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snackugaki · 1 year

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more AU visdev shenanigans because I have both a problem and am trying to trick myself into doing visdev for my actual projects

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

lny visit 1 | 2

AU musings under the cut cuz truly, i have a goddamn problem and most of it is from my brain always go brr

uhhh... hm... Mirage spoilers pmuch right out the gate... probably IDW, and prrrrobably Next Mutation spoilers for the kids who haven’t started/caught up because surprise that’s where I pull from (aside from the 87 cartoon and 90s movies because who doesn’t pull mainly from their childhood turtles)

April being into punk, goth, alt, what have you just makes sense to me

...because she gravitated to the outsider nature of those subcultures since she, herself, didn’t feel like she quite belonged anywhere

which is natural when you’re a drawing made real

(it’s fine, she’s flesh and blood now)

shout out to poly styrene, april loved her

keeping them short kings just like my childhood turtles

Jennika absolutely comments to Donnie if he’s found any good cheese in any walls lately

god i hate plowing through the first couple of passes of a design

alas, the process

Venus ended up being dressed in hanfu since other clothes didn’t fit her quite right; a specific group of old women were ecstatic at breaking out hanfu patterns to use.

Chung I doted on Venus so much, the only thing that kept her from becoming spoiled was when she started taking up cultivation alongside Chung I and his sect

nothing more humbling that carrying 3 buckets of water up a steep mountain side while your sifu hurls mystic blasts at your feet

Venus progressed pretty quickly though; enough to be trusted with plans to circumvent Vam Mi’s return and reconnoiter with the sect’s allies in NYC

(it didn’t work but it’s okay they defeated Vam Mi anyway)

shit now I have to come up with a name for the sect hhhhh

Chung I’s sect is one of ?? who, like the ninja, have a responsibility (among others) to regulate the mortal plane with the less mundane ones

Venus IS training to serve in his role (give or take one of her brothers or sisters being bestowed the responsibility)

hmm... Venus likes keemun tea best if she has the choice, and for soup... oxtail soup and black sesame soup

and because it was fkkn metal in Next Mutation, Venus is primarily a pugilist who occasionally uses her cultivation techniques ; she trains a little with a fan when she gets to weapons training but she prefers the spear (link has blood and some real violent fighting but fuck Fog Hill is fucking siiiiick)

...a nickname Venus gains is ‘the spear fairy’ ‘cuz i’m indulgent :)

the supernatural side of NY was already getting antsy and unruly when Venus arrived so of course she and the boys ended up fighting upon first encounter

The fight happens after hours at a local walk-around market; Raph barges in and Venus fishes around for something that isn’t the requisite staff she was saddled with before setting out (because she knows how to deal some damage with it and she wasn’t about to do that to complete strangers she didn’t know the alignment of)

she ends up using a mannequin; one arm came off so Venus attacked with that and defended with the upper part of the mannequin; Raph was getting outmatched while Mikey and Donnie were laughing in increasing volume

at a certain point Leo tried to intervene but Venus assumed it was a double team, ripped the other arm off the mannequin and defended with both against Raph and Leo; eventually her hood was flipped and they saw she was a turtle so cue Venus using the opportunity to get them both on the ground and about to smash the now armless mannequin torso onto Leo and Raph before Donnie called for a truce

at which point, as is established, Mikey quipped up at the scene, “I call this... ‘Venus de Milo, triumph over dorkus maximuses’”

Leo DID try to address her by her actual name but his not-quite-right tone made her pity him and insisted he just use Mikey’s new nickname

Venus absolutely asked why the boys were running around half naked when she came across them; they didn’t have an answer they just shrugged and let Mikey change the subject with asking if she’s tried NY pizza yet

Venus is ambivalent in the end, she knew humans wore clothes since their bits are just ...like, out there dangling around; the yaoguai around her also dressed and thought they were just adhering to the custom out of simple consideration

Venus eventually gears up like the boys to help hide her mission from the sect trying to resurrect Vam Mi

Leo gives Venus a spare mask of his; it came from a bin of incorrectly dyed masks when he was attempting shibori dye experiments

Mikey was so enthusiastic about it, having only known April at the time he asked if he could try out braiding her mask tails since Leo didn’t bother tailoring it after he botched the dye job

Splinter helps Venus make contact with her sect’s allies ala Rescuers Down Under

NM!Venus canonically knows how to pick locks why not in this AU too

The boys take Venus to the library one night, Donnie pleads for Venus to break into the reference shelves, stoops to fibbing a little that information she might find handy could be in those shelves (they weren’t)

A hilarious exchange happens between April and Venus when Venus cycles through like 3 dialects and 2 languages before finding out April speaks Canto; Venus starts calling April Ah ze, in kind April calls Venus Ah mui

hmm hmmm... still torn between April meeting the boys once as little kids then running into them again when she’s an adult or having her meet them as little kids but connecting a little earlier, 1-2 years from graduating HS

mostly just cuz I wanna have this AU April taking them to GWAR concerts so they can enjoy being out without getting clocked

Casey and Raph absolutely dressed as the Bash Brothers for a couple of halloweens

I like the idea of Casey thinking of himself as the fifth turtle brother because it’s sweet, thassit AU canon it is done

I feel like Jennika probably ran into April and Casey at separate music venues; befriended Casey first tho

Jennika spent two years in China with Venus, getting her handle on her new turtle body; when she came back she nearly cleaned out 3 thrift stores and basically commandeered a portion of Donnie’s lab for almost a year to tailor clothes for herself

Donnie basically made himself a mini-clothing manufacturing factory by salvaging and rebuilding embroidery, pattern cutting, and industrial sewing machines

Jennika and Mondo have jam sessions

The brockhampton parody in this AU is northbrockton, Jennika and Mondo are rotational members

Mondo can speak hawaiian pidgin, he speak liddat when he go an talk story with Mikey ova some grinds, Mikey also starts picking it up

Mondo sometimes refers to Mikey as Braddah Honu

One of the stolen waste/mutagen barrels from That Night rolled and got shunted conveniently to a desolate lot where it leaked for years

Mondo came across it looking for a place for his band to jam without getting interrupted, pop goes the lizard mutation

tl;dr a video of urban explorers stumbling on it got onto Mona’s feed (and I’m smudging her original start as a physicist to a biophysicist) and since she’s a can do sort of girl she goes to check it out herself before reporting it to the proper organizations-- bam, mutant lizard Mona Lisa rip

that same video came across on one of Donnie’s feeds, Raph’n Mikey go to investigate and come upon a distraught lizard Mona Lisa; Mikey uses her assumption they were also originally human to bring her back to the lair and get her calmed down

god it’s so messy, thankfully Splinter, Leo and April are far better at helping Mona come to grips with her mutation, Donnie helps out in setting her up to survive the first couple months of transitioning between her old human life to navigating her mutant one

For me, she’s now Mona Lisa Saperfeld purely for this exact reference link

Raph and Casey also get the occasional treats from the local bodegas, but for running off extortionists and other assorted dipshits with too much time an not enough supervision

Jennika, Mondo, and Mikey are constantly replacing each others’ high scores in Guitar Hero and DDR in Donnie’s arcade

When Donnie, Casey, and Raph are left in the garage for too long... they end up making the weirdest shit (link to a Handy Geng playlist, a dude who makes funky inventions)

#i was using my little AU visdev to get myself going #to do it for my own projects #but oh #how quickly i ended up doing it to relax #because motherfuckers keep trying to start shit with people I know #hhhhh #which i have to reiterate #why be rude #when you can just shut the fuck up #or do it off anon so I can fucking block you too

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professionalchaoticdumbass · 10 days

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What’s wrong with transmisogny? I find it to be a useful way to refer to the phenomenon of how trans women are treated as more dangerous and less worthy of forgiveness

it's useful and i believe it has its place, but, especially online, is horrendously misused and (when white trans women get ahold of it) borderline weaponized. it's the vessel of so much ridiculous discourse that it drives me mad. and of course you have those horrid acronyms "TME" and "TMA" which are used to degender and dehumanize trans people in the aforementioned discourse. in particular i've noticed a lot of trans men get called "TMEs" as almost an insult. "gender binary suddenly easy for fagdyke trannypunk misgendering trans man" type shit right there. i've also seen TRANS WOMEN refer to OTHER TRANS WOMEN as "TMAs" which is just revolting. refer to your sisters as such it's not that hard. if misgendering is violence then so is degendering, you treasonous shits

i also think that the "only trans women are ever affected by transmisogyny" implication is stupid because like, are you gonna try to say that a cis guy being called a sissy for wearing pink isn't transmisogynistic? really? it is primarily targeted at trans women; the implication is that transfemininity is bad and horrible and all that. however a bigot can easily shift their scope to aim at someone else they don't like. it's not transfem exclusive. to me it kinda goes against intersectionality as well because it's treated as an entirely separate form of bigotry rather than an overlap of several existing ones

also i've never seen any transmisogyny discourse addict who isn't pasty white and racist as fuck about it so there's that yknow. just cuz ur trans doesnt mean ur not a white woman

#keeping reblogs off on this shit because i'm not letting some twitter & tumblr brained clown spiral it into discourse #go outside and meet literally any queer who doesn't spend most of their day handwringing over acronyms #my opinions on this are very complex and i have a hard time putting it into words but tl;dr:#i think it's an ok term. i think it can be used well. however i think it is NOT used well and the internet has distorted it beyond recovery

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a-faggot-with-opinions · 11 months

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After reading through so much "transandrophobia discourse" I think people need to seriously reframe how they view transmisogyny.

If you (general "you") believe that transmisogyny is "the intersection of misogyny and transphobia", then you need to admit what you're describing isn't exclusively and only primarily targeting transfemmes*. So many other people have been vocal about frequently experiencing what this definition is describing, or at the very least have it purposefully weaponized against them. Notably intersex people and cisgender women of color, especially black women (but this includes transmascs* and butches too, whether you believe it's targeted or not). According to that line of thinking, transmisogyny is simply a specific form of misogyny that is rooted in transphobia— which ironically is what so many people claim transandrophobia actually is, rather than a unique struggle.

Alternatively, if you believe that transmisogyny is "transphobia uniquely targetted towards transfemmes*" then you need to admit that many of the things that are labeled as "transmisogyny" are not specifically or exclusively transmisogyny at all, and they fall under a much bigger umbrella of collective oppression. Obviously trans women experience unique opression. Of course they do! If bigots know you're a transfemm* they'll more than likely treat you differently than someone they know is a transmasc*, at least in some aspects; but if you agree that a transfemme* would be treated uniquely then you've ought to admit that a transmasc* would be treated uniquely, too. In this case TME or TMA labels still wouldn't make any sense because that's essentially the equivalent of me (an intersex person) calling myself "intersexism affected" or calling a perisex person "intersexism exempt". Like yeah, no shit. It's entirely redundant.

The point is that these two lines of thinking can't exist without contradicting eachother. It's disingenuous to claim these experiences directly affect other groups of people as a specific form of misogyny AND they're exclusive to or only primarily targetting transfemmes. Otherwise you're just painting the experiences of intersex people, women of color, butches, and other trans people as "collateral damage".

In either scenario, labeling transandrophobia as "misdirected transmisogyny" or "a unique combination of transphobia and misogyny" doesn't make any sense. Either transmisogyny can be experienced by people of all identities, including cis people; or, transmisogyny is uniquely targetted towards transfemmes*— meaning transmascs* also experience uniquely targetted transphobia by default. You can't have both.

*"transfemme" and "transmasc" here are being used as very broad generalizations purely for the sake of conciseness.

Many transfeminists like to label a very broad form of oppression as transmisogyny. What I mean by that is that they'll see a very legitimate concept, which is that society has a very strict, rigid box that it expects every female body to fit into, and any female body that does not fit into that box is discriminated against, and they will say that it's based in transmisogyny. When in reality, this is literally just misogyny, and it's something that intersects with other marginalizations.

Intersex women who were assigned female may experience interpersonal transmisogyny but they don't experience it on an institutional or systemic level. What intersex women assigned female experience on a systemic level is an intersection between intersexism and misogyny, which is caused by them not fitting the rigid societal standard for what a female body has to look like.

Here's the thing, though: there are rigid societal standards for what a male body has to look like, too, and while this isn't evidence of systemic misandry (which doesn't exist for cis men), this is a way that marginalized men are punished. Men of color, intersex men assigned male at birth, fat men, and GNC men are among those who experience oppression due to not fitting the stereotype of an ideal male body.

Trans men, however, are the demographic that flips all of our understandings of how systemic oppression works on its head, because no matter which commonly accepted framework you use to view our marginalization, it just doesn't make sense. Our lived experiences, instead of being considered to help build a new framework under which we view oppression, are erased, treated as outliers, and never spoken about. And when we do speak about our experiences, we are called transmisogynists. This is because a lot of theories in modern transfeminism and trans inclusive feminism literally do not address trans men, and if they do, they are very patronizing and don't address our lived experiences.

I'm just one guy, but here's my imperfect and incomplete view of how transandrophobia and transmisogyny work. Transandrophobia and transmisogyny are intersections between the same types of oppression, namely, transphobia and misogyny, but they target two different demographics and work in very different ways. The way that transmisogyny maintains its systemic influence and oppresses transfeminine people is by making transfeminine people hyper-visible. Transfeminine people are put on a pedestal and fetishized while at the same time being dehumanized and used to fearmonger about the collapse of society. Obviously, a lot of transfeminist activists have already addressed a lot of this.

However, transandrophobia is a much sneakier, more invisible form of oppression that affects transmascs. Just like transmisogyny, it is present on a systemic and institutional level, but the way that it targets transmasculine people is by making society believe that we do not exist, while at the same time fearmongering about the possibility of our existence. Because of this, transmasculine people are targeted with violence often, but because our experiences are erased, it's a lot harder for people to identify specific instances of transandrophobia, and a lot harder to actually dismantle.

Hyper-visibility like in the case of transfems definitely isn't a privilege, but neither is hyper-invisibility. And us transmascs should not be expected to use our "privilege" due to being hyper-invisible in order to make a hyper-visible group even more visible. Transmascs devoting our time to advocating for transfems is good, but it's not reasonable to expect all of us to do that, especially when the transfems that expect us to advocate for them don't advocate for us or ever call out transmasculine erasure.

#asks #transandrophobia #transmisogyny

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lobotomizedlady · 3 months

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You’re pro gun? I’m not from the USA so I’m just curious. I’d feel so anxious if people around me were carrying a gun.

Is it not scary to have a weapon that could possibly take someone’s life?

long winded rambling answer under the cut, to my many mutuals who hate america with a fiery passion (I get it #ally #hero #oneofthegoodones #pleasedontholdyourapplause) I advise that you scroll past this bc it's just an american talking about american issues & may cause your blood pressure to rise

So, I would say that I'm pro gun under specific circumstances-I carry a glock as a self defense weapon & am trained to use it, and I frequently advise other women to do so as well bc it's by far the most reliable way to stop an attacker that is larger & stronger than you are. Knives, tasers, & pepper spray, while better than nothing, all have significant limitations and downsides & due to being close range. An attacker can usually overpower you and take your weapon away once they get close. The idea is not to allow them to get close enough to disarm you in the first place. Guns are long range weapons and therefore ideal for protecting yourself. I actually feel WAY safer walking around while I'm carrying my gun than I ever did before! It's genuinely empowering imo.

All that being said...I obviously don't like the fact that it's so easy for deranged men to buy weapons like AR-15s, which are designed not for self defense but to slaughter as many people in as little time as possible (there's a reason almost all mass shooters use this type of gun). I also hate the NRA & their lobbying efforts. Gun control is a really complicated issue that I think both sides simplify for the sake of winning an argument when there's really no easy solution to this problem. Yes, other countries have had success with outright bans, but the thing is we already have more guns than people in America, it's extremely easy for criminals to buy them illegally, so what libertarians say about gun control only applying to law abiding citizens is not entirely inaccurate imo.

The other thing is that trying to implement gun control to the level of other countries would legitimately start a civil war in the US. That's how strong gun culture is here. It doesn't help that the right to own a gun is baked into our constitution & that our government was founded on well organized militias overthrowing a tyrannical monarchy that had a more structured military.

Conservatives & libertarians (as well as many leftists, like me) think that there may come a time where we need to ride up against a tyrannical government again, and obviously a well armed population is a less vulnerable population. People say "well, the government has nukes, what are some guns going to do?!" but they're making several wrong assumptions about the nature of guerilla warfare, how civilian resistance operations are carried out, and what governments are generally willing to sacrifice. To explain it all would turn this already long answer into an essay but in short, the US government is not ever going to drop an atomic bomb on one of its own cities to get rid of some insurgents. It would kill their supporters as well, turn more people into radicals, the collateral damage & financial ruin involved is not a price any leader would be willing to pay unless they were actually clinically insane.

If I had to make the decisions myself I would focus primarily on the social problems that lead to violence as well as repairing the broken mental healthcare system in this country. Of course Republicans always SAY they want to do this whenever a shooting happens but they clearly don't give enough of a fuck about it to actually pass any legislature that would make accessing mental health services easier for people in poverty on account of them all being money hungry psychopaths.

#in short-looser gun laws for women tighter gun laws for men #asks

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hussyknee · 6 months

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Twitter feels like an even split between pro-Palestine supporters and the most horrific kind of racists, Zionists and white supremacists. Tumblr is by comparison overwhelmingly in support of Palestine. And yet the level of dehumanization, isolation, Othering and casual racism on here is so much more unbearable and suffocating than Twitter could ever be.

Tumblr wants to be seen as the anti-racist good guys on the right side of history while reinforcing the racist white supremacist western-centric status quo. Black and brown people are given platform under strict conditions of what values can be challenged and how far white comfort can be pushed. It's on Twitter that we have our own communities, our own power of advocacy, and a collective drive to interrogate and dismantle structures of power.

It reinforces what I have known for a long time— Tumblr's hatred of Twitter and TikTok is based primarily on refusing to tolerate the reality of equal representation, leftist action and racial justice. A true diversity of power and perspectives is messy, chaotic, conflict-driven and upends the sense of stability and space that can only come with a homogeneity of racial demographic. The majority of disenfranchised people understands that power structures and bureaucracies are built on purpose to exclude them — the poor, the sex workers, the incarcerated, the ghettoised, the disabled, the colonized. We have to fight to be heard, and our reality and political investment cannot be separated from the minority trauma that informs them. True equality entails not having to funnel that trauma through behaviour and ethics that makes their expression more palatable or considering of others; it removes all respectability politics and allows us to behave with the same unpunished toxicity that is unleashed on us by white and western people. Conflict, cacophony and having to tolerate the untempered emotions and self-interest of all groups is the price of true diversity and honest dialogue. It also primarily empowers Black and brown people and disempowers whites. In contrast, the "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" on predominantly white-driven and Western-oriented spaces is a simply a neoliberal farce that requires us to perform our own humanity and ask validation from whiteness. This is why you see only the worst aspects and negative effects of Twitter and TikTok and use them to reject the the platforms wholesale while creating a narrative of moral superiority around Tumblr's relatively low levels of conflict and glossing over the receding presence of Black and brown people in its userbase.

Race is not a layer of oppression. It's the fundamental bisection that creates the underclass on which the colonial capitalist world order is built. It's the caste hierarchy of humanity; who gets to be labourer and profiteer, the exploiter and exploited, the worker and producer, the consumer and consumed, the masses and the individual. The living bodies and embodied lives. The experience of every other marginalization is shaped by its waters. White women and queers will neither understand nor share in the oppression of women and QPoC from both diasporas and the Global South. Even further, every marginalization becomes a weapon against BIPOC in the hands of its white demographic. Black and brown people of those marginalized communities will always only be a token and shield for their white counterparts, while being the workhorses behind their struggles.

It doesn't matter how many times you post "Free Palestine" when we know its only the product of your preoccupation with your own personal moral landscape. Politics based on egoism will always be eclipsed by threats to your material reality. This is why a userbase that spent its entire existence grandstanding against Nazis now cannot see Zionists as Nazis and begs people to participate in a political establishment that has revealed itself to be a genocidal white supremacist regime in the clearest possible terms. Fascism against its own enfranchised is the end stage of an empire that has begun to collapse under the weight of its war-mongering and now resorts to eating itself to survive. No amount of moral distance between yourselves and its machinery of death, no amount of scapegoating the lives crushed underneath it, will stop the roofs you sheltered under falling on top of you. This the truth that the colonized, enslaved and indentured people that built your house have lived all along.

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g-witchsulettaneedsahug · 1 year

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Hello and welcome back to Simping For Prospera! We will once again be ⭐️controversial⭐️. In this post, we shall ask the following question:

Why would Prospera winning be so bad?

Taking a step back, its fascinating to see what kind of world the authors have written for this series. In what seems to be an almost post-capitalist hellscape, mega corporations have all the power over both its employees as well normal people in a way means it has powers thats only appropriate for an institution thats democratically elected by the normal people.

The Benerit Group has tremendous power, control and resources in space and opress the people of earth, using both economic and physical violence to crush those who oppose it. At its beck and call is the organisation Cathedra and it subdivision Dominicus, a para-military organisation. Once again, a corporation has the power and military might we, in this and age, normally only give to governments.

At its core, all organisations involved in the Benerit Group are military ones. Vying for subsidies and funding from governmental bodies and wealthy investors alike, using weapons programs to keep it all turning. Peil, Grassely, Jeturk, they all produce mobile suits and are the primary members of the group, which exists out of many corporations.

At the same time the Space Assembly League seems to have some sort of authority over the members, allowing them to freely investigate. Likely this is because they are an actual political organisation, perhaps actual representatives of both earth and space and not the corporations. Yet this faction and/or organisation, which may or may not be the only non-corporate controlled form of government there is in space and thus the only other faction with any "legitimate" power, work together with terrorists such as the Dawn of Fold in order to take down the Benerit Group which shows how much power the group really has.

All of this goes to show how spectacularly corrupt the whole society and every active participant inside of it is. Money is basically only invested if its in the interest of the powerful and whats in their interest is to primarily invest in the means and technology to utterly crush those who may threaten their power. Weapons, resources, property, means of travel, they all utterly dominate it. In other words, buisness men and women are at the top of it all. People who only care about and for money.

Then where are all the others? The artists, researchers, teachers, etc? Right under the tumb of the upper class of course. The rich are the ones who decide who gets funding, why they get funding, how they get funding and how much funding they receive. Medicine is beholden to the ones who can provide the funding for it.

The Vanadís Institute, where research was done on the GUND-format by Cardo Nabo and her staff, is one such faction that had to align themselves with more militaristic organisations in order to receive funding for their research. Instead of being able to focus purely on the improvement and freeing of humanity through the use of technology to make themselves more durable against the hardships of space, the institute had to work together with Ochs-Earth and bend to the whims of the military to even more powerful mobile suits then there already were, Gundams.

Instead of being a way to save lives and advance humanity, the GUND-format was seen as a way for Earthians to gain power and to get on even footing with the Spacians by developing weaponry that could fight rival or even surpass Spacian tech. Such is the world, violence almost always prevails.

And Spacian rule has not been kind, not to Earthians or lower class Spacians. Mercury is so inhospitable, raising a family there is considered borderline insanity (see, Cradle Planet and read between the lines). The risks are simply too great. In the show we can see that Mercury is basically considered some backwater, irrelevant place in the middle of nowhere, far away from the Earth sphere. The Space equivilant of the middle of nowhere, of a falling apart mining town almost.

Its not nearly as severe as what the Benerit Group does upon Earthians and Earthian aligned people however. Look no further then the massive amounts of indiscriminate murder committed against the researchers of Vanadís for daring to create mobile suits which might threaten Spacian rule or the violence which they turn upon the Earthians in order to keep them surpressed when they protest the injustices done upon them by the Spacian leeches, sucking the earth dry of its resources and siphoning its wealth. The violence caused by greed is truly incredible.

And then we have Prospera. Prospera, who is Elnora Samaya. Prospera, who was mentored and likely cared for by Cardo Nabo, lead researcher of Vanadís and ardent believer in the GUND-format. Prospera, who truly believes in the ideals of the Vanadís Insitute and what it wished to accomplish with GUND technology. Prospera, who lived on Folkenvanger which housed the institute, who was married to a manager of the project. Prospera, who was a tester and pilot herself. Prospera, who had her whole *life* inside of the institute: family, friends, collegues.

She felt safe there, she felt comfortable. She was amongst like-minded people, with people she trusted, trusted enough to raise her precious daughter there. To have a family.

And then they were all killed.

(almost) the whole institute was wiped out, from researchers to managers to technicians and other employees, including their families. In the grand scheme of things, its just an other event where many innocent lives are lost to the hands of Spacian and specifically corporate oppression and control.

That being said, looking at it from Elnora's perspective this is absolutely a beyond traumatic event. Her whole world was turned upside down. She lost her collegues, her friends, her mentor, her husband and later on her precious daughter. All the while those who ruined her life sit high upon their fancy chairs, enjoying their wealth and with not a real worry in the world, playing god in their meeting rooms.

No justice would come to them for their actions, oh no. There is no law which would hold them accountable for their indiscrimimate murder, they ARE the law. They are the judges, the juries and the executioners.

Isn't that just crazy to think about? The insanity and the hubris of the most powerful Spacian faction? Evil is often described as something "profoundly wicked and immoral". I'd say that the actions of the Benerit Group, the Mobile Suit Council, Cathedra, Dominicus and even the Space Assembly League are quite wicked and immoral.

Then tell me, do you blame Elnora for wishing to take them down? To bring down the Benerit Group? To not work with the Space Assembly? Should her actions not be seen as admirable, in a way? Her desire for revenge against the injustices done upon her and her drive to take down those who are her enemies?

Is it wrong to cheer for the opressed instead of the oppressor?

Sure, one may argue that Prospera's actions are too violent, as she basically sacrificed the inhabitants of Quinnharbor, but what is one town/city in the face of the many atrocities perpetuated by the Space Aseembly League and Benerit Group? What is one town compared to the safety and happiness of her lovely daughter within the Data Storm, as well as close to 2 decades of planning and preparing?

As for Suletta yes, she might be a "repli-child" who, was simply a "key" and yes Eri might be her main focus, that does not mean she did not treat Suletta well. In the first season, prologue as well as Cradle Planet we can see how gentle Elnora is. She is sweet and smiles and is patient with her daughters. She listens to their worries and and indulges in their chatter. Suletta obviously loves her and feels safe with her. This shows that even if Elnora didn't think of her as her daughter, she still treated her well. She treated her gently and she made her feel loved. Eri is her first priority yes, but that does not mean that she doesn't care for Suletta. Prospera is thus not personally an evil person who revels in the pain of those who cannot fight back, such as a young child. She even agrees with Eri that Suletta should be happy, even if its not with them.

But what does Prospera, Elnora, want? What is her goal with Quiet Zero and would it be that much worse then the Benerit Group? The Quiet Zero project seems to be a collaboration between her, Delling and whichever organisation is helping her. Besides wanting to expand the range for Eri so she can live more freely, what else is the project for? They for sure likely cannot care less about Eri, thats not their daughter and for all they care its just an extremely advanced AI with the imprint of a dead child.

Quiet Zero, most likely, is an attempt to forcefully put an end to most of the fighting. Since basically everything uses permet, entire stations and other Spacian infrastructure and even some Earthian ones use Permet, they'll all be vulnerable to being taken over by the Quiet Zero data storm and thus Eri. This power would allow Prospera and Eri to forcefully take over all the organisations who oppose them and to get their revenge against those who ruined their lives. They and everyone else on their side who aid them are likely so disillusiomed with the system and the consatnt tragedies caused by corruption and greed, they are entirely willing to take over everything themselves. They are likely planning to take over the Earth Sphere and the rest of Spacian territory by force and to have them at their mercy, easily dismanteling them, especially as they'll be unable to resist.

There are no good good guys in gundam, there are only desperate people clawing for power and control.

Suletta and the Earth House aren't the "good guys" or "heroes", they're normal school kids going to a military academy under the control of major corporations who just wanna do their best and survive and are at the mercy of corporate giants and their spawn. The Benerit Group aren't heroes/good guys, and neither is the Space Assembly League, Ochs-Earth, Dawn of Fold, they're all evil as fuck imo. There are no good guys, there are only victims and perpetrators.

So tell me, what exactly are we rooting for in this show? Why should Suletta "talk" or "reason" with her mother? Why do we not want Prospera to succeed? I can understand Suletta reaching out to her mother and sister in order to understand where they are coming from and why they had left her, why they never told her of their plans even. To have open communications. But I don't understans for the life of me why Suletta or Earth House should give a single singular shit about Prospera upheaving all of Spacian society. Miorine and Guel perhaps do, but they are benign to the Earthians and likely wouldn't mind in the long run/could be reasoned with. It depends.

So, with all of this said: why shouldn't Prospera win?

(Anyway I have a whole lotta fears and specukation about the SAL and Suletta, as well absolute red flags for her and I am fucking manifesting annother season at this point for more Suletta and Eri development)

#g witch #gundam: the witch from mercury #suletta mercury #gundam witch from mercury #g witch spoilers #lady prospera #prospera mercury #world building #gundam

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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.*

- Cato the Elder

Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.*

At the turn of the 2nd century BCE, the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome had ended. Rome was eventually victorious, but had suffered some significant and bad defeats. The peace treaty was even tougher for Carthage – it stripped them of many of their territories, their wealth, and restricted their actions. Fast forward 50 years later, there was another conflict between Carthage and Rome – this time in a Punic-turned-Roman-city called Massinissa. Marcus Porcius Cato, a famous Roman orator and senator, was sent to Massinissa to investigate. He had fought in the Second Punic War in his 20s. Cato was surprised to see that, since the end of the Second Punic War, Carthage had become a thriving and wealthy city again.

When Cato came to back to Rome, he called for the war against Carthage – a war to stop them once and for all. He ended his speech with the phrase: Carthago delenda est. (Carthage must be destroyed.)

Plutarch tells us that Cato's call ended his every speech in the Roman Senate, 'on any matter whatsoever', from 153 BC to his death aged 85 in 149. Scipio Nasica - son-in- law of Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Hannibal in the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) - would always reply: 'Carthage should be allowed to exist'. But such challengers were silenced. Rome decided on war 'long before' it launched the Third Punic War just prior to Cato's death. One of his last speeches in the Senate, before a Carthaginian delegation in 149, was critical:

“Who are the ones who have often violated the treaty? . . . Who are the ones who have waged war most cruelly? ... Who are the ones who have ravaged Italy? The Carthaginians. Who are the ones who demand forgiveness? The Carthaginians. See then how it would suit them to get what they want.”

The Carthaginian delegates were accorded no right of reply. In 146 BC, nearly 8 years after Cato ventured back to Carthage and saw its wealth, would Carthage attack Massinissa and give Rome a reason to star the Third (and final) Punic War.

Rome soon began a three-year siege of the world's wealthiest city. Of a population of 2-400,000 at least 150,000 Carthaginians perished. Appian described one battle in which '70,000, including non-combatants' were killed, probably an exaggeration. But Polybius, who participated in the campaign, confirmed that 'the number of deaths was incredibly large' and the Carthaginians 'utterly exterminated'. In 146, Roman legions under Scipio Aemilianus, Cato's ally and brother-in-law of his son, razed the city, and dispersed into slavery the 55,000 survivors, including 25,000 women. Plutarch concluded: 'The annihilation of Carthage . . . was primarily due to the advice and counsel of Cato'.

It was not a war of racial extermination. The Romans did not massacre the survivors, nor the adult males. Nor was Carthage victim of a Kulturkrieg. Though the Romans also destroyed five allied African cities of Punic culture, they spared seven other towns which had defected to them. Yet, the Carthaginians had complied in 149 with Rome's demand to surrender their 200,000 individual weapons and 200 catapults.

Little did they know that the Senate had already secretly decided to destroy Carthage for good, once the war is over. The surprising new demand that they abandon their city meant abandoning its sanctuaries and religious cults to abandon their city, meant abandoning its sanctuaries and religious cults. And in this Carthaginians resisted in vain. Rome opted for the destruction of the nation.

Carthago delenda est has become somewhat of a rallying call against a common enemy - a call for total war.

None of this was lost on Churchill as he addressed British troops in the old Roman amphitheater at Carthage, Tunisia. Nothing short of the total destruction of Nazi Germany for the sake of civilisation and humanity were at stake. The Nazis were an existential threat. Like Cato, Churchill knew the power of oratory to move men into action.

Photo: Churchill leaves the old Roman amphitheatre with Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson after addressing British troops, 1 June 1943.

#cato #roman #latin #classical #quote #rome #carthage #punic wars #war #total war #churchill #winston churchill #british army #second world war #tunisia

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anueutsuhos-touhou-profiles · 1 year

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Okina Matara:

The third and most recent of Gensokyo's founders to appear, is Okina Matara, the Secret God. She is a god of many things. A mother god. A god of the disabled and ostracized. A god of Noh theater. A god of silkworm breeding and insect metamorphosis. Perhaps most notably, she's the god of backdoors.

Okina Matara is a god of immense power, on par with if not more powerful than Yukari Yakumo. She boasts that she could snap Gensokyo out of existence and then back into existence without breaking a sweat. Essentially, the only reason why anyone in this series is still alive is because Okina Matara sees no reason to kill them.

While ZUN has implied Hecatia is more powerful, there hasn't been any real comparison between them to show this. Especially since Hecatia doesn't really throw her weight around the way Okina does.

As far as her actual powers, they primarily revolve around creating backdoors on anything. In this way she is able to open portals to and from anywhere in almost the same way Yukari can. Her backdoors can also be opened up on anyone's behind and transfer immense power to them.

Okina Matara first appeared as the main villain and final boss of Touhou 16: Hidden Star in Four Seasons. She used her backdoors, along with her backup dancers, to draw out the latent powers of people in Gensokyo. Allegedly, her plan was to find powerful people to hire as replacement minions for Satono and Mai. However, her real plan was simply to announce herself to Gensokyo, and remind everyone of her and her vast powers. Her reactions to the player character depend on who you're playing as.

• She rejects Reimu on the spot, saying that she's already Yukari's servant, she doesn't want the Hakurei Shrine maiden.

• She also rejects Aya on the spot, as warding off Tengu is another of her many domains.

• She doesn't even consider Cirno as a potential servant and reprimands her dancers for letting some stupid fairy inside.

• With Marisa, however, she actually asks the ordinary witch to become her new servant. However, Marisa refuses, not wanting to replace her life of freedom with being a mindless pawn.

During the initial fight, she turned the protagonist's season energy against them, since the power came from her putting a door on their back in the first place. She was seemingly invincible.

However, the protagonists challenged her to a rematch for the Extra Stage, where the protagonist used the power of Doryu (the Chinese concept of the border between seasons) to defeat her properly. It was here she revealed her true form... which pretty much looks the same as normal except she's not on her chair.

Since then, she's manipulated events in Gensokyo from the shadows. While she doesn't seem to outright want to replace her backup dancers, she has a pattern of finding one person in Gensokyo she really likes, and slowly manipulating events to their advantage, seemingly to gain their support. Maybe she really does want new minions?

She quickly appeared again in Touhou 16.5: Violet Detector. Or rather, her Dream World counterpart did. Here, she gave a power boost to the Dream World Sumireko because she admired her determination to escape the Dream World into reality.

She appeared in The Grimoire of Usami, showing up alongside Shinmyoumaru and Seija when they hijacked Reimu's fireworks festival. She was quickly revealed to have acted as an anonymous benefactor for Shinmyoumaru, subtly leading her to people who would agree with her view that spellcards are a weapon first and foremost. It seems that she was trying to play "catch up" on all the powerful women she missed out on during her long absence. She especially loved Junko's appearance, and was impressed when it turned out Junko's murder-frenzy was just an act.

She then appeared as the main antagonist of the finale of the manga Visionary Fairies in Shrine. She used her vast powers to turn almost all the fairies of Gensokyo into red crystals called Soul Cherries, which in turn reduced Gensokyo to a barren wasteland. The remaining fairies (which of course consisted of all the named ones) figured out she was behind it and challenged her to a fight to save their friends.

It was a one-sided slaughter and Okina wasn't even trying very hard. Okina grabbed Clownpiece by the neck, and told her to tell her superiors about the power of Gensokyo's Hidden God. She then immediately changed mood and turned all the fairies back to normal! It turns out the entire reason for her plan, was that she had heard that the forces of Hell were intruding into Gensokyo, and she wanted to test if they were actually planning on taking over. Hecatia actually told Clownpiece to collect all the Soul Cherries and take them to Hell, but Clownpiece defied her master/mother figure, and Okina figured they really weren't a threat.

Her most recent appearance was in Touhou 17.5: Sunken Fossil World. Here, she lured people down into the deepest levels of Old Hell in order to fight the main villain, but her real target was Flandre Scarlet, returning in a game for the first time in 20 years! More about that later.

ZUN has said Okina Matara is loosely based on him wanting to show that disabled people weren't useless or weak, but were actually stronger for it. I say loosely, because Okina isn't actually handicapped, as ZUN was scared of portraying her offensively or making her disability an informed attribute. She is often seen in a wheelchair, but apparently this is not because she's disabled, but because she represents disability as a concept. She's perfectly capable of walking around if she wants. Personally I think it'd be easier if she just was wheelchair bound rather than that roundabout symbolism explanation but that's me.

Okina Matara is based on two different dieties: Matara-jin, and Okuninushi. If she really is both gods, then she's connected even further to the people of Gensokyo than you could ever know. She saved the White Hare of Inaba (Tewi Inaba) from being skinned alive. She adopted the human guise of Hata no Kawakatsu and knew Shoutoku Taishi (Miko) personally. Shoutoku comissioned her to make 66 masks, effectively making her the mother of Kokoro. She was even the father of Takeminakata, and thus should technically be Kanako's mom or mother-in-law! And yes, you heard me right, he was a dude in the original mythology.

Okina has a fairly... incomprehensible morality. Generally she acts callous towards Gensokyo, perfectly content with turning it into a barren wasteland to get what she wants. Yet, she also has a soft side. She allowed dozens of servant youkai to "work from home" in her pocket dimension for seemingly no reason other than the goodness of her heart. In general, whenever she appears, it's because she's found someone neglected by Gensokyo (not necessarily the fans), she becomes obsessed with them, and manipulates events to show the true potential of this person, often directly assisting them.

Furthermore, while she is god of the ostracized, she respects anyone who shows impressive power and doesn't hold back. In general, ZUN describes her as "one of the old gods", a woman beyond human concepts of morality. But with absolute certainty, she is an immense boon as an ally and a nightmare as an enemy.

Her relationship with the other Sages is bittersweet. She seems to enjoy Kasen's company, but Kasen hates her as much as Yukari. Her interactions with Yukari in the Grimoire of Usami show them as something of... frenemies. Yukari insults her and calls her a casual fan of Gensokyo, but they seem to respect each other's power.

Her relationship with her backup dancers is a bit mixed as well. She considers them incompetent and sometimes wants to replace them, but it seems that bumbling is also just endearing enough to her that she keeps them around.

Each of those flames on her represents a different season: orange for autumn, blue for winter, pink for spring, and green for summer.

In her first fight, she shoots kunai according to this four-color pattern. In her second fight, however, she fires kunai in reverse-rainbow order, beginning with purple and moving back to red and then magenta.

In her first fight, her spellcards are based on the four seasons, with the last attack being the season of the player character. In this last attack, she sucks out the seasonal powers of the player character, weakening them. She also takes you out of the World of Backdoors and all around Gensokyo!

In her Extra boss fight, her spellcards are based on all her various domains, like silkworm breeding, burning rituals to scare away Tengu, or theatre performers. They mostly emphasize her nature as god of backdoors, with many of them involving her attacking you from behind. She also has an attack where laser beams fire at you from the shape of the Big Dipper. Her final attack has her shooting a bunch of magenta laser rings at you while she moves around in circles, called "Anarchy Bullet Hell". This is a pun on "anaaki", meaning "holed" in Japanese.

In Sunken Fossil World, her attacks create portals to throw all kinds of liquid at you: water, petroleum, and blood.

#touhou project #touhou #okina matara #hidden star in four seasons

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dyke-bars-never-last · 4 months

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We can be more relaxed about our weight

• By experimenting with what weight feels comfortable to us rather than trying primarily to be thin.

• By being more accepting of weight variations through the life cycle.

• By developing a clearer understanding of which health problems are truly associated with weight

• By exercising and eating nutritious food to feel healthy, and letting our body weight set itself accordingly.

We need a widespread rebellion of women who are tired of worrying about their weight, who understand that weight is not a matter of health or discipline but a weapon our culture uses against us to keep us in our place and feeling small.

-- Laura Fraser

Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century p39

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ohsalome · 2 years

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Russians won't protest against the genocide against ukrainians even in Europe, but they will happily protest against sending us weapons.

Do you still have questions as to why we support #visabanforrussians?

Audio transcript/translation: [Just imagine how many people, women, children and elderly suffered - look at these posters. They are the proof of the cruelty and opportunism of the ukrainian nazi regime. We won't forget nor forgive this. *Chanting: Won't forget, won't forgive*

Ukraine continues unconstitutional *unintelligeble* of the peaceful population. They are trying to terrorize us - citizens of LDNR. But we won't allow the public to ignore this. We won't forget nor forgive this. *Chanting: Won't forget, won't forgive*]

---

Some important context that people not involved in the war might not be aware of:

One of the most popular "arguments" that russian propagandists have against Ukraine that it is a "nazi regime that presecutes russian-speaking population" and that it has been "bombing Donbass for 8 years". To refute this in short, it's a lie. A more long explanasion would go like this: for approximately 8 centuries, Ukraine had been colonised by russia. Due to +140 bans of ukrainian language and forceful relocation of russian nationals into ukrainian territory following genocide and ethnic cleansings (to make them "less rebellious"), a certain percent (around 18%) primarily use russian in their day-to-day communication. This does not mean that they consider themselves to be ethnically russian. Due to a mixture of factors - postcolonial mentality, russian expansionist politics and indulgence of ukrainian government - russian-speaking population has been the privileged one in Ukraine. This can be illustrated by many factors: starting from people being denied employment due to speaking ukrainian, to killing people refusing to speak "normal" (read: russian) language, to casual day-to-day xenophobia towards ukrainian-speaking ukrainians (which our current president took part in as well). (P.S. although big cities in the eastern Ukraine are indeed russified, a huge percent of villages still mainly use ukrainian. I've already explained where this manipulation comes from in a post before)

Secondly, "LDNR" is not a thing even according to russia. In 2014 KGB has created two pseudo-republics with puppet governments in two of the poorest regions of Ukraine, calling them "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic". They are two different entities with moderately hostile attitude towards each other. Attempts to present them as one single "country" have literally no ground and are obviously aimed at convincing people who are hearing about this for the first time and won't be bothered to do any factchecking. The people themselves have realised long ago that they've been lied to and abandoned by russia; and those who genuinely believed they would be "building communism" are long dead, bc russia has been using them as unarmed lifestock since the full-scale invasion. But, back to the point - those "republics" are illegitimate as they were created through deploying the russian troops to the cities and installing Gauleiters among the marginalised local population. The groundwork for this move has been in preparation by russia for decades (hugely recommend "Як Україна втрачала Донбас" for further details). The union of KGB agents, local mafia, politicians, clergy and media holders has convinced the citizens of the region that the rest of the Ukraine is populated by the literal WW2 nazis that are going to commit genocide against them any minute now (which, once again, I struggle to challenge convincingly, because that is just a lie. This never happened. It was made-up from start to finish). In 2014, during the chaos and temporal powerlessness of the Revolution of Dignity, they managed to convince people of Donetsk and Luhansk region that Kyiv is currently gathering forces of cannibalistic bandera worshippers to send into Donbass and genocide everybody there; and the only way for them to survive is to invite russian military for protection. This was a huge fucking lie; and for proof I'd like to present the fact that the original plan of invasion involved creating "People's Republics" in Odesa and Kherson as well; and yet, despite those remaining under the rule of the "Kyiv nazi regime", no genocide against russian-speaking population was commited there.

Now, the alleged "slaughter of "LDNR" civillians by the ukrainian regime". This is more than just a continuation of "presecution of russian-speaking population" myth. There have indeed been people who died by the hands of the ukrainian army (mostly at the beginning of the war in the 2014-15, when everything was much more chaotic and unregulated). However, this did not happen as an intentional targeting of the civillians. During the first years of war there were many active battles for every millimeter of the ukrainian territory, which included both sides shooting at enemy bases. The problem is that russians intentionally put their military bases and equipment on the populated territory (houses, kindergardens, schools etc.) in order to hide behind the civillians' backs and deter ukrainian army from fighting back (which is a war crime, btw). And we know this is true because one of the leaders of the "russian spring", officer igor girkin, directly says so: "When we were fighting in [Slavyansk] in the places without any buildings, unfortunately, we would lose. As one ukrainian soldier said to me: "Why are you sitting there like cowards? Go out into the fields! Stop hiding behind the backs of innocent civillians!". Well, sorry, but to go out into the field to be destroyed? I am not Don Quihote." And a key difference between the actions of russian army then and ukrainian army now is that russia has been actively preventing the evacuation of the civillian population; while Ukraine is encouraging it. Not to mention there were numerous cases when russians purposefully bombed the civillians of Donbass in order to blame it on Ukraine. That is, of course, unless you believe that their journalists have magical powers that allow them to predict where the ukrainian military is going to strike so they always end up on place in time to film the arrival.

#ukraine #war in ukraine #russia #russian invasion of ukraine #ukrainian genocide #russian culture #protests #not all russians

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lionews · 8 months

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We come from a place where it's used derogatory towards women. In context of the "c word".We have never heard of fruity/fruitcake being used as a slur? Fruitcake is a term used by old ladies in place of 'dear' and such here.

Kinda goes to prove that a slur isn't always a slur- In SOME cases, not all, I've seen c/nt used as a derogatory term but arguably have seen others used in much worse light. Banning c/nt is like banning dick or douchebag, which are primarily used against men, why ban one and not the other?

Maybe just don't post asks where the usage of a word is obviously in a derogatory light? Instead of outright banning certain words that are really just that, words? I lived with an extremely homophobic person that used to call people in the gay community "fairy" "fruity" "fruitcake" and all sorts of normally unoffensive words in bad context. Anything can be a weapon if you make it so

Because we personally are uncomfortable with the word. It has been used in our personal lives, between family, between ourselves and family and friends, and we are human beings with feelings too. Not just an anonymous robot behind a screen.

Consider this one biased, but it's our personal preference and nobody desperately needs it, so we will not be changing our minds.

Edit: You also seemed to graze over where we mentioned we had no idea.

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linguist-breakaribecca · 1 year

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Quick reminders for the new year:

Trans women are women.

Trans men are men.

Someone’s gender identity is theirs alone to declare and your input means diddly.

Someone’s gender expression is also not where your opinion belongs.

Gender is a spectrum.

Gender is not a static thing.

Singular ‘they’ is perfectly good.

Neopronouns are perfectly good.

People are not forever defined by which of 2 boxes a doctor or midwife checked when they met them as an infant, and to say they are is about as bonkers as saying you refuse to acknowledge they’re not 8lbs 6oz or blond, because those are what their original birth certificate said they are.

And this blog is a no-TERF zone.

Even if this were a purely academic linguistics-centric blog with citations and independent research, I would still easily be able to dunk on terves because they so obviously twist language into the specific way they think protects them, and with that tangled-ass web they also try to ensnare anyone who believes that trans people are valid. The hypocrisy and invented definitions are just… so bad.

But, because this is just the personal blog of someone who happens to be a linguist:

🏳️‍⚧️ I will definitely dunk on terves whenever the opportunity presents itself. 🏳️‍⚧️

Your feminism isn’t made better by clinging to a narrow definition of who deserves respect, and you sound like a fool when your worldview boils down to “it’s bad to judge women and their worth by their bodies! now I’m going to judge your womanhood and your worthiness for basic human rights based on your body.”

Just look at HOW. MANY. TIMES. a terf will think she’s doing The Right Thing by telling another woman that she’s “not fooling anyone” and is “clearly a man” because the terf is channeling their inner misogynist and weaponizing “non-feminine” aesthetics… but she’s raging against a cis woman with muscular arms or a receding hairline. With that much friendly fire, you’d think they’d realize their ideology sucks.

I will dunk on anyone who proudly calls themselves a TERF or radfem, just as I’d dunk on anyone else who thinks it’s fine or cute to identify primarily with their bigotry. Feel free to keep putting your ignorance in your bio, or reblogging from [hate group]-r-us, so the rest of us can know to just hit that block button instead of wasting our time.

#linguistics #language #sociolinguistics #language and identity #language and power #language and culture #langblr #transphobes #terves #tw transphobes #tw transphobia #oh look theres a tag that says ‘terfblr’ so that’ll make blocking hateful dinguses even easier

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chicknparm · 10 months

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I think there’s such a thing as healthy cynicism but it’s a shame social media doesn’t really allow for such a thing. Either you’re for something or you’re against it. You’re cool and safe or you’re problematic. You’re hopepunk or you’re an edgelord.

I’ve not yet seen the Barbie movie (and am not in a rush to do so) but I believe when people say it’s extremely fun and well-made and enjoyable. Greta and that cast and crew are far too talented for it to be a bad movie. But it’s still an advertisement, and is still image laundering for a massive corporation, that everyone involved in the production, marketing, and consumption is complicit in. It’s okay, and a good thing even, to be skeptical and cynical about that. It is possible for good art to exist for nefarious reasons. That’s like, the entire Thing with all of gundam lmao.

It’s really cool that one of the biggest music acts right now is a trio of hugely talented queer women who succeeded on the strength of their songwriting, and that their music and performances are responsible for so much joy among lgbt women right now, myself included. It’s also okay to point out that this kind of thing never happens by accident, and is absolutely the latest step in a years-long marketing push by one of said group’s members for whom TS-level superstardom is obviously the goal. TS also found success through her songwriting, but it can’t be overstated that she never could’ve taken the swings that she’s taken in her career without building a massive fanbase with an absolutely deranged level of loyalty. What TS did through connecting to children through vivid, youthful, romantic songwriting and fairytale imagery, PB is doing by first making herself the ultimate Relatable pop star (esp in the earlier fake_nudes era) and now by fully embracing the Queer Joy/Kiss Your Friends vibe. That’s all cool, good for her, but it’s also okay to be cynical about the fact that these types of performances are just not possible for women who aren’t cis/white/attractive! Cool that PB and LD get to kiss each other and perform with their titties out, but 1: they are doing so while charging crazy prices to come watch them do it, 2: I would be arrested for doing that! Ditto for them making a show of performing in “Drag” in TN. I don’t doubt for a second any of their Allyship to the trans community, but the gesture itself isn’t that radical; women presenting a cartoonishly exaggerated performance of femininity surely ruffles conservative feathers, but it’s not under legal threat, there was no risk involved. It was much for effective as publicity, which was the primary intention.

It’s also very cool that the biggest video game in the world right now (and the presumptive GOTY) is an independent, (primarily) single player story driven CRPG that offers the truest role playing experience that a AAA game has offered in a decade. It is okay to be cynical about the fact that the very same people tearing into it for being Woke Propaganda also use it as a weapon to harass games journalists and developers. When a handful of devs speak with frustration about how the conditions for BG3 were impossibly perfect, and that basically no other AAA dev would be allowed the scope, freedom, time, and resources to make something like that, it of course gets twisted into “lazy game devs and journalists HATE this game because it doesn’t feed Globalist Greed.” It’s also okay to be cynical about Fandom As Identity as it pertains to this game, as we see more and more people make it to the endgame which is comparatively unpolished, unfinished, and at times genuinely broken. This has caused some blemishes on its sterling reputation, and of course people freak out. “There’s no way that anyone who isn’t trolling gives this game anything less than a 10. Maybe a 9.5 if you encountered bugs.” Something connected with people in a huge way, but that connection and widespread praise isn’t enough. It must be universal. Dissent is tantamount to violence. There’s an extra layer of cynicism I feel here too, and that’s centered around the miraculous timing of this game for WOTC. When trust in that company is at an all-time low, and there’s finally (finally!!) some momentum in getting people to try other tabletop games, in swoops BG3 reminding people “noooo don’t leave D&D behind, tieflings are so sexy haha.” Absolutely disastrous timing for indie ttrpgs!

Anyway tl;dr I wish people were more skeptical/cynical/aware of when they’re being manipulated by media and marketing, and had the cognitive capacity to recognize that something can be both a well-crafted and affecting piece of art, as well as an attempt to separate you from your money.

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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The FBI on Thursday raided three churches associated with the House of Prayer Christian Church in Georgia and Texas.

The FBI has not released a statement regarding the raids.

The House of Prayer is owned by the foreign nonprofit company House of Prayer Christian Churches of America Inc., which registered with the Georgia Secretary of State in 2004. The business's listed officers are affiliated with the Georgia churches and use Hinesville, Georgia, post office boxes as mailing addresses.

Its churches, which are primarily located near military bases throughout the country, have been accused by former members and a veterans' advocacy group of operating like a cult and targeting soldiers.

In August 2020, Veterans Education Success, an advocacy organization based in Washington D.C., asked the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Georgia Veterans Service to investigate alleged abuses of the GI Bill program by House of Prayer Christian Church’s bible seminaries.

Veterans alleged the House of Prayer Christian Church "deceives the VA during inspections and targets veterans in order to access GI Bill funding, VA disability compensation, and VA home loans," according to the organization's letter to the VA and Georgia SAA.

Raid near Fort Stewart

The FBI on Thursday raided The House of Prayer Christian Church in Hinesville. The raid took place just after 8 a.m. on the 2500 block of Airport Road.

Onlookers observed FBI agents with weapons traveling to multiple buildings while a group of women were being guarded by an officer with a weapon.

Jenna Sellitto, an FBI spokesperson, confirmed the agency was executing a court-authorized search warrant. She said no arrests had been made as of Thursday afternoon.

The House of Prayer Christian Church in Hinesville is located less than 8 miles from Fort Stewart in Liberty County.

Raid near Fort Gordon

Half a dozen FBI agents were seen in the back of the Assembly of Prayer church on Tobacco Road in Hephzibah during a raid that started at about 7:15 a.m. Thursday and continued into the afternoon.

According to a search of property records, House of Prayer Christian Churches owns 2952 Old Tobacco Road, the address of the Assembly of Prayer church in Richmond County.

At about 1 p.m., agents were seen using stairs at the back of the building during the investigation, according to Sgt. William McCarty with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office.

"We were there to assist them, but referring everything over to the FBI," said McCarty. He said he could not confirm if there were any arrests.

The Assembly of Prayer church in Hephzibah is located just outside of Gate 5 at Fort Gordon.

In an email sent Thursday, Anne H. Bowman, deputy public affairs officer at Fort Gordon, said "Fort Gordon was aware of the organization called the Assembly of Prayer Church through our law enforcement channels but the installation had no bans against the organization or any official dealings with them (despite their websites claims)."

Bowman confirmed "there were reports made to Fort Gordon law enforcement of recruiting/solicitation attempts by the church members but there were no incidents, confrontations, arrests or anything of this nature as a result," she said in another email Thursday night.

Raid near Fort Hood

The Assembly of Prayer Christian Church on Massey Street in Killeen, Texas, was also raided by the FBI on Thursday, according to the Killeen Police Department.

The church is located less than 4 miles from Fort Hood.

Killeen officers arrived to assist the FBI with traffic diversion just after 7:30 a.m., according to officials.

Ashley Demorest, a former member of the church who observed the raid, said she was a member of the church from age 15 to 23, "until I finally escaped."

Amber Fitz-Randolph, leader of The Ft. Hood Fallen Facebook page, which was started in 2017, said members of the church in Killeen have snuck into the barracks and threatened soldiers.

In a text message Thursday afternoon, Christopher Haug, chief of media relations at Fort Hood, said they are aware the FBI is investigating the church and their police are looking into it.

Demorest said she solicited soldiers on base as a member of the church.

"When I was 16 I would go with other members to [Fort Hood] and do what the church would call 'soul winning' to invite people to the church," she said.

In the Veteran's Education Success's letter to the VA and Georgia SAA in 2020, the organization cited similar solicitations.

"Soul-winning is an organized event coordinated by HOPCC’s clergy," noted the document. "Five days a week, individuals are paired up and sent out to recruit new members on or around military bases. ... Students would recruit at Post Exchanges, barracks, and on-base housing."

The document also cites specific members' experiences recruiting on bases in Georgia.

#nunyas news #weird

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pollakandslepianllb · 2 days

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How Can Whitestone Divorce Attorneys Help You Fight Against Abuse?

What, according to New York laws, will count as domestic abuse? Answering this question is very important to understand how the law protects us from any dangerous situations in the future. We have discussed this topic in detail in our blog today.

The modern family law structure in almost all parts of the US is aimed at protecting the happiness, safety, and dignity of both men and women who are facing a lack of physical and emotional security in their relationships. You can see such help not only from lawyers but also from doctors and the police.

Getting out of an abusive relationship is crucial - and we must take steps to make it happen as soon as possible. The truth is, we never know how bad things are tomorrow so protecting ourselves is a must. If you are looking for divorce against an abusive or violent partner, contact a Whitestone Divorce Lawyer today!

What Classifies as Marital Abuse?

Physical abuse is not the only component included within a psychological and social understanding of what marital mistreatment can be like.

There are many subtle ways of creating a dangerous environment which include neglectful home environments, manipulation, social isolation, etc. Some of the main categories are listed below.

Domestic Violence

Assault, instrumental harm, beating, kicking, bondage without consent, threatening with weapons, etc all can be categorized as domestic violence.

Domestic violence can corrode your emotional and physical well-being, reducing your self-worth and safety. This is the most recognized form of abuse and is well protected under the law.

Psychological and Verbal Abuse

Understanding the complex, unconscious ways in which someone can psychologically damage you is difficult.

But anything as simple as continuous humiliation, disgusting language, insults and name-calling, threats, gaslighting, and emotional imprisonment can scar someone for life.

Proving psychological and verbal abuse in court was really difficult in the past. But these days, a Bayside NY Divorce Lawyer can indeed make it possible.

Economic Abuse

Primarily suffered by the non-earning member of the relationship, financial and economic abuse can look like imprisonment too.

Not having money to fulfill basic needs orgoods of happiness, unusually strict supervision on food consumption and utility usage, lack of healthcare coverage, etc can be various forms of paralyzing economic abuse.

In unfortunate cases, it can get worse than this. There have been many cases of partners snatching money from working spouses, transferring funds and assets to their name, and spending money on extravagant luxury goods.

Sexual Misconduct

Even as a married individual, you have the right to your own body. Recognizing this, several laws in the US have been put in place to determine when a spouse has overstepped their role by harassing, assaulting, and forcing partners to engage in intimate activities.

US law criminalizes sexual abuse within marriage, offering protection through restraining orders, prosecution of perpetrators, and support services for survivors. Divorce can be granted in such situations.

Coercive Control

If your partner systematically makes use of manipulation, isolation, and intimidation to dominate and restrict you, their actions might fall under coercion. This can include stalking, supervising your relationships and time with family, infantilizing you and your abilities, etc.

There are indeed many instances of dangerous marriages for which we still do not have proper laws in place. Our courts are still evolving in these areas and making provisions to systematically prove, project, and penalize domestic abuse as much as possible. In the next section, we talk about what can be done by Whitestone Divorce Attorneys at the moment to lead you toward a better future.

How Can a Bayside NY Divorce Lawyer Help?

It is only natural that family responsibilities and social norms (especially if you have children) will keep you rethinking your course of action. However, we should remember that we can only make the world a better place for our children by doing the right thing. Here is the list of things that your Bayside NY Divorce Lawyer can do to bring you justice:

Filing for Divorce

Classified as fault-based divorce, the victim in a marital relationship can file a divorce agreement at the court even if the other party is not willing to go ahead with the process.

Your lawyer will help you draft such a document that is not only strong and clear but also gives you an advantage once the divorce has been finalized. If the opposite party does agree to separate, your lawyer will there ensure that all proper procedures are followed and you are getting what you deserve out of the marriage.

Housing Rights and Financial Security

Are you afraid that you and your children will have nowhere to go if you leave your partner? Unfortunately, this is a very common fear that people in powerless marriages face.

But don't worry! A divorce attorney can indeed help victims of abusive marriages secure housing rights and financial security - by negotiating fair alimony, property rights, and suitable child support depending on your partner's present income. This will help you gain some time to build your independent future.

When the abuse is proven in court with evidence of considerable physical or psychological damage, the judge can grant you fair compensation which the perpetrator will have to pay.

Custody and Safe Visitation

As a parent, you undoubtedly want your child to be kept as far away from scary memories of an unhappy home. To stop any chances of further coercion, physical mishandling, or verbal abuse, your Whitestone divorce lawyer can push for limited visitation rights. If you are spouse has ever been violent towards the children, you can even request visitation only under authority supervision!

Final Thoughts

A legal counsel can provide invaluable and urgent support to those suffering from abuse, including the taking of many proactive steps. Divorce lawyers Bayside NY, with their years of experience, can provide many unique solutions to further safeguard the interest of clients to approach them. They help you navigate the complexities of the legal system, ensuring your safety and securing your rights. With their dedicated assistance, you can find the strength and resources needed to move towards a safer, more hopeful future.

Name Address Phone Number(NAP)

Name: Pollak & Slepian L.L.P Address: 214-08 41st Ave, Queens NY 11361 Phone Number: 7182291904

#Bayside Attorney #Bayside Divorce Attorney #Divorce lawyers Bayside NY #Whitestone Divorce Lawyer

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