#Perpetual Revolution

[lovelymimic]

In 744, the giant dragonflies of this village deposed the mayor and abolished all hierarchy, becoming an anarchist commune devoted to principles of anarchy and defending larvae.

17 years later, the villagers deposed... themselves... and abolished hierarchy again, an apparent double-negative that accidentally enshrined hierarchy as one of their guiding principles despite still being anarchists. Double anarchists, even!

This feels like a bug? If it is, it's an entertaining one.

[specialagentartemis]

I do have Sevika character thoughts though, and I'm really interested in where season 1 leaves her. Sevika is loyal to Silco, but doesn't like Jinx. She's frustrated with Silco giving Jinx such leeway to do What Ever Violence she wants, and compromising his ideals for Jinx, and letting her make trouble for everyone and not doing anything to rein her in. The chem-barons weren't able to convince her to betray Silco for that, but the fact that she's near boiling over with frustration over this state of affairs was obvious to them!

Sevika believes in Silco's goals and grudgingly tolerates Jinx for that. Jinx doesn't seem to believe in much of anything except getting to face the world that hurt her and hurt it back. And now Silco is dead, and Jinx is throwing away any semblance of politics to launch a rocket at the Piltover Council, and I cannot imagine that Sevika will have any loyalty to Jinx at all. I'm hype for a season 2 power struggle between them for the remains of Silco's grip over the Undercity.

[pythiaswine]

thinking about how difficult it must have been for Rachel Fawcette [Hamilton] to leave her firstborn behind in order to safely remove herself from Lavien's house. how much it must have eaten her up inside and how there was nothing she could do because her husband owned her and he owned their son and he owned everything that was hers and if she stayed, there's no telling what could have happened to her. And she lost her firstborn son over it, fuck the rest of everything she lost and how people treated her, she had no claims to her son who clearly grew up to resent her for what she, if we think critically for a moment and look at the context and the subtext and hey, let's face it, the TEXT, likely had to do. how women were constantly pitted in the most volatile of situations in those days and how she did the difficult thing and saved herself.

but yeah sure let's reduce her to Whore because that is so much more impactful through a modern lens, like sure let's give her disgusting husband, and every other fucking man throughout history, the glory of successfully making the women they hurt out to be cheating whores. let's tell her son's story by calling his mother a whore every other fuckin song. let's act like "son of a whore" at the end of all things is more of an insult to him than it is to his mother, the so-called whore who clearly had it so bad at Lavien's that she fucking left. do we not realize that by reducing her to that, we let Johann Michael Lavien fucking WIN? i'm sick. so fucking sick to my stomach I hate it here

[number1villainstan]

sometimes i think about it and i'm genuinely surprised that there isn't more gear symbolism in utena

[maneslion2]

So, everyone is just not gonna talk about how Jojo Siwa and her mother Jessalynn Siwa absolutely exploited child actors and their families during the production of Siwa’s Dance Pop Revolution show?

We're not going to mention how Jojo continues to defend and associate with proven child predators and groomers Colleen Ballinger and James Charles??

We're not going to mention that Jojo defends the abusive coach of Dance Moms, Abby Lee Miller?

No? Just gonna talk about the obviously manipulative and calculated rebrand designed to cover up and drown out the serious accusations of abuse of children and their families?

Okay, yeah, cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool co-

[zeebreezin]

Shaw being a Rook on the chessboard is funny because he’s so goddamn raven coded on accident, however it’s really funny to me because despite being represented by a castle, I would argue that a primary thematic of this man is breaking foundations he has built up over time.

[starlit-mansion]

i liked the fact that hbomb pointed out that in the absence of money, social capital still drove copying and stealing. a lot of times, you get the "(pulls mask of bad thing) it was capitalism the whole time!!!" moment in video essays but it really doesn't cover like. the general human capacity to do these things at small scale for no or negative monetary benefit

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

You know what there actually is a certain relevance to horseshoe theory and its not that communists and fascists both have the same ideals or end goals, the issue is that communists and fascists both understand what politics is and liberals have forgotten. With a fascist, we both have an understanding that politics is not about debate or high minded ideals or minor changes in tax code things. It's about power, who has it, how to get it, and what to use it for. The liberal conceives of politics as a bloodless act. The fascist, the communist, and the anarchist all understand that politics is the distribution of violence, and that there is no politics without blood. Which does not put the communist and the fascist on the same side. Who the communist and the fascist intend to apply violence too, who they intend to empower, their methods of applying violence are all incompatible. But it does mean that when the communist encounters the fascist they can skip the foreplay and just kick the shit out of each other with a mutual understanding of the fact that they are doing politics. When one encounters the liberal we have to do this stupid fucking dance where we all pretend that there's a non violent way to obtain peace. The liberal demands that we do not observe their violence. The communist is comfortable with their politics. They say, yes I do want to kill Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. He's responsible for mass death and we should neutralize the threat he poses, we need to violently take his property from him and redistribute it. The fascist is comfortable with his politics. He says, yes I do want to kill all of the racial minorities, queers, and disabled because I believe them to be responsible for the degeneration of a once great society. The liberal on the other hand is deeply uncomfortable with their politics. The liberal will kill POC, disabled, queer, and poor people with impunity in order to maintain the status quo of capitalist global dominance but when asked about this choice they will deny that they've killed anyone at all. They will claim they want all people to live while enabling war, homelessness, starvation, lack of health care, and genocide in order to keep themselves in power and to do the resource and labor extraction necessary to do what they want with politics.

This fundamental truth is why liberals believe in horseshoe theory. They think that everyone should be embarrassed by their politics and everyone who doesn't attempt to cover up their intentions is fundamentally the same. This is also why Communists will say "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds". Because you may have noticed that the people the liberal practically applies violence to throughout history has quite a bit of overlap with the people who the fascist openly admits to applying violence to, and almost no overlap with who the communist openly admits to wanting to apply violence to. When you push a liberal far enough they will admit that. They're liars but they're not that good at it.

[novadreii]

every other man on love is blind: yeah my dad was abusive/never really around/emotionally closed off/didn't bond with me at all. how did it affect me? idk, i mean i guess it sucked but you get over it. so, how much do you weigh?

[thekimspoblog]

Demon trying to feed on my insecurities: "You're a bad driver"

Me: "Of course I am. I hate driving. Going 80 mph surrounded by tons of metal is nerve-wrecking. I try to do it as little as possible. Of course I'm bad at it"

Demon: "You're a bad writer"

Me: "Well that part's simply not true. I never claimed I was the greatest author of my generation, but when I put pen to paper I know what I want to communicate and I usually do it well. If someone isn't impressed with my work, that's unfortunate but they're entitled to their opinion"

Demon: "You're a bad leader"

Me: "Well I don't know about that! I mean there was that one time when... Ok look just because people don't see me as an authority figure doesn't mean... 😠 You know you can be a real asshole, demon!"

[badolmen]

I really feel like some of you genuinely think that if all billionaires died tomorrow the world would magically be a better place. Their wealth doesn’t come with a will ensuring it’s redistributed fairly across the planet - it goes to their kin or organizations of their choice. The systems that allowed such vile people to maintain their status will still exist. 4 dead billionaires isn’t this victory you think it is - there’s 4 new billionaires inheriting their wealth and status. Killing every billionaire would just shuffle the pieces and players, it wouldn’t change the game.

[paopuofhearts]

So I keep seeing this going around and I'm like.

Look. I get it.

We all get it.

And yet many people very clearly don't.

I've had students and adults sit here and tell me to my face that Jews never originated in the Middle East because Palestinians have been there since time immemorial as the only people of that land. I've had students and adults tell me that Israel is a name that was specifically created in the 40s to push the idea that Israel had always existed when it never existed as a concept before the 40s. I've had students and adults tell me all Jews are White Europeans that are only seeking to exploit and control the Middle East. I've had students and adults tell me that the Middle East belongs to the Muslims and they were pushed out by White Europeans and Jews are the ones who have caused American military policies of interventionism. I've had students and adults tell me thus Jews control all media around the world in return for financial resources from major Western countries.

These are from a wide spectrum of people who are indigenous to the US, people who have lived here all their lives, people who have moved or immigrated or sought refuge or sought asylum from other countries, people who have lived in Israel and Palestine, people who are still learning basic media literacy skills, people with PhDs, people who have spent decades doing activist work - all of them repeating this kind of White Supremacist rhetoric because they want to prove they're on the Right Side of Free Palestine.

And you see those exact same posts cropping up all over social media, of people perpetuating ahistorical information and falsifying facts because they think a more dramaticized and extreme story of Israel and Palestine is necessary to bring more attention to the genocide currently happening.

It's not really about "unless you know things shut up".

It's really about "you don't need to be spreading lies that get people killed to bring awareness and demand change".

Because doing that is antisemitic - and antisemitism isn't something people make up just so they don't 'feel guilty' or 'redirect' or 'erase' the opportunity for conversation or whatever else people justify that as in their minds.

And antisemitism is a proponent of genocide.

[moonlit-aura]

while that's true, it shouldn't matter, should it? it's abnormal that people are treating him like he's a character from a new netflix show, or a celebrity (celebrities shouldn't be perceived and treated like this either but that's a whole different conversation i think few people are genuinely ready for). there used to be a time where your full name paired with your number were in a big book alongside so many other people but no one called you day and night.

no one is making anyone dig for this information and it should be on them to not be abnormal about it. this is genuinely an issue on the part of people who make this, let's call it what it is, historical event into a content mine. and they'll move on after a week because content dries up, and no one will learn Anything because they got trained into losing interest the moment content stops jingling like keys.

genuinely, this is the shit that brings any movement down - the inability to Shut The Fuck Up outside of your own circle and this weird conviction that the person - the revolutionary - being punished is somehow different, higher up than mere mortals who obviously can't do anything. yeah sure let's deconstruct his motives, methodology and what the pokedex number of the pokemon from his header mean, and then inevitably let all the momentum fade.

anyone else exceedingly unnerved tho about how much information is able to be found about luigi mangione by just like. anyone. like why am i seeing posts about his spotify playlists and gaming catalogue. his twitter, his book reviews, his purchases. i do not need to know a stranger down to every minute detail and neither do you

dudes not even convicted and all of this is still being dredged up btw. like theres nothing stopping this from happening to you either

[transmascutena]

the idea of eternity in utena is so interesting. initially "there is no such thing as something eternal" is the thought that sends utena spiraling into suicidality, which is understandable, since the idea that everything will end someday is terrifying. especially to a child. especially to a child who just encountered one of the most traumatizing and violent "endings" possible, the deaths of her parents. but then she's shown that apparently something can be eternal. and that something is pain, which is even worse, but at least gives her something to live for. and then by the end of the show it's like. no, pain isn't eternal either. "there is no such thing as something eternal" is reframed as a positive. eternity is Not Good. eternity is everything staying the same forever, never changing for the better. it's the opposite of revolution. it's what akio wants, perpetuating the system that benefits him at the cost of everyone else forever and ever. and no matter what utena might have thought, it is not what she wants.

[sha-brytols]

someone: do you think anders is a good person

the part of my brain that engages in genuine critical media analysis: i think it's disingenuous to label him through the lens of a binary good/evil paradigm because what makes him such an interesting and engaging character is his status inbetween a human with complex emotions and desires and flaws that will never fully align with each other, and the singleminded focus and purpose of a supernatural entity that is literally justice incarnate and has no capacity for nuance and whose very nature is fundamentally incompatible with humanity but the two of them are so deeply connected that they make up a single identity that's constantly at odds with itself and this struggle causes him to act in ways that aren't always clean and often land him and those around him in impossible positions. i think he was morally justified in doing what he did to the chantry but i also believe he understood the magnitude of what he was doing which is why i inherently disagree with the notion that characters like varric or sebastian were wrong in their reactions because that's the very nature of violent revolution—people get caught in the crossfire and are harmed despite their innocence and regardless of the righteousness of the action at large. if someone killed your mom to protect a hundred orphans you probably wouldn't come out of the experience full of love and admiration for the person who killed your mother because regardless of the outcome they still fucking killed your mother. anders destroyed people's homes and lives and there's a conversation to be had about how he gaslit and exploited hawke, his own potential lover, into being an unwitting accomplice even though we know through meta knowledge that he was perfectly capable of doing it on his own and very likely only wanted hawke's involvement because he needed a powerful figure to become the rallying symbol for his cause. the reality is his very nature would have never allowed him to choose hawke and his friends over his goal because to do so would have been fundamentally selfish and antithetical to his newfound identity as one who champions the needs of the many at the expense of the individual. it's a beautifully tragic story about the lengths a person would have to go to in order to enact any sort of meaningful change while constrained in a system that benefits from their powerlessness, and how that process cannot exist without suffering and pain on both the individual and collective level. i also feel like if anders was written by a person with a degree of compassion and awareness for not only the character they were writing but just what living as a vulnerable and targeted minority is like then the narrative and message would have been vastly different than what ended up on screen because, ultimately, the game wants you to look at the stark injustice of a child being ripped away from their family to spend a life locked away in cold isolation where they're at constant risk of exploitation, abuse, death, and even a complete removal of their personhood, and think that there's room for compromise. it's a narrative that perpetuates the myth that passivity and tolerance in the face of oppression is more virtuous than burdening the masses with the discomfort of seeing their own culpability in sustaining it. a better game would have challenged varric and sebastian while also affirming their anger instead of just the latter. a better game would have explored hawke's reaction in a deeper manner that examined their relationship with the system, their own internal biases, and how anders affected their worldview.

the part of my brain that was on tumblr in 2014 and is still extremely petty and spiteful: he should have blown up the conclave while he was at it

[addithevampire]

Every time this topic comes up I’m reminded of a discussion I had in a Latin American history course.

Just after the French Revolution came the French enlightenment era, where French people were churning out new treatises on how all men are equal and none deserve to be subjugated, how they shouldn’t be ruled by a tyrant-king.

Haiti was a French colony with particularly brutal slave treatment, going through slaves quicker than anywhere else, and a population of free, educated black people who were reading these treatises.

These free black people read these works by French enlightenment authors and said “Hey, if you really believe in these principles, set us free and let us be our own country. We, too, are suffering under a tyranny we didn’t choose and want to be free.”

The French laughed and said no.

Because it wasn’t really the principles they believed in. It’s not that they believed oppressive rule was innately wrong. It’s not that they believed all men deserved freedom. It’s that they were against tyranny when it was them under its thumb. They couldn’t have given less of a fuck about doing it to others. They didn’t want the abolishment of oppression. They wanted to go from being oppressed to the ones doing the oppressing.

Obviously this is not on the same scale as this discussion, but the principle of the matter is something I think is the same. A lot of people don’t view these thing as something that’s inherently bad. They just want the bad to be directed at someone who isn’t them.

honestly if you only have compassion for oppressed people's suffering because they are in a sufficiently oppressed class, thats a problem. anti-oppressive activism is useless if it ends up as "these people deserve compassion because they are in the Right Group" instead of "everyone deserves compassion and injustice and cruelty is never okay for anyone". anything else is doomed to repeat the very systems it wants to destroy.