#Against The Current - Voices

[shakingparadigm]

NOBODY is allowed to be happy and EVERYONE is doomed

[shiikiyun]

I think something i don't often see in discussions about Futa's character is how, if you really take a second, he's kind of a people pleaser

He isn't so in a way like what Mikoto got going on, he does want to be around people of the same interests as him, and you wouldn't think he'd care about anything but authenticity if you stayed with the way he behaves on milgram. It is only when you think about him -in- those social circles he manages to get into that you can see him tweaking lol

I think the closest to see this that we have in milgram itself is that one interaction with Kotoko in which she attempts to debate how prisons respect human rights. Any other time he expressed his opinion/stance on things he was aggressive and maybe condescending to the rest because they disagreed with him, but the second someone agreed? Whole demeanor changed. Suddenly he didn't have much to say anymore and he just parroted Kotoko's words back at her. Why. If he has such a strong personality and mindset, why was someone validating his point enough to shut down his otherwise very firm attitude?

Futa doesn't go as far as to manufacture his every word for it to cause a positive reaction on others from the get go, but he does seek validation all the same. He braces himself for rejection by being loud and obnoxious and harsh until he sees a positive reaction and then is when he does a complete 180 to keep the other person in that place of validation. He is simultaneously completely bad at it though, but I never said he was good at people pleasing. Which connects back to what i've said before about his inability to fit in. Even when he thinks he's doing it right and he sees himself getting validation by people he cares about (in the case of his crime, by mimicking his friendgroup's method of "bringing justice" by calling out someone online, that same friendgroup following along and reinforcing the idea that he was doing it right), he ultimately fails anyway and loses it all over again.

In the end, he's just extremely socially awkward and anxious. It isn't in his nature to reach anyone else's expectations even if he genuinely wants to, so he'll either do what he can within his parameters (mold himself for his friendgroup of people he deems similar to him) or he'll avoid trying altogether because he knows he'll fail (what we see in milgram!)

It also shows how his yearn for a support system (t2 qna + mu's birthday timeline convo) isn't particularly new from his current circumstances, or why the only person he could think of when asked who he would want to see right now was his mom (who left so long ago he barely remembers her). He has just never truly had people that genuinely cared for him no matter what he tried to do to make himself likeable.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

your honor they're everything

[captain-casual]

Germany: We need a list of Jewish people’s names and addresses. For reasons.

Literally everyone:

[pilloclock]

Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Keep talking about them, keep amplifying Palestinian voices, keep sharing and reposting and posting, keep watching Bisan, Motaz, Hind and other Gaza journalists. Keep BOYCOTTING indefinitely and keep protesting !

[deservedgrace]

I don't think that framing "Marginalized™️ Atheism/Deconstruction" and "Cishet White Male Atheism/Deconstruction" as inherently ~separate and distinct~ is super effective (and disclaimer I'm specifically speaking about my experience with christianity, atheism, and ex christian atheists/deconstructors), but also... okay so I was raised in a cult, and cults are oppressive for all its members. Nobody gets out unscathed, everyone experiences the abuse tactics, everybody is a victim. But within the cult there is a hierarchy, and cishet white men are at the top. So while the cult is oppressive to everyone, and everyone is harmed in some way, it is also uniquely oppressive to queer folks, to BIPOC, to disabled folks, to women, etc etc. And the thing that happens to some of those cishet white men is they leave an oppressive cult, where they are considered the "default", and they go into the ~real world~, where they are also considered the "default", and even in atheist/deconstruction spaces, their bodies and experiences are often the leading voices.

The men that leave go from an oppressive patriarchal culture to a far less oppressive (to them) patriarchal society. The white people that leave go from an oppressive racist culture to a far less oppressive (to them) racist society. The people that leave go from an oppressive culture that does not value marginalized voices to a different, less oppressive culture that also does not value marginalized voices. And if you personally do not experience [xyz] oppression, it can be difficult to even realize there are things surrounding that you have to deconstruct unless you listen to the voices of the oppressed. But some cishet white men go from being considered the "default" in an oppressive culture, to being considered the "default" in a less oppressive culture (to them). Their experience of "overcoming systemic oppression" comes from leaving the church, and it can be really easy to fall into the trap that the church, specifically, is the sole oppressor and enemy of everyone.

Of course this doesn't happen in every single case and it's also not exclusive to cishet white men. But those blind spots are why I think it's important for everyone to listen to a variety of voices when they're deconstructing, especially if those voices are talking about oppression you wouldn't have experienced firsthand.

No, our deconstructions are not inherently different, but the experiences and circumstances prior to it often are. It's okay to acknowledge that and beneficial for everybody to listen to each other's experiences.

[and-then-the-dragons-arrived]

Dear Mutuals / Tumblr Users,

I am in need of finding new music to listen during work. You most certainly know some underappreciated singers or bands that deserve more recognition. So let's play this game:

Reblog this post and tag 3 songs that you're currently obsessing over.

Rules:

NO JUDGING. If the song you're obsessing over right now is not the music type you usually listen to, still tag it. Also, if someone tags a song you find bad, don't judge their music taste.

ORIGINAL MUSIC ONLY. We may do covers in another post but for now I want to get to know bands/singers making original songs.

JUST 3 SONGS. If you have more on the list right now, choose 3 you most want people to listen to.

I'll put mine in the tags.

[blacknovelist]

(one piece wano arc spoilers)

So like @guardianlioness and I were talking about one piece and thematic stuff and generally losing our minds and we were talking especially about like

How Zoro and Sanji and Luffy are a Trio but also how Zoro and Sanji are explicitly also painted to be a duo to Luffy, right, like. They're the "Wings of the Pirate King". Together, they protect and look after the crew, but also their captain. They are, effectively, equals in what they do, "official" roles IN the crew itself aside. Zoro, with his high physical power as their physical defense and Sanji, with his high empathy and compassion as an emotional bulwark

And

Like

Okay. Here's the thing. Here's the proverbial problem. Cause right now, as it stands, Oda's introduced an unbalance to the duo. We were specifically talking about how frustrating it kind of is that the imbalance exists.

Because Oda gave Zoro conqueror's haki. He and Luffy share this— but it leaves Sanji as an odd one out. Thematically, it makes no sense to end with this like... off kilter seesaw. Why would you build these two up to BE on even standing only to take that away from them? Don't get me wrong, Zoro having conqueror's haki is a delicious character choice that I think adds fascinating complexity to Zoro and his position in the crew. He's a powerhouse, he's exerting his will over reality, and he follows his Captain the future Pirate King without question. Haki. Love it. Brilliant. But it makes no sense in the overarching thematic line between him and Sanji in regards to Luffy.

Giving Sanji conqueror's naturally wouldn't fix the issue, because frankly that defeats the entire purpose OF the char building that's been established in whole cake island. Sanji rejected the line of noble, of royalty, of power. It makes no SENSE for sanji to have it, he's not someone looking TO conquer or overcome the way Zoro is, it doesn't FIT him. And saying the stuff with his raid suit and the Germa augmentation rearing its head is the balance point is nonsensical for the same reason. Sanji already rejected all of that power and what it means and reclaimed it in a new way. Explicitly, directly, he denounced these things, directly ASSOCIATES them with a loss of humanity and his very self, wants nothing more to DO with it. Not only does it not make sense, but going back on it would be a slap in the face to all the development Sanji's gone through up until now, even laying aside the fact that it doesn't parallel Luffy at all so the unbalance isn't really addressed in that case.

But you know. Conqueror's Haki isn't the only thing Luffy has to proverbially offer. Conqueror's Haki is the overt, the direct, the loud and forceful. There's a lot we don't understand, between the stuff we do. It bears down and exerts over reality, makes demands of it. It tells you to listen.

What do we know about The Voice Of All Things? Not a lot. We know it seems to enable one to hear not the words, but the intention, the truth of other living things and even in objects, especially those with will like the Poneglyphs. We know Roger had it, Zunesha has it, the Kozuki line seemed generally to have it. The Three Eyed tribe may be capable of awakening it in themselves. We don't know if it's purely something you're born with or not. We don't know what it means, if anything, except for this: to hear the voice is to listen to the world around you and understand its heart.

When Luffy enters Gear 5, the only one who can tell at first is Zunesha. Zunesha can hear his heartbeat, and conveys this through the Voice to Momonosuke.

The anime conveys it more clearly, but it's in the manga text, too. Immediately after Zunesha realizes this... Onigashima is shaking. No one quite knows yet what's going on, other than Kaido is here and the world around them is trembling. Those on the battlefield, they've got front row seats to witnessing the transformation, what comes next.

Zoro and Sanji have finished their fights. They're conked the fuck out post battle, like usual... or they should be. But here's the thing. Right after Zunesha calls for Joyboy, from a room distant to the fighting, offset from the war waging outside...

Sanji's part in the major battles is over by this point. If they wanted to emphasize a "the crew knows their captain" moment, why not showcase the other strawhats too? The ones not on ground zero? But it doesn't show anyone else. It focuses. on. him.

Sanji, who's a deeply compassionate and kind man. Sanji, who stopped and paid attention even to the biological relatives he couldn't stand when he could've walked free without a care. Sanji, with his skills in Observation, in already listening to and feeling out others' intentions...

Zoro having conqueror's haki doesn't make sense on its own. It unbalances the duality of the Wings of the Pirate King. But give Sanji the power to hear the Voice Of All Things or something damn well close... that's a pretty good parallel to each other and their roles to Luffy, don't you think?

[arolesbianism]

Despite how much I suffered making my last isat au Aris sprite redraw, I decided to do it again and once again went through hell doing it. There’s like a billion mistakes in this (such as her having the wrong arm rip) but at the end of the day I’m still happy with how it turned out :]

[notyourtoday]

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[hinamie]

i think kotori love live could beat sukuna in a fight so she gets 2 b my icon now

[beeseverywhen]

"All political parties face a trade-off under a first-past-the-post electoral system. Governing depends on attracting a broad coalition of voters, inevitably involving compromises that leave a party’s base disgruntled.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that as we move closer to a general election, the discontent from the anti-Labour left who claim there is little to distinguish Keir Starmer from Rishi Sunak in the battle for the premiership is only getting noisier."

"The argument is threefold: there’s no meaningful difference between the Conservatives and Labour; Starmer supposedly can’t be trusted because he has dropped pledges he made in the 2020 leadership election to shift his party towards the centre; finally, the “Tories are toast” and Labour can’t lose, so disgruntled left voters can safely vote for other parties, such as the Greens.

With Labour so far ahead in the polls, the urge to debunk these sentiments may seem like an expression of paranoia. But all three aspects of this narrative are comprehensively wrong, including the reassurance that it is safe for anyone who would prefer a Labour government to vote for another party in Labour-Tory contests."

"But what this underplays is the number of Labour-Tory marginals where a relatively small vote for other left candidates could cost Labour a win. James Kanagasooriam, of the polling company Focaldata, has written about the “sandcastle” nature of Labour’s likely majority; his forecast is that there will be many more marginal seats in the 2024 parliament compared with 2019. If more than predicted numbers of those who voted Green in the locals decide they can afford to do so in the general election because Labour is so far ahead in national polls, that will boost the Conservatives.

Next up is the idea that Starmer’s dropping of some of his leadership pledges makes him dangerously untrustworthy. But this is the product of a system in which the tiny unrepresentative slice of the electorate that is a party membership pick their leader before voters choose their prime minister. Anyone hoping to be PM would have to shift position between a leadership selection and a general election: a Labour leader’s most important job is to connect with potential voters, not to coddle members with the comfort blanket of a policy platform such as the “free broadband for all” 2019 pledge that was roundly rejected.

Liz Truss provides a cautionary tale of what happens when a party leader seeks to impose a membership-endorsed platform on the country without a general election. For Starmer to have stuck to his 2020 leadership election pledges, instead of spending the past four years understanding voters, would have been fundamentally anti-democratic.

The most egregious aspect of the anti-Labour left argument is there isn’t much to choose between Starmer and Sunak. Yes, Labour’s “Ming vase” election strategy has seen it take a much more cautious fiscal approach than many of us would like: it has effectively adopted the Tory macroeconomic worldview and with it a set of spending constraints that no one sensible thinks either party could stick to in the wake of the election.

That is frustrating for anyone hoping this election campaign may illuminate some of the tough trade-offs facing Britain; but it would have been incredibly risky for one side to go it alone on this. The alternative is Labour walking into the trap and handing the Conservatives a “Labour tax bombshell” election campaign.

From a commitment to scrap the Rwanda plan to making clear that in an ideal world Labour would discard the two-child benefit cap, there are plenty of reasons that it is preposterous to think that a Starmer government would make the same trade-offs as successive Conservative governments that have financed billions of pounds worth of tax cuts for more affluent families by cutting tax credits and benefits for low-income parents. The six pledges Starmer launched two weeks ago may be incremental, but Labour needs voters to believe they are deliverable, and they are indicative of a very different set of priorities than those that animate Sunak."

"Starmer is not without weaknesses, as shown by the days he took to clarify an interview last October in which he gave the impression he thought Israel had the right to withhold power and food from Gaza. But there is no doubt whatsoever he would make a vastly more compassionate and competent prime minister than Sunak. To encourage people to put that outcome at risk by casting a protest vote against a Labour government that does not yet exist is perhaps the ultimate form of luxury belief campaigning."

[mokeonn]

So I heard that Tumblr is slowly being abandoned (they seem to be laying off a majority of their staff and keeping a skeleton crew) and we might be nearing the end of this webbed site. I don't think it's currently worth panicking over, but I'm definitely going to start making that neocities website.

I'll make a post soon about other places where you can find me. Unfortunately, I've spent quite some time these last couple years getting rid of a majority of my social media because most platforms were bad for my mental health. I do not plan on going back to these platforms, so if tumblr goes down, I'm going to be only on non social media.

Maybe if one of the new social medias being created, actually take off (like bluesky or pillowfort or whatever else these days) I might join, but if not I might be entirely on personal websites, patreon (I will start posting regularly like a blog and make more free posts), some old websites I deleted but not because I hated them (such as ko-fi, which I deleted due to inactivity) and possibly furaffinity. I'm still on the fence about furaffinity. I might also finally start using my toyhouse but that is an oc sharing website and not much of an art sharing website.

I really do hope Tumblr doesn't go down, this is my one social media and if it does go down I am going to lose nearly all of my audience. I can make do by creating a personal blog and using whatever I have left in terms of "can post my art there and people can find me", and it won't discourage me from making my personal projects. I can make do, and I will make do, but I don't really want to make do.

Anyways, that's all I have to say right now, I'll make a post later once I set up some alternative sites to find me at, but for now I want to give the heads up that if I'm gone, you're not gonna find me on twitter, Instagram, or whatever third option there is. I'm likely going to just make do, be offline more, and likely just become active on the discord servers I'm on.

[gentlethorns]

you know what? i'm gonna say it. i miss being seventeen. not for the "glory days," bc they weren't, by a country mile lol. if i had glory days i'd say they were in 2020. but i miss the electricity, the constant undercurrent of euphoria and deep plunging black. i miss the fight i had. i was literally known for being scrappy. i was self-destructive and coping poorly, but goddamn if i didn't burn bright and long. it took me until my twenties to finally start to fizzle out. does the candle with its wax melted down to the base of its glass cage miss when the wick was lit?

[pilloclock]

FREE FREE PALESTINE please watch in full

Keep boycotting, keep protesting, keep amplifying Palestinian voices, keep sharing and posting and keep dismantling Israel’s lies and propaganda. If you pray pray for Palestine, Sudan and Congo and always stay on the right side of history

[the-commonplace-book]

wow fuck sag-aftra for screwing over video game voice actors