#the society is not as educated as i'd like them to be

[wildoor]

I finished their designs :3

Anyways not too sure what I want to call this AU but I've kinda settled on "The Blocks".

More about it undercut if you care idk:

I don’t want to say much about them because I want to write fanfic about this and I don’t want to spoil it so sorry if this sounds barebones or is confusing :(

Some quick before things: This AU is in a world where all of humanity has been forced into a highly structured society. Basically everyone was kidnapped and forced into cryosleep except for people part of this secret organization who’ve begun to create this super structured world

Cities are just numbered and under each city are the “Blocks”, 4 per city, 1 a daycare, the other three for people 18+. Blocks all have 100 members (people who have been awoken from cryosleep) and have a strict ruleset, if a member breaks a rule, they’re killed. The last remaining member is allowed to leave and live in the “new world”. Daycares don’t do that (kill members (kids)) they just teach them to follow the new rules. They also get their education there so once they’ve graduated they’re allowed to leave.

(⚾Scout) Jeremy, Block Master Assistant (Block 3)

He’s the main character or something. His one goal is to be a Block Master because his dad works as the admin for the blocks and would always come home talking about it and he just thought it was the coolest thing.

(🇺🇸Soldier) Block Master Doe (Block 2)

Think the most like patriotic, pro-american (but not for america), drill sergeant- so he’s basically the same person. For every AU I make where Soldier is included he’s always the same person because I just love him so much.

(🔥Pyro) Moe/Puff, Block Daycare Attendant (Block 1)

They’re mute :3 They help Heavy in the daycare and their pyromaniac thing isn’t there, they’re just insane. They see the whole world as Pyroland but not everything has to be on fire for it, they’re just like that. Also Moe is their name but Puff is what they let all the kids call them because they're always wearing a puffy jacket

(💣Demo) Tavish, Block Master Assistant (Block 2)

He’s very laid back, he might genuinely let people get away with offenses as long as Doe didn’t see it, he’s mostly there to keep Doe in check and also because I’m a boots and bombs shipper and they’re gay :3

(🧸Heavy) Mikhail, Block Daycare Teacher (Block 1)

Leader of Block 1/the daycare. Block 1 leaders are really nice because they’re whole job is to just teach/watch over kids so he’s just genuinely wholesome :) He tries to get the other Block Masters (Ludwig & Doe) to be better but he’s given up on Doe and Ludwig might be too far gone

(🔧Engie) Dell, Block Maintenance Overseer

There are teams of people who maintain the blocks (he’s one of them), He works with the Admin and Block Masters to keep Blocks up to date. Currently he’s a bit busy because Block 4 had some accident that no one is allowed to know about and it’s not working but everything is totally fine guys 👍

(🫀Medic) Block Master Ludwig (Block 3)

The Knife from Camp Belica in Wolfenstein: The New Order, him fr fr.

(🐊Sniper) Mundy, City 16 - Block 3 Member (32)

Member of Block 3, member number 32. He really couldn’t care less.

(🚬Spy) Jacques, City 16 Blocks Admin

I could’ve just used TF2’s administrator but I have another idea for her and then I also wouldn’t’ve known what to do with Mr. Spy. He’s like the mayor of City 16 but he mostly looks over the Blocks, not the whole thing.

If anyone wants to send asks about this I'd be happy to answer. Also I guess asks for characters are fine, I think if I get any for those I might draw the character to go with it to kinda show their designs a little more. Idk I am just really excited about this AU and want to share it <3

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 au #lore dump #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 heavy #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #traditional drawing #fanart #send asks #himtheguy

[kimberly-spirits13]

Growing Up in the Justice League HC

Purely self indulgence cause I've been on this and idk why so bear with me here

I can just easily romanticize growing up in the Justice League too easily and it would be a problem

you're brought in at as a baby to be trained by Diana

Apollo brings you to her and tells her that you are an ancient being that regenerates as a new person when you die and this is the form that you have taken. As you get older, you will remember the skills and memories of your past lives but you will have to be raised with someone who can handle you

Diana just loves babies so she had no problem with that

I'd say the league has been established for some time during this point and everyone knows each other's identities in the core group

You grew up in Paris and New York being raised as a mama's child

Bruce is the closest you get to a dad and he does his best

SPOILS YOU ROTTEN

all the Barbies and Legos and whatever toys you'd want as a child

They know that you've been trained as an assassin, wizard, queen, knight, sorceress, scientist, all of these other things that can be traumatic so they just want you to have a great, decent childhood

when you start remember things they begin training you to be a hero

It's like PE and recess all in one since they're really just trying to figure out what you can do

Clark treats you like a fragile piece of glass up until you're a teen cause teenagers confuse him and he just cannot not see you as an innocent beep boppin child sometimes

Barry keeps up with the culture and knows all the songs from your favorite childhood movies and tv shows that you grew up watching on the massive computer in the watch tower when you were up there

will dance to any Barbie song since he knows them all by heart

Hal makes fun of you two but secretly enjoys the movies and is very emotionally invested in Princess and the Pauper and Diamond Castle

Diana and Bruce make sure that you have a great education and training

They are the mature parents of the group and want to make sure you're a functioning member of society

you've got a bag full of grandparents in the Kents, Allans, Princes, Alfred and they all love you to death

Alfred teaches you to make the best tea and gardening, Ma Kent teaches you to quilt and make bread, Pa Kent teaches you how to drive a tractor and farm, Hippolyta teaches you about the Greek gods and ancient cultures and how to ride horses, the Allans would have loads of board games to play and love having you over

Once Young Justice or Teen Titans comes around you don't join since you're officially a Justice League member and get along better with the adults since you were raised by them

That doesn't mean that you don't like or hang out with the kids, it's just that you have better inside jokes with Hal and Barry

When Superboy comes around and the League disappears, you were the only one not taken by the portal since you were helping out some civilians

You knew that Clark wasn't dead and you knew the League was somewhere

What kept you afloat was humor and Kon attached to that since he just needed someone that wasn't insane in his life

you probably won't develop romantic feelings for each other but it's more of a camaraderie since you were both raised in a really unorthodox way

when the league finally comes back, you say it's the happiest day of your life and rant to them that you were the only one who knew they weren't gone but no one understood it

Hal and Barry are known for having a thing for chicken tenders and make sure to instill an addiction in you for chicken tenders

Arthur (Aquaman) really really really likes them too but he doesn't realize it until he comes to the League

Clark would be the one to take you out for ice cream randomly or if you're having a bad day

the mother hen therapist type

You're America's favorite Justice Leaguer and often go viral for in uniform interactions with the League

Dancing with Flash at a Presidential ceremony because the music is too beep boopin good and you can't help but bop around a little bit

Media also loves you as a civilian and it's been suspected that you are the love child between Diana and Bruce since I mean- that would make the most sense

it's a running joke in the league

#dc x reader #dc comics #dc characters #batfam x reader #batboys x reader #batfam #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne #bruce wayne x daughter!reader #wonder woman x daughter reader #wonder woman x reader #diana prince x child #diana prince x daughter #diana prince x daughter reader #diana prince x reader #justice league x y/n #justice league x you #justice league x reader #justice league imagine

[genderkoolaid]

y'know the thing a lot of people who worry about "well if we just let ANYBODY be queer what will happen!!" don't talk about is like. what will probably happen if some cisgender heterosexual calls themself queer for X reason is that they will go to an inclusive queer space and listen to other people and discuss their own unique perspectives on issues. like a cishet ace might hear a gay man talk about feeling broken and ashamed and go "oh I've had a similar experience being ace!" and everyone else will get a chance to learn about how being ace changes your experiences with sexuality. if someone comes in and says "i'm queer because i'm autistic" and then talks about how their autism & experiences with ableism has impacted their interactions with gender in society, everyone will get a chance to learn how neurodivergence can change how you internalize gender and how ableism is often directly tied to gender.

the thing is, people will use shocking phrases like "oh so a cishet autistic person is queer now?? so a cishet incel is queer now???" because they have a very bitter and small-minded view of sexuality and gender. they are (not in a societal power sense, but in a moral/rhetoric sense) no better than conservative cisgender heterosexuals who lose their mind at butch lesbians and cis men wearing nail polish.

because what happens when a person says they are queer and get let in to queer spaces just on that is... they learn about other people and other people learn about them. if they act like an asshole they get educated and if they keep doing it they get kicked out. people who understand the radical nature of queerness should also understand that if someone says they are "queer", they probably have put thought into that and have a reason for feeling that way, and by letting them into queer spaces you have an opportunity to learn more about experiences outside of your own. and you get to help a person! it's a win-win scenario for everyone!

if someone says "i'm queer because of [wild crazy thing]," my reaction is going to be, "cool, i'd love to know more about how you came to identify as queer, i'm sure you have some really interesting things to say about queerness based on your experiences!" it's that simple. queerness is vague and unique and constantly shifting, and we all have more to learn about aspects of it. if someone finds comfort and solidarity in calling themself queer, then i'm sure we have some interesting things to talk about and learn from each other! nobody knows everything and humans can't be put in perfect boxes.

#m.

[licorice-lips]

I want to talk about Gaul and her view of the Games as a representation of human nature, which for her is that human beings are bad at their core, so when they are stripped of civility (even if you can argue the tributes were never treated with any civility at all anyway), they are violent and will do anything to "fall on top".

And that's very interesting to me because as much as Gaul thinks the Games are a representation of that, Leftie (on TikTok) explained very well that the 10th Games are filled with people proving her wrong again and again by showing mercy and compassion in their own ways - case in point, Reaper giving the fallen tributes a proper homage in their deaths, Lucy caring for Jessup, and even Lamina killing Marcus out of mercy.

More than that though, I think it's so ironically dry of Suzanne Collins to put Snow - civil, educated, polite, well-bred young Coriolanus Snow - as the one who actually has those instincts to be violent and do anything he can to win ("Snow always falls on top") in situations which are nothing like the desperate environment of the Games, but in the society they deem so superior - the Capital.

But even more than that, the more I think about the true State of Nature, the more I see Doctor Gaul's beliefs as extremely frail from a biological point of view: when we talk about human's state of nature, the closest we can get to observe that today are native tribal communities, as some scientists do to understand better how our ancestors lived.

But what we can observe from this too is that (and we all learned that before) human beings are social beings - we need a community (or a support net, as we can call them) in order to thrive, but community only forms with connection. If we were selfish, individualist, and violently prone to survive (bad, in fewer words) in our cores, then it'd make no sense for us to be social creatures because we wouldn't be able to form connections deep enough to live in communities.

Not ones that thrived as much as we did, anyway. We'd most likely be lone creatures. Instead, our understanding of community is directly linked to safety, both emotional and physical, to the point where our own language reflects that: the found family trope being so popular in books, poor families being more likely to stick together as an act of self-defense, the fact we love so much to consume friendships in artistic works, the instinctual need to find protection on other people when we feel threatened, and so on and so on.

"A child rejected by the village will burn it to feel its warmth", meaning not only that we need a community to thrive, but its lack leaves deep scarring in a person's character.

So when it comes to the state of nature of men, I'd say I believe much more in societal corruption - like Frankenstein - rather than a violent or bad nature by itself, unless of course, there's a natural precedent for such (like a biological inability to form deep emotional connections).

#the hunger games #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #sejanus plinth #coriolanus snow #lucy gray baird #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #mockinjay #volumnia gaul #the capital #lucy gray #district 12

[olderthannetfic]

I think you've talked before about how it's wrong to assume the only people who enjoy taboo kink like race play are bigoted white people, right? Tumblr's search remains garbage. I've been trying to formulate some thoughts on it after seeing some videos on "bad books" but I don't really know enough about real world kink culture to know what's valid critique of racism or anti-kink just hiding behind it. So I remembered you'd mentioned the topic at some point and might have some thoughts?

--

Well, first, one should apply basic logic: If shittons of women kink on the ways in which society abuses women, why wouldn't at least some ethnic minorities kink on the way society abuses them?

Second, social media overflows with jackasses saying "Listen to POC" as a thought-terminating cliche, but it's good advice as long as you grasp that you do have to evaluate which people you're listening to and what basis you have for trusting that they know something about a subject.

Honestly, I don't think this topic is that complicated. There are just a lot of cowardly white people around who are too scared of ever being seen as wrong to be willing to do a little research or stand up for anything even remotely controversial. They'll parrot the first anti they run across but not bother to engage with the comments of nonwhite kinksters who are long-time community members with informed opinions.

The person I'd listen to, personally, is Mollena Williams-Haas, a kink educator and submissive. She has talked about race play here, among many other places.

Her comments boil down to it being about consent. If kinksters want to play with a concept and everyone involved is on the same page, it's not the business of outsiders to tell them it's off limits.

Playing with heavy topics in an agreed upon way is completely different from having that thing sprung on you without warning. We're used to making this distinction when people are playing with the trappings of rape but, somehow, lose our goddamn minds when the topic is racism.

Now, yes, there are plenty of gross white creeps who think nonwhite kinksters will inherently be interested in this sort of thing and should cater to them... but how is that any different from your usual pest in a bar chatting up uninterested parties and refusing to take no for an answer? The problem isn't squicky kinks that many of us don't want to hear about: The problem is jackasses treating others as a fantasy and/or kink dispenser instead of a person with feelings and needs.

Frankly, most of the arguments against this sort of kink are your usual "As a woman, you should be setting a good example!" bilge that's leveled at all submissive women but on steroids because a woman of color is extra, extra, extra responsible for living her whole life as An Example. (And I notice that it's generally submissive nonwhite women who come in for the most abuse even though plenty of other dynamics exist. Quelle surprise.) It's bullshit. People should mind their own damn business.

As for "bad books"... Are we talking bodice rippers with nonwhite heroines or what? Are we back to colonizer romance wank? Books about characters engaging in race play in a BDSM context? I think it's reasonable to critique books that don't seem to know what they're doing—e.g. not seeming aware that a rape scene is one—but stupid to worry about iddy trash that is trying to be iddy trash. People will always like socially unacceptable id fodder. Some books will always cater to that.

[mamasbakeria]

hey, what's your major again?

summary: my credible expert opinion on what the aot characters would study in university. what are my qualifications? the dozens of hours i’ve spent staring at my school’s program bulletin trying to figure out what i’m majoring in

genre | includes: headcanons, sfw, minor language, uninformed percy jackson reference (pls don't hate me if im wrong)

characters: eren jaeger, mikasa ackerman, armin arlert, sasha braus, jean kirschtein, connie springer, historia reiss, ymir, reiner braun, annie leonhardt

author’s note: had this in my drafts for months now. i just need to post it so it stops haunting me. might do the rest of the marleyans and vets in the future! lmk your thoughts, my only tumblr notifications are from p*rn bots, so i'd love to hear from real people lol. enjoy <3

eren: sociology and public policy, 4+1 program for a social work masters

there’s only so many times you can hear “you’re gonna be a doctor just like your dad” before you start to believe it. that’s why eren started out with biology on the premed track. the thing is, he really didn’t care for it. eren is really passionate about lessening equity gaps and is a firm believer in “if you want something done right, do it yourself”. this is why i see him making the switch to a double major in public policy and sociology. he wants to know about how society got to the point of perpetuating disparities so that he can fix them. but he also knows that the government fucking sucks and thinks its naive to expect policy change to be the only method of change. and like the maniac he is, eren is enrolled in a 4+1 program so he can get his master’s in social work when he’s done with his undergrad. he’s determined to graduate with both degrees in just 4 years though. rip his summers.

armin: international relations and military ethics, minor in communications or smth

everyone always says armin would study marine biology or oceanographic studies, but i honestly think that it’s a passion that he pursues on the side. he takes marine bio courses for his breadth requirements, but knows he’d end up hating the ocean if he spent the rest of his life studying it. he also strikes me as someone who would rather run buck naked into traffic than sit through multiple semesters of organic chemistry. armin was always a good public speaker, though, despite being a bit insecure. that’s why his speech and debate teacher during sophomore year of high school recommended model united nations to him. he was hooked after his first conference and now genuinely sees the path of international diplomacy as his calling. that’s why he’s majoring in international relations. his concentration in military ethics is something he tacks on in his junior year after taking some courses and publishing research with dr. erwin smith. he probably minors in communications because he can.

mikasa: forensic science

mikasa had no idea what she wanted to do when she started uni. she’s good at nearly everything. like never gotten a B in her life and is the student who the curve is based off of. but excelling in every environment you’re put in often means you don’t know what you’re best at. she knew deep down that she wanted to do something justice related like her childhood best friends did, but she’s no public speaker and has no interest in political reform. she was, however, emo in high school and heard a fair share of undertaker jokes at her expense. it wouldn’t hurt to look into right? as cool as the title sounds, morticians don’t make enough money for the job they have. fortunately enough, forensic pathologists do and mikasa looks good in a lab coat. she would never admit it to spare armin and eren’s feelings, but when they, as children, recreated the crime-solving shows mrs. jaeger always had on, mikasa always wanted to be the brains. so criminology and forensic science it is. (side note: she definitely joins the military and they pay for her education)

jean: structural engineering and industrial design with a minor in studio art

more than anything, jean wants to provide for his mom and knows he can’t guarantee a retirement of luxury for her as the freelance artist he wishes he could be. he’s decent at math when he tries and doesn’t hate physics, so he decided he’d give structural engineering a try for at least a semester or two. he wasn’t expecting to get much from it, to be honest. he had a plethora of backup plans waiting for his supposedly inevitable distaste for engineering, but he found that he didn’t hate it at all. someone once told jean that he had the makings of a great leader and he didn’t believe them until he started taking the lead on design projects and producing incredible results. his only qualm is that he just doesn’t get to be as creative as he wanted to be. that was easily rectified by an additional major in industrial design and a minor in studio art. he’s unbelievably busy, busier than he anticipated when he started his post-secondary journey, but he’s content and there’s nothing some extra coffee can’t solve. 

sasha: environmental science and sustainability

sasha spent her childhood ankle-deep in mud and fighting her way through forest thickets without a compass. an upbringing like that doesn’t leave your spirit, no matter how far into the city you go for school. so sasha’s always been passively passionate about the environment. that passiveness became significantly more prominent when part of the woods she grew up in was cleared out to build an industrial complex. it was then that she started researching and writing petitions about preserving wildlife and making environmentally conscious decisions. her work actually got her the scholarship she’s on (because god knows it wasn’t her grades). and she genuinely loves what she does, so why wouldn’t she keep learning about it? the environmental science and sustainability program at the school is small, but tight-knit and known for churning out changemakers. sasha knows she’ll be one of them one day. just hide your plastic straws from her, okay?

connie: computer science and chinese

stick with me here okay? everyone expects connie to be a douchebag marketing major whose hardest assignments are graphing functions and making posters on photoshop, but he’s a lot more invested in his education than he looks. don’t get me wrong, connie has always struggled academically, but that’s because so much of early education is pre-determined. he performed way better when he could choose what courses he took. it’s kind of like percy jackson being dyslexic in english because he was wired to read in greek. connie can’t keep his eyes on a history textbook for shit, but will gladly sit in front of the c++ code on his pc for hours. he doesn’t even get mad when he realizes that he was missing a semicolon. connie loves how versatile of a future he could have with a compsci degree, because, let’s be real, he could never survive in a typical office environment. definitely takes a bunch of chinese classes and doesn’t realize that he has enough credits for it to be a minor until his second to last semester.

historia: political science with a minor in international relations and child development

historia is a lot like eren in the sense that she knows her time is best spent doing hands-on work in the fields she cares about. she realizes this sometime after reconnecting with her estranged father and volunteering at the orphanage she grew up in. but now that she’s publicly associated with a powerful political figure, historia doesn’t get to do what she wants, only what is expected of her. that’s how she ends up on the pre-law political science and public policy route. the nickname “ms. president” that connie and sasha give her only further reminds her that she’s heading down a path she never wanted for herself. after lots of encouragement from ymir, historia decided to take child development courses on the side. even if she doesn’t take on the full minor, she’s taking some classes she cares about. maybe she’ll find use for it someday. at the very least, it’s her first step in becoming the most selfish girl in the world.

ymir: data science and business management

ymir is smart. much smarter than she presents herself to be, almost as a form of protection. nobody expects much of someone who is aloof, so it makes it easy to slip through the cracks to remain safe and comfortable in the shadows. business management is notoriously low commitment and easy to skate by with. guaranteed internships, post-graduate employment, and so on. To anyone who doesn’t know ymir well, it’s perfect. but they have her mistaken, ymir will do as little as possible to go as far as possible. sure, she can live comfortably with a business degree, but it could be better with a little bit of data science in her arsenal. she’s intelligent enough to pick up on it, and determined enough to make it her bitch. yeah, academia is a money-sucking pipeline into the capitalist hellscape, she doesn’t believe in it yada yada, but at the end of the day, ymir’s gonna get the bag. so what if she’s gotta sleep through some stats classes to get it?

reiner: behavioral economics

reiner’s mother had convinced him his whole life that getting a high paying job would fix their lives and bring his father back. believing “perfect grades lead to a perfect life” made high school tough for reiner; gifted kid burnout is no joke. it really messed him up. he wasn’t sure if he could withstand the pressures of university, but here he is. reiner was never allowed a therapist, so he figured pursuing psychology would, at the very least, give him some answers and be a good pathway to a medical degree. he loved getting to understand how people work and why they act the way they do, but something was missing. he found out what it was when a guest lecturer spoke in his economics class. he knew making the switch would be risky, it’s a new field and his current career options are really only research, academia, or government, but the interdisciplinary study of behavioral economics is calling reiner’s name. 

annie: biomedical engineering and kinesiology

annie’s entire life revolved around her father, including the injury he was never able to heal from. the one she gave him. he’s claimed to be over it, she’s forgiven, but annie will never feel like she’s earned that forgiveness until she gets rid of the problem entirely. how is she going to do that exactly? with biomedical engineering. she has years of hell in front of her, especially with her concentration on biomechanics, but she doesn’t care. annie will throw herself into her work to get the results she wants. she takes the highest amount of credits possible every semester so she can graduate early. you’ll most likely find her chained to a study cubicle at the library at all hours of the day and running on 2 hours of sleep, but it doesn’t faze her. she tacks on a minor in kinesiology because it makes sense and she had most of the credits for it anyway. and as if it couldn’t get worse, she probably TAs for a thermodynamics course or something crazy like that.

© mamasbakeria 2023. do not repost, translate (without permission), or modify

#gbemi.writes #aot #attack on titan #snk #shingeki no kyojin #aot headcanons #snk headcanons #college au #eren jaeger x reader #eren x reader #mikasa ackerman x reader #mikasa x reader #armin arlert x reader #armin x reader #jean kirschtein x reader #sasha braus x reader #connie springer x reader #historia reiss x reader #ymir x reader #reiner x reader #reiner braun x reader #annie leonhardt x reader #eren headcanons #armin headcanons #reiner headcanons

[lizzieisright]

How can you support Palestine? It’s constantly ranked as one of the worst countries for lgbt rights/safety and people who are found out face death in many instances. A man was decapitated in the street for being found gay and gay sexual relations are illegal with a penalty of jail time… Who do you think you are crusading for? The reality is if you went there with a rainbow flag walking down the street you would not be ok. Queer people flee to Israel for safety because society there as in many Islamic regions is notoriously anti-lgbt. Israel bought their land and have every right to defend themselves contrary to what the people wanting to wipe out their entire country believe

Hello!

I support Palestine because every person has a right to live. Because what is happening is a genocide. It's a fact. You can argue about it to the kingdom come, but it's done by the book genocide and, since it's a fact, opinions can't change it.  

With this being said, I'd like to address two specific points you made.

You can't shame me - or anyone who is queer and supports Palestine - by talking about hate crimes against queer people or describing them. Because before that you should look at your own country and check when was the last time a hate crime happened. I bet it'll be recent. Hate crimes and homophobia are not exclusive to arabic/muslim countries. This point of view is narrow minded at best and racist at worst - either by the lack of education or lack of interest in the world.

"The reality is if you went there with a rainbow flag walking down the street you would not be ok." - At this point I thought you might be a troll because saying this to me? I really am the wrong person to come to with this. I live in Russia. It's illegal to wear rainbow flags here and you will go to jail for it. Chechnya has torture camps for gay men. There's police raids in gay bars in Moscow happening regularly. Trans people are in danger of being forced to detransition. I live in the scenario above, you don't need to scare me with it out of supporting Palestine.

But my point is - I support Palestine as a queer even more as just a human, because I know what it means to live like this. Just because Palestinian queers might not be all loud and proud doesn't mean they don't exist; just because being gay is condemned and puts one's life at risk doesn't mean queers just suddenly stop existing.

And I also know - just as I have support here (my closest friends are straight women with traditional beliefs and they are very comfortable with me being gay, most people I know are not violently homophobic) Palestinian queers have their support, their communities and their people who love them and care for them. And they need our support as well. We don't get to turn our back on our fellow queers just because they happen to live in unsafe places. (and again, this kind of belief stinks of racism or of the need to broaden your worldview horizons. Believe me, the majority of queers are not white and don't live in lgbt-friendly countries)

"Israel bought their land and have every right to defend themselves contrary to what the people wanting to wipe out their entire country believe." My point in this is also really affected by me being Russian. (I'm sorry if some of you are uncomfortable with it, I can't really change it.)

You see, these reasons are very similar to what I've heard when Putin tried to justify the attack on Ukraine.

"Israel bought their land" is just as disgusting to me as "Ukraine didn't exist until 1991". "Israel has every right to defend themselves" is Putin's "We're defending ourselves against the collective West". Which is fucking nonsense.

And this is done by the book propaganda - and I'm not saying this because propaganda is a big word people like to throw around. I know this because I studied propaganda for my bachelor degree as a part of "changing public's opinion" course - me and my classmates were trained in this. They take some historical facts you can't deny or make an enemy out of someone (them vs us) and manipulate it to fit their rhetoric. Once you know how to recognise it you'll never not recognise it again.

Israel is not defending itself by targeting civilians and sniping children - they killed more children in these months than Russia in two years which is horrifying to me - they confirmed multiple times they want to erase Palestine from the face of the Earth. These words don't mean self-defence. It's a colonial power that really wants to show how powerful they are and how unstoppable they are. And again, I know this from the side of the colonial power. For me, people who side with Israel are the same people who side with Russia - and it makes me sick. 

Also please don’t assume that people who support Palestine want to destroy Israel, this is again, very narrow minded. Saving people from genocide by committing another genocide? This is plainly stupid. The world is not black and white, it's more complicated than just taking sides. I'll give an example: I'm queer and I know I'll be in danger if I ever come to Dagestan (close to Chechnya) - but dagestan people fund rise to send humanitarian aid to Palestine and I donate to them, because people are dying and I don't really care if people who'll help them are homophobic to me. Because it's not about me.

But there are moments in history when you need to take a stand, and I will not stand with Israel. (or Russia for that matter)

Anyway. Stand with Ukraine. Free Palestine. 

#palestine #free palestine #abby anderson x reader #don't come to me with the same points all zionists have; I've heard way worse said to my face irl #and especially don't weave queer safety into it

[muuuumin]

I know people liked the idea of Victorian Era Jaytim but someone mentioned Regency period and thats when Pride and Prejudice is set in, WE HAVE TO GIVE JASON HIS HAND SCENE. (Iykyk but HERE)

Timothy Drake-Wayne despised the ball parties his guardian would hold on a weekly. Duke Wayne was a good father and definitely earned the favour of the public when he took in the orphaned son of the Drakes, but he could seriously take a break with the noisy gatherings of flute glasses, giggles and a socialising that would most likely tire Timothy out within minutes of conversation.

Which was why he was currently hiding in the corner of the ballroom, shrinking back into the delicate wallpaper as best he could.

"You know, if you're trying to blend into that godawful wallpaper, you should have dressed in a lighter shade."

Tim's head whipped up from his cradled flute of champagne, blue eyes landing on a man grinning at him with a chuckle. He had on a top half of a startling dark red mask, his strong cut jawline exposed and giving highlight to the shape of the man's face. But Tim found his streak of white hair that fell handsomely over his forehead to be most attractive.

The young Earl cleared his throat when he realised he had been staring instead of giving an appropriate answer just as his Mother made sure to integrate into his education.

"And what shade would you suggest, Sir?" He glanced back at the patterned wall. "Ivory and gold for the accents or perhaps if I stood in front of the painting, I could wear pink and green." His voice was utterly fake and not missed by the other man.

He saw his green eyes glance at the painting he had mentioned, lips pulling into a quick smirk.

"As much as I'd desire to see you in the colour of a blushing rose, I rather like you in the darker shades." The man leaned in a little closer, as if telling Tim a secret. "It's much easier to hide in the night, don't you think? No one would know if we were to slip out to the gardens."

Another grin, and another skip of Tim's heart.

"Lord Todd." Timothy gave him a half hearted glare to warn him, his eyes flickering across the people that surrounded them, but luckily were not paying attention to the young gentlemen in a corner.

"Must you be so formal? Timothy, my love."

Jason whispered the last two words, the intimacy of the name bringing colour to Tim's cheeks. He was glad this was a masquerade ball, it would be utterly scandalous if he was caught blushing from the words of Lord Jason Todd, the Baron of Gotham's underbelly. It was the gossip of the whole city when Jason had been cast away from Wayne Manor and for years he was presumed dead, until the night he swooped in to gain control of land and businesses that had been corrupted. It was whispered that he had used methods that would usually warrant arrest but the elites of society benefitted from his erasure of the criminals so they kept quiet and allowed him into a higher society. He still had some influence as a past Wayne.

"Come, let us go and enjoy the night. Away from society." Jason whispered again, filling Tim's heart and soul with promises he knew he would keep. He gave a small nod and watched as his secret lover melted away into the crowds, slipping outside by himself to avoid attention.

Timothy waited a few seconds, that was all he could give before he followed Jason, heart in his throat as he ignored the pointed look from Duke Wayne from across the room and successfully stepped outside. His feet hurried to the gardens, thankful that the hedges were tall and the moon was only a crescent moon.

"Jason?" He whispered, listening for the sounds of leaves. His eyes darted around as he travelled deeper into the gardens, huffing a little when he realised Jason had purposely left him to find him.

Timothy finally found Jason at the corner of the maze, waiting patiently with his arms crossed over his chest. Tim took a small gulp as he stood a bit away from him, both pair of eyes assessing the other and filled with a dangerous desire. His slender fingertips slowly reached up, removing his own sleek red mask from his face. When it fell to the ground, he swore he heard Jason take a sharp intake of breath, blue eyes shyly looking up at him again.

"I love you in red." Jason said, his voice low and almost a groan.

Tim let out a light laugh, hiding it behind his hands. "Is that all?" He asked in a teasing tone.

Jason stepped forward, his arms now falling to his side. "No." He answered.

Tim waited with his breath held.

Jason's fingers reached out to gently hold Tim's hand, thumb smoothing over the back of his hand as if touching silk. Tim felt like he was never going to breath again, blue eyes wide as he looked at Jason, his own green eyes casted downwards as he tilted his head forward.

Jason brought Tim's hand up to his lips, kissing the lengths of his fingers so lightly Tim wondered if this was a dream.

"I love you, everything about you. Most ardently."

#I know he went further than just touch his hand but HOW ROMANTIC #theyre so scandalous #Oops we dont look for historical accuracies btw #we are just here for the ship #jaytim #jason todd #tim drake #red hood #red robin #dont ask me if Duke Wayne is a regency batman #the hand kissing was the furthest jaytim have gone and its so sexy

[amethystfairy1]

Cub and the Wardens lore mayhaps? 👀 The Deep Dark... what's going on there?

WARDEN LORE

Ok lets see...

The Deep Dark is a series of tunnels beneath the Depths *I know, creative*

The Depths are the 'floor' of the main cavern, these tunnels run beneath it and are full of skulky fauna and stuff that has tumbled down their over the years from up above. It's an area of the under-city that is very much disconnected from the rest of under-city society. Even more so than the blaze-born Pyres, who are pretty anti-social in their own right. It's dark down there. Like...nearly pitch black. Sometimes inhabitants of the Deep Dark can go months without seeing any sort of light. That suits them though. It's an area populated by under-city folk who can't handle the noise of the main cavern, you can find some of the Bat Hybrid covens and some Phantom Mutants though they don't all live down there.

Of course, the most (in)famous group living down there are the Warden Mutants. They're solitary by nature, they typically live in small nuclear families if they even bother to have families at all, and they don't have particularly strong inter-personal ties as a subspecies like, say, the Cat and Dog clans. They're still people of course, with all the benefits and flaws, but they also take their peace and quiet very seriously. It gets violent quickly in the Deep Dark. Since it's an area beyond labs influence even more so than the Depths, which are now more or less managed by Ethos gang, a lot of organized crime has moved down there.

Warden Mutants are incredibly strong, and their subspecies glamor traits, the sonic shrieks paired with their ability to expand their sensory range through skulky fauna, mean that they rule the Deep Dark. They're dangerous, and they know it. So a lot of them get involved in organized crime to protect their territory and keep things quiet and dark as they like it.

This is where Cub grew up.

He was another gutter rat, never knew his parents or any sort of family, scrounged around to survive. When the Anarchy happened he was eleven, and a lot of broken tech and stuff from the labs was cast into the Depths and some of it ended up in the Deep Dark. He started tinkering with it. After the Anarchy began to settle and the labs were reestablished as a force for good in the under-city, he heard through the skulk about a school being opened in the Depths. Cub was nearly fourteen and he'd never had any sort of formal education, but he still decided to go. It was the first time he'd ever left the Deep Dark.

Loud, loud, loud, loud, LOUD. And bright, stars, why was it so bright!?

But he realized through attending the new school in the Depths that was an outreach channel for gutter rats like him that he was actually pretty smart. From there, he went on to earn himself a scholarship through the acclimation program to go topside to go to college, he was one of the first kids who was sent up after the Anarchy in an attempt to reestablish these channels the labs ran that were kind of abandoned while everything was fixed up.

Once he got up there, even if it was way to loud and way to bright, Cub realized he never wanted to go back down into the dark again.

Of course, I plan to expand on all of this in fics later down the line, especially because Cub has become something of a favorite in this AU which was not on my bingo card, but hey, I love writing him in this context so I'd love to do more for him! 💖

#ao3 fanfic #fanfic #through the sky blue cracks #worldbuilding #cubfan135

[indigochromatic]

Some Musings on Plurality and Mental Health (had a conversation about this earlier today, but we've also been thinking about it generally for a while, so hey, why not, post time) Something that frequently tends to get lost in the noise of discourse but is, imo, actually pretty relevant to system community spaces of all kinds, is the realization that many (I'd venture to say most) systems of any kind, origin, dx, whatever, often have concurrent struggles with mental health issues of one kind or another. Not every system or every person who experiences multiplicity in a significant way has a Textbook Case dissociative disorder (or even a diagnosable dissociative disorder at all, depending on your framework for thinking about what does and does not fall under the scope of the label). But also, that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't dealing with significant mental health challenges: - A lot of systems are queer in one way or another, and many have had to deal with the dangers and insecurity and heartbreak of being queer in our current society. - A lot of systems are autistic/dyslexic/have ADHD/have other kinds of processing differences that have affected many years of their lives, especially if they went through any kind of education system that tried to force their brains into something different, told them they were broken, and facilitated social isolation in one way or another. - A lot of systems, even those without dissociative disorders, have other mental health diagnoses. Depression, anxiety, personality disorders, schizophrenia and related disorders, etc. - A lot of people overall have undergone traumatic experiences in their lives at some point (or multiple points), which we all know have significant aftereffects on mental and emotional health. Also, there's multiple global crises that have been going on for a while, of which the COVID pandemic is just one example, which means a lot of new and exacerbated mental (and physical!) health issues for a lot of people in the last few years. So, what's the relevance of all this?

To us, it's yet another reminder that the idea of an easy division between "disordered system" and "non-disordered system" is frankly illusory. For anyone whose experiences of multiplicity/systemhood/plurality/etc are a significant part of their lives and functioning, that relevance will extend to their struggles with mental health, regardless of whether the mental health issues they're having fall under DID/OSDD or not. Control over switching, new or worsened in-system conflicts, system members being differently impacted by traumatic experiences, degree of dissociative disconnect vs ease of internal communication and memory sharing, system members experiencing and presenting symptoms of mental health issue differently, dysphoria over external-body-vs-internal-self mismatches, increased dissociation overall as a collective coping mechanism.... all of this is stuff that lies at the intersection of any mental health issues and systemhood, potentially, not just "DID/OSDD + its associated classical presentations and etiology". If a parogenic system fell into heavy depression over the quarantine, they might start experiencing more negative dissociative symptoms, and they'd also have to figure out how to navigate the mental health support system (such as it is) while plural. If someone with PTSD from trauma in adulthood decides to look into daemonism for comfort, and finds themselves more and more feeling like a system, they may or may not qualify for DID but they will still be contending with healing-from-trauma-while-a-system. If a system without memory barriers or other apparent issues gets long COVID and has their whole lives upended from new disability, their presentation may start looking more like a dissociative disorder. None of these examples are necessarily exactly the same as having DID or OSDD (...depending on how you define the scope of those diagnostic labels, which is a complicated question all of its own), but they're within a spectrum of related experiences that involve both mental health disorder and plurality in an intertwined way. Which, I guess, is a long way of saying: There is no specific diagnostic category or label that someone has to fit in order to be suffering and need support--and that includes systems as well as singlets.

#system stuff #tw mild syscourse #long post #kinda rambling but thought there were some interesting ideas in there worth putting out there just in case

[gorbalsvampire]

Hey so obviously the clanbooks help flesh out the clans, but which clans do you think benefit the most from their clanbooks? Not necessarily powers, but the flavor. The details.

So this one took me a while, because I had to go back and look at the Revised edition clanbooks and refresh my memory on them. I'm mostly a Revised goblin, although Cappadocians never had a Revised clanbook so I dipped my toes into second there.

Also, for a Clanbook to be good, it has to be helpful in playing the clan, and more interested in that than delivering metaplot. This is why Clanbook Giovanni, though dear to my heart, is Not A Good One, because it's so mired up in shuttering Wraith: the Oblivion and the associated plot events. This is why Clanbook Cappadocian is bad, because it is shot through with "here to go" foreshadowing of the clan's downfall and doesn't do enough on establishing what they did in Cainite society at the height of their power.

Brujah: almost no mechanics, almost all history and perspectives. The Brujah suffer from an identity crisis - rootless between the classical era and the twentieth century, their history really feels like the history of the Anarch tendency, and their customs the heart of the movement as it is tonight. But for sheer detail - giving itself the breathing room to talk about how the Brujah work within their sects and contexts - I think this is one of the good ones despite its lack of substance. Telling that Justin wrote it.

Gangrel: this one locks arms with the Ravnos and walks down history together, embedding two underdeveloped clans in each other. The Gangrel come off better, because they're not starting from "[insert slur here] vampires" as a concept, and because the narrative voice of their book is curious and intelligent and refuses to take anything at face value. The core concept of the Gangrel is "Wolverine with fangs" - I'm being reductive, but "brooding animalistic outsider, bad team player, best there is at snikting all the bubs" - the point is that dragging Gangrel into a coterie with anyone else and making them functional involves dragging them away from what their "clan culture" is all about.

Weirdly, I think this Clanbook does more for the Sabbat Gangrel, simply by running through the Paths and showing how the Gangrel can integrate with them. Bloodlines are mostly stupid, mechanical impact for animal flaws reifies the clan curse in a good way (kinda similar to the contemporary Malkavians). There's a lot here but none of it makes me want to play a Gangrel, for some reason. I suspect it's that the core fantasy isn't really one that interests me, and if I'm going to play that hard against type, I'd rather start from a different base altogether.

Lasombra: the throughline of Lasombra history delivered through a series of in-character lectures is a neat device, foregrounding the contradictions better than usual. Likewise, the detailed depiction of Lasombra Embrace and education protocol and internal factions builds explicitly and confidently on the corebook's limited vision and their role within the Sabbat. The dot by dot breakdown on Obtenebration teaches you how to play one systemically and how to ST around this overtly supernatural Discipline and more of the books need to do that. One of the better suites of premade characters, too (and the Student of the Abyss is a dead ringer for my first girlfriend). It's been a long time but I think this is the book that made me like the Lasombra as a clan rather than a power set and story function.

Also:

Sabbat are not wholly their own masters. No vampire stands altogether free to choose his behavior, thanks to the Beast and the fundamental requirements of vampiric survival. The Sabbat makes matters worse with its beliefs and practices, which repeatedly push participants into acts that erode conscience (and Conscience). When you play a Sabbat vampire, you take on a distinct set of challenges. It’s not necessarily more “adult” or “sophisticated” than any other sort of vampire, nor is it automatically more “juvenile” or “indulgent.” Sabbat exist within tighter boundaries than most independent or Camarilla vampires. Not everything you’d like to have your character do, or that he would plausibly want to do, is actually within reach.

Because some of us really do need telling.

Malkavian: for sheer style, for refuting the kookiness and fae nonsense and artsy layout of the second edition volume, for actually being substantively useful in playing the clan, this one makes the grade. Has one of the best metaplot beats with the antitribu's grand justification for mass Embrace and thinning the blood. New Derangements, better than the ones in the core book if I'm honest, especially the specifically vampiric ones that move away from "playing something straight out of the DSM."

I'm going to mention powers again here though - I wish the Revised devs had caught on to the idea of alternative powers at lower level, as some of this stuff (like Babble) shouldn't have "be seventh generation, i.e. not a starting PC, i.e. probably having done a diablerie to 'level up'" as their prerequisite. Weakest part. Also, I love the Moirai. Favourite brood. Probably sold me on my love of brood coteries.

Nosferatu: I like that a Nosferatu calls out Kindred history on its Eurocentrism! And much like the Gangrel, this book gives you some hooks to hang your clan weakness on - Merits and Flaws that reify aspects of the Nosferatu aesthetic. I don't think these are all necessary, but they are cool. A similar breakdown of Discipline usage to the Lasombra, again showing and telling how to Nosferatu as well as what is Nosferatu. That's the distinction with the good Clanbooks, I think - they remain focused on playability and using these ideas rather than just telling you about cool shit. I want to play a Nosferatu after I've read this book.

Dishonourable mention: Tremere. The Tremere Clanbook doubles down on a central bugaboo with the clan - if their hierarchy is sevens and sevens and sevens all the way down, your city should be crawling with Tremere. To have all these internal agendas and subfactions represented in a meaningful way - same. I'm aware of Grician bias, I hate the 1:100,000 "rule" with the force and fire of a thousand suns, but this book really needed to show you how one or two isolated Tremere work and it fails to deliver.

Tzimisce: I don't like how overcooked this clan is, with its Koldunic Sorcery and its Old Clan and its revenant families and its two different versions of "your signature discipline is a disease" that are both high concept shit far removed from Playing Your Lil' Guy - but that material undeniably exists and if you want to refer to it... well, isn't half of it in the Sabbat guide? I don't know where I stand on this one, but Tzimisce fans generally want as much as possible to chew on and there's More In Here.

Ventrue: Much like the Brujah and the anarchs, a lot of what the Ventrue have going on under the hood can be read "as above, so below" with the Camarilla as a sect. To know one is to half understand the other. The Ventrue codify the unwritten social rules of their sect, or rather their sect unknowingly imitates the code that organises the Ventrue.

The difference, as ever, is that the conservative and hierarchical side of the coin is much easier to detail than "imagine your way out of authoritarianism", and as such Clanbook: Ventrue has a great deal more direct, didactic, actionable material in it than the broad and vague concepts of the Rabble. Titles, organisation, spheres of influence, clear lines through the medieval to the corporate: read this one.

There is more to the Ventrue than you ever imagined - so much that they almost fall into the same hole as the Tremere do, but they don't have the hard number for the brain to latch onto and worry at. Even now, I'm describing this very good and self contained Clanbook by comparison to its peers - that's how the Ventrue get away with it.

I'm not just saying this to blow smoke up @biomechanicaltomato's ass, either. It's genuinely one of the best books; I think only Lasombra and perhaps Gangrel and Nosferatu are on the same level, and in very different ways.

#vtm #vampire the masquerade #clanbooks #meta #opinion post #thanks for asking! #ventrue #lasombra #gangrel #nosferatu #tremere #malkavian #tzimisce #brujah

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for telling my mum she's being ignorant?

cw// racism .

I (18MtF) have a really, really good mum all things considered. She's been amazing about my transition, has gone to marches, spoke on radio, written articles and gotten into public spats on twitter (she's a semi-public figure) defending me. We live in the UK, so this is really a big thing on terf island lol. She's pretty good about mental health, and advocated in my youth aswell when I got diagnosed autistic.

Here is where it gets messy. My mum works in education for context, so is very clued in to the news and things. She's a hard-core feminist (I would probably call her a radical feminist to be honest). All of her friends are older women in education and journalism professions, and she speaks to them about feminist topics regularly. The thing is that ALL of them are white. Most of them are upper class (my parents both grew up dirt poor and had to work hard for everything they had). I have a number of bipoc friends, and there has been some weird instances of my mum accidentally breaking out the microaggressions that made me uncomfy, never anything massive, but enough to make me feel just a bit weird.

Tonight we watched the new Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon. Often on the way home from seeing films like this, my mum and I will discuss politics and society, but I usually steer the conversation away from race because it isn't something I want to bring up with her, especially in a space where i cant exactly roll my eyes and go quiet without annoying her. However, race is a key topic in this film. Discussions were going fine, and then my mum did this weird thing I've noticed her do before. I had been explaining that indigenous women go missing and are often barely looked for because of factors of racism and misogyny, she immediately chimed in talking about a very different situation, about the cervical cancer scare in Ireland where tests for cervical cancer weren't carried out properly, but all the women were told they were clear anyway, resulting in many women suffering from a disease that could've been caught much earlier.

Normally I would just move on and engage with this, but it enraged me this time, mostly because it was an evocative film that left me with a lot of emotions and also because earlier that day she'd said something microaggressive about my girlfriend, who is black. I told her that it was obviously awful and I get she was just trying to empathise, but that it was a completely different situation because it didn't have that intersection of race and misogyny. She made some point about how she was "Sure there were people of color affected by the scandal" but I told her that that wasn't the point and that she was being ignorant. She got passive aggressive and didn't talk to me for the rest of the night.

I seriously don't know if it would've just been better to engage with her on that and then steer our conversation back to something more focused on race or to just abandon it altogether or whatever. I guess im also sick of not being able to talk about race at all with her, and feeling embarrassed bringing my friends over because I feel like she's gonna say something. I just don't really know how to bring it up because the only thing she can ever compare it to is misogyny, when obviously these are very different things, but I don't feel like this was the best way I'd gone about it.

Was I the asshole ?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[raxistaicho]

Is Edelgard a fascist?

So as I mentioned in a recent post, I'd like to dig in detail into the notion that Edelgard is a fascist. And also debunk said notion.

Now then, I'm going to look into the actual indicators of fascism, and not the "that character is in power and I don't like them" version we see thrown carelessly around the internet today.

It's broadly accepted today that the fourteen key signs of a fascist society are as follows:

While the exact wording can vary, these are the most common traits.

We'll start with the easiest ones first:

Corporations and labor movements don't exist in Fodlan, nor is there such a thing as private mass media, nor does Fodlan have elections (no, not even in post Azure Moon), so those can four can't be analyzed. However, given that corporations are modern-day fiefdoms and CEOs and the rich are modern-day aristocrats, it's not hard at all to imagine that Edelgard would align her interests more with the working class than the wealthy if she existed in a different kind of society.

And rampant sexism is the most obvious, "no", given Edelgard cares more about talent than what a person has between their legs.

Moving on next to the things that can be addressed with a little more detail.

Supremacy of the military: So obviously Edelgard starts a war, which makes things a bit weird here, but there's no indication the Adrestian military is given disproportionate focus in terms of funding or cultural emphasis aside from what could be reasonably expected from a country at war. Additionally, Edelgard favors diplomacy as a solution to Fodlan's relations with Almyra and Brigid, and Edelgard demonstrates a wide range of areas of focus for her future reforms between research (Linhardt, Constance), education (Ferdinand), faith (Manuela), and the arts (Dorothea), making it clear the military is just one of many tools in her reformist arsenal. 4 is a strong strong no.

Obsession with national security: This trait is more or less an obsession with external forces attempting to ruin you. Edelgard's detractors would immediately leap to her designating the Church of Seiros as a target while forgetting that the CoS is her only target. With fascism, there is always An Enemy looking to tear down society, but that isn't the case with Edelgard. She targets the CoS for very specific and demonstrable reasons, and once they're defanged she sets out making peace with former enemies abroad and at home. Her detractors would point out Hubert continuing to observe Fodlan for internal threats, but given how fragile Fodlan's internal peace would be for years following the war (rebellions would be a common issue, whether or not the Agarthans are involved), this is more of a justified concern than an obsessive rooting out of imagined agitators. 7 is another no.

Disdain for intellectuals and the arts: Several characters Edelgard forms very close support attachments with (Bernadetta, Dorothea, Manuela, Linhardt, Hanneman) are artistic types or intellectuals, and, despite what her detractors would have you believe, so 11 is another no.

Obsession with crime and punishment: Edelgard treats Varley and Aegir, people who tormented her, her loved ones, and countless others with a very even hand. While Rhea's confinement appears to be under severe circumstances (underground and likely in isolation for five years), this isn't done because Edelgard felt like being extra mean: you simply can't confine a woman who can transform into a dragon in an ordinary cell. Compare this to the Knight of Seiros's obsession with summary executions and Edelgard comes off looking very merciful. 12 is another very likely no.

Rampant cronyism and corruption: Firstly, she actively fights against corruption.

Cronyism is where her detractors will point out her giving positions of power to close friends, but the issue there is a key aspect of cronyism is that the person committing it ignores it does so without regard for the beneficiaries' qualifications.

The two characters most likely to ruffle feathers are Caspar and Bernadetta, but none of their endings imply they were incompetent at their respective positions. It's simply the nature of Fire Emblem ending cards to assume the character was highly succesfull during the war - aside from a few joke characters or poor Ilios.

That's a few more knocked out, leaving only a few left.

Powerful and continuing nationalism: Nationalism is the focus on the advancement of one's own country above all others. Three Houses doesn't treat Adrestia, Faerghus, and Leicester as countries, but as regions or powers, but I'll ignore that for sake of argument. Edelgard detractors claim Edelgard is focused on the advancement of specifically Adrestia, but that's certainly not true. The common anti-Edelgard claim is she's trying to regain the lands of Faerghus and Leicester for its own sake, but she isn't, she's trying to unite Fodlan so she can bring her reforms to all the continent at once.

Additionally, she's very concerned for Brigid's well-being, see her support conversations with Petra in both games, and she expresses an interest in forging better diplomatic ties with Almyra. Ultranationalism of the fascistic sort usually involves a major withdrawal of foreign relations. This is another no.

Disdain for human rights: You could argue with some justification that this is a fairly weak spot for Edelgard through her alliance with the Agarthans, and there's some merit to that. It is, however, a bit jarring to argue that the woman who wants to usher in new human rights has disdain for them.

As I mentioned previously, her treatment of Rhea during her imprisonment in Enbarr is often a sore spot with Edelgard's detractors, and it definitely seems to be the case that Rhea was imprisoned underground and largely in isolation... but again, how does one humanely secure a woman who can transform into a 30-foot flying dragon? It's just one of those things of the issues of trying to secure such an individual.

Also, as I mentioned previously, Edelgard avoids cruel and unusual punishment wherever possible, even for those who've seriously wronged her, such as Aegir. Another no, though perhaps a bit weaker than some past ones.

Identification of enemies/scapegoats:

The scapegoats part is important. As I mentioned previously, in fascist societies, there always has to be An Enemy to fight against, as fascism is obsessed with action for actions' sake and unity against some Other, all to keep the people at home from paying attention to their rights being stripped away.

So while Edelgard certainly identifies the Church of Seiros and Nabateans as a problem for Fodlan as a whole, she does this for the very clear reason of stripping their ability to interfere in the peoples' self-interests, and not just to give Fodlan an enemy to fight. Noticeably, once the church and the Nabateans are defeated in Crimson Flower, Edelgard focuses the rest of her life on social reforms. There's no indication she continues launching wars, whatever Fantasy Invader tries to say. Another no.

Religion and government intertwined:

This would seem to be Edelgard's weakest point, since she appoints one of her own ministers as head of the southern church in Scarlet Blaze. In Crimson Flower proper we have too little information on church life in Adrestia under her to know this one either way.

It's worth remembering that Edelgard's reformed system generally acknowledges the first generations of people in power will more or less be people who would have already had that power, since they're generally the most apt recipients due to their initial advantage. In that regard, the head of Adrestia's religion doubling as a government official is a problem she inherited, not one she created: Count Varley was already minister of Religious Affairs. It would be a lot more suspicious if she named Hubert the southern bishop.

Furthermore, given the nature of Edelgard's merit-based reforms, once Varley dies there's a much better chance of the next southern bishop not being tied to Adrestia's government.

Lastly, Religion and government being "merely" intertwined is an improvement from SS and VW, in which Fodlan becomes a full-on theocracy, and AM, in which religion has permanent influence over the government.

And there we go! Of the fourteen warning signs of Fascism, only one of them could be honestly tied to Edelgard, and mostly only because of her loathed alliance with the Agarthans - which she ditches in Scarlet Blaze, leaving her entirely free of human rights abuses.

So yeah, Edelgard doesn't actually look very much like a fascist when your standards are actual fascism and not, "this lady accrues power and I don't like her for it".

That's why you never take an Edelgard detractor at their word, folks.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem three hopes #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard positive #edelgard discourse #fascism

[yoddhasblog]

Mahabharat is and will always be my favourite tale to reflect upon and talk to people about. This book was immensely hyped up along with the author. I have now read three of her books. The Last Queen, which admittedly I adored. Then, the Forest Of Enchantments, the book I'd been looking forward to for such a long time. That one left me in a rage.

I went into this book expecting to be pissed off and disappointed. And I wasn't let down on that assumption.

The Palace Of Illusions is a retelling of the great Indian epic-Mahabharata. A tale incorporated so deeply into our hearts that everyone has their own takes and beliefs and opinions about it. I sincerely believe that you cannot write a retelling without angering a number of people. Well, I'm one them.

The writing style:

I didn't have too many issues except i did not get why there were so many rhetorical and philosophical questions? Literal, paragraphs that were nothing but questions.

Draupadi, the enigma, the fire-born, the one person I would fight for as long as there is life in me, why was acting as though she was a little more than a sullen child? In the book that was supposed to be from her point of view, the person, the author did the most injustice with was-Draupadi.

The plot assassination:

As I mentioned above, most of everything in the plot of the epic was butchered and mangled to fit into the author's narrative of women, good-men,bad. It is common knowledge that women's position in society was as downtrodden as depicted here. Don't get me wrong, horrific crimes happened against women and justice was also delivered adequately but the author pulled apart the entire social structure only to be able to say that every bad thing happened to Draupadi was because she is a woman.

~ In the very first chapter, Draupadi said it was egoistic of her father to give her a variation of his own name when her brother, Dhrishtadyumna got an original name. In Vyas Mahabharat, her birth name was Krishnaa but like many people in Hindu beliefs, she was also known as Draupadi, though that is the most commonly used name. So, no points to the author trying to convince everyone that this was sexist.

~ Draupadi was highly educated and trained in many things including economics and she was the one who was in charge of the treasury of Indraprastha. She was a finance minister of sorts. So, saying that King Droupad refused to let her train because she is a woman is stupid.

~Also, I've grown up listening to that Draupadi stepped out of the fire as a young woman. She wasn't a child. Some sources say she was around 16 some say around 25.

~ Are we still stuck about 50 years ago that we're going to be okay with authors portraying that all women in power are evil? Kunti and Draupadi viewed each other as rivals? Draupadi throwing temper tantrums over other women? wtf

~ Draupadi as a pick-me? Half the book Draupadi's internal dialogue is nothing but I don't know how to socialize with other women, they're jealous of each other, they're always giggling, I won't survive the world of women, I can't dance, people don't find me pretty because of my dark complexion(where did white supremacy even came in this conversation) but suddenly out of nowhere Draupadi just knows that every woman is envious of her. She adores the saris and jewellery that she used to find impossible to handle.

~ Maharishi Vyas giving Draupadi Divya drishti to see the battlefield of Kurukshetra came out of nowhere. It felt a forced action done only to show Draupadi's emotions about the deaths.

~ Draupadi harbouring hidden feelings for Karna and him secretly returning those feelings felt like a teenager's fever dream. A teenager who's hellbent on sexualizing everything they come across.

~Bhagvat Gita was witnessed by everyone on kurukshetra including the Virat roop? Again, it felt like a move forced that was done in order to show Draupadi's internal dialogue. How did the author even think she could fit Bhagvat Gita in half a chapter?

~The Pandavas just had no personality whatsoever outside of being obedient to their mother and scared of Draupadi's temper tantrums.

~Krishan ji was told to be this charismatic, carefree, silvertongued diplomat but he was simply shown as someone who randomly showed up and gave unsolicited advice.

~And I don't know what that ending was but you can't be serious telling me that Karna and Draupadi somehow end up together in heaven?

~WHAT WAS THE AUTHOR'S PROBLEM WITH RESEARCHING ABOUT MAHABHARATA???

There was no way the entire plot of Mahabharata could've fit into one book. She tried too but this book sucked. I understand it's a retelling and sometimes had to change but everything here felt so forced. The author broke everything in context to fit into her supposedly feminist ideal. Don't get me wrong, i dislike the Pandavas, the Kauravas and their elders with all my heart but they all had one dimensional personalities. They had caricature-ish depositions. I had no emotions attached to anyone in this book whatsoever. This was a headache.

#the palace of illusions #draupadi #mahabharata #kurukshetra #hinduism #hindublr #desi blog #desi life #desiblr #being desi #desi tumblr #desi tag #desi teen #desi academia #desi dark academia #desi shit posting #arjuna

[olderthannetfic]

People going on about how they're representing this whole Greek thing are missing that that one anon had a pretty good point about how "cultural appropriation" rhetoric gets misused. People do really need to be more specific about what the issue is, or it very easily turns into basically just arguing for cultural segregation. I've seen that happen numerous times on this website over the years. I've seen people argue that it's appropriative to do something like *learn about* another culture or learn its language. I think it's really important for people to keep an eye on what are the actual issues with cultural appropriation (mostly about exploitation and colonialism) and not just the idea that cultural mixing is bad, or that being interested in a culture that isn't your own is bad. Because the truth is, whether you intend this or not, if you're just arguing that everyone should only keep to the culture of their ethnicity or their place of origin or both, then you're basically in agreement with white supremacists. It's not that cultures mixing is bad; most culture is a result of some mixture. It's when it's done in a way that's exploitative and/or disrespectful: like reducing sacred symbols like indigenous war bonnets to a fashion accessory, or incorporating the art of another culture into your own art without giving credit and without paying anyone from that culture who taught you or added to your work.

FTR, I don't think you can "appropriate" ancient mythologies. I think people are getting twisted around though because there is a genuine history of colonial exploitation of Greek artifacts by colonial powers to fill their museums, as with the Elgin marbles. I do think it's still a good idea to be properly informed about them, regardless, at the very least because those make for the more interesting retellings. For all that people (who IME, largely haven't read it, I'd love to hear if people who have read it disagree though) rag on Song of Achilles, I actually thought it was a pretty good example of a retelling because the author, who has an educational background in mythology, takes great pains to try to recreate the society and cultural norms of Greece at that time rather than sugarcoat it. Achilles may be even more of a jerk than he was in the original Iliad, tbh. It's telling to me that the author's other books that are less "shippy" don't have as negative of a reputation on here in that regard as Song of Achilles, despite being fairly similar, and it makes me wonder how much of that is because it's popular among "fujoshi fandom" so people just assume it MUST be shallow and fandomified, and I was super shocked at how much it really wasn't that at all. As well as I saw that a lot of people expecting something more like that were disappointed by all the period-accurate misogyny and so on.

Which brings me to another point: another reason I'm skeptical of a lot of this discourse is that it seems like often it's more of a high-culture, low-culture thing. A thing that is popular with M/M fanfic writers can't POSSIBLY be doing it right. A thing that is a popular video game or Tony-winning Broadway musical that is popular with the fandoms for those things, can't possibly be accurate. And I get that a lot of that is because a lot of populist things that took from Greek mythology have been inaccurate (Disney's Hercules, for instance) but if you're going to criticize the accuracy of something, I think it is worth engaging with the original work and what it actually does rather than just assuming It's Popular It Must Suck. It feels like a lot of this turns into lording that you were into it before X over others. And being aware that Tumblr Recommendations often do a poor job of actually giving you a good idea of what the work is really like.

As well as, of course, asking yourself - as we should with any sort of historical inaccuracy etc. - if the inaccuracy was deliberate or not. Sometimes people are not really telling that story in order to tell the most accurate version of something but to make a different kind of point, and so the changes might be deliberate. I would argue this is true with something like Hadestown.

That doesn't mean you can't still dislike it for that reason, of course. I know a lot of classical musicians who dislike the movie Amadeus for being so inaccurate about Mozart's and Salieri's lives. I like it despite that because I think the point it is trying to make is stronger for not sticking to the historical fact. I just wish more people did know the historical fact, though.

--

One would think the "Is it bad if I learn to cook Thai food?" thing was a strawman... but I've seen it in the wild far too many times.

[manstrans]

Hey, I'm a big time fan of your blog and the circle of blogs similar to it. I love the pro-kink stuff, I love the support of transfun and the general concept that you can vibe with whatever gender and identity you want, I love the positivity, I love bringing attention to trans masc issues.

But I've been seeing some alarming dogwhistles lately. And I've been ignoring them because I really really want to just believe that they were unintentional. But with a recent post you reblogged, I have to ask you something - not out of discourse reasons or to paint you a specific way but because I want to decide what type of people I interact with on tumblr. If you decide to answer my question, please be incredibly clear. I'm not going to hide it behind vague terms like "certain kinks" or "problematic media", I am going to also be incredibly clear.

Do you genuinely believe that if we were in a society where fictional child porn and incest was the norm, that it would have no negative effects on our society as a whole? That media does not represent or change our cultural norms, that fiction can not be used as either propaganda nor as a way to help someone see things in a new light (for better or worse)?

Please be straightforward in your response. Even if it's just a yes or no.

that's a tough question. a quick but unnuanced answer is that I know the meanings behind these when I reblog them, and I do so because I agree with their general messages

the longer answer is... if these things were the norm then people would definitely be interacting with it differently than they do now I think. in some ways they already are somewhat normal, schoolgirl costumes and step-family roleplay come to mind.

ideally, in a world where these fantasies are completely normalized so is education on consent and safety. I don't think there's any real uncomplicated answer to it. but in the world we live in now, as long as things are labeled and not put into spaces where they're inappropriate, there's not really as much harm as some people just feeling uncomfortable

even if these things magically disappeared entirely (which they won't, and as someone with OCD I'd rather have them labeled than out in the wild), they still aren't the source of harm

I said it earlier, but I was groomed with the game tetris. under this framework of media causing harm, where do you go from there? it's a game about blocks, should we ban it and legos too for good measure?

sorry for talking so much when you wanted a short answer, but there's so much nuance here and I like explaining context instead of putting just a little bit of my thoughts out