#but also this response was so. reactionary and confusing it’s like. i know it’s all in bad faith | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hausofanya · 4 months

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FANMADE VIDEO

[ AUTOMATED VOICE. ] hi. friendly neighborhood anyangi here back at it again with another highly requested cléo moments video. and since i love my wife, why the hell not. here’s a brief background for those who somehow got this on their youtube rec and don’t know who this absolute STUNNER is.

cléo, born cléo anya torell, is a member of the fucking powerhouse that is called stray kids. they are a idol group under jyp entertainment and she is their main vocalist. her voice is literal gold. she wasn’t called the golden voice in high school for nothing. don’t believe me? listen to this:

youtube

sorry for how long that was…. and i had to keep in that last run in because that cover was ELEGANT. genuinely gave me chills. yebba and cléo collab when… but anyway.

along with being a vocalist, she also writes, produces, raps, acts, and plays several instruments. SELF. TAUGHT. you just had to be there when she trolled an entire stadium worth of fans when rumors spread about her playing were thought to be ‘prerecorded’ in 2020. nobody in their right mind plays fucking megalovania to prove they’ve been playing piano since they were little. iconic tbh. you just had to be there.

since then, it’s sparked a trend for idols to play silly songs live to prove their musical abilities. notable performances by cléo also include coconut mall, the peanut’s theme, and an impressed rick roll in our lovely year of 2023.

( okay but megalovania though. 😭 of all songs i’m so weak— you would thinks she would have played something cute but NOOOO. it gives CHEESE energy a little bit. im so here for it. )

when you first get into stray kids, you probably think her being the only girl makes her the most sane one. people have that misconception with seungmin, too. that because they’re not as reactionary as the others, that they’re calm as hell. well i implore you to watch the skzcode episode where they did that horror house. felix may have been the scaredy cat when kittyracha had their turn, but by now we should know cléo is NAWT a fan of bugs.

the boys making her dig out the key through the slime was so cold 😭 the scream she let out ?? literally broke the sound barrier. ariana grade who… mariah carey where….

anyway, just don’t mention bugs around her and we’re good. because i would like to still be able to hear. and without further ado, here are my favorite cléo moments.

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— HYUNJIN X CLÉO 2KIDS EP

“…come to think of it, i knew you did ice skating. so i don’t know how the others didn’t. did you not tell them?”

cléo appears smug, seemingly recalling the moment the two had been talking about. the pair are talking about a moment shared back in their high school days, when comes to a surprise to the group that cléo knows how to ice skate.

“well, not professionally at least. like most things i know how to do, i taught myself how to skate. on ice and on skates, too.” she then pauses, confused. “i didn’t tell them? i’m sure that would have come up at random.”

“well, i remember complaining about you not teaching me.” hyunjin crosses his arms petulantly, much to cléo’s visibly growing amusement. “even when we were back in high school. you absolutely refused to teach me!”

cléo can’t hold her laugh in anymore, bursting into louder laughter as hyunjin’s complains rise in volume. it even amps up to them tussling over the throw pillows, cléo still laughing the entire time.

“it’s not like i had ill intentions? look—” cléo tries to quell his comically growing tantrum, but the fact that she’s still half laughing as she talks only fuels him the more.

“four years!” cléo sputters out a strangled laugh ( gasp? girl help … ) in response, startled at hyunjin’s sudden exclamation. “when i met you, you said you’d been skating for four years! you were depriving me—”

“you watch too much anime.”

“—of my— oh, shut up.” cléo snickers as he shoves her shoulder. “i could have been gliding on ice professionally by now.”

the mood suddenly takes a comical u-turn, with hyunjin pouting as cléo’s expression turns increasingly deadpanned—the way it normally does before she says something out of pocket. ( i’m already laughing pls help— 😭 )

“sweetheart.. with all due respect—and i’m going to touch your hand when i say this,” cléo starts, taking his hands in hers with a serious expression that leaves her friend dumbfounded. “just because you’re an amazing dancer doesn’t mean you’ll hold up well on ice. i didn’t bring up ice skating with you because when we went rollerblading you could barely stand up without clinging to the railing like a baby deer.”

cléo then turns to the camera with the same serious expression. “it took five people to peel his body off the floor. it was very embarrassing. someday i’ll post the pictures. maybe on his birthday.”

“wAIT NO—”

𖧷

— NCLÉO INTERVIEW #1

“you don’t wear heels?”

“not really. i’m already tall enough, i think.” cléo shuffles her hosting cards and smiles, gently tapping them against the bureau to straighten them out. “plus i heard it’s like an indirect insult to people under five feet seven to wear heels around them. i’m being respectful, yeah?”

johnny poorly hides a laugh into the collar of his shirt.

“i think it’s really admirable when men do it, though. no really! i’m actually serious,” cléo grins when her guests begin to laugh in surprise. “‘cause my legs absolutely check out within the first few hours. i don’t remember who it was, but i saw an idol kill a performance in stilettos. i can’t even do that. props to them for real. cause what use are my ankles when they can’t even execute their god-given purposes.”

( i really think this moment was unscripted cause girl looked genuinely confused when mark started choking on his water 😭😭😭 )

mark scurries off backstage as haechan falls over in his chair, his laugh almost bouncing off the studio walls as cléo looks on in bewilderment. ( IT WAS REAL TO HIM!! )

jaehyun wipes genuine tears from his eyes before looking off camera and descending into hysterics again. the camera pans to mark consulting a stylist ( who looks seconds from laughing herself ) about his drenched shirt, making everyone on set succumb back to laughter.

to add a cherry on top, cléo looks into the camera with wide eyes. “are these grounds to be sued.. sm entertainment i am so sorry.”

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— RED LIGHTS MAKING FILM

while chan and hyunjin are seemingly distracted going over choreography, cléo wanders off set still clad in her mv outfit much to the surprise of her assigned staff and cameraperson. they’re quick to pan the view over to her, where she looks to be scrutinizing the chained bed soon to be seen in the music video.

she then looks down at her outfit, white from head to toe just like her partners with chains locked around her body in crossing patterns, and stifles a shocked sound as if she’s had a revelation. it catches her bandmates’ attention, looking over at her as she turns around to meet their gazes.

“when we decided the concept was going to be sexy, i was thinking like. maybe skin showing. that’s normal. we do that all the time. this?” cléo points at the bed again, eyes wide, “this is straight up debauchery. stays are going to pass out. most of them are kids! i don’t want to be responsible for emotional and financial compensation!”

hyunjin nearly falls over at how distressed she looks, just about crumpling to the ground in laughter as chan looks at the camera for assistance. getting none, especially with his partners in various states of hysterics, he sighs and looks up to the ceiling for strength.

“christopher! think of the children! and—” cléo clutches at her heart as if pain, amping up the theatrics as hyunjin practically writhes on the floor. “the PARENTS. what are we going to do when we perform this and there are PARENTS IN THE CROWD.”

staff can be heard stifling their laughter as chan genuinely looks at a loss for words. his disbelief is almost tangible as he turns to stare at the bed as well, which is ultimately what makes cléo’s façade crack before she starts giggling.

“we should add a viewer discretion before the performance. ‘warning: may include vigorous gyrating and writhing on the floor. may also include—’”

cléo is lovingly cut off by a hand over her mouth, an amusedly ticked off chan dragging her away from the camera to the sound of hyunjin cackling in the background.

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— NO BADDIES, NO BADDIES, NO CAR…

“so i hear you’re an nct fan. an nctzen? czennie, i think is what they’re called.”

“yeah!” cléo responds enthusiastically to the interviewer, beaming brightly at the camera. “i’ve interviewed them myself, too. great band of great people. fun and fresh.”

“that’s exactly what i wanted to talk to you about actually.” cléo looks mildly surprised, but shifts in her seat to face the interviewer more directly. “you always credit one of your best friends as the reason why you’ve become such a big fan of other groups.”

“no, definitely. moniqa’s always been a big part of my life, so it’s natural her likes kinda bleed into mine a bit, you know?” the interviewer nods, making cléo smile faintly. “right. so please don’t take this lightly when i say she’s the biggest nctzen i know.”

cléo laughs as the small studio audience cheers, prompting her to point off camera. “they get it!”

“so moniqa is the reason why you’ve listed all these groups as your current favorites.”

“oh, yeah. i kinda regret making my personal spotify public cause now people can see what i listen to 24/7. cause the amount of people who were like ‘STRAY KIDS NCT COLLAB???’ just because hot sauce or ay-yo would come on shuffle were so—”

cléo buries her face in her hands in exaggerated fashion as the set laughs.

“stop reading into my listens so hard! i just like music!”

“so speaking of music, i heard you got into a bit of a heated debate over a song with moniq—oh.” the interviewer looks surprised as cléo’s expression morphs into one of passive smugness, quickly wiped off just when the camera shifts to her. “what—”

“hm?”

“you just—”

“so we were playing a game,” cléo starts, purposely ignoring the interviewer grasping at straws, which makes the audience laugh. “where we had to guess the song that came up just by the first couple of notes. me being the competitive person i am, who just so happened to be influenced by the biggest nctzen i know, kept getting neck to neck ties with moniq. and i could tell it was pissing her off a little bit. cause admittedly, i was being a little sh—.”

( they really censored her like that…. 🙄😒 )

“and she got designer by 127 WRONG. which was so funny to me.” pausing when the interviewer looks confused, she reiterates, “it was on the same album as two baddies! you know… two baddies, two baddies, one ridiculously expensive car… and speaking on two baddies—”

( 🎶 TWO BADDIES TWO BADDIES ONE PORSCHE 🎶 )

“—i did my research when that song dropped.”

the interviewers audibly sputters, nearly dropping his cue cards. “you did research?”

“a porsche can fit five people,” cléo continues as if she hadn’t heard him, making the audience laugh again. “what happened to the other two baddies. can’t believe they would kick two other baddies to the curb like that. what did the other two baddies do? all four of them could fit in my rover.”

“you have a rover—”

“and that’s not considering extra optional third row seating. so not only are there now ZERO baddies in your porsche, now you’re stuck paying for the car your bought to impress them. kai had a vision when he chose a rover. and i’m inclined to agree.”

( the interviewer was too stunned to speak… 😭 )

the set is in hysterics by the time she stops talking, even the camera work shaking as the person struggles to keep the frame straight. what’s worse is that cléo looks completely serious, making the interviewer huff a disbelieving laugh.

“should we call you miss rover then?”

“please look forward to my solo album,” cléo tacks on the joke, complete with a bow that makes him laugh. “i’ll ask a neo who can drive to feature on the title track.”

( GIRL I— 😭😭😭😭 )

𖧷

— RUN KITTY RUN ( COFFEE WITH THE BOYZ )

“—welcome members sangyeon, eric, kevin, and juyeon of the boyz!”

the audience claps as the four walk out on the cushioned set, smiling and waving at the camera before they bow and sit down, cléo and guest co-host moniq doing the same. cléo waits for the cheers to die down before she speaks…

…and promptly forgets every word in both the english and korean language when she locks eyes with sangyeon.

the boys looks confused when cléo doesn’t speak for a moment, looking amongst themselves as she stares down at her cue cards in a mixture of embarrassment and bewilderment. it doesn’t help that moniq is starting to catch on, formerly confused before she remembers the episode’s guests—

and also promptly begins to cackle. obnoxiously loud.

( THE WAY CLÉO JUMPED 😭😭😭 … )

with sudden abruptness, cléo stands up from her chair, makes a slow bow in their direction, bucks at moniq ( which only makes her laugh even harder 😭 ), and books it off set. dragging her producer off with her.

the boyz members only look on in varying degrees of amusement and confusion as moniq struggles to explain between bits of laughter about how cléo had been equal parts nervous and excited for this episode, being a huge fan of the group, smiling in good nature as all four of them relax and laugh as well.

“if she comes out, we promise to give her a signed album,” kevin pipes up with a grin. an unidentified sound wafts up from backstage, which makes everyone succumb back into laughter. moniq is holding her stomach at this point, seconds away from tears streaming down her face.

moniq calls cléo’s name sweetly, a shit eating grin on her face. but she doesn’t have to wait long before cléo makes her reappearance. only… not on her own.

much to the studio audience’s surprise, ends up being bodily carried back to her hosting seat by security. she’s propped in place like a doll, her head hung low in embarrassment, and moniq lasts about 0.03 seconds after personnel gingerly fixes flyway strand of hair before she starts laughing.

“i want that album after the show,” cléo points at kevin seriously, causing him to snicker quietly as she plasters on a smile and continues with the interview as if nothing happened.

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[ AUTOMATED VOICE. ] and there you have it. i would have included more, but we would be here forever and i’m sure you have places to go and people to see.

if this video hasn’t already made you want to check out stray kids’ resident cat girl then i really don’t know what else to tell you. she’s funny, hot, and extremely relatable. she truly is just like me. and her voice. i cannot stress her voice enough. siren like. i would lose myself at sea willingly.

🤷‍♀️ i really would.

anyway that’s all for now. see you guys in the next video!

#[ fanbase. ]#she’s just like me fr 🫂#fictional idol community #fictional idol oc #fictional idol addition #fictional kpop community #fictional kpop oc #fictional kpop idol #skz 9th member #skz added member #skz addition #skz female addition

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all-about-the-tea-parties · 6 months

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I wonder how Cate will rationalise this.

She’s now gonna be praised as the person who saved the campus from supes. Essentially becoming the antithesis of her philosophy - a good little soldier who prioritises shareholders over students.

Now, Marie and all of them, who attempted to fix Cate’s mess (and yes, Cate flying off the handle instead of oh idk maybe PLANNING something is a total mess, and if she HAD planned something I think Marie and then would’ve easily been on her side, since they were all already anti-the woods), are being viewed as murderers. It’ll be interesting to see them experience the kind of evil that Vought actually is, and maybe align their current “no rebellion if it’s violent” beliefs more w/ Cate’s “all resistance is justified”. Not totally with Cate, just more.

(Though, the writers have established that Marie & Co. are actually fine w/ self defense murder so idk)

Cate is now in the possession of Homelander and I know some ppl are big mad that the White Kids are getting praise for what the POC Kids actually did, but I’m prettyyyy sure that’s the whole commentary. Incl. Homelander’s! He’s also a racist!

Homelander Will Obvs try to align Sam and Cate w/ his beliefs, grossly misunderstanding that both Sam and Cate were being reactionary - even from Cate and Marie’s short convo, it was clear Cate was a bit unnerved with how quickly things got out of hand, what with Marie being sent to kill her. Her response being a confused and frustrated “well what can we do NOW? They want us both DEAD” is evidence to me that she may be dialed back to a more feasible rebellion strategy.

I see a lot of ppl saying that Cate’s been vilified for wanting freedom but I don’t see it ? Like, it’s one thing to free all the kids in the Woods, and maybe enact violence if there’s resistance there, but Cate has the unique ability to make sure nobody is violent. In fact, she has the ability to just go around and change every single bad person’s mind about being bad. Instead. She chose punishment. She could’ve dialed back all those freshly freed torture victims emotions to a manageable place. Marie & Co aren’t against freeing ppl, but they ARE against being reckless about it. For all Cate and Sam knew, those kids could’ve been violent to “innocent” ppl too (in quotes bc they were, just not in Cate and Sam’s eyes).

#I still think Cate aligns with magneto #I think ppl forget magneto was a supremacist #he literally gave We Are The Next Evolution #speeches all the time #and has attempted to murder non mutants A Lot #and not just ones that were after him #at least in the films #idk if comics magneto was more chill #magneto was a Zionist guys #just his Zionism was for mutants #gen v #this whole post is a ramble #prime

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memecucker · 2 years

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Sending this to you because I don't follow any of the other blogs who are talking about it. Clearly there's some shit going on here that I'm not aware of and people are using it in bad faith, but if someone says someone else is "culturally Christian", they're NOT calling them religious. Otherwise we'd just say Christian. I'm an atheist too. I'm not religious, at all. But I'm Jewish. I celebrate Jewish holidays, not Christian holidays. I don't celebrate them because I believe in God. I don't. But those are my traditions. I call myself just Jewish most of the time because judaism is an ethnoreligion, but yeah, if I need to talk about why I celebrate Jewish holidays I call myself culturally Jewish, because that's what I am and that's why, and my cousins who are also ethnically Jewish but know nothing about Jewish holidays are not culturally Jewish. Idk who's been saying that all atheists are culturally Christian, but they're obviously wrong and calling someone culturally Christian is not in itself anti-atheist. That said, the issue of religious abuse survivors being triggered is valid because "Christian" does specifically only mean religious Christian in American English (which is why we use a different term, but it's also a compositional term so I get why people would react like that). I understand that it's real pain speaking there, which I'd like not to cause more of, so idk, it seems pretty hard to think of an alternate term, but I'm willing to say silly things like "Christmas people" in the meantime if that helps. But I would very much like Christmas people to realize that Christmas is your holiday, it's not everybody's holiday. Just because it's not religious to you doesn't mean that anyone in the world should or would adopt it regardless of their religion or lack thereof. If they're religious, it might be against their religion to celebrate holidays of other religions. For the rest of us, it's just not our holiday. The reason I'm bringing it up is that trying to explain that no, Christmas is not for everybody, is just about the only context in which I need to point out that someone shares some cultural elements with Christians because of their family and community history. If you think that Christmas is for everybody, it's because you're ALREADY a Christmas person.

I know that one of the things that causes confusion is that you have “cultural Christianity” in a valid sense like you’re describing of cultural practices which have Christian origins and you can even go a bit further and point to a differences present with western secularized Christmas and Japanese Christmas (which from my understanding is more of a ‘companion holiday’ to New Years which is the biggest holiday) and how traces of Christianity are more apparent in the former than the latter.

The ‘bad faith’ version of “cultural Christianity”narratives I’ve seen has been less about cultural practices and more about epistemology and the idea that atheists are irreversibly marked by Christian backgrounds and nothing atheists say can apply to non-Christian religions which happens to also involve totally ignoring the mere existence of atheists of non-Christian backgrounds. Like a sentiment of “God is a tyrant” or stating the Problem of Evil being met with “Oh atheists that say that are culturally Christian because thats only a problem with Christians” as if no one of any other religious background (or even no religious background) can share the same sentiment or have made the same critiques or that Christian theologians dont have their own responses unlike theologians of other religions. It’s that kind of stuff that’s the term “cultural Christian” has become an object of criticism itself because it’s this both nonsensical and deeply reactionary (and ironically Christian-centric) sentiment that the faith assigned at birth is immutable. Idk if I’ve seen people push back at the more valid conception of “some cultural practices emerge from a Christian context even if they are done by people who are not Christian” but I can understand the confusion since there’s two distinct senses of the term being used in religion discourse.

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uneconomy · 2 years

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What is desirable difficulty for East Asians? In context for East Asian born in the west and a western East Asian in Sino-technosphere.

I don’t people realize how far removed they are from how things are made or even developed even as a person who went to college. Like if your sassy you talk about data, and it’s mostly marketing. Like how is development happen in your neighborhood. Like literally no clue.

I’ve watched YouTube for about five years and it literally did not capture anything about either technosphere in either side. And I still watch YouTube and like there’s like not even news clips of current political environments. Like I have to watch tv news which is a little sensational.

I go the the library all the time and I haven’t found a good book on either technospheres. On top of that barrier, people are weird when you talk about what is personal responsibility and what’s layered systems responsibilities. Like I guess the conversation can be very binary or reactionary because nobody talks about front of east commmunist turned Darwinistic technosphere in East Asia and like the west’s capitalizing on their white supremacy techno-schlock. Like yes there should be conversations about how technology blurs the line between human and machine. Like how difficult is it to have a place where you meet and talk about a cultural book you just read. Like you shouldn’t have to go to the city to figure that out or that their are only two high-profile advocates on crisis. I think it’s Naomi Klein for climate change, which sometimes I look back on her work and it kind of like looks like a front for privatizing climate change machines/products and she’s also one of the high profile people for the green new deal which also doesn’t talk about the hierarchy of guaranteed jobs, like where are the questions about who monopolizes all this information of climate tech and like what can the people do. Then I also think there’s Yuval Noah Harari on human tech/the parts of new technological frontier which he calls Homo Deus which is very clever because I guess globally the middle class have been doing homo economics. And yeah it’s fun to think and be a person who gets to be the face of new human tech but like guys it’s a monopoly, do you think somebody like Richard Brandson wants to be on the same yacht as you. I think Dr. Fauci is the face of COVID-19 which he has recently stepped down but it’s still very much a western deal even though I believe it started in China. Bill Gates is the next face of COVID-19 and global health initiatives. There’s also the racial inequality which has been around for awhile and it took 5 years to find a book by an African American economist. 5 years. Then there’s the Russian-Ukraine war which is very recent still but that’s also a western deal which I’m still very confused by. But it’s still very which a crisis in which white people dictate. And whatever finance crisis I don’t know but it’s still a western deal. And like weirdly, nobody talks about manufacturing. I think people sometimes call it deindustrialization as if we just went to growing trees on a massive scale but like isn’t people like going nuts on digging up oil. Currently, I’m in a suburb close to NYC and like people walk around like they going to Turks and Caicos tomorrow.

And I have two sisters, which recently we’ve had complicated communication with but they seem like our personal conflicts outweigh having social conversations about being a person in the world is.

Obviously, if I did something horrible like what is it and like is that really something to hold onto when like the world is so complicated. We were all born in America but now I’m starting to feel like East Asians get a very different way to internalize what it means to be American. Like yeah on my mom’s side they are like the American dream but like as East Asians like what do they think of things socially, culturally, and politically. Like I have no clue if they like living in America and being American. How do they feel about China? Because of recent personal events, I have no clue if I feel American or not. I really do feel like living in America is way better than living in East Asia. Am I American, I really don’t know even though I was born here and I don’t know how to continue be American. And like I watch tv news and they will be a rotation of ads on vitamins for your brain but gosh having a social place to talk about cultural events what a communist.

In conclusion, yeah I guess there’s 24 in a day 7 days a week and those algorithms can have at it. But please stop putting influencer beauty marketers in my feed. They are never going to talk about who gets to commercialize bio-chemistry. I do not care about East Asian Internet personalities, like on a list write down what qualities they have and like could somebody have done it better. Like sure people who empire are going to empire but like are you just putting yourself in a box. Like write it down.

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coughloop · 2 years

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vent/rant post about fash/cryptofash/reactionaries on tumblr under the cut dont reblog

im really frustrated with how things have gone down in the last week and im gonna ramble a lot, also im gonna use fash/cryptofash/reactionary and maybe some other terms pretty interchangeably cause they all feel like umbrella terms for the type of people im talking about.

I know we're all getting tired of blocking the same cryptofash accounts that keep remaking over and over again, as well as new ones that find their ways into the periphery of popular posters and have suddenly shoot into popularity until they post something super racist. And a lot of the time it feels so useless and futile, like half the time they have a backup ready to go and the other half just remake in under 24 hours. and like, what does it even do? its not fighting any real world issues, i have no idea what the social effect of having super racist people 3 degrees of separation from everyone on the site actually means, but I know I really fucking dont like it, I know it makes me super uncomfortable to see a mutuals reblog from someone who constantly reblogs and interacts with people that fantasize about beating up trans people on the street.

and now that people like me and some others are getting more and more savvy about noticing cryptofash blogs, it becomes harder and harder to not see how many people i follow that keep me 3 degrees of separation from them.

take ukrainianbimbo for example. they constantly reblog from terfs, transphobes, racists, misogynists and anti-Semites AS WELL as trans people, Jewish people, and people of colour. i blocked them from following me months ago after spending 30 seconds on their blog and recognizing multiple well known tumblr reactionaries. when they noticed i had blocked them and made a couple posts about how easy it is to not follow and reblog from fascists they went on a posting spree whining about how they dont check who they reblog from and why should it be their responsibility. wah wah wah, shut up. anyway, last week they got properly called out for this behaviour and badgrapple came to their defense, going on the dumbest tirade ive ever seen about how theyre sick of fake callouts for people who havent done anything wrong (tell that to your friend ukrainianbimbo who's reaction to being labelled an anti-Semite and a fascist was to triple down on telling a trans jewish woman that she was ugly and should kill herself (both of these things are very untrue shout out Agent, you dont deserve that at all)) and now both of them are going out of their way to interact with more bigots seemingly as a protest for being repressed over hanging with those types in the first place. Fuck off.

All of this then led into people i respect making random vagueposts like "feel like fash is a word being thrown around way too liberally on tumblr these days" and like, yeah, in a way i guess it is, but also people are acting like fascists! crypto fascists specifically because theyre never completely open about their beliefs. fash is shorter and less confusing however (thanks cryptocurrency for that) so thats what people genuinely call them. Why is that a bad thing? If you're posting things that people look at and say "woah dude, you sound like a fascist", maybe thats on you for doing things that other fascists on this site do, not on them for using the "wrong word" for it.

on top of all this though, people HAVE started making up unchecked callouts about people, like Declan smokeweedinbong, who was unfairly called a fascist by someone because declan responded to a comment on his post he didnt background check, thats totally unfair to declan but fuck the reaction from a lot of my mutuals was REALLY WEIRD. people didnt start posting in defense of declan, who again, did nothing wrong but not pay as much attention to a random person as he could have (ive done that too i get it!), but instead people started beating the "cancel culture has gone to far" drum, fucking again. why is that your response?? defend your friends, please! but why is it people who dont want to be exposed to racists and transphobes and anti-Semites ultimately receiving the pushback? its so dumb!

so now half the time i see someone getting an anon about reblogging from a fash, they respond positively but why do they always get follow up anons like "thats dumb who cares, i never look at who i reblog from" like maybe you fucking should?? shut up! people are so fucking stupid on anon it blows me away soemtimes.

i really have no idea where im going with all this, i just really needed to get this frustration of my chest. thanks for reading my run on sentences if you did, and sorry for being somewhat incoherent, i just am so fucking tired of all this, and it doesnt even mean anything. whatever

#d0nt r3bl0g

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a-halfblood-named-coin · 2 years

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Did Monty destroy Bonnie? A rant/theory:

I feel like the absence of Glamrock or Superstar Bonnie is one of the biggest mysteries the average fnaf SB enjoyer will try to solve. Most of the details given in game are relatively easy to find and its a really obvious problem. Bonnie clearly did exist, why does he no longer? But it is also a frustrating mystery because so much goes unanswered and frankly I do not know why they put so much into Bonnie’s absence ,especially in comparison to the zero effort put into explaining the lack of foxy. But no matter, here we go.

Why is Monty the most common choice?

Well frankly because he’s the obvious one, Monty has everything to gain from Bonnie’s decommission. It can be assumed the previous to the destruction, Monty was more like DJ MM or Sun/moon, contained to his attraction. While Bonnie had bowling and was also the bass player for the main band, just like he’s always been. When Bonnie gets destroyed, instead of fixing him, management decides to scrap him altogether, slotting Monty into his space in the pizza plex. Monty becomes top dog, getting the same level of branding and marketing Bonnie did and he becomes more popular than when he just played golf. It can also be seen that Bonnie’s last known location as a functioning animatronic, was Monty Golf. He traveled from his green room (assumed to be Monty’s current room) to the atrium, the east arcade and finally Monty golf. This obviously implies he was destroyed in Monty golf, and sure there could have been some accident but it’s not a stretch to think that Monty, in all his very obvious aggression and destruction, scrapped Bonnie himself on purpose. But then we have to question these animatronics level of sentience and free will.

Does Monty have free will?

These animatronics are confusing, seemingly not possessed by children, they are the most complex and emotional robots we’ve seen from Fazbears yet. But are these emotions purposeful or a side effect of the viruses tampering? In the therapy tapes, it is mentioned that the virus (being sent by Vanessa) is slowly taking over every machine in the pizza plex causing everything from computers to STAFF bots, to the animatronics themselves to glitch and malfunction. The entire game I was sitting there thinking, who programs a robot to eat trash? Or cry?! Or commit mass amounts of property damage?! Or if it really is a glitch in the code, WHY HAS NO ONE FIXED IT YET? But in the tapes it mentions their inability to fix whatever this virus is doing, and this could explain their reactionary and defensive response to the bots acting out. Rather than fix the programming error, they make the human staff work around the animatronic quirks because they haven’t figured out how to fix it. I’m telling you this because before we can consider the possibility of sentience being part of the glamrock animatronics, we need to consider if their expressive personalities are a part of their programming or an error due to the virus. If it’s a part of the programming, if they have always been expressive and only recently began displaying destructive behaviors, then we can assume that the normal Glamrock’s would experience a decent amount of decision making and free will. But if their entire personalities are due to the virus/Vanny’s meddling, than we cannot assume anything about their ability to make decisions free of their programming paths.

Personally I would assume the former, they’ve always had advanced personalities, in the messages we hear stories of them hiding from performances, experiencing emotions such as jealousy, longing and empathy. I believe they simply got worse with the virus, Monty has always been dominant but only recently perhaps has he been destroying his green room, for example. With this established, lets swing back around to the question, does Monty have free will? Much of the theory of him destroying Bonnie, banks on him doing it on purpose. Him making the choice to destroy Bonnie so he can take his place in the band. This is also implied in the Monty Golf arcade game, where we can see Monty center stage with Freddy off to the side in a dumpster. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that Monty’s goal is to take over the Pizzaplex and become the face of the mall. We hear Vanessa say as much, that Freddy could be scrapped and Monty would take over the show, she implies it would be temporary but who knows. Monty seemingly went after Bonnie as an in for the band, and may be currently plotting how to rid of the bear himself. but again this implies some intense free will and sentience, but I think this theory works.

The only thing that doesn’t work, is that in accordance with my theory that Monty and the others only got dangerous and aggressive after the virus was introduced, this would mean that Monty probably destroyed Bonnie after this virus was installed, it heightened his aggression to the point of acting on his inner desires. But! I can hear you saying, wouldn’t that mean Bonnie was also infected? Ding ding ding!! You’ve made it to the final part of my theory.

Why was Bonnie scrapped at all?

Now listen, these glamrocks appear to have a history of getting really hurt. we hear how Monty broke both his legs falling off the catwalk previous to the game, it’s not to far a stretch to think the glamrocks have needed constant maintenance and sometimes emergency fixing. So why scrap Bonnie when he was shattered? Yes it would be expensive to fix him, but they fixed Monty, they have expressed that if Chica did get compacted they would fix her. Plus it couldn’t have been more expensive than erasing Bonnie and replacing him with Monty throughout the entire building, they have gold statues of him and themed ATMs and trashcans, that must have taken ages and money to replace?! So what I’m proposing, is that there was a different reason they decided to retire Bonnie, besides him getting shattered. This could be many things, but my brain goes to the virus. What if Bonnie was experiencing the virus the worst, becoming aggressive, violent to guests and acting completely out of his programming? These poor mechanics have well over a hundred animatronics acting out and against their programming and they can’t fix it. So maybe when one got destroyed...they just let it happen. Could they have fixed him? Sure, but he would still be broken. He would still be acting out and perhaps even getting worse, so maybe they just decided one less animatronic wasn’t such a bad thing.

TL:DR: I do think that Monty destroyed Bonnie, the virus inciting him to levels of violence he had never experienced before, but I think the reason Bonnie was decommissioned was because management cut their losses when they couldn’t fix the virus corrupting and infecting their animatronics.

Bonnie was left to rot because they couldn’t handle him anymore.

#fnaf #fnaf theory #fnaf security breach theory #fnaf security breach #glamrock bonnie #fnaf bonnie #glamrock monty #montgomery gator #but thats just a theory #A GAME THEORY

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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What went down with the DigiFes situation, from the community and translator perspective

I think the events of the last few days have gotten everyone in a huge fuss, and because everything got caught up in a lot of chaotic social media stuff, there’s been a lot of questions about what came from what and who knew what at what time. Fortunately, I happen to be:

Someone who’s a veteran in this fanbase and thus has a small handful of friends in this community, who also have their own friends

Someone who understands a little Japanese (although not as much as others in this community do) and therefore can read things in Japanese myself to some degree without needing someone else to translate it for me

So hopefully I can shed some light on what kinds of things were being discussed, and what was known and not known at what time in this fanbase with all of this.

The most important thing I want to establish is that there was no organized coalition or smear campaign. (Kind of ironic I have to say this when the topic at hand has so much to do with conspiracy theories.) I’m a veteran, I know friends who are veterans, they know other friends who are veterans but don’t know me at all. My friends usually agree with and like the same things I do, and I give them advice and assistance with my skillset when I can, and they return the favor. We pass things along through the grapevine, not through some super-secret club grapevine, just via the nature of social relationships and some Discord servers (multiple; again, not everyone knows each other). So these are my impressions of what happened, based on said grapevine.

How it all started

Konaka’s blog is long. Like, really long. Which is only natural, because he was recapping basically the entire 51 episodes of Tamers in excruciating detail, so no translator in this fanbase would be able to translate all of that and not lose their mind! So for the most part people who couldn’t read Japanese had pretty much given up on reading it (with maybe a few dedicated people using machine translation), and some people who understood Japanese would point out parts they found interesting, but for all intents and purposes it remained untranslated and not super-accessible to the mainstream. (Even the Japanese fanbase itself wasn’t super aware of the blog’s existence.)

So when that first post in May about 9/11 dropped, the people who did read Japanese started going “uh...”

At the time, the DigiFes stage reading hadn't been announced yet. So, in other words, everyone reading it only knew it as, functionally, him namedropping an alt-right YouTuber and praising his observations. The reaction from anyone reading the blog at the time was something along the lines of “disappointed and mildly concerned.” (Note the mildly.)

The posts in June about the Great Reset and the anti-vaccine sentiment were when people keeping an eye on the situation started to get really worried about how far this was going to escalate. At this point, I want to make something clear that may not be apparent to those who weren’t keeping up or who are outside the fanbase: Most of the translators and Japanese-reading people deliberately chose not to be too public about this at this time.

Why?

This is the irony surrounding the fact that said translators are now being accused of trying to further “cancel culture”: cancellation was absolutely not what anyone wanted back then! If anyone wanted to create a smear campaign, 9/11 conspiracies, the Great Reset, and anti-vaccine statements are already more than enough to make a starting case. But at the time, this was a blog that very few people (Japanese or otherwise) knew about, translating it would basically just boost its platform more than it would have had in the first place (which would be counterproductive), and -- well, let’s be real, it’s not hard to imagine that people might get reactionary over it, and people would go nuts. Was there any real benefit that would come out of that? Not really, no.

So at the most, those keeping an eye on it might have vented a bit on their personal accounts, but some even tried to self-censor with “[redacted]” or vagueposting, because this was a matter that needed to be handled with delicacy. Thus, there were “mild rumors through the grapevine” about what was going on, but those who knew were trying to hold back with restraint and mostly inform people quietly in the hopes of this not needing to become some kind of huge social media campaign.

(Also, to be a bit blunt about it, it’s really hard to be in front of someone who loves Tamers and is gushing about it and showing admiration for Konaka, knowing all of this and wanting to say something, but feeling like a jerk if you pop their bubble like “also, he’s probably an alt-right conspiracy theorist now.” Not to say that the ignorance-is-bliss concept is always a good thing, but...)

But since the blog posts in question were discussing the prospect of having his sentiments in fiction, everyone reading them was on edge anticipating what might be in store for DigiFes. The hope was that it might blow over. Hopefully, everything would be in the form of subtle themes with plausible deniability, it would all stay within the realm of “it’s not worth causing a fuss over this,” that would be the end of it, and we’d all move on with our lives.

Unfortunately, “Political Correctness is activating Cancel Culture” isn’t exactly subtle.

DigiFes and the aftermath

I think it’s too easy to assign too much responsibility to the fansub group that was indirectly responsible for breaking the news for all of this, but actually, the truth is, this would have gotten out anyway.

Even when the stream itself was going on, there were Japanese livebloggers, and there were also English speakers who caught on that something was happening with “the Tamers fighting political correctness”. Some hours later, an upload of the stream went live on YouTube, and quite a few people started watching it and caught onto what was going on. If the fansub group that released the now-infamous version hadn’t done it, I’m absolutely certain someone else would have eventually (perhaps in a different language first, but nevertheless). And even before then, information about what the hell was going on was already starting to circulate in broken and incomplete forms. That fansub solidified what was going on, and perhaps accelerated the moment the bomb dropped on everyone, but if it hadn’t been there, it would have happened much more gradually and chaotically.

On top of that, while the use of Western alt-right rhetoric (seriously, please do not try to bring the “injecting Western politics into Japanese media” argument here when all of us are asking him to take the Western politics out) meant that it went over most of the Japanese audience’s heads (hence your answer to “who approved this?”), there was at least one Japanese person who was politically savvy enough to call it out for what it was in disgust. (I’m not linking them here because I’m not dumb enough to fling them in a place where some of you trigger-happy people will go after them.) They didn’t even need to be super in-tune with Western politics to get it; they understood enough to tell that there were some pretty alarming extremist views in there. If they understood that much, it was naturally going to follow that the Western side was definitely going to become aware one way or another.

Even all that aside, at the very least, said fansub is accurate; imagine how much worse this situation would have been if someone else had taken it up and confused things further with a misleading translation, or, worse, deliberately messed with the contents. Basically, this debacle could have easily been a lot worse.

I don’t think anyone expected this to get as big as it did (as in, to the point mainstream anime reporters outside the fanbase picked up on it). There was a similar tri. reading back in 2016, but even a lot of the hardcore fanbase barely remembers it exists! These aren’t even supposed to be canon, either! But when you have that disclaimer at the front, and the contents are really like that, it was probably inevitable for it to become a social media sensation. I mean the contents...sure are a thing.

One thing I should point out about the disclaimer is that it only mentions the program itself. It doesn’t bring up the blog, and it doesn’t bring up who wrote this scenario, just the fact that the program contains alt-right rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Because it does! It’s not even technically praising or condemning the content within, it just says “we don’t agree with it”! What the group did condemn was...approaching staff about it (and especially starting a fight). Because, in the end, that’s what the disclaimer was for: a heads-up about what was in there, and an added reminder that the people translating this are just translating it for the sake of informational purposes. Or, in other words:

It was a content warning. Even without the disclaimer, there were many, many people who would have recognized the contents for what they were and been caught by it unawares, and become upset by it. There were many people who said that they were glad to have that there because it at least gave them some time to mentally prepare for what they were about to be slapped with!

It really, really was a disclaimer. When you have something that level of extremely politically charged stuff, it’s only natural to start suspecting that the translation group had an agenda (official translations tend to get this a lot when content is remotely political). But no, the translation group did their due diligence, even if their opinions were starkly opposed to what was in there.

I was not personally involved in that translation, but I’ll give you this (copy-pasted with permission, from someone who wasn’t technically involved directly in it but was privy to discussions while it was being done):

no we brought up all of those questions like the fact that Yamaki's clearly off his rocker and this isn't supposed to be taken seriously in the first place or that maybe if we're lucky he'll just sound like a fake woke boomer but no matter how you slice it the plot is about him "convincing" the unbelieving Takato and co. into rallying up against the true enemy of Political Correctness and that's just literally the alt-right playbook in a nutshell

the thing even made it to YouTube, we were basically racing against the clock

I mean I really want to say this is plausible deniability but I don’t know how you can get any less subtle than this, this is not something you can mince words

like I really wish we could pass this off as “as long as you don’t know the blog you can take this innocently as political commentary or something” but I honestly don’t think this is something you can take innocently even without context

tbh the Political Correctness part is the most cringeworthy but Yamaki’s rant about fact checkers being evil and all that is probably a lot more worrying when you think about it

tbh I’ve never felt as conflicted about what’s the right thing to do as I do now

So in other words, it was not a reckless decision to just tack on a political label; it was done after a lot of consideration about the consequences to put the label on and what people would think of it with or without context, whether there might be a glimmer of light possibility to try and pass this off as more innocuous as it was, and eventually a determination that, in the end, there was indeed alt-right rhetoric in the program, and should be labeled accordingly.

The result was that, of course, everything broke out on social media, chaos burst out, a lot of hearts were unfortunately broken, and a lot of alt-righters started invading spaces accusing people of proving him right with cancel culture. Ironically, my personal observation is that, while there were exceptions, most people in the actual fanbase did honor the requests to not harass people about it, and this may actually be the most solidarity I’ve ever seen from the Digimon fanbase in my life, which is saying a lot considering how we usually tend to be a drama magnet most of the time. The ones who were actually directly messaging him were his newfound supporters locking down on offering him “support against people trying to cancel him” (I think they were more heartbroken and upset at him than anything...), and most of the harassment came from alt-righters not even in the fanbase, namesearching and sending harassing, accusatory messages to anyone involved for as much as expressing mild dismay. (You want to talk about harassment and being attacked for having an opinion? Pot, meet kettle.)

This leads us back to the question of the blog: if you’ll remember, I just said that the fansub in question did not bring it up at all. That’s because, at the beginning, there was no intention to bring it up if it wasn’t necessary; this was not intended as a smear campaign. The warning was attached to the DigiFes program because it was about the DigiFes program. But the resulting chaos had a lot of people bring up the blog because it better contextualized what was going on, and discussion led to people looking it up themselves and posting fragments of it on social media, sometimes even using machine translate.

Ultimately, that’s the reason this document was released: it was the same reason as the fansub being released at the time it was, which was “if it hadn’t been released, the alternative was watching things get disseminated more slowly and chaotically.” I will say outright that I was one of the people who got to lay eyes on that document before it was publicly released (and even helped out with some advice here and there); it’s no secret that it was being quietly passed around as an internal memo prior to the outbreak. The original version of the document had a request to not post it on public social media because of the chaos it would cause, and while I don’t know how many people got to see it before it was released, I’m under the impression that it was enough people that I was quite surprised everyone who saw it respected that request.

Why does the document contain a ton of analysis and debunking on top of just the translations? Well, when you’re translating those blog posts, you’re technically giving it a bigger platform (which was one of the reasons it was originally considered better to not post it publicly). Since the document exists primarily to inform people, especially about why certain things that may seem innocuous actually have wider context behind them, it’s going to need to contain an analysis like that.

The summary

There were a lot of decisions involved by a lot of different people through all parts of this ordeal. I think it’s fair to criticize whether they were the right decisions in retrospect or whether certain things should have been done slightly differently (including my small role in this), but nevertheless, it was one where the risks involved were thought through and taken into account in every step of the situation, with a desire to avoid chaos, or at least prevent it from getting too much worse. When you have contents like this, a controversy honestly is inevitable -- how on earth are you going to be able to put contents like Yamaki reciting off all the typical alt-right YouTuber talking points and ending in Political Correctness activating Cancel Culture and not expect that to make a stir at some point? -- and so, in the end, this wasn’t so much a conscious attempt at stirring the pot as much as it was the dam finally breaking, and a desire to keep it from spilling over too much. Nobody coordinated this! I think everyone just really hates drama.

Knowing all the steps and thoughts that went on behind all of this, I think being reactionary or accusatory for clout is the last thing anyone involved wanted to be. Considering just how many of these steps above could have easily been made into exposure, from the posts all the way back in May and June to the internal memo document that was made to keep friends quietly informed but could have been leaked to the public with only one bad actor, there was an active, common desire among people who didn’t even know each other to try and minimize the potential damage as much as possible. When you look at the situation now, of course it looks awful and hardly like something that came out of “trying to minimize damage”, but in reality there’s only so much you can do when the contents really are like that, and I personally believe everyone involved was doing what they thought was their best option as the situation kept changing.

I can’t speak for anyone else, especially since I don’t even know most of the people involved, and I didn’t have much of a role in all of this, but I think everyone involved, myself and my friends and everyone who’d been keeping tabs on this situation for months, has been going through a lot of heartbreak and conflict over what to do next, so please understand that there was a lot of thought put into all of it, and that it really was a difficult situation no matter how you look at it.

#digimon #digimon tamers

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marigoldwitch · 3 years

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Let’s Talk About Elitism in the Witchcraft Community

It always seems to come back to this but I want to talk about witches in the community who give confusing, and often times misguided, advice to new comers in an attempt to separate themselves from the “soft” or “baby” practitioners.

I’m on witchtok (a community on an app called TikTok, in case you were unaware of what I’m talking about) alot and there’s something I noticed about the witches there; something I’m sure alot of you have noticed too. There’s 2 major groups of witches on the app. The ones who post “easy” and “simple” spells and information, and the ones who post up reactionary spells and information.

There seems to be this need for witches who feel better than or more educated (in their opinion) to posts videos in response to or in direct opposition of other witches. Usually these other witches are seen as newbies to the craft. And if they aren’t new (as in they’ve been practicing for a while) they’re considered uneducated or unwilling to learn.

The “why aren’t witches reading books anymore?” and “I think it’s them being more worried about aesthetics than actually learning.” comments are frustrating and reveals a huge disconnect and sense of privilege within our community. I’ve also seen comments / videos specifically criticizing the popularity of spell jars in recent years. The funniest thing though is that a lot of them are suggesting doing charm bags instead... as if that’s not just another form of a spell jar.. except it’s in a bag... not a jar :/ They want so badly to be “other” and “better” that they’re actually giving advice that’s basically saying “hey instead of using X container to hold your spell, have you tried using Y container instead?? If you read books and not just get your info from Tik Tok blah blah blah.” As if they’ve suggested something grand or much different than what someone is already doing.

Let’s Talk Privilege

First lets be clear that privilege doesn’t mean you haven’t had “hard times” in your life. And being privileged in one way doesn’t make you privilege in every aspect. You can have class privilege while also experiencing hardship in relation to another aspect of your life. I am white, I have white privilege. I’m also a poor high school drop out. Which means I don’t have class privilege. It’s important that I make this clear because I know some people are gonna identify in someway with one or more of the under privileged groups that I’ll be talking about and that’s normal. That doesn’t mean that you can’t also identify in someway with one or more of the privileged groups that I’ll be talking about.

Why don’t you just read more books? / Why don’t you just experiment with more tools, supplies and options like crystals, candles, herbs, tarot etc? / Why don’t you just invest in better tools and supplies?

This falls under class privilege. Not everyone can afford to spend money on these things. “Well the library is free” not everyone can afford to spend time on these things. And I know, to someone who has the money and has the time, these sound like excuses to just not work “hard enough” (which we’ll get into why this statement is ablest in a minute) but it’s legit the reality for a lot of people. Let’s also remember that public libraries in underfunded poorer communities are.. well under funded and don’t offer the same selection that a well funded library would. Also the cost of going to and from that library (or a much better one with a better selection). Personally, I live in what is known as the bible belt and my local (underfunded) library has 5 books on witchcraft. 3 are reference books and can not actually be checked out. The other 2 require a 10 dollar deposit to check out. I kid you not. You have to pay to check out those books.

I saw a comment that said “crystal grids and crystal magic is very beginner friendly and easy, why don’t more witches do this?” And I want to shake them and scream “crystals cost money you doodoo head!!” LOL.

Supplies and tools are expensive. Yes, there’s plenty of information online about how to use what you have on hand... and those same witches sharing cheap and easy alternatives to supplies and tools are also sharing cheap and easy alternatives to spells and rituals. Hence how spell jars became so popular.

“They just don’t want to put in the effort” / “They aren’t working hard enough” / “They’re just in it for the aesthetics”

This falls under ableism. 1. Expecting other witches to match your energy and effort is hella ablest and you should stop. Not only is it unrealistic to assume we’re all on the same page, it’s unhealthy to project your own expectations on to {most likely} complete strangers just because you share one interest [witchcraft] with them. 2. Some people are visual practitioners (whether they’re ND or not) and so they need to and work better with seeing what they’re doing. It’s obvious that the type of witchcraft lots of ND people use is the type that is overly criticized in our community. (ND = Neurodivergent)

Physical disability is also something to keep in mind. Not everyone is physical able to do all the things you can do. Personally I experience hand tremors. Basically using an herb bundle to do a smoke cleansing is a huge ass mess for me and is more headache than it’s worth. So I opt out of smoking cleansing that way. It doesn’t mean that I’m not trying hard enough or that I’m not putting in the effort to make it work... it means I have a disability that makes it more difficult and I’ve found other ways to do these cleanses.

Also, witches are allowed to like pretty things. Like pretty things and valuing the beauty in your practice is all perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your space, yourself or your practice to look “pretty.”

I Need To Mention Cultural Awareness

Another reason something might not make sense to you is because it isn’t for you, literally it has nothing to do with you or your practice and so you’ve chosen to put it down rather than mind your business. That’s really all I can say about this as I practice a fairly common form of folk magic and the practice, as well as the culture in which it’s derived from is open. So there’s nothing I do that’s really considered for specific cultures only. I’d rather someone else with more experience talk about this in more detail.

Misguided Information and Superiority Complex

When sharing information and experiences it’s probably better to do so without needing it to be in reaction to someone else’s information and experiences. I don’t think there is anything wrong with sharing other forms of magic or witchcraft. I think most of us want as much information to be as easily accessible for as many people as possible. The issue comes from only sharing this information and experience because you think the oppositions is/are wrong. Not because you want the help people learn. And actively putting down certain information because it was shared via social media, while also insisting that your information is the actual correct information.. while also sharing it on the same social media platform.

“Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.... except me. You can believe me.” Is what it feels like. And I think what gets to me the most is the amount of UPG that is sprinkled into a lot of the information that these “I know better” witches share. Thinking you know better or know more because you’ve been doing it longer or doing it different, doesn’t actually mean you do.

I’ve said this before: No one is sharing their entire practice online

“Why are you only doing spell jars?” why do you assume that the only time they practice witchcraft is for a video / photo that they post online?

Better yet, why are you demanding they share more than they’re comfortable with sharing? Why do you feel entitled to know everything about their practice?

Just because a witch’s Tik Tok, Instagram, Tumblr etc is only filled with pretty spell jars and aesthetic photos of teas, doesn’t mean that’s their entire practice. That’s the part they’re willing to share with the world. And even if it was their entire practice, why do you care? Why is it your business? When did they ask you to tell them what you thought of their practice?

In conclusion

Before you make that post or make that video about how X witches aren’t doing Y thing right because I did it Z way, remember we’re all different. Times change. And something being popular doesn’t mean it’s not effective or useful. Something being mainstream doesn’t make it bad or stupid. And witchcraft becoming more and more modernized doesn’t mean it’s losing it’s roots or that the next generation of witches are gonna be “sissy babies with nothing but a bunch of pretty jars.” and even if they are, it’s non of your business.

#witchblr #witches #witchcraft #witches of tumblr #witchy #magic

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afoolforatook · 3 years

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V8 Ch 4 and Qrow’s speech about Clover. And how we talk about how a character grieves, versus how grief is handled by writers.

So I really shouldn’t post this tonight because it’s 4 am and I’m tired and I’ve been thinking about this too much today already and this is something I should read over more..... But I’ve got to get it out before I can try to sleep. So, first off I apologize if this comes across poorly, or overly confrontational. It’s not at all how I mean it and I’m genuinely not upset with literally anyone. Just seeing some things that have me thinking about this more and more and it has me a little concerned, and I want to talk about it a bit more directly.

I’ll probably add to this later or clarify or something… I just had to get it out of my head.

I already talked about this some in response to theonceoverthinker’s post about it, and I’m too tired to try to cover all of that again, so if you want more context on how I feel about this, and why, please go read it.

But I’ve seen some more posts about this conversation, and while for the most part I agree with a lot of what’s being said (and often on both sides of whether or not this was a good speech from Qrow) there’s one thing that I do want to address a little more that I think a lot of people aren’t aware of.

In talking about this it’s important that we differentiate between having a problem with how we think the writers are going to use this speech to frame things, and having a problem with the fact that Qrow said what he said in the context of his current emotional state and grieving process.

Do I think this was just amazing perfect writing and handling of Qrow expressing these feelings? Absolutely not. I have plenty of issues and really can’t say how I feel about it until I know where they are taking it/how they are using it to frame the entire situation.

Do I think it was just inherently awful callous dialogue that frames Clover as only important to Qrow because of his semblance and what that meant for Qrow/interaction with his semblance?

Absolutely not.

And that’s exactly where I have a bit of an issue.

Because I totally understand people’s concern with that speech. And I have a very hard time right now trusting that CRWBY will handle it properly and not just use it to turn the narrative into blaming Clover. I don’t know if I trust them or not. I just don’t know. And that is deeply concerning.

But the just surface of what Qrow said, without knowing how they will use it and further show his feelings, is not just the inherently awful thing I’m seeing some people take it as. And the reasons I’ve seen for people saying so, while completely valid things to take issue with in regards to CRWBY’s intentions in writing them, can’t just be blanket applied as issues with the fact that Qrow said them at all. (this is one of the things I feel fairly certain I’m not explaining well rn, and I’m just too tired to figure out. So I hope it at all makes sense).

My point is; depending on how things go from here on out, CRWBY may be completely wrong for why they included these lines and what they are having them mean. But Qrow, as a character, is not inherently wrong for having said or felt them.

I can totally see why you would interpret these lines as concerning, and just plain poor takes on how to frame what happened in ch 12, and who to blame, and the nature of Clover’s importance to Qrow.. And like I said, it could very well be intended that way and negate everything I’m saying here. But by itself it’s not so black and white horrible.

And this is exactly why I’m so nervous about how they handle Qrow’s grief. Because grief is a complicated thing. And what someone like me, who has processed a similar grief in a similar way, gets from this kind of scene can be very different to someone who hasn’t. And all of this said, I’m not trying to assume what anyone else has been through, or invalidate any grief, it’s very likely that others have dealt with a similar loss and feel very differently, or experienced their grief very differently. But, what I hope we all can agree on is that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong.

The thing about the kind of grief that Qrow is dealing with right now? It’s very rarely shown how people actually deal with it, especially in more than just one short scene. And if it is, it’s often romanticised and sterilized to be made into something easily understood by people who haven’t gone through anything like that.

Because the truth is, this kind of grief is ugly. It’s complicated and contradicts itself. It can seem selfish and self absorbed. It is angry and reactionary.

And it is very easy to say that what Qrow said is toxic or wrong. But it’s not. The intention the writers have in having him say it that way very well might be. But just what he said?

Y’all that’s fucking grief.

Fresh. Ugly. Messy. Angry. Confused. Tired. Grief.

Healthy grief does not mean fair, clear headed, sensitive, open minded takes from the get go.

Grief is incredibly flawed and unflattering.

And what concerns me is seeing people say it was outright terribly written dialogue, that was callous, and showed that Qrow didn’t really care about Clover beyond how he made him feel better about his semblance.

Because when you’re grieving like that, one of the biggest fears is that people will tell you you are grieving wrong. That you’re being selfish. That you’re making it all about you. That somehow the way you are grieving proves that you didn’t really love the person as much as you thought. That if you just loved them more, if you were less selfish, if you were just a better person, you wouldn’t think those kinds of things.

And you internalise that shit. You internalise even just the fear of people thinking that. And that’s how people close up about their grief. That’s how people feel guilty for how they grieve. And that makes actually processing your grief and starting to heal so much harder, if not impossible.

Qrow is still in the immediate aftermath of this loss. I’m awful with the exact timeline, but it’s what, like somewhere around 48 hours? With continued trauma going on around him.

It is literally not possible for him to process everything fully like this.

The fact is that someone struggling with that kind of grief and trauma, and it having happened in a situation as complicated as what happened on the tundra (regardless of how terribly all of it was written), they’re going to say things that seem selfish. Or even victim blaming. Because they are processing. They are having to reconcile their own hurt and anger and grief and confusion. Fight between how they feel about the person they’ve lost, and their instinct to, in some way, protect themselves from a painful truth of how things really happened or who was to blame, or what mistakes they made. Even with Qrow accepting some of that blame, maybe even way more than he should, he’s still going to reflexively try to avoid taking parts of it that are particularly painful. I hate 90% of how people think of the stages of grief, mostly because they are not the clear linear thing that is often thought of. But this is the anger in a sense. It’s a protective lashing out. “If Clover had only!-” He wants to be angry, wants to be able to just say Clover was wrong, but as soon as he does he cuts himself off. He feels bad for trying to put the blame on Clover. That’s natural.

Is it cool if CRWBY is trying to frame that as right? Fuck no. But the fact that Qrow is feeling it, is expressing it, is struggling with it back and forth? There is nothing wrong with that.

Hell. Qrow even being able to say that it was his fault in some way, that he chose wrong in working with Tyrian, but then also stand firm in that he did not actually kill Clover, and apparently this is not the first time he’s said that. It might not be perfect. But the fact that he can even be there at this point is huge.

I have said nearly exactly that same speech. I said and thought things in the first week, even months, of my grief, that, even at the time, I knew were selfish. Were making everything about me. I hated myself for it. But I couldn’t stop it. And If I had tried? I wouldn’t have processed everything. I would have chastised myself for feeling things that I thought were wrong to feel. That’s not how you process grief. It’s how you get stuck in it.

But the way Qrow looks at the pin? The way he pulls his thumb over it. The weak little laugh. The way he rushes to hide it. The fact that the first time we see him really asserting himself and his innocence is when Harriet threatens to take it from him.

I know all of that. That exact expression, movement.

He is so close to breaking. And he’s Qrow. He’s self conscious, self hating, isolating, Qrow. Talking about how this just confirms his own ideas of his position in relationships, his own fears about the danger of his semblance? That’s easy. That’s normal. It hurts like shit, but it’s manageable, he’s done it plenty of times before. Now it’s just a bit more raw.

But flat out talking about the entire loss that was Clover? About their bond ,and who Clover was as a person, and his potential, his future? The loss that Clover experienced in having his life cut short?

Maybe I’m shamelessly projecting again. But I truly do not believe that Qrow could manage to think, let alone talk, about that right this moment, and not completely break down. Which he knows he can’t afford to do yet.

Talking about himself. About his semblance and what Clover meant to him in that regard. Is painful. It hurts. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s familiar.

It’s angry. It’s small weak laughs because you are nowhere even close to okay but you can’t be as broken as you really are right now, so you’ve just got to stick it out.

Qrow is Qrow. Regardless of whether the writers pull this off appropriately or not, I have no doubt that this man understands, and has thought long and hard, about autonomy. About the tragedy of how death strips every last shred of it from a person. About the cruelty of someone’s death not even being seen as about them.

But right this moment, he can’t focus on that. There’s too much still to do. To worry about. To protect.

Talking about Clover? Just as Clover?

Facing that unfairness, that loss of autonomy, that stolen future (whether or not that future involved Qrow)? That is an entirely different kind of pain.

I’m four years removed from my loss and I still can’t think about that too much because it’s physically painful. It’s irreconcilable. I can joke and laugh and be crass about how empty I worry my life will always be without Emma. But thinking, talking, about what I feel when I just sit with the fact that she’s not just not here with me, but she’s gone. All the things she never got to do or be or feel. The crushing cruelty of her having no say in how her story ended, or how she is remembered. I have made talking about my grief my career. And that is still something I have no words for. Thinking about it in those first few days? Is a large part of why I don’t remember so much of that time. It was too painful, so I just blocked it out.

I said things. I thought things. I believed things. That were not fair. That were more about me and my pain than Emma. Hell, I know there were moments I was angry, and there wasn’t even anyone to try to blame for what happened. It was ugly emotion after ugly emotion. Bitterness piled upon bitterness. But that was part of the process.

My point is. I totally understand if this speech makes you nervous. If you can’t trust the writers to turn it around into something good, that doesn’t frame it as Clover’s fault, or as Clover only being important to Qrow because of his semblance.

But please know, that what Qrow actually said? Even if he was starting to blame Clover. Even if he was focusing only on how it hurt him because of his semblance. That is a natural part of grieving. It doesn’t matter if it would be an awful outlook for him to have at the end of everything.

He’s not at the end. He’s processing.

And outright saying that him saying that the semblance thing is what ‘really stings’, or being angry that Clover didn’t just listen to him, or anything else, is wrong and uncaring, isn’t fair.

It might not be the right perspective. It might be blatantly wrong and unfair and self absorbed. But that’s okay. He’s not callous for that.

His feelings about Clover, his respect for Clover, his grief over Clover’s death and the loss of his autonomy? None of that is diminished by him having moments where he wants to blame Clover, or where he focuses more on how this hurts him than how unfair it is for Clover. (again. I’m talking about just the surface of him saying this, not the intent and eventual narrative the writers have in doing it this way).

I just want people to be careful as they talk about this. Because it’s valid. And both sides are valid in multiple ways.

But please. Be careful in how you show your dislike for what you feel/fear the writers are going to do, and how you frame the issues with what Qrow said.

Grief is an incredibly isolating thing. And when it’s fresh it’s so easy to feel horrible, to literally hate yourself, for the thoughts you have while processing your grief.

We all want this to be handled properly, and we all are nervous about how bad it could be if it isn’t. But the last thing we need is people saying that Qrow is wrong or selfish for feeling and expressing what he is feeling, while he processes something so overwhelming and complicated as everything that is going on right now.

It’s not fair to Qrow, but more importantly, it’s hurtful for everyone watching who has dealt with or is still dealing with these unpleasant, often shameful and seemingly vilified aspects of grief.

There is no wrong or right way to grieve. There is nothing wrong with you for thinking things you normally wouldn’t, or for focusing on your own pain. The ugly parts of your grief do not mean you don’t care about the person you lost enough.

Just remember that the concern here should be about how the writers intend to use this speech.

Not that Qrow said what he said. Those feelings can be wrong, unfair, selfish. But there’s nothing wrong with him for feeling that way right now. It doesn’t mean Clover meant anything less to him.

It’s just grief.

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warlordess · 3 years

Text

Ah, my main special project for this year’s Pokeshipping Week event! I have skipped meals, sleep... uh, probably some responsibilities at work but don’t tell anyone... just to finish this stupid thing on time! It’s the proudest moment of my life to know that I got to semi-successfully draw my number one OTP kissing... Alas, my artistry skills are quite limited so I made up the difference/details by writing an accompanying fanfic, which I hope you’ll all read.

Btw, the first page was originally a “standalone art” for the prompt, which is why the art style may appear a little more detailed/different in general. Btw 2.0, I absolutely loved the concept of drawing these two “blushing up to their ears”, which I did twice in this comic. So yeah.

I’m also begging people to reblog this type of stuff from me when I post it because I’m trying (and failing) to get into the world of commissioned artists.

Fanfic is below the mandatory cut!

Pokeshipping Week 2020: “If Ash was aware of his feelings during their journeys together…”

Setting: Orange Islands, after most events taking place in the episode “Wherefore Art Thou, Pokemon?” with slight alterations to closing scenes.

--\--/--

Paradise.

It’s the first word that comes to mind as the faint scent of brine wafts up her nose and the sea breeze ruffles her tied up hair around her head. She sighs and leans into the breadth of atmosphere her surroundings have presented her, so awash in it that she practically forgets about the company she’s opted to keep.

“So,” Ash Ketchum starts abruptly, and her brow creases in reactionary frustration at the very audacity he has to try and interrupt her glorious seaside fantasy.

Ever since first coming to the Orange Islands, Misty has felt more at home than almost anywhere Ash’s travels have forced her to go. A bratty voice at the back of her mind can’t help begging the question… What could he possibly think is worth bothering her with now?

“So… do you think it’s true? That kissing thing, I mean.”

Kissing… thing?

The first word alone causes her spine to snap straight, head ricocheting against her neck enough to cause a lingering ache after. A drowsy, near napping Togepi in her arms is jostled into a more urgent state of consciousness, though the egg Pokemon thankfully doesn’t start bawling.

“W - wait, what?” she asks before she can stop herself, and her pale cheeks burn the shade of puce as memories replay of earlier in the day. Ralph and Emily had since returned home and Tracey had actually begged to come along, hoping for a final opportunity to sketch their lover Pokemon, Maria and Tony, before Ash’s group left the island for their next destination.

“Uh, y’know, from earlier with the Nidoran… How they battled Team Rocket, then kissed and evolved? And Tracey said maybe them kissing had something to do with that.”

She can’t help gaping ever so slightly open-mouthed at him. Distractedly she hopes internally to herself that the persistent flush to her cheeks can be blamed on the combination of her fair complexion and the rosy sunset they happen to be watching while sitting on the pier together.

Is he serious…? Why would he even ask me something like that? she wonders, nearly angry at the possibility of him messing with her, unwilling to accept alternatives. She faintly reminisces over how he’d stood stock still during the very scene he was currently describing, appearing mildly confused all the while. For someone as immature as Ash Ketchum, she had to admit that such a lackadaisical reaction had been rather anticlimactic at the time.

However, apparently he’s been ruminating on the fiasco that was their latest daily misadventure ever since.

It’s a joke, she affirms to herself, barely holding in the urge to nod at the conclusion just in case it gives him strange ideas regarding his curiosity. A joke or a prank because there’s no way…

“Uh… We could - or, well, I’d like to maybe…” with you, he realizes he doesn’t have the courage to say (which is outrageous for one, Ash Ketchum), but the whole thing is quite new to him, obviously. “W - we could… make it an experiment, couldn’t we?”

“Pfft!?” The sound of her scoff jars him from his briefly swelling hope and drags him back down to reality. “Stop messing around, Mr. Pokemon Master!” She’s practically laughing mirthfully at him. “You’re talking about kissing here, right? As an experiment? For what?”

“I’m not messing around!” he blurts, tone a few octaves higher than either of them are used to, pushing them back towards the precipice of awkward silence while he tries to string his next thoughts together.

Maybe he’s brought this on himself. He hadn’t meant to use the word ‘experiment’; it had just been an excuse in case she didn’t reciprocate his intentions… Or was it his feelings? Sure, he was curious about things enough to try for that reason alone, if he was being honest with himself but… he certainly wouldn’t have pursued conclusions to his hypothesis if it hadn’t been Misty sitting beside him at the time!

Urk! The acknowledgement leaves his tummy knotting and tumbling over itself as he stares the redhead down, daring her to underestimate him now that he’s come this far. But of course that reckless bravery only lasts a couple seconds before he has to blank and concede the round.

“I wanna try… I mean, with you… if you’d like.”

Because if it’s possible for people to change when they kiss then he’d surely be interested. But only if it’s with her and the two of them were… changing together.

“Fine.”

“Mwah!” he yelps before he can help herself, body twitching to and fro before he collects himself and squints up at her. “Wait, really?”

Her mouth a grim, thin line and her cheeks bright enough red to bely the truth, she looks him in the eyes, then away long enough to softly clear her throat, then back at him, and shrugs nonchalantly.

And he doesn’t know it but all of these mixed signals she’s giving off are because she’s calling his bluff. Or so she thinks.

Thanks to his trademark ignorance, he presses forward with the plan, slowly leaning in. Consequently, the lapping of the rising tide below them and the setting sun sinking on edge of the water in the distance disappear and only the two of them are left in the world.

With every millimeter of space lost between them, Misty’s shoulders stiffen a little bit more…

Eep!

… Her grip on the drowsy Togepi ever so slightly tightening…

It’s gotta be a joke!

… Her lips pursing to almost nothing, eyes widening while her brows disappear under her fluttering fringe.

Ash would n-e-v-e-r--

She’s not running away so…

Her internal screeching is cut short at the last second when she sees him out of the corner of her eye, grabbing his cap and wrenching it around backwards (amazing that he has the foresight to know it would get in the way during a moment like this) before finally closing the last inch or two of distance, his lips covering hers in an understated, chaste kiss.

The static buzz that promptly replaces any previous faulty transmission causes the kiss to last longer than either of them expects, not that they know what to expect, seeing as they’ve never kissed anyone before.

Misty’s hyperfixation on most recent events transpired eventually causes her grasp on Togepi to slacken, leaving the Pokemon to slip an inch or two toward the edge of her knees. Maternal skill kicking in, the redhead immediately snatches her baby more firmly back under one arm, the other one reflexively soaring out and knocking Ash away…

… And straight over the side of the pier, into the water.

A resounding splash! carries back up to her, followed almost immediately after by her former partner in… something… sputtering, spitting, coughing in an attempt to catch his breath again after breaking the surface, glaring halfheartedly up at her as she pokes her head around to ensure his safety.

“Um, whoops…?”

“Guh,” he begins, biting back the part of himself demanding her repentance for such behavior, and he tells himself it’s not because his lips are still tingling just so in response to their activity coupled with the sight of her flushing magenta once more against a perfectly accented skyline.

Instead he opts to call out Lapras and hitch a ride back to shore, pulling off his socks, shoes, and jacket vest along the way to try and shake or wring the excess water out of them. She meets him at the boardwalk a few minutes later, baby Pokemon still clasped snugly in her arms, handing him the backpack he’d been forced to abandon a short time ago.

Later they’ll be forced to feed Tracey some sorry excuse as to how things have ended up the way they have, and they’ll decide as a group that it will be better to stay in town for the night so that Ash can keep from getting sick from the persistent sea breeze adding to the chill from his unexpected swim. The two of them will likely refrain from much direct interaction and Tracey will chalk it up to their latest fight (which, after both nearly physically attacked him earlier for comparing them to Ralph and Emily, he’ll know better than to say a single word about).

And, though sleep will be anxiety-ridden and fitful, morning will wash away the intensity of their actions and Ash will have his answer; yes, people kissing truly does lead to evolution, and it’s highly anticipated, that they’ll get to experience this change together.

--\--/--

I cannot quite explain how weird it was to write Ash as the semi-mature one during a romantic interaction with Misty. Whew, what a wild ride... But honestly? If he’d known about his feelings during their travels together... and if the anime had paid a little more attention to their romantic relationship... this might have happened. Lol.

Mm’kay, see ya tomorrow! Reblogs are love (no offense to likes)!

#pokeshipping #pokeshipping week 2020 #my art #fan fiction #digital art #anime art #satokasu #day one: if Ash knew about his feelings while they were traveling together

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katnissdoesnotfollowback · 4 years

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since you mentioned, why do you call the cave scene an "atrocity"? I know its pretty awful and a lot of people in the fandom think so too, but what exactly you don't like?

Why do I call the cave scene in the movies an atrocity? Hm, well. In my opinion, it’s kind of like a domino effect of sh** piled on more sh** wrapped in dog sh** sliced to tiny pieces to fool you into thinking it’s not sh** and smothered in sh** sauce. Forgive my language. I live with an aviator. Their curses are about as colorful as a sailor’s and I gotta keep up or perish. Onward!

In the first movie, they took what was cute and sweet about two teenage kids having crushes on one another from a distance but never expecting anything in return and turned it into Peeta is a stalker and Katniss is annoyed with it. But like I said, the problems started much earlier in the movie and just built upon it.

Why don’t we start with world building. So here’s the thing. They made the choice not to tell the story with a voice over. Instead, they made the choice of conducting the world building through an ask and answer format. Meaning Katniss and Peeta ask questions about how the Games work and someone explains it to them. This is how they chose to conduct the world building that, in the books, is Katniss explaining it to us. Book Katniss and Peeta understand the Games, for the most part. Sure there are aspects of it that they haven’t entirely thought through or implications they haven’t grasped. Katniss has no interest in the lead up pageantry other than to roll her eyes at some of the ridiculousness of it. She tends to be reactionary, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how the games work. Peeta is strategic. He allows himself to cry about the fact that he’s probably going to die soon (a valid response) and then starts planning. But he doesn’t plan his own win. Not at all. My point in bringing this up is that since the movie chose this method of world building (which in itself isn’t entirely problematic only annoying and condescending to teenagers in general … it makes Katniss and Peeta look dumb. Or at the very least, completely and utterly oblivious about the world around them WHEN THEY’RE NOT. This affects the cave scene because the entire confusion about their time in the cave and what was for the Games and what isn’t is because they BOTH KNOW EACH OTHER’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. They both know the other isn’t really dumb. This is part of why they’re able to work together so well and why the cave scene is crucial in terms of their development as both a battle couple that fights and sacrifices for each other and also as an eventually romantic couple. In undermining the characters’ intelligence and understanding of their own world, the movie undermines some of the fabric of their relationship. But, what else were they gonna do? I could have forgiven this if they hadn’t gutted so much of the rest of both Katniss and Peeta’s character development.

Back to the kids with crushes for the moment.

Leading up to the Games, there are several very flirty moments between Katniss and Peeta. Him asking about the avox after covering for her, for no reason other than he can tell she’s uncomfortable, buttoning up her jacket so she stays warm on the roof, the whole chariot parade is a mix between total dread because imminent death, and teenage normalcy. “Isn’t Haymitch supposed to be protecting us from stuff like this?” “I’ll rip off your cape if you rip off mine” ???? Hello! Where was that?!?! Talking during the training and joking around with each other. Gone. “Frosting, the last defense of the dying.” “Say the arena is a giant cake…” The movie took what were sassy flirty moments and turned them into puppy Peeta and vaguely annoyed Katniss (for the most part, not always) or simply did not use them at all.

When Haymitch asks what they can do, they point out EACH OTHER’s strengths, not their own. Kids with crushes in a position where the person they have a crush on is literally the only person around them who might not be trying to kill them. At least not yet. The person they have a crush on may be the last kind, friendly face they see in this world. Maybe that’s what the movie was trying to convey, but it changes the dynamic entirely.

On first reading, I myself thought these moments were somewhat suspect, that it was entirely possible that Peeta was playing on Katniss’ feelings of guilt, debt, gratitude, and yes even a youthful crush, to further himself at her expense. Isn’t that how the Games are played? On subsequent reading, it was easier to pick up on the signs, knowing Peeta’s ultimate goal is Katniss’ survival as a means to make his own death matter. Otherwise, why even talk about purity of self and how he doesn’t want to be a monster or a piece in the Capitol’s Games on the night before they go into the arena. If he was really an obsessive little prat wanting Katniss to love him before he died or an asshole manipulating her feelings, don’t you think he would have used that time on the roof to make that fantasy a reality? Instead, he essentially tells her that he wants his death to mean something. (Thankfully they kept that in the movies).

We don’t find out until later, that what that means is if he can’t win -- which he doesn’t believe he can -- then he wants Katniss to win. He’d rather die trying to save another life than die for his own survival. And why not Katniss? Her win would mean a year of extra food and money pouring into District Twelve. It would help his family, his friends. He’s noticed this girl from a distance and admires her a great deal. He has a crush. He’s not in love; he barely knows her! But they’re shifting from crush to like here. So instead of trying to milk her for kisses or a return of his feelings, he instead shares his dying wish with her on the roof before the Games. The thing that is going to cost him everything in the arena.

Still with me? Okay. The only time Peeta mentions her maybe kissing him is by the stream, when he cracks it as a joke to get her to laugh because she’s about to vomit. It’s the least romantic situation imaginable. He’s knocking on death’s door, there’s puss oozing from his leg, she just washed his days old filthy shorts, and oh right remember we’re supposed to be in love so you can kiss me. Wink wink. And Katniss laughs and is then less overwhelmed and able to finish what she needs to do to keep them both alive a little longer. His strategy to distract her works, because the next thing she does is admit to him why she’s distressed and they have a discussion where Peeta is surprised by how squeamish she is. She hunts and guts animals for a living, after all. All talk of kissing vanishes for a good bit. But my main gripe here with the stream scene, besides the total absence of any decent dialogue between them is that in the books, instead of her constantly telling Peeta to stop talking, they actually...you know, talk to each other???

Pause to remind everyone that Peeta can make her laugh in the middle of death match arenas.

Moving on. Once they’re in the cave, in the book, there are TWO DISTINCT SECTIONS. In the first section, the focus is on keeping Peeta alive. Getting the medicine they need for him. He doesn’t mention kissing at all leading up to the first time she kisses him. And he also doesn’t ask her why she’s doing any of this, like he does in the movies. That’s because strategic Peeta probably knows that a large part of it is because if she doesn’t, with the rule change, even people back home will turn on her. He doesn’t put her on the spot in regards to her motivations. She kisses him for the first time in the cave, not to give him an answer of why, but to get him to stop trying to make a deathbed confession. She tells him she doesn’t even want to discuss the possibility of him dying. There’s zero mention of the red plaid dress, the valley song, or anything else. There is the goat story, which is noticeably absent from the movie. He asks her to tell him a story to comfort him because he is dying. He does not burden her with his own feelings after she tells him she doesn’t want to talk about the possibility of his death, until she brings them up again. In the books, KATNISS IS THE DRIVER in their emotional relationship development.

In the books, the second section is after the feast. When Peeta’s fever has broken and he’s no longer delirious or in imminent danger of dying. Peeta can now resume pulling his weight in the “We protect each other” pact that has already started but isn’t articulated until later. He resumes taking care of Katniss as much as he can. He is upset on the verge of angry that she risked her life for him. He’s not a cagey stalker. This is also when the realities of a crush versus love start to surface again. They are not entirely lovey dovey. They have ingrained ideas about one another that get challenged in the cave. They almost argue multiple times. There’s actually a lot of meaty relationship development that happens that the movie removed. They also, to some degree, talk strategy. How they need to proceed. But again, Peeta does not mention his crush on her or his feelings. He doesn’t try to talk her into kisses, he doesn’t even initiate one until it seems obvious that she wants one.

“I’ll just have to fill in the blanks myself.”

This entire section is completely absent or completely altered in the movie. It is unrecognizable from the books.

The way the entire cave scene is written in the books, Peeta takes his cues in terms of their physical relationship and their emotional development from Katniss. THIS is when the story about the red plaid dress and the two braids and the valley song comes up, because Katniss asks for it. She asks him how long he’s had a crush on her. She opens that door. It is not, the way it is in the movie, a desperate deathbed confession. She prompts him to share it, and he never says the extra creepy words of “I watched you going home every day… every day.” Ugh.

Basically, my issues with the cave scene in the movie are thus:

1. The lead up to it is a series of deletions that individually aren’t that big of a deal, but removing almost all of them makes the cave scene uncomfortable at best, utterly confusing and gross at worst.

2. Rearranging the sequence of events turns Peeta’s dialogue into creepy stalker shoving his feelings on Katniss who would rather not deal with him at all, as opposed to an organic unfolding of two kids with a crush talking (albeit not entirely but mostly) with candor and honesty as they shift to something not quite a crush and not quite love, and no designs on necessarily manipulating or using each other but rather attempting to protect one another and using the means available to them through the Games and the show that they are expected to put on for the Capitol.

3. The shortening of it, while understandably necessary, only exacerbated the problem.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#anonymous #look at that ask #Anonymous

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magdolenelives · 4 years

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Tweet here, article here. Highly recommend reading the whole article, but just a few choice quotes: I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. If you are right to identify the one with the other, then a feminist position opposing transphobia is a marginal position. I think this may be wrong. My wager is that most feminists support trans rights and oppose all forms of transphobia. So I find it worrisome that suddenly the trans-exclusionary radical feminist position is understood as commonly accepted or even mainstream. I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen. -- AF: One example of mainstream public discourse on this issue in the UK is the argument about allowing people to self-identify in terms of their gender. In an open letter she published in June, JK Rowling articulated the concern that this would "throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman", potentially putting women at risk of violence. JB: If we look closely at the example that you characterise as “mainstream” we can see that a domain of fantasy is at work, one which reflects more about the feminist who has such a fear than any actually existing situation in trans life. The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality. Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them. The fact that such fantasies pass as public argument is itself cause for worry. -- AF: The consensus among progressives seems to be that feminists who are on JK Rowling’s side of the argument are on the wrong side of history. Is this fair, or is there any merit in their arguments? JB: Let us be clear that the debate here is not between feminists and trans activists. There are trans-affirmative feminists, and many trans people are also committed feminists. So one clear problem is the framing that acts as if the debate is between feminists and trans people. It is not. One reason to militate against this framing is because trans activism is linked to queer activism and to feminist legacies that remain very alive today. Feminism has always been committed to the proposition that the social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled. We tell histories about what it meant to be a woman at a certain time and place, and we track the transformation of those categories over time. We depend on gender as a historical category, and that means we do not yet know all the ways it may come to signify, and we are open to new understandings of its social meanings. It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women... Their abiding and very real sense of gender ought to be recognised socially and publicly as a relatively simple matter of according another human dignity. The trans-exclusionary radical feminist position attacks the dignity of trans people. -- First, one does not have to be a woman to be a feminist, and we should not confuse the categories. Men who are feminists, non-binary and trans people who are feminists, are part of the movement if they hold to the basic propositions of freedom and equality that are part of any feminist political struggle. When laws and social policies represent women, they make tacit decisions about who counts as a woman, and very often make presuppositions about what a woman is. We have seen this in the domain of reproductive rights. So the question I was asking then is: do we need to have a settled idea of women, or of any gender, in order to advance feminist goals? I put the question that way… to remind us that feminists are committed to thinking about the diverse and historically shifting meanings of gender, and to the ideals of gender freedom. By gender freedom, I do not mean we all get to choose our gender. Rather, we get to make a political claim to live freely and without fear of discrimination and violence against the genders that we are. Many people who were assigned “female” at birth never felt at home with that assignment, and those people (including me) tell all of us something important about the constraints of traditional gender norms for many who fall outside its terms. Feminists know that women with ambition are called “monstrous” or that women who are not heterosexual are pathologised. We fight those misrepresentations because they are false and because they reflect more about the misogyny of those who make demeaning caricatures than they do about the complex social diversity of women. Women should not engage in the forms of phobic caricature by which they have been traditionally demeaned. And by “women” I mean all those who identify in that way. -- AF: Threats of violence and abuse would seem to take these “anti-intellectual times” to an extreme. What do you have to say about violent or abusive language used online against people like JK Rowling? JB: I am against online abuse of all kinds. I confess to being perplexed by the fact that you point out the abuse levelled against JK Rowling, but you do not cite the abuse against trans people and their allies that happens online and in person. I disagree with JK Rowling's view on trans people, but I do not think she should suffer harassment and threats. Let us also remember, though, the threats against trans people in places like Brazil, the harassment of trans people in the streets and on the job in places like Poland and Romania – or indeed right here in the US. So if we are going to object to harassment and threats, as we surely should, we should also make sure we have a large picture of where that is happening, who is most profoundly affected, and whether it is tolerated by those who should be opposing it. It won’t do to say that threats against some people are tolerable but against others are intolerable. -- It is painful to see that Trump’s position that gender should be defined by biological sex, and that the evangelical and right-wing Catholic effort to purge “gender” from education and public policy accords with the trans-exclusionary radical feminists' return to biological essentialism. It is a sad day when some feminists promote the anti-gender ideology position of the most reactionary forces in our society. -- My point in the recent book is to suggest that we rethink equality in terms of interdependency. We tend to say that one person should be treated the same as another, and we measure whether or not equality has been achieved by comparing individual cases. But what if the individual – and individualism – is part of the problem? It makes a difference to understand ourselves as living in a world in which we are fundamentally dependent on others, on institutions, on the Earth, and to see that this life depends on a sustaining organisation for various forms of life. If no one escapes that interdependency, then we are equal in a different sense. We are equally dependent, that is, equally social and ecological, and that means we cease to understand ourselves only as demarcated individuals. If trans-exclusionary radical feminists understood themselves as sharing a world with trans people, in a common struggle for equality, freedom from violence, and for social recognition, there would be no more trans-exclusionary radical feminists. But feminism would surely survive as a coalitional practice and vision of solidarity.

#terfs/swerfs don't even breathe on this post #same for 'devil's advocates' and sympathizers #transphobia #feminism #judith butler #mlop #jk rowling #terfs #bioessentialism #radical feminism #fauxminism #gender #trans exclusionary radical fauxminists #lgbtq #MOGII #trans

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words-writ-in-starlight · 4 years

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I never stop being suprised at how well adjusted Jin Ling is, given his situation- being orphan and heir to one, potentially two great sects aside, he is incredibly normal given ones who raised him were Jiang '' I express concern by threatening to break your legs and its step up from how I was raised'' and Jin '' I will put up with all of your tantrums because i have 12342 different ways to orchestrate your death on backburner'' Guangyao. Like, how is this kid relatively normal given his 1/2

parental figures were walking mess of decades long traumas who trained him to be as deadly at night hunting as possible and schemer who sweetly smiled while being insulted for everything aand planning numerous atrocities who kept spoiling him with 400 nets and best pet in world? I blame it on Qin Su,.( 2/2)

HERE’S MY THING, Jin Ling is a wreck as a person. I can think of several “well-adjusted” kids, some of them more shocking than others, but quite frankly Jin Ling is five traumas in a Jin crest, with a sword for a comfort item and a brand new expectation that he get his act together to run a sect. I love him so much, but the vast majority of his influences have taught him to interact with the world on two axes labeled “Anger” and “Orders,” both of which are normally directed at him. His only two responses to a crisis are to lash out at the person in charge or to break down into these agonized tears that he feels horrendously ashamed of. Both of those reactionary schema can be traced pretty directly to the way Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng have raised this kid.

Anger: this is Jiang Cheng’s Brand. It just is. In fact, I’d put money that Jiang Cheng had a lot of the raising of Jin Ling, because they both handle emotion in exactly the same way--they don’t. When Jin Ling doesn’t know what’s going on, or feels out of control, or isn’t entirely sure how to process his emotions, he picks a target and gets mean fast, because his uncle is an adult that he trusts to have his act together and that’s how his uncle behaves. Unfortunately for both of them, it’s actually not that productive to just. Yell at people and lash out. It leads to things like brothers who don’t tell you about golden core transfers and potentially powerful allies who don’t trust you.

@ Jiang Cheng, bud, I understand that you have capital-T Trauma and that you’ve withstood years of people applauding you for the murder of the brother who you loved and felt massively betrayed by and kind of didn’t mean to kill but also kind of intended to kill but also kind of chickened out on killing and blamed for everything bad in your life, because that’s what your parents taught you to do. I understand that. Please give your nephew one (1) hug. He would do anything for a hug from you. I hope the whole Nie Mingjue debacle was informative to you both on this front.

Incidentally! Jin Ling is especially unstable and prone to rash anger when this phenomenon intersects with feeling that he’s being manipulated or talked down to. Hm. Wonder where that could have come from. Which brings me to...

Tears: Jin Guangyao hasn’t killed Jin Ling yet by the time of the main plot, which means two things. First, he is sincerely emotionally attached to the kid. On the upside, Jin Ling got a dog out of the deal. On the downside, Jin Ling has probably been on the receiving end of a lot of Jin Guangyao’s “protective” instincts, which I think Qin Su can confirm are not necessarily the most fun instincts in the world. They’re heavily predicated on Jin Guangyao being in control of things, which means that he relies incredibly heavily on emotional manipulation and enforcing the hierarchy he’s working within. Examples include: Nie Mingjue, Qin Su, Jin Zixun. Because Jin Guangyao is sect leader for most of Jin Ling’s life, that means that no matter how hard he pushes, his uncle will always have the strength of the hierarchy to back up his manipulation, which means that all the anger in the world is useless, which means that Jin Ling grew up desperately lacking in control. And Jin Guangyao is doing it for his own good, so Jin Ling can’t be angry, of course, how could he be angry with his uncle for protecting him?

Second, Jin Guangyao was...never planning to let Jin Ling inherit properly, right? We’re all on the same page here? He was anticipating, A, becoming immortal (the whole goal of cultivation) or, B, stepping down gracefully and puppeteering Jin Ling from behind the scenes, or very possibly C, both. That means that Jin Ling needs to be manipulable, which--listen, you can say a lot of things about Jiang Cheng, but manipulable isn’t really one of them. That suggests to me that Jin Guangyao probably went with a very basic method of trying to make Jin Ling into the heir he needed: guilt trip, reserve compliments unless certain conditions are met, make gifts and compliments backhanded when possible, reward “weak” behavior while also reprimanding it. Basically? If Jin Ling was being reprimanded by Jin Guangyao and started crying, he probably got called out for being weak but the reprimand stopped and any punishment was less intense than it might have been otherwise. Hey presto, you have a kid who can’t really handle confrontation but doesn’t know how else to deal with a problem, and who understands that crying will get him out of trouble but also associates it with a complete lack of control over the situation.

Not really ideal for a sect leader, right?

Now, this is where it took kind of a turn for Jin Guangyao, because that plan would have been immaculate if not for the fact that Jiang Cheng is as direct a dealer as anyone in the cultivation world. Yes, he’s angry all the time, can’t handle his own emotions (except by rage and tears! JGY and Madam Yu should get tea and chat about parenting), and hasn’t decided if he’s guilt-stricken or gleeful over the death of his brother. But. Jin Ling knows exactly what to expect from him at all times. Pretty much the only time we see him actually confused is when Jiang Cheng says that, if Jin Ling doesn’t catch something on their night hunt, he can’t come back--and Jiang Cheng is outraged that Jin Ling took him seriously. (I also kind of think Jin Ling is being a shit about that on purpose. But that’s me.)

The rest of the time? Jin Ling is offended that people take Jiang Cheng’s threats toward him seriously. He’s pretty much completely prepared to throw himself on Jiang Cheng’s mercy when he needs help. He postures and poses to mimic him, and breaks Wei Wuxian out against Jiang Cheng’s direct orders without fear of reprisal. That’s not a kid who’s afraid of his uncle, except, of course, that he wants Jiang Cheng to be proud of him, and he knows that crying is a disappointment.

I’m not saying Jiang Cheng is uncle of the year, see above re: PLEASE hug your nephew, but the mere fact that he can be relied upon to react predictably, in Jin Ling’s experience, does a lot to counteract Jin Guangyao’s attempts to control him.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jiang Cheng is the product of a toxic childhood doing his best with the tools he has, and Jin Guangyao is the product of a toxic childhood experimenting with a fun kicky new kind of toxicity in the next generation.

And honestly? I think that Jiang Cheng having gotten some of the weight off his chest about everything, Jin Guangyao’s manipulations being exposed, and having actual friends will do a lot to help Jin Ling get his feet under him. Not to mention his brand new uncle who is even more forthright than Jiang Cheng and is more than prepared to tell Jin Ling outright when he’s being a spoiled brat without concern for rank, plus also being willing to Give That Boy A Hug And A Sincere Compliment.

I’m not saying that the Jin Ling fic I’m planning to write is going to heavily feature Wei Wuxian going “okay!!!! You need to learn that positive reinforcement doesn’t always come laced with poison!!!!!” But I’m not not saying that.

#jin ling #jin rulan #the untamed #mdzs #modao zushi #jin ling needs a hug #starlight writes stuff #this kind of turned into an essay about how jin ling's two primary caregivers messed up #i got distracted from qin su but like. qin su is one of the tragedies of the jin sect and i'm very serious about that statement.#i think she probably tried to regain jgy's affection by getting close to jl but i think they drifted after her son's death #partly because jin ling doesn't know how to handle her grief and pulls back #and partly because qin su kind of throws herself into trying to sway jgy back to her because she doesn't understand why he's avoiding her #and so...yeah idk i think their relationship would be kind of a mess tbqh #they're working through some things. or would be if qin su was alive to work through things.#IDK I BARELY REMEMBER WHAT THE ASK WAS #I JUST LIVE TO DISSECT WHY CHARACTERS ARE MESSED UP AND JIN LING IS A MESS AND I LOVE HIM #i genuinely think he's going to be a good sect leader for the record--there's a good heart buried under that bluster #he just needs to learn how to take a breath and handle issues without defaulting to what he's used to #ANYWAY!!!!! ANYWAY #jin ling needs to cope with some stuff but i think he's gonna be okay #someone needs to give him a HUG and let him CRY and then he's gonna get somewhere #a queue we will keep and our honor someday avenge #irleughlivelyatalanteangodfan #asked and answered

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qqueenofhades · 5 years

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Question for you. When you have time. And if you want. I know things are busy for you. What do you mean by end stage capitalism? Thanks.

Aha. I am sorry that this has been sitting in my inbox for a while, since I’ve been busy and doing stressful things and not sure how to answer this in a way that wouldn’t immediately turn into a pages-long rant. Nothing to do with you, of course, but just because I have 800 things to say on this topic, none of them complimentary, which I’ll try to condense down briefly. Ish.

In sum, end-stage capitalism is at the root of everything that’s wrong with the world today, more or less. It’s the state of being that exists when the economic system of capitalism, i.e. the exchange of money for goods and services, has become so runaway, so unregulated, so elevated to the level of unchallengeable dogma in the Western world (especially after the Cold War and decades of hysteria about the “scourge of communism”) and so embedded on every level of the social and political fabric that it is no longer sustainable but also can’t be destroyed without taking everything else down. Nobody wants to be the actual generation that lives through the fall of capitalism, because it’s going to be cataclysmic on every level, but also… we can’t go on like this. So that’s a fun paradox. The current world order is so drastically, unimaginably, ridiculously and wildly unequal, privileging the tiny elite of the ultra-rich over the rest of the planet, because of hypercapitalism. This really got going in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan, still generally worshiped as a political hero on both the left and right sides of the American political establishment (even liberals tiptoe around criticizing Saint Ronnie), set into motion a program of slashing business and environment regulations, reducing or eliminating taxes on the super wealthy, and introducing the concept of “trickle-down” or “supply-side” economics. In short, the principle holds that if you make it as easy as possible for rich people to become EVEN MORE RICH, and remove all irksome regulations or restrictions on the Church of the Free Market, they will benevolently redistribute this largess to the little people. To say the very least, this….does not happen. Ever.

Since the 1980s, in short, we have had thirty years of unrestricted, runaway capitalism that eventually propelled us into the financial crisis of 2008, after multiple smaller crises, where the full extent of this philosophy became apparent…. and nobody really did anything about it. You can google statistics about how the price of everything has skyrocketed since about the 1970s, when you could put yourself through college on one part-time job, graduate with no student debt, and be assured of a job for the next 30 years, and how baby boomers (who are responsible for wrecking the economy) insist that millennials are “just lazy” or “killing [insert x industry]”. This is because we have NO GODDAMN MONEY, graduate thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (if we can even afford college in the first place), are lucky if we find a job that pays us more than $10 an hour, and often have to string together several part-time and frangible jobs that offer absolutely nothing in the way of security, benefits, or long-term saving potential. This is why millennials at large don’t have kids, buy houses, or have any savings (or any of the traditional “adult” milestones). We just don’t have the money for it.

Even more, capitalism has taken over our mindsets to the point where it is, as I said, at the root of everything that’s wrong with the world. Climate change? Won’t be fixed because the ruling classes are making money from the current system, and if you really want to give yourself an aneurysm, google the profiteers who can’t wait for the environment/society to collapse because they’ll make MORE money off it. This is known as “disaster capitalism” and is what the US has done to other countries for decades. (I also recommend The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.) This obviously directly contributes to the War on Terror, the current global instability, the reason Dick Cheney, Halliburton, Blackwater, and other private-security contractors made a mint from blowing up Iraq and paying themselves to rebuild it, and then the resultant rise of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other extremist reactionary groups. The bombing produces (often brown and Muslim) refugees and immigrants, Western countries won’t take them in, right-wing politicians make hay out of Threats To Our Way of Life ™, and the circle goes on. Gun control? Can’t happen because a) American white supremacy is too deeply tied to its paranoid right to have as many guns as it wants and to destroy the Other at any time, and b) the NRA pays senators by the gigabucks to make sure it doesn’t. (And we all know what an absolute goddamn CLUSTERFUCK the topic of big money and American politics is in the first place. It’s just… a nightmare in every direction.)

Meanwhile, end-stage capitalism has also systematically assigned value to society and to individuals depending entirely on their prospects for monetization. Someone who can’t work, or who doesn’t work the “right” job, is thus assigned less value as a human (see all the right-wing screaming about people who “don’t deserve” to have any kind of social and financial assistance or subsidized food and medicine if they won’t “help themselves”). This is how we get to situations where we have the ads that I kept seeing in London the other month: apps where you could share your leftover food, or rent out your own car, or collectively rent an apartment, or whatever else. Because apparently if you live in London in 2019, there is no expectation that you will be able to have your own food, car, or apartment. You have to crowdsource it. (See also: people having to beg strangers on the internet for money for food or medical bills, and strangers on the internet doing more to help that person than the whole system and/or the person’s employment or living situation.) There is nothing inherently wrong with capitalism as an economic theory. Exchanging money for goods and services is understandable and it works. But when it has run out of control to this degree, when the people who suffer the most under it fiercely defend it (see the working-class white people absolutely convinced that the reason for their problems is Those Damn Job Stealing Immigrants), when it only works for the interests of a few uber-privileged few and is actively killing everyone else… yeah.

Let’s put it this way. You will likely have heard of the two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max airplanes in recent months: the Lion Air crash in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019. Together, they killed 346 people. After these crashes, it turned out that the same malfunctioning system was responsible for both, and that Boeing had known of the problem before the Max went on the market. But because they needed to make (even more) money and compete with their rivals, Airbus, they had sent the planes ahead anyway, with unclear and confusing instruction to pilots about how to deal with it, and generally not acknowledging the problem and insisting (as they still do) that the plane was safe, even though it’s been grounded worldwide since March. There are also concerns that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is too deep in Boeing’s pocket to provide an impartial ruling (and America was the last country to ground the plane), and other countries’ aviation safety bodies have announced that they aren’t just going to take the FAA’s word for it whenever they decide that the Max is safe. This almost never happens, since usually international regulatory bodies, especially in aviation, will accept each other’s standards. But because of Boeing’s need for Even More Money, they put a plane on the market and into commercial passenger service that they knew had problems, and the FAA essentially let them do that and isn’t entirely trusted to ensure that they won’t do it again. Because…. value for the shareholders. Or something. This is the extreme example of what I mean when I say that end-stage capitalism is actively killing people.

It is also doing so on longer-term and more pernicious everyday levels. See above where people can’t afford their basic expenses even on several jobs, see the insulin price-gouging in the US (and the big pharma efforts in general to make drugs and healthcare as expensive as possible), see the way any kind of welfare or social assistance is framed as “lazy” or “bad” or “socialist,” see the way that people are basically only allowed to survive if they can pay for it, and the way that circle is becoming smaller and smaller. The American public is also fed enduring folk “wisdom” about “money doesn’t buy happiness,” the belief that poverty serves to build character or as an example of virtue, or so on, to make them feel proud of being poor/deprived/that they’re doing a good thing by actively supporting this system that is responsible for their own suffering. And yet for example, the Nordic countries (while obviously having other problems of their own) maintain the Scandinavian welfare model, which pays for college and healthcare, provides for individual stipends/basic income, allows generous leave for parenthood, emphasises a unionised workplace, and otherwise prescribes a mix of capitalism, social democracy, and social mobility. All the Nordic countries rank highly for human development, overall happiness, and other measurements of social success. But especially in America, any suggestion of “socialism” is treated like heresy, and unions are a dirty word. That is changing, but…slowly.

In short: the economic overlords have never done anything to give power, money, or anything at all to the working class without being repeatedly and explicitly forced, they have no good will or desire to treat the poor like humans (see: Amazon) or anything at all that doesn’t increase their already incomprehensible profit margins. The pursuit of more money that cannot possibly be spent in one human lifetime, that is accumulated, used to make laws for itself, and never paid in taxes to fund improvements or services for everyone else, lies at the root of pretty much every problem you can name in the world right now, is deeply, deeply evil, and I do not use that word lightly.

#politics for ts #rant #long post #that...wasn't super brief #but i could have gone on for a while longer #/drinks heavily and passes out #anonymous #ask

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sepublic · 4 years

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Your character analysises are so cool. I was wondering if you can do one for Amity. I chose her since she made a lot of appearance so you will have lots of canon events to work on:>

Sorry for the late response!

This is KIND OF a big challenge, and I’ve already done multiple posts analyzing Amity’s character before. So for now, let me just try to quickly summarize it all up, with what we’ve learned since Adventures in the Elements, and give my overall views on Amity and how I see and write her;

The impression and vibes I get from Amity is that she’s the kind of kid who’s got a lot of pressure on them to do well both at school and at home. They’re really desperate for the approval of older, authority figures like teachers and adults, in part because this sort of kid is lonely and doesn’t know how to make friends. This kid is likely to push friends away, not only because of pressing from adults to be better and not dragged down and prevent bad influences (a dilemma made only worse by her trouble-making siblings), but also because she likely has insecurity and self-loathing issues and doesn’t think she’s ‘good enough’, either for her own accomplishments or friendship in general. She kind of gives me Impostor Syndrome vibes. She’s mean to people like Luz both because she feels like she can’t be distracted, but also because Amity doesn’t really believe people would un-ironically want to be her friend, so to avoid being hurt she pushes others away.

Obviously, this is not doing good for her self-esteem and she’s lonely. Emira and Edric’s teasing has likely contributed to Amity being afraid of opening up, and if it’s with adults who have a lot of expectations on her, I guess it’s not a surprise she tends to be emotionally stifled. She definitely has Gifted Child syndrome where she places a lot of self-worth on being that ‘mature, obedient’ kid that the adults all love, with Amity not realizing this will only result in her emotional stagnation and lack of maturity later on in life from a lack of proper social interaction. Tellingly, when placed into bad situations that are arguably more the fault of an adult/teacher, she never blames them for it, and instead externalizes her anger on someone else involved. Amity has a huge respect for authority, which is likely connected to her desire to be in the Emperor’s Coven. Aside from membership in the Emperor’s Coven representing approval on the highest societal level, access to all forms of magic (she likes Azura and whatnot), and approval of the adults who set Amity on her path, it’s also likely that she thinks that she can friends, or at least others like her in the EC. To Amity, the Emperor’s Coven probably consists of what her parents and others may deem as ‘acceptable’ friends.

Naturally, a combination of insecurity, high expectations, and terrible social interaction has also led to Amity being a bit of a bully, but only in a reactionary sense; She doesn’t seek out drama like Boscha would. If she’s left alone, then she’ll leave you alone; But if she feels like you’re messing with her, Amity WILL be aggressive. With Willow, she also goes out of her way to ‘help’, but it’s obvious that she’s echoing a lot of bad tactics that seeks to remind a person of their failures; So it’s probable that the same things she said to Willow in her first appearance, were similarly said to Amity herself by her own mentors. Likewise, Amity’s self-doubt probably leads to her bullying Willow, because in her mind, she deserves to feel good about herself, and the elitist attitude she was taught has likely told her that people like Willow who do badly in school are just lazy and ‘deserve’ their bad grades.

Still, there’s that incessant loneliness. And while Amity does try to be super-mature, and live up a standard of rules -such as respecting hard work- and so forth... She’s also really freaking lonely, which is why she initially tries to reconnect with Willow in Episode 3. She’s not sure what to think of Luz because again, Amity doubts anyone would un-ironically be invested in her, and also because Emira and Edric likely tend to act friendly, then mean, and then brush it all aside afterwards; So she has trust issues and isn’t sure if she can trust Luz and open up to her. Amity’s a very closed-off individual.

And amidst all of her obsession with hard work and the pressure on her, I get the impression that Amity isn’t necessarily talented like her siblings or Willow, and actively has to work hard for her grades? Granted, it could just be because she’s expected to be the best at everything, but there’s also the possibility that she lacks talent and has to make up for it through sheer determination. Which, combined with expectations placed on her, both as a Blight and also because adults know she’s less likely to complain and act out and do as she’s told, it just gets very uncomfortable. Amity needs a place to be herself, but alone, because she doesn’t think anyone would really accept her, for who she really is?

(I mean, we all know at least ONE person...)

At the same time, while she definitely has to try and not just ace everything effortlessly, I also think she genuinely loves and enjoys school, education, and teaching in general; It’s just that making it into a standardized grading system sucks the joy out of it all, as Eda might say. Amity enjoys reading to those kids in Episode 7, and there was a promotional crossover post prior to the show’s premiere about Amity trying to pitch an educational series and being saddened when she got rejected. This girl is a total dork, as if her love for Azura wasn’t already enough!

I also think it’s why in Adventures in the Elements, she becomes a lot more open to Luz, happier around her, and even sort of initiates social connection by waving her hand at Luz at one point! She’s afraid of rejection and loneliness, of not being good enough... But Luz is someone who likes Amity just as she is. And I think Amity is a little anxious to be on Luz’s good side, to not mess up with her like she did Willow (which, Amity may still have reservations about being friends with Willow again... Even if her biases were gone she might still feel guilty, and/or get defensive when called out on her behaviors because Amity feels like she has to defend what adults have told her to do). I think she’s also afraid of getting taken advantage of, given her hurt expression when she found Luz with her Training Wand... But at the same time, she doesn’t want to throw away a friend because she’s been so lonely and found someone with a mutual interest. So in addition to that and Luz’s previous kindness, she’s still concerned for her, and it pays off when Luz comes back to help Amity!

TLDR; This is a lonely, insecure kid who has a lot of pressure on her and doesn’t know how to talk to people, so she internalizes a lot of stuff and ends up becoming off-putting as a result, because she doesn’t want to be hurt. But by the end of the day she’s a still total dork and a dweebus and wants friends and still feels guilt for being mean, but because of expectations on her to be better, Amity feels like she has to prove herself and that also leads to her not wanting to hang out with the ‘wrong friends’ as a result. She’s coped with loneliness by vying for adult approval, and likely operates on a strong sense of right and wrong. She has been hurt before, and her interactions with her siblings make talking with people a lot more confusing to Amity; I wouldn’t be surprised if someone might make a joke or something, and Amity, totally-serious and deadpan, would take them at their word for it and not realize said person was joking.

In short, I love her alongside everyone else in this show-

#the owl house #owl house #amity blight #the owl house amity #ask #character analysis

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