#I'm not even talking about how dehumanization can lead to other kinds of disaster

[lnsfawwi]

Sokovia Accords as Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: the political implications

In reality, NPT is a good thing. HOWEVER, Sokovia Accords isn't framed as an NPT, it's a Registration Act aimed at drafting (mostly) non-government actors. With this knowledge in mind, let's talk about what interpreting it as a NPT means.

NPT exists because the world collectively agree we don't want to blow up the planet in ten seconds in case WW 3 happens, and because nuclear powers and those who can never realistically develop nukes don't want those who could to have them. Some non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) have criticised the inherent power inbalance (ie. super power competition) NPT enforces. In the MCU, the Avengers were the only canon superheroes who existed in the entire universe at that time, the members were either Americans (was Nat a citizen? likely.) - three of which were high-ranking current or former US servicemen- or hold some kind of refugee status (Wanda) in America. Others aren't even humans and one of them is still technically American (Vision). Then, America would, by the logic of a non-proliferation treaty, continue to hold the only nukes in the world because no where does a NTP say you surrender your nukes to the collective supervision and use of the UN. This power inbalance will have repurcussions and it goes against the American hegemony the Accords is trying to address. Or is it the plan all along? You can never be certain in politcs.

Futhermore, unlike the real NPT, America is the only country that is giving up power thus far. In exhange for this power dissemination, the US will want some sort of compansation, for instance, a permanant seat in the committee that makes decisions about whether and when to deploy the Acengers. This again grants them an unofficial but significant influence over the deployment of the weapons. Not to be a realist but if the US is on the committee, there is no way Russia and China aren't. And given the reality of international relations, there is no way it doesn't end up a political power move that could end disasterly. We will likely get another dysfunctional UN organ like the UNSC. [also can you imagine Captain America following Russia's orders? LMAO]

Not to mention a nuclear weapon has to be made by the state, a process that require years of dedication of a large amount of resouces, which means it will come out sooner or later. But look at the Avengers, only Steve and Nat techinically can be characterized as a nuclear weapon in this sense. Even if the state wishes to honor the treaty, they can't. There is no way a state can control individuals from gaining superpower through birth, alien matters, or just being smart, therefore there is no way the treaty can prevent the proliferation. At best it offers a guideline for states to follow should they discover they actually have nuclear weapon. which is kind of funny. In addition, there is no guarentee that other countries, if they have super powered individuals, will willingly surrender them to the UN. Russia canonly has other supersoldier which they hide from the public cus their super soldiers are insane and they have no control over them. Also, does anyone remember Wakanda? This brings me to my next point.

It has to be remineded that the Avengers are, in fact, not nuclear weapons, despite what Tony Stark so crudely referred to regarding Wanda. They are humans (most of them anyway) capable of making evaluations and desicions (again, most of them). The nuclear weapons aren't going to launch themselves when they get unhappy with, say, p*tin. Team Ironman likes to throw around the word 'accountability', but whose accountability? The Avengers have proven to not follow orders/protocols when it counts. What if they disobey orders? If Vision went rougue and ended up killing a Syrian citizen in Lebanon, who would take responsibility for it? The sitting memebers of the committee? Himself? What if the original mission mandate was wrong, Vision could've caused hundreds of deaths instead if he had listened? And do you really think there wouldn't be serious consequences just because there is a treaty that says the Avengers are common propoerty so it should be considered friendly fire?

Another crucial issue is that NPT is built on the promise that nuclear powers will not use nuclear weapons, but the Accords is basically trying to give everyone a chance to deploy WMD, which is in direct conflict with the purpose of NPT.

We are not even talking about non-state actors (SHIELD/HYDRA) and non-signatories.

To summerize, the Accords first and foremost isn't, and cannot be a NPT; even if seen as NPT it simply will not work because 1. America monolopy over the 'nuclear weapons' that exacerbates existing power inbalance, 2. Canon evidence that states won't adhere to the rules, 3. States have no control over the emergence of superpowered individuals, 4. No effective regulatory power and accountability mechanism.

Even in real life we can see countries breaking the treaties. Not saying we shouldn't try, because we should, but the situation with super powered people is different as stated above. The fundimental difference between the Accords and NPT is that NPT is a result of arms race among countries, and is a practical solution to avoid nuclear disater, the Accords is a result of a mix of governmental and individual and celestrial incidents, most of them are not within the power of human control or are the result of the corruption of the exact political body that's trying to regulate them now. The latter is a security issue therefore can be resolved via politics & policy, the former is not. The Accords as a NPT is a pipe dream with extremely undesirable consequences.

[vaixation]

@yiling-patriarch-kinnie

(I hope you don't mind me continuing my replies to you in a reblog instead of the comments but the comment character limit is driving me nuts okay. Also this got absurdly long. Please don't feel obligated to read/reply to any of this my brain just saw "QYZ + YY" and ran away with all my thoughts haha fricking lolrip.)

RIGHT EXACTLY LIKE HE'S NOT JUST A BIG BABY HOLY HECK AHHHGHH. I mean for the love of everything people act like he's just a moron who didn't understand anything / has no braincells at all and that's.... so not true??? At all???? Gah!! Like in the backstory flashback we even see him picking up on the fact that other people around him seem to take issue with him for some reason, for instance. Like he's not just bumbling through life having not a dang clue of what the frick is happening, he's literally confused in the story because nobody ever bothers to explain like......... anything to him and that is absolutely not his hecking fault. Gah. Autistic people are people!! We aren't fricking animals with no agency or brains or anything gosh dang what the heck. It's genuinely so dehumanizing, I've had people act like that to me and it's SO unbelievably frustrating.

Gosh, I love Yin Yu but genuinely he is an absolute MESS. He's kind of a disaster and socially anxious internally and just generally avoids conflict so much that it causes pretty much all of their relationship issues to be honest? I do get communication is fudging hard (again I'm autistic and dang words are difficult sometimes) but he really could have taken a moment to just explain to QYZ that he was feeling hurt and overlooked. And I mean, QYZ literally ADORES YY. He had NO IDEA YY was feeling that way and when he found out he did wind up apologizing??? YY didn't accept his apology even when he did (although to be fair YY was kind of dying and was absolutely exasperated and upset and horrible-terrible-bad at handling his emotions in healthy ways that don't end in him just losing a gasket / absolutely blowing up).

QYZ 100% never meant to push YY's boundaries at all. That's on YY for not communicating them in the first place, like genuinely it's not like QYZ is someone out to try to ruin YY's life. QYZ absolutely loves his shixiong and he would've never wanted to make YY feel so horrible. That's fudging upsetting people just view him as some evil guy who just doesn't care about how anyone else feels, because that's???? Really???? Not true?? Like gosh dang did people even read this story??? It boggles my mind that literally ALL THREE OF MXTX'S STORIES talk about how "maybe don't demonize people because it isn't that black-and-white and everyone is a lot more complex than you think" and then people turn around and point to a character like QYZ and go "yeah he's just terrible" without having... like... ANY critical thinking skills about him whatsoever? At all? HELLO??? I just- excuse me but what??? How can people ABSOLUTELY miss the entire dang everything about YY and QYZ's relationship???

And I mean the idea of poor communication between two characters leading into issues is NOT NEW to her stories, either. (Literally the entire book of SVSSS is all about that, actually.) So I really don't understand how people can just... utterly and completely misread QYZ. It's one thing if they don't necessarily relate or understand where he's coming from but holy frick in that case they need to sit down and back off and not just badmouth him and assume the ABSOLUTE worst of his character??? asfhJdhougOSKJHGLOHJDH

I love both of them dearly but genuinely Yin Yu really needed to just. Actually talk things through with Quan Yizhen instead of avoiding the issues and trying to suppress his feelings every single time. I get it was because he wanted to be a """good person""" - he didn't want to cause issues, or start drama, and he's just genuinely the kind of character who would rather sweep things under the rug than face them. But to have a healthy relationship with literally anyone that CANNOT work out that way. Saying "hey, my feelings are really hurt by what you're doing-" does nOT make you a bad person. If anything it shows a lot of emotional maturity, which YY just doesn't have. Tragically.

Getting your feelings out in the open so that things can be worked through is fudging important to learn, even if you have communication issues, almost especially if you have communication issues. I'm fricking positive that if YY had literally let QYZ know his feelings about what was happening AT ALL instead of desperately pretending everything was "fine" (when it wasn't and he just kept getting more and more exasperated), that QYZ would have actually tried to listen to him and work on those behaviors because I mean he LEGIT shows concern over being upsetting to others multiple times in the story, and what does YY do?

This scene in the flashback sequence -

Quan Yizhen suddenly asked, “Shixiong, am I annoying?”

...

“…You’re…not…that bad…I guess…”

...

Yin Yu could tell he took it for truth, and smiled before finally giving him some encouragement.

“You don’t need to mind them. You didn’t do anything wrong, really. It’s good like this too.”

...

Quan Yizhen nodded. “I think so too.”

Yin Yu patted his shoulder. “Go train! That’s what’s most important. Don’t think about anything unnecessary.”

I MEAN HE LITERALLY TOLD HIM NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT / NOT WORRY ABOUT IT AND THAT NOTHING WAS WRONG. SO WHY DOES ANYONE EXPECT QYZ TO WORRY ABOUT IT AND TO KNOW ANYTHING WAS WRONG OR ANYTHING GAH. If people want to criticize QYZ as having "bad behaviors" then you absolutely must sit down and criticize YY as enabling those "bad behaviors." And to be honest another issue YY has in the story is just... peer pressure? Being an easily-influenced person by the people around him? I'm almost positive that HIS resentful feelings were exasperated by Jian Yu, too, who he needed to really just stop being friends with because that person was SO toxic (I mean even coming after him to try to kill/hurt him, which we know Hua Cheng saved him from). If it hadn't also been for Jian Yu absolutely making literally EVERY SINGLE SITUATION WORSE I don't think Yin Yu would've nearly been upset as he was??? I mean YY's absolute worst emotional breakdown (Brocade Immortal instance- and I mean YY started crying so badly) was caused by this person, not QYZ. If people want someone to demonize on YY's behalf they should just point fingers at Jian Yu because holy flying frick sticks okay.

In an ideal situation, Yin Yu would've had the courage to drop his toxic friend, to explain to Quan Yizhen when he was hurt, and then none of what transpired between them would've been a big deal, they could've worked it out while it was still something super small instead of the disaster fiasco it turned into. It's just really fricking tragic and demonstrates how important communication actually is in a relationship (and also that toxic friends are not worth keeping around, they do so much damage in the long run even if you want to "keep the peace" they are just NOT GOOD FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH, PERIOD; if only YY was a little more assertive and able to set healthy fricking boundaries in general holy dang). So many of the relationships in the story actually are foils to the main one, you know?

Like Pei Ming + Xuan Ji's relationship being all about possessiveness / obsessiveness over another person, which is contrasted by HuaLian's relationship based around respect and devotion instead of possessiveness. Or like Beefleaf / ShuangXuan, where LITERALLY EVERYONE INVOLVED let their emotions get the better of them in one way or another (Shi Wudu with his selfish desire to """protect""" aka control his sibling at any cost, no matter how anyone else felt about it, including said sibling, and was willing to hurt others as long as he got HIS way; Shi Qingxuan with choosing their brother over doing what was right- literally sided with corruption over justice despite being such a defender of the latter up until this point just because this was their sibling; and He Xuan with choosing his revenge and anger and hatred over a possible future of love and new beginnings with Shi Qingxuan).

Or even the dynamic between Bai Wuxiang / White-Clothed Calamity / White No-Face and Xie Lian, how BX really fricking hardcore fails with figuring out how to actually have a meaningful relationship with someone literally at all. You can write an entire essay on how much of a disaster HE is holy hecking heck. Literally almost every other relationship is a straight-up foil of "what makes an unhealthy relationship and why they don't work out vs. what HuaLian is doing in comparison and why they DO work out as well as they do."

I just - l really don't get how people can just look at QYZ and single him out and go "yeah that one's a meanie." Like I mean come on?? If they're gonna be like that then 100% they have to point to EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHARACTER AND CALL THEM AWFUL TOO BASICALLY. There's very few fricking characters in this story who don't fudging hurt someone else, either by accident or intentional. Kind of... the... entire POINT of TGCF is that everyone is human and we all frick up in some way or make mistakes and that's just a PART of being human. You can't point to QYZ and demonize him and his intentions without pointing the blame at literally so many other characters, INCLUDING characters like Xie Lian who 100% had his own personal issues and straight up almost killed an entire city or so. I mean hello??? I just do not comprehend how people could miss the ENTIRE point of the story??? I feel like Yushi Huang is maybe the only character that doesn't get someone else hurt in the story other than herself to be really honest?? (I mean even Guzi unintentionally got Qi Rong wiped out in the end, too?? I know Guzi is a kid who didn't mean that and didn't have any agency over what Qi Rong chose to do but like in the same way, not to compare QYZ to a child, but rather that - YY had his own hecking agency as an adult and QYZ isn't responsible for YY's inability to communicate with him.)

I do really like QuanYin a lot, but one of the reasons I like the pairing is the thought of what could've happened AFTER canon- that they actually take the time to work on their communication issues, something we don't really get to see on screen because admittedly it feels like QuanYin sorta got shoved to the side with everything else going on (and to be honest I felt like a lot of characters had this happen to them, like Beefleaf / ShuangXuan or like- Lang Qianqiu who just hecking went MIA for basically the whole story after his arc was done lolrip). And I DO think their entire dynamic is just super interesting though, but as it stands in canon there's a lot of issues that just need to be. Voiced. And worked on. And I really like the idea of them healing + working through their issues (in a similar vein to SVSSS, how it has a heavy focus on the main couple "learning together" how to be better to each other). And it IS kind of important for YY to have a decent dose of resentment because it's part of what allows him to come back as a ghost after Jun Wu hecking kills him with the cursed shackle, and that resentment wouldn't be there if it wasn't for everything that happened- like I find their entire arc so fascinating and compelling and really interesting and well-written/explored in a way that's just really engaging and investing, but. I do super super super fudging wish she had just. Devoted at least one bonus chapter to their post-canon dynamics, exploring their relationship in a healthier manner? Like gah if there's one complaint I have about TGCF it's that it feels like there's a lot of loose ends and how vaguely QuanYin's arc ended (and that you get just a tiny glimpse of the fact YY is still around in the extras) sort of drives me actually nuts oh my gosh. ghhhJJDJh

fhjgslhjlGDJHDLJHlkdgj Well. Anyways somewhere along the way I think I got distracted and rambled a ton and just everything because I cannot sleep right now. I should be asleep right now. It's fricking 5 AM for me and my brain is hyperfixating on TGCF and QuanYin thoughts instead and I can't sleep because my brain won't leave me alone and your post just happened to be the post that made me go hogwild all over it so I'm sorry for this giant ramble. Again you don't need to read + reply to any of this I'm just bjkvhldjfhhhfdjfjhdhf I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT QUANYIN AND TGCF AND MXTX'S THINGS IN GENERAL AND I'M JUST GONNA GO FACEPLANT INTO A CORNER NOW AND SCREAM ABOUT QUANYIN FEELS GOODBYE,,,,,,,,,,,,,..... HAVE A GOOD DAY IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR WAUGH.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning I personally do think Yin Yu actually cares about QYZ and didn't just hate him + have resentment for him. I mean literally there are so many instances that prove he does care in the story. I just think their relationship is wildly complicated emotionally (which is part of what makes it fascinating to me) and they've got a lot of work to do to make it work out. (Similarly to how I feel about Beefleaf / ShuangXuan, which I'm wild for, too. If they have ANY chance of working out there needs to be a LOT of healing between them, especially after the awful trauma He Xuan put Shi Qingxuan through, but.) I personally like the idea of complex relationships that aren't perfect but grow with maturity and understanding over time because people actually work on themselves, like in this case Yin Yu's poor awful terrible-bad communication skills aha. Gah.......... so many Feels for TGCF's shenanigans in general. There's just a lot. A lot to unpack. Just a lot. It's all so utterly fascinating.

Okay, but people hating on Quan Yizhen for being autistic and having trouble with communication and grasping social constructs and not ever considering that Yin Yu ALSO had trouble with communication since he couldn't even tell Quan Yizhen how he was feeling or explain to him why certain things were just considered "bad" by the allistic neurotypical majority sounds a little too funny.

Like I just picture my own friend who's also my senior that I literally just hop around in the same manner Quan Yizhen does with Yin Yu and I think "oh yeah, I'm definitely evil and I'm going to fuck over my senior's life because I'm just a reallyyyy dumb/bad person and it's not that some people have different neurotypes right?"