centered social structure look like?

A matrilocal family (daughters stay at home and husbands move in with her parents)? Another type of matrilocality where neither leaves their family of origin but men only visit the woman and men mainly help their sisters with their children? Women's lands where it would be the land itself that kept people together?

Something else? What would be the social glue to keep that structure together?

#matriarchy #patriarchy #feminism

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starkandthewaynes · 10 months

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Ghosts from the past Pt. 7

All the founding members of the Justice League and Dark team were seated around the conference table, with the bats, three young adults, and a toddler. "Batman, what is going on?" Wonder Woman asks as two of the young adults stand up, powering on their presentation. The first slide read: The American government is trying to declare war on ghosts???? Tucker smirks at the clickbait title. "Danny, Jazz, what haven't you told me?" John Constantine asks his niece and nephew. "We're getting there Uncle John." Danny says, crossing his arms.

Sam nods as she hits a button. "First thing you have to understand, Ghosts, just like people, can be good or bad, and they can reform. They are sentient, they have their own ruling systems of government and laws, and culture. They are a people simply on the other side of the veil." Sam says as pictures are shown of the ghost zone. "Now the Ghost Zone or more widely known by Ghosts as the Infinite Realms is essentially a mirrored dimension to our own, and there are scientists who have punched a whole into this dimension without the citizen's permission. This portal has led to our hometown, Amity Park, being ground zero for the paranormal." Sam says, as the slides continue. "Now because biased scientists are considered the lead experts in the field of ecto-ology, the united states government has passed laws called the ecto laws and have created their own ghost hunting branch," Tucker says as everyone in the room's stomachs filled with dread.

"The ectolaws state that any beings that are made of or consume ectoplasm in any form are non-sentient and therefore cannot feel pain, they deem it is acceptable to capture and experiment on the beings from the Infinite Realms." Sam says, as Danny wants to run out of the room. "And they have already done so to the ruling monarch of the Realms." Sam says as Danny stands up, taking a deep breath. "Danny?" Sam asks, as Danny stands up on a chair to be seen by everyone. "My name is Danny Fenton, and the Dr.s Fenton, my adoptive parents, are the scientists Sam talked about. Their portal didn't work, until I hit a button on the inside. It gave me a shock, and I woke up to what the ghosts call a half, half-ghost, half-human." Danny says, his eyes watering, but he looks at JJ.

"After a year of me being my towns only hero, another ghost awoken the evil ghost king, Pariah Dark, a ghost so feared his real name was erased from our history." He says as Jason nods. "He, he took my town into the Infinite Realms, where I then defeated him in single combat. I became the new Ghost King." Danny whispers, looking down. "And now my friends are getting hurt because I can't protect them, because I was hurt." Danny says, sniffling. "And, and I gotta help them, I wanna help them, they're my friends. "I was captured, and then, the Dr. Fentons cut me and hurt me really badly. And, and after they were done, they handed me over to the GIW, where I was hurt and drained." Danny says, as tears go down his face. "Pawpaw had to rescue me, he had to turn me into a toddler to keep me safe, and then Jazzy took me to Gotham." Danny says, as he wipes his eyes. "I need your help, to help my friends, I don't want what happened to me to happen to them, so pwease help, you're my only hope." He says, as he runs to Jazz's arms, crying even more, so she and Red Hood leave.

"How did the meta-human protection laws miss this?" Superman asks as Sam sighs. "The GIW built a firewall to keep Amity Park separated from the rest of the world. They captured a ghost of technology to create it. Nothing gets in or out unless you have access to ectoplasm." Tucker explains as Sam is watching the door. "He'll be okay, Sam, it's Danny." Tucker says, as Sam shakes her head. "We don't know if he's stuck like that, Tucker!" Sam shouts as Tucker sighs. "I know that, but getting upset won't help him at all." Tucker says as Sam growls.

"What do you mean?" Wonder-Woman asks as the two friends nod. "Danny was 14 when everything started. We tried calling you guys, to get help, but we kept getting a busy signal, so Danny took on the role of a hero all on his own." Sam says, her voice telling how much she cares. "We were his backup, but there were so many times where we couldn't help him or we just got in his way. Tucker and I were on our family's vacations when he was taken. and by the time we got back, Danny and Jazz were packing, and Danny was a baby." Sam says, as Tucker holds her shoulders. "He's gotten a little older in just the year they've been here. He looks like a three or four-year-old." Tucker says as Sam shakes her head. "We should've seen the signs." Sam says as Tucker shakes his head. "We couldn't have known." Tucker says as John stands up. "I want you two to hear this and listen well. My nephew and Niece don't want you two beating yourselves up over what's happened. You're here now, you're doing your best to help. And as far as his age is concerned, I've had a chat with Chronos about it, the spell will eventually dissipate as Danny gets safer and safer. He's already 6 or 8 since finding Hood and the bats." John says as the two young adults look hopeful. Thank the Ancients.

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