#political thinkpiece

[kendrixtermina]

Palestine and the Crisis of Democracy

While right now the main attention should rightfully be on the immediate victims of this ongoing catastrophe, this incident has also exposed how much the power of lobbying groups & corporate interests has eroded western democracies.

At this point they’re not meaningfully different from China or Russia aside from being wealthier. What have China or Russia done that the USA isn’t allowing its client state to do right now?

We’re supposed to have free speech? Where is our free speech now, if being anti war can cost you your job & the media is owned by the corporations.

At this point ppl in the global south are 100% justified to distrust the western bloc as much as we distrust China or Russia.

We’re approaching a 1984-ish situation of 3 identical superpowers ravaging contested territories in endless proxy wars.

That said, it’s tempting to go ranting about „the evil west“ or „the whites“ or curse all israelis – and don’t get me wrong, the west as an institution has proven its moral bankrupcy and IDF as an organization with a culture of fomenting this needs to be dismantled & abolished even more badly then ICE or the USA police.

But when you look at the people on the ground, not politicians or media, but at the individual human people, that’s not really the case: We’re seeing record protest turnouts everywhere.

Politicians are being swarmed with protest mails. (I just sent some myself)

Even in the USA, two thirds of the population want a ceasefire. Heck, even in israel, 62% want a ceasefire.

And there’s no telling how much of the rest genuinely want this vs. Being misled or confused by propaganda. Don’t get me wrong: Those people making mocking tiktoks are evil and I’d love to see them roasted on a skewer, but they are NOT the majority and acting like they are is bad tactics.

So what does this mismatch tell us?

We don’t have functioning democracies right now.

Maybe some South Americans do, maybe Belgium and Spain and Ireland, but the rest of us?

Not so much.

We gotta fix that, not just for our sake, but for what it does to the rest of the world.

Whoever’s in charge isn’t us, and its a dreadful mixture of incompetence and evil.

It’s not that all people, not even all western people, are terrible and evil. It’s that right now, in both the USA and even Germany with it’s 6 mainstream parties, there’s no viable candidate you can vote for that will not support this madness.

Nobody really benefits from this, or wants this, but a small coalition of fascists, the military industrial complex, a few crooked politicians, and a bunch of opportunistic hatecrimers of antisemitic, islamophobic and/or arabophobic persuasions.

This is what happens when problems that are pointed out time & time again don’t get fixed: Like the longstanding human rights abuses in Israel (that were known aout for SO LONG!), the existence of veto powers deadlocking the UN, legalized bribery & first-past-the-post system in the USA, USA hegemonic control of europe…

It was a perfect storm of every long-standing flaw in the system coming together to create a perfect storm of horror.

- but the first ones to sin are usually the last ones to bleed and the ones who pay the bulk of the price are, as ever so often, those who were already the most oppressed.

So what do we do?

Vote small party, maybe, for europeans. Vote in primaries to get the bought-out mainstream candidates out, if youre in the US.

Protest, complaining and combatting misinformation is gonna be an important tool while our democracies are compromised, we can’t rely on voting alone.

If us talking didn’t help they wouldn’t try to shut us up.

Messaging wise, on this issue, we might stress being anti-war. They’re trying a different smear because mocking anti-war ppl as bleeding-heart hippys doesn’t work anymore.

They can’t say being anti-war is antisemitic.

It’s important, of course, that (unlike the hippys) we don’t slip into wishy-washyness here or peace at any price that just basically the oppressed shutting up. Just peace or no peace. Lasting Peace of no Peace.

But peace has an appeal to most people, even those inclined to be wishy-washy or apolitical.

I think selling them on Lasting Peace and Just Peace might work better than shaming them for not being hardliner enough.

It’s super cynical and fucked up that we’re even having to THINK about „marketing“ when people are dying, but we need to convince people, especially since the usefulness of our votes is currently compromised.

Even a king must yield if there’s a mob with pitchforks outside the door.

#political thinkpiece #palestine #gaza #fascism #israel #USA #European Union #democracy #feelings #politics #current events #anti war

[calhaspam]

glad u got into disco elysium what are ur thoughts on the game...

im only about 8 hours in, just finished the first day, and WOW it is amazing. its so rare to find a game with worldbuilding that feels so whole, with characters that might as well be REAL. theres life in the brushstrokes of every piece of art in the game, which is to say the whole game itself. and the writing? MAN. i have to be frank its made me ashamed how ignorant i am when it comes to political ideologies, because this is a game that does NOT hold your hand when communicating with you. its so good that it has genuinely inspired me to want to meet the writing as an equal, because it would be such a disservice to let myself misunderstand it, or not understand it at all. what a life changing game. i havent stopped thinking about it since i started playing.

#there has been nothing more motivating to change myself than disco elysium and i mean that #been trying to read basics on politics rn getting books online : P #i want to read thinkpieces about the game in the internet too but i dont wanna get spoiled yet X( #GRAAAAH this is a game that demands understanding and i WANT to. i want to so bad #UNDERSTANDING IS LOVE. personally #if de's world was a person id shower her with kisses #askpost #also!!!!! i do not want to disappoint kim. what a guy

[occidentaltourist]

Living through successive waves of destructive attention and then “reckonings” with that attention—from Princess Diana to Britney Spears—seems to have done little but teach people who like gossip how to develop a self-righteous edge.

Why not have your cake, in becoming over-invested in the lives of famous strangers, and eat it too, by adding your voice to the lamenting choruses whenever things are agreed to have gone too far? Why not decry “slut shaming” in one breath and eagerly solicit rumored details of celebrity sex in the next? If the moralistic impulse of the 2010s has devolved entirely into the language of smugly calling things “not a good look” or “a choice,” if its apparent demands seem to be simply to be allowed to go on prying into the lives of others in the name of “accountability,” it is surely partly because this is simply the only moral language this kind of gossip speaks.

#taylor swift #the whole article is worth a read #the thinkpieces trying to elevate gossip into political discourse sure were something #celebrity culture

[non-binharry]

.

#tags anon #if the person in question is that italian rat who if she had a gun to her head and was given the ultimatum to remain silent #or give one last ''harry is the devil'' themed thinkpiece she really wouldn't be able to help herself #then tragically yes the poor thing thinks hating harry is a radical political stance #thinkpiecing about how louis hates ''greedy fuckers'' in the same week that he rents a yacht is just too funny to me #lmao the SEVERE lack of self awareness #y'all are fighting with a ua who (regardless of how silly i personally think it is) decided to charge those WHO ARE WILLING #to pay a FEW dollars a month for an additional extraneous service #not even their main accounts which they work diligently and tirelessly on FOR FREE #exploitation is not giving people a choice and explicitly laying out what they will receive in that choice #exploitation is taking advantage while removing or limiting all other options #it's so freakish that people can't even seem to differentiate between the two like live in the real world I BEG YOU #you're really going to complain because normal every day people found a way to make a little extra money each month #while updating you on two multimillionaires like get the fuck out of here omfg #a fucking colonist talking about exploitation bitch be serious #lmao *colonizer 😭😭😭 my brain would nawt let me find that word this morning #anyways none of these problems are real

[keratonin]

for the americans who follow me - if you're eligible to vote (or know someone who is) and have literally any questions about the process, want to check who's going to be on your ballot, or want to check your voter registration, you can use vote411.org!

it's run by the league of women voters, has a shitload of information about voting available in english and spanish, and also can help you register to vote if you haven't done that yet. highly highly recommend, especially since 2022 is such an important election year!

#us politics #there's also candidate information #if you want to research who's on the ballot without having to go to a million different websites #anyway. the thinkpieces about who's going to win in november are driving me up the wall #please vote if you can #and encourage people you know to do the same!! #turnout is going to be important as FUCK #and it's a good time to check that you're registered

[prokopetz]

Thinkpieces about why people seem to become more authoritarian as they get older tend to focus on neuroscience and survivorship bias and such, but based on my experience in various activist communities, I think a big piece of the puzzle that these sorts of discussions often overlook is that a large chunk of people just never had any principled objection to authoritarianism in the first place.

It's easy to talk about fighting the power when you're under the boot, but when some folks get hold of any sort of power or authority for themselves and sticking it to the Man is no longer a proposition with no perceived downsides, they start backpedalling in a real hurry. Power didn't corrupt them. Nothing changed about their politics. Their commitment to anti-authoritarianism was only ever as strong as their perception that it personally benefited them.

(You absolutely can't tell who they are just from looking at them, either; a person can use all the right jargon and support all the right causes and show up at all the right protests, yet the moment their private emotional calculus determines, rightly or wrongly, that they have more to gain by putting a boot on your neck than by lifting it off, watch out!)

#politics #activism #authoritarianism #grumping

[txttletale]

Due to the exciting successes of 'weird horror' and 'hopepunk', we're happy to announce a new slate of literary genres for release in Q3 2023. From now on you can expect to start seeing marketing TikToks and insufferable thinkpieces responding to marketing TikToks about:

Nicepunk

Eastern Orthodox Fantasy

Old Adult

Cosmic Horror But Without The Racist Parts

Yiffbong

Ahistorical Romance

Political Snoozer

Erotic Mystery

How Does This Have A Netflix Show It Just Came Out?

Mormon Realism

Dog Isekai

Shampoo Ad Novelization

Rock-hard SciFi

Smileglad

Nasty Fiction

Cosmic Horror But It's Only The Racist Parts

'The Scottish Genre'

Penis Books

#tattletxt

[fairuzfan]

academia is often used as the forefront of much of the violence inflicted on palestinians — for example in the library of congress, there is a collection called "the american colony of jerusalem" with racist photography and items that help visually perpetuate the "people without a land, land without a people" part of herzel's ideology, which itself is the forefront of much of zionist ideology. pointing out the systematic harm in academia is often considered "irrelevant" by zionists.... denies the origins of zionism as a political and academic ideology with physical consequences.

much of palestinian history throughout the last century has to do with erasure and silencing — that is how we got to this point. when i say no one listened to palestinians i mean NO ONE listened. they were ignored. all their demands were unreasonable. instead they get blamed for much of the world's unwillingness to listen. even my family members — i have stories of their work in academic resistance since '48. and some of them are well known contributions throughout euro-american and swana society. yet they're still ignored because of their palestinian origin.

"if you were just more reasonable" or "if you took the time to listen with compassion" or "you have to appeal to people's sense of reason" ignores the fact of the matter — this ideology's founding principals were built on "a people without a land for a land without a people." you cannot and should not ignore that. in order to complete the zionist ideology, you must remove the native population. therefore any subscribers to the idea of zionism are violent, whether they intend it or not.

and if it were true, that academia were irrelevant.... then that doesn't explain the systematic torture and imprisonment of writers and scholars, the exile of my family members who were journalists and activists, the captivity of friends for no other reason than they were deemed a threat by some list or the other.

oftentimes zionists, or zionist sympathizers, ignore our (diaspora's) material ties to the occupation and dismiss us as being "disconnected" from the "situation" in Palestine and "misunderstanding" or "misconstruing" israeli society. what am i misunderstanding exactly? that the origins of this "country" relies on violent displacement and exile? that for the past 75 years, that violence has not stopped once? that no matter what we say about the violence of zionism as an intrinsic aspect, it takes a secondary seat to the imagined realities of zionism?

therefore, anti-zionism is the logical conclusion for valuing palestinian lives. but what are the arguments against anti-zionism? that arab governments expelled jews from SWANA? do you think that's a result of anti-zionism? then you must not understand that palestinians are often treated poorly by the same governments that claim to have done this in the name of "anti-zionism," living in poverty in refugee camps, tortured and arrested, even in some cases exiled by governments. this also neglects to mention zionist collaboration with said governments to exile the jews of their lands.

so then, what?

if anti-zionism is the rejection of the settler colonial state of israel, which you must admit to be truly anti-zionist, then it is an exclamation of palestinian sovereignty and identity. so when you say anti-zionism and antisemitism are linked.... do you realize what you are implying? do you realize that zionism, the root cause of palestinian suffering, is the reason for our expulsion and displacement? so then when you write academic thinkpieces about the "complexity" of zionism, do you realize the harm you're doing? do you realize that this, in fact, is not a new or useful argument? that i've seen iterations of it for years and years? that at the core, the zionist ideology relies on this muddying of the waters for you to not do anything?

to be frank, your constant reminding of the complexity of zionism when people in palestine are suffering from the material effects of it only scream, to me, utter contempt and selfishness. zionism is violence, to me and my family. it is violence for every palestinian in this world. you must admit that to be a sincere advocate for palestinians, otherwise your words ring hollow. the present reality outweighs any possibilities.

#just been thinking about this for a while

[copperbadge]

A horror trope that I very much enjoy is the "haunted book" -- a book that affects the reader in some way, like the Necronomicon driving people mad, or Dr. Mabuse's book that hypnotizes its reader into doing his bidding. It recently had a nice moment in the Magnus Archives, with the Leitner subplot, and there's even a hint of it in Frankenstein, when Victor reads the work of a scientist that his professors dismiss as nonsense and becomes obsessively deranged studying the subject matter.

So it's not that I think it's time for a revival and lord knows the word "reboot" has begun to stink of soulless profit (I think we're one, maybe two flops from a reboot of the MCU). I'm not the most current on horror media in any case so maybe it's been done, but if not I do think we oughta start considering the idea of a haunted phone app.

Apps are already designed for this, anyway. In our current era, a lot of retail "apps" are just reskinned browsers that load an optimized version of the company's website, and the goal of most apps and websites is to keep you in the app/website. (Which is why the google mail and tumblr apps both have internal web browsers.) A lot of phone games are designed to keep you in the game and continually redirect you towards microtransactions, and even apps that aren't games often gamify use; "gamification" has come to be a polite euphemism for "creating addictive circumstances".

Alongside this, a lot of recent cults and cultlike organizations have determined that straight religion is not the best way in anymore, and are coming in sidelong through MLMs (Nexium), wellness and dietary orthodoxies (Bikram Yoga, a number of insta/tiktok orthorexia gurus), or political movements (Qanon). So you get a cult, set up like a business, with an app you use for your business -- or even a cult with a "wellness" app that monitors your sleep, eating, location (wait, that's just FitBit) -- and slowly it gamifies you right into attempting to raise a Great Old One using the power of your downstream or a nice big helping of olive oil coffee.

Although I hate those thinkpieces/art pieces that are all about "you're so busy on your phone you can't appreciate the world around you, remember when we read real paper books" so I would require that the protagonist defeat the evil also using a phone app, or at the very least blind the evil using the flashlight function. Locking the book away in a library app and then putting the phone on airplane mode is a nice resolution, followed perhaps by it lighting up even though it's offline with a message "someone is attempting to locate this phone" as the post-credits stinger for the sequel.

This thought brought to you by Duolingo, which recently fed me, in succession, the task of translating from Italian the phrases

Who do you see in the mirror?

We open the curtains and see the light.

The pillows and blankets are red.

#horror #writing #story ideas #haunted books

[jimblejamblewritings]

An Observation of Humankind [thinkpiece number: 1]

Every girlie (nonbinary, women and men of all orientations included) is a type of Marauder and their partners are marauder love interest — fandom version included.

James Girlies:

either like sports or play sports, especially soccer/football or rugby

bad eyesight

defends everyone

himbo and ditzy but we love them for that

fanfiction reader/sharer

have had several short-term but very intense crushes

surprisingly not always high school sweethearts (which yeah odd cause of Lily)

nature bros

calls their journal a diary with no shame

are always outside and can't sit their ass at home for too long

love bouquets

own at least one pair of converse

loves pop music and Hozier

have scaled a fence before

might be able to play the guitar

handwriting could be nicer if they tried

didn't get their drivers' license right away

take their coffee any way that isn't straight black coffee

definitely think all people are hot even if they don't swing that way (think lesbians love Thor)

loved Merlin the tv show

James Girlies love Regulus and Lily people, which means:

cold people, smart people, black cat people, painters, polite people, readers, homebody people, gothic people, hippie people, people with beautiful handwriting, black coffee drinkers, whisky lovers

Sirius Girlies:

dog people and cat people equally

doc martens

loves coffee and tea equally

fanfiction writer/reader

gorgeous handwriting, probably cursive

might know or has had an interest in calligraphy

an astrology and/or astronomy girl

speaks at least two languages

plays an instrument, any instrument... but their parents definitely suggested piano

leather jackets

denim jackets

wears way less black than people think

fantasy nerd and has played dungeons and dragons

was a superwholockian

usually the only child or older child

doesn't smoke but everyone thinks they might

cocktails or whiskey and beer, no in between

virgin till like freshman year of college or later, to everyone's shock

looks like a black cat but is actually a golden retriever

however they could kill you don't get it twisted

has trauma but won't trauma bond

crooked smile and not perfect teeth but gorgeous anyway

perfect hair that is deliberately messed with

motorcycles and vespas and small cars

listens to every genre of music

tattoos (even if just one small one)

journal person

can quote certain movies by heart

unfortunately turned on by sweater vests

fashion girlie

Sirius Girlies love Marlene, Remus, and other Sirius people, which means:

warm people, confident people, tall people, flirty people, musicians, readers, intellectual people, fancy people

Remus Girlies:

sweets lover

probably likes dark chocolate the most as well as hot chocolate

owns sweaters, probably vintage, some handmade by their Sirius girlies

plays chess

can draw

mismatched socks

waits till the last minute to do laundry

is more of a cat person but also loves dogs

didn't have strict parents and ended up giving themselves curfews and discipline and only late realized the reverse psychology

keeps a notebook about everything their partner likes

messy cook in the kitchen

loves tea a bit over coffee

is probably the actual smoker of the group

doesn't make their bed

good kissers

always carries a jacket or wears a shirt under their sweater so they can give it to their partner

can hold their liquor a bit too well perhaps

has trauma and might trauma bond

great fashion sense but will wear literally whatever is clean

Remus Girlies love Sirius, Pandora, and Dorcas (hear me out) people, which means:

black cat looks and golden retriever personality, weird people, people that pour their pain and emotions into their art whether music or painting or drawing, people that take time to care for themselves in the morning, witchy people, smiley people

Peter Girlies (pretend there was no betrayal):

underestimated

asks the most off-putting questions without realizing it

takes a camera everywhere

loves board games

tea drinker all day every day

baker

sends selfies at literally any angle because they don't care

always pays attention to everyone

loves breakfast food eaten not at breakfast

had a ukelele phase

cleanest of their friend group

Peter Girlies love Mary people, which means:

sunshine people, almost always happy, excitable people, pda lovers, carefree topeople

#mara #marauders #james potter #peter pettigrew x reader #sirius black #remus lupin #sirius black x reader #remus lupin x reader #james potter x reader #marauders fluff #peter pettigrew

[cookinguptales]

Y'know, I post a lot on tumblr about what a shit Guillermo is, and I stand by that. He is a marvelous little shit. But honestly I only talk about it so much because people on tumblr and AO3 send me so many messages about how he's never done anything wrong in his life. When I'm presented with the opposite, that Guillermo is uniquely awful and selfish and he victimizes the poor uwu vampires (thinkpieces that you saw a lot more often during s3) I am fully like "I STAND BY EVERY DECISION THAT FOOLISH MAN HAS EVER MADE."

Being real with you, I feel like talking about Guillermo like he's totally blameless and put-upon or like he's totally selfish and wholly evil flattens a really complex and interesting character. He's selfish and self-involved and cruel and sweet and insecure and giving. He's all those things, and I love that about him.

I love Guillermo as a character because he has these carefully constructed categories in his head, these rules and boundaries that he sticks to like glue. He contains multitudes, and it's because he carefully follows the rules he has in his own head, even when they don't make a lot of sense to others.

I think the best way to think about Guillermo's actions is to think about him having two very different sets of rules for in-groups and out-groups. He will bend over backward for people in his in-group, will be the kindest, most patient, sweetest man in the world -- but he can be downright vicious to people in the out-group.

This is a pretty common occurrence IRL, though not always to the degree that Guillermo does it... I mean, you're going to treat your best friend's birthday differently than you're gonna treat a stranger's, right? When you start seeing it happen the way Guillermo does it, though, it's often to create and preserve power. You see it in politics, high school cliques, religion, etc.

For example, let's take new religious movements (or NRMs, i.e. "cults".) They are famous for this behavior. When you create distinct in-groups and out-groups and can behave very differently towards both, you give your followers a strong incentive to stay in the in-group. It makes them feel like they're the "good" ones, the superior ones, the ones with power. The ones that belong. And when they see out-groups being mistreated, well. No one wants to be in the group with no power who's mistreated, y'know? It simultaneously gives people in the in-group a sense of community, belonging, and social superiority and makes them afraid to leave.

But really, you see it all the time. If you have a "good" group that you can never harm and a "bad" group that you can do anything to, that really helps prop up power structures in a lot of ways. Look, I'm not going to get into this too much more because you don't want a freaking academic lecture on your dash, but suffice it to say that I think Guillermo is largely using his in-groups and out-groups in this way, mentally speaking.

He has in-groups (his friends, his family, his boyfriend, the vampires he lives with) and out-groups (literally everyone else, including other vampires) and he badly mistreats the out-groups because he does not want to be one of them. I've noticed he's particularly awful to human prey that reminds him of himself (nerdy, socially awkward, powerless, virginal) and I think that's because he wants to distance himself from them. He wants to make sure no one mistakes him as being part of that group, so he very strongly pushes them into his out-group by not only killing them, but making fun of them and often making sure they suffer before they die.

And then he's even more slavishly devoted to his in-groups, partially because he does truly love them, but partially because he desperately wants to stay in those groups. Or because he's trying to protect his own hide.

I don't mean to say that every kind thing he does is calculated -- I do think he very genuinely wants to make the people he loves happy -- but there's a sort of desperation to it sometimes. When he does these kind things, sometimes it's this desperate bid to be valued and accepted by others in his in-group, which makes him feel like he's earned his place there.

I've noticed that Guillermo has a tendency to do things for people to stay in their good graces (buying his mom a fridge, doing chores for Nandor, giving Derek money) when what they actually want is his time and attention. There often is a vibe that he's trying to earn his way into a group he doesn't quite feel entitled to when actually he's already very much a part of the group and he just needs to maintain those relationships. It's insecurity, frankly, and a nervous sort of self-preservation.

In fact... I'd say that Guillermo's greatest emotional struggles often come when trying to reconcile (and protect) different members of his in-group because he's trying to reconcile (and protect!!!) the different parts of himself.

Like... when he protected Jeremy, he was protecting a friend, but also the idea that some weak, virginal nerds are not prey. He had to protect this member of his in-group, partially because he loved him, but partially because he had to protect himself by extension. If Jeremy could be an exception to the predator-prey dynamics, so could he. Some humans could be valuable.

When he protected his fellow familiars during the familiar fights, he was protecting fellow humans whom he thought had "earned" a better life (and death) than prey humans, but he was also protecting the idea that a familiar could be loved and valued. He was protecting himself and the hope that Nandor would love him.

When he protected his family, he was protecting his beloved family members, but also the idea that vampires and slayers could coexist. Of course he doesn't want his family to die, but he's also doesn't want his hopes that he can have it all to die with them.

Let's all be real with each other here. Guillermo kills humans, and he does so without compunction. He is able to utterly dehumanize prey humans because he has a vested interest in emotionally distancing himself from them. But he gets kind of freaked out when the humans that he has mentally removed from that prey group (his friends, his family, people "like him") are not placed into that same exempt group by others. And this is definitely because he wants to protect those he loves!

But it's also because it means that he isn't special, either.

Let's talk about Freddie, who I think is probably the most complicated example of all this in the entire show. (Save perhaps Derek, who could probably get an entire post to himself because he went from out-group to in-group without Guillermo's consent.) When Freddie first arrived at the house, Nandor mistook him for prey. This understandably freaked Guillermo out, partially because he wanted to protect his boyfriend and partially because it was violating Guillermo's group dynamics.

(Insert meta here about Freddie representing Guillermo's ability to have a happy life outside of the weird, insular one he'd created for himself prior to s4.)

Freddie ended up being kind of special, though, because Guillermo considered him to be part of his in-group and Nandor considered him an out-group until he realized that Guillermo valued him. And then Nandor wanted him to not just be part of his in-group, but a portion of it separate from (but simultaneously representing) Guillermo. It's complicated!!

So we had Freddie 1 who was Guillermo's and Freddie 2 who was Nandor's, but... in the end, Freddie really belonged to no one but himself, right? In the end, he very literally chose himself. He left the -group dynamic altogether.

So Freddie is moving in and out of these groups like a fuckin' oiled-up eel that Guillermo cannot keep a hold of, and that really challenges his control issues as well as his ability to feel like he belongs in the in-groups he's created. It challenges his ability to feel worthy and loved and like he belongs anywhere. It challenges his ability to have faith that he'll ever become a vampire. Suddenly he does not control these groups anymore. If anything, they're controlling him.

While a lot of Guillermo's angst at the end of s4 was about, y'know, normal heartbreak... I think a lot of that was happening, too. He was really seeing the abrupt overturning of the carefully established rules and groups and boundaries and power differentials in his head, and that made him just want to be free of the whole thing.

So he took a step out of all of his preconceptions about what he did and did not have to do to belong in these groups, and took hold of his own destiny.

...unfortunately.

Guillermo's decisions in s4, both regarding his family and his turning, really did permanently shake up a lot of the group dynamics in the show. For better? For worse? (FOR GOOD...? lmao) It's hard to say, honestly. But I'm eager to see how he irons it all out in his head!

Our able-to-self-justify-literally-anything bitch. 💜

#see also: guillermo's inability to kill the him-creatures when he regularly kills other monsters #honestly I am devoted to the fucked-up mess that is guillermo #for all of his sweetness and cruelty #wwdits #wwdits meta #long post

[cock-holliday]

The relationship of Trump to Biden is like fascist street gangs vs the cops. The fash are uncouth, unfiltered—they are the quiet part out loud armed with sticks and knives and guns. The cops functionally want the same things, but under a guise of lawfulness.

Cops let fash run wild to do the things they can’t do openly (though what is seen as acceptable from cops has continually for the last 35 years been ramping up) and will even disavow the actions of the street fash if they go too far, but make no mistake—they are two arms of the same function.

Trump rants about the yucky Mexicans, Biden talks about the safety and protection of our borders. They mean the same thing. Trump talks about wanting to see protesters punched, Biden talks about restoring order.

Biden is the slick uniform version of Trump’s street thug.

And both of these men, while individually dangerous and repulsive, are just figureheads of the mentalities of their respective parties.

Republicans want control and domination by any means necessary, Democrats want control and domination but not (completely) at the cost of a good reputation. And the more Republicans become bold in their violent desires, the easier it is for Democrats to remain more appealing.

They no longer have to even be appealing, they have to just be slightly less repulsive than Republicans.

And it sure seems to be working on a number of you, that thinkpieces come out about “supporting 99% Hitler instead of 100% Hitler.”

Do you delight in being a fool or do you just like the sound of the jingling bells when you dance for a party who wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter you, just does it politely?

[theygotlost]

i know the discourse for it is long dead but now that ive finally gotten around to watching barbie and had some time to sleep on it I have my two cents to put in. this is probably the exact same as every other critical thinkpiece but I didn't really read those so this is my genuine opinion.

first of all, this is a two hour toy commercial. it's the same thing as a michael bay transformers movie. mattel sanctioned this to sell you a toy. I'm a firm believer that any message of social activism is inherently disingenuous if it's coming from a multimillion dollar corporation: a corporation's sole purpose is to make money, and they will use whatever political or social zeitgeist they think will be the best vehicle for that. the depiction of the mattel executives in the film is not a critique or satire, it's mattel openly admitting, "this but unironically".

second, I have very little interest in any message of "feminism" or "female empowerment" that does nothing to include women who aren't traditionally feminine. the closest the movie gets to this is weird barbie, so she was decidedly my favorite character (if I could convince myself that I care about the movie enough to have a favorite character), but she's "weird" and "different" in way that's still palatable to the masses. the human girl's mom (did she have a name?) makes the argument for a "normal barbie" who is not extraordinary or an overachiever or sets an impossible beauty standard, but still asks that this barbie gets to wear "a flattering top".

what I'm getting at here is that the type of "female empowerment" on display in the barbie movie is not one for gender nonconforming women or women who simply have no interest in performing femininity or adhering to feminine beauty standards. barbie may have an illustrious career as a doctor and astronaut and president and scientist and and and but in every iteration she's Pretty. she always wears makeup, has long, carefully styled hair, is almost always thin, and wears cute, form fitting outfits, usually with skirts and dresses. she can do anything she puts her mind to, have any career she wants, accomplish anything, just as long as she's also Pretty. if barbie is supposed to be a role model for little girls, what message is that sending them?

the stereotypical barbie falls into depression because she's "not pretty anymore", at which point a narrator cuts in to say directly to the audience, "margot robbie is not the right person to cast to make this point". as if acknowledging it somehow fixes it? like, you still did that. you still cast the thin, blonde, white, conventionally attractive margot robbie as the star of your feature length barbie doll commercial. telling me you realize how silly it is to say she's not pretty doesn't change that.

there will never be a butch barbie because that's not marketable. there will never be a barbie who doesn't wear makeup or has body hair or acne or is fat but not hourglass shaped. this is why we can't base our notions of feminism off a mass marketed plastic toy for children. the movie itself is like, fine. it did make me laugh. it has some endearing elements in it. but its sociopolitical messaging is totally lukewarm, and not by accident.

[argumate]

I was a fan of the once feminist blogger Sady Doyle back in the day, now still feminist but it's complicated blogger Jude Doyle, so I wrangle their words with only the kindest of wishes and I know they are perpetually Going Through It, but I still think they're being curiously oblivious in most of this post about erasure etc.

even just the narrative arc of "I was a feminist because traditional gender roles made me uncomfortable", like yes it's good to dig into the emotional underpinnings of your beliefs, and it can be an important part of figuring out what it is you "really" believe or what beliefs you end up settling on or converging to, but obviously something making you uncomfortable is often a terrible foundation on which to build a lifetime of political advocacy! and I don't even need to spell out the issues with that.

and yes lots of people are mad at them, of course, people are always mad at them and always will be even if the stated reasons may shift and vary, so this isn't exactly news, as distressing as it can be to witness, and of course you can't really base your politics on "people get mad at me on the internet", especially when your job is basically to make people mad on the internet, when it comes right down to it.

brief appreciation for "I obliquely subtweeted my mother," as a beautiful sequence of words.

they are of course obliged to state that "misandry" doesn't exist, but that stereotypes of men as predatory, hulking, and violent do exist, and thankfully must not lead to any kind of prejudice or negative outcomes that could be considered problematic; it's a strange assertion but a compulsory one.

they find that the writings of most cis male feminists are useless, but fail to identify why, and take them at face value instead of considering why there might be a supply of and a demand for such nonsense.

and of course, they still write in the same manner as they always have: of deriving general assertions from their specific experiences, which is arguably all that any of us can ever do and yet when expressed directly in thinkpiece form is still an intensely gendered, female-coded, way to write; when your topics are the socially constructed notions of "men" and "women" then you have to be aware of this!

[mizandria]

my nature is primarily diplomatic and it still seems impossible to me to reason with misogynists. ideally you would politely present your counterargument when you disagree with someone, yeah. but you're out of touch if you think women are to blame for "pushing men even further from feminism" if they don't want to politely engage in a civilized discussion with a misogynist (which by the way you can't do because he hates you and you might as well be talking to a wall). there's nothing to gain by spending your day cooking a moralistic thinkpiece that can be boiled down to "hey, this is bad" and sending it to a male who thinks his girlfriend deserved to be raped, or to the males who fantasize openly about being left in a classroom with the dead bodies of their female colleagues after a school shooting. first of all, they know that it's bad, they absolutely know and the thing is that this is precisely why they say it. that's the whole fucking point.

second of all, when someone acts like it's a feminist obligation to enlighten those poor misguided men i'm always reminded of Emma Watson, always making sure she appeases or pleases men anytime she mentions feminism, openly stating that her feminism fights for both women and men. she's polite, she's moderate, she's diplomatic, she goes out of her way not to "push men further from feminism" and not a single misogynist appreciates it. they gang up on her and cling to anything that lets them mock her, they call her a feminazi. they won't listen to her and won't listen to you or any woman, no matter how much love and compassion you approach them with. sometimes the only thing you can say is that you wish them death and go on with your life. even the rudest man-hating feminist replying to every misogynist with the classic kys is still being too nice if you've seen what men have to say about women.

#i'm still guilty of trying to reason with them sometimes and that's exactly how i know it's useless #you can't fix him girl #radblr

[crimeronan]

What does being Taylor Swift neutral look like in practice?

it's...... really..... not that hard to do.

when my mom or sister or casual acquaintances ask to put on a tswift album in the car, i go, "sure!" and pleasantly listen along. then promptly forget everything i just heard. i frequently encounter both positive and negative thinkpieces about her artistry and persona and history, which i largely do not read, but sometimes i do skim tumblr posts and think, "huh, this would probably be really interesting if i knew stuff about taylor swift." when my lefty friends discuss how they hate her guts i nod thoughtfully and when my swiftie friends discuss how she gets a worse rep than she should, i do the same. i don't add her songs to my playlists because i can't remember them and i don't feel much about them. i find her current tumblr and youtube album ad campaign incredibly fucking grating and it's testing my ability to maintain this delicate balance but i am Clinging By My Fingernails.

ultimately i am a blank slate for the world to project its taylor swift opinions onto and i find that this is an essential quality to have when navigating pop culture as a twenty-something boring-but-political american woman in 2024.

does that help.

#she is a perfect encapsulation of my desire to socially camouflage in any given setting. #since her music doesnt grab me i have no reason to form an opinion about her #and many reasons to remain emotionally unattached to any of the many perspectives about her. u know. #replies