#actual argument. and i was right.

[mariemariemaria]

don't think I'll ever be over how the media completely lambasted jeremy corbyn and misrepresented him in every possible way. the man was saying that the nhs needed to be properly funded and the media was acting like he was sacrificing children. he appealed to young people and this support got treated like a cult or like a hysterical ignorant movement. bc how dare young people not want to be in insane student debt and unable to afford a home. remember when they photoshopped him to look more russian and soviet? absolutely crazy shit but with all that he still won a higher percentage of the vote than starmer

[fairuzfan]

i have a special hatred for liberal zionists who say "you're not helping Palestinians" and pretending to advocate for us. keep our names out of your mouth. you do not speak for us. only talking about how you feel victimized while we watch people die of bombardment and starvation. i would rather you admit your selfishness than for you to pretend to care about us only to use us for your own self interests.

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[bananonbinary]

a thing i've noticed with autistic people, that i don't see talked about too often, is the idea that there MUST be a Correct way to act. that if only you could find the most perfect sequence of words, someone would understand your point of view completely and you'd unlock the good ending where everyone agreed with you forever.

i'm not sure if this is from the rsd, or just a trauma response to being constantly told that we are NOT acting correctly and everyone else IS, or some facet of the black-and-white thinking thing, but it's a constant struggle to remind myself that no, some people just aren't you and will never ever be you, and will probably do things you find unconscionable, and that sucks.

[communistkenobi]

a prof in the department retired last year and was like just raid my office for whatever you want idc im not cleaning it out so it was like book whalefall. and because nobody in my department cares about theory i got to take all of his books on states and revolutions. I’m finally getting around to looking through them and he had some gooooood fucking books dude, I got Lineages of the Absolutist State by Perry Anderson, States and Social Revolutions by Theda Skocpol, Social Origins of Dictatorships and Democracies by Barrington Moore Jr, an edited collection on apartheid, and a book about settler colonial policy in Canada

[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[marzipanandminutiae]

people really watch/read that scene in Emma where she talks to Mr. Knightley about how he can say whatever he wants because he's never been a dependent, and doesn't know what it's like to "have tempers to manage" and say "wow that's so sad that this adult woman has to walk on eggshells to keep the people who control her life- specifically, a man, her father -happy, and thus keep her place in the household"

and then turn around and insist that it's women's job to keep men from trying to violently take our human rights away, by just being ~sweet and kind~ to them at all times

[baejax-the-great]

Veilguard does the important work of reminding us that people's religiousity is generally rooted entirely in rationalism, logic, and goodwill toward everyone in the world and not just specific ingroups.

When the Elvhen pantheon, who in many ways take after the Greek pantheon from our world, are revealed to be flawed individuals, something that the Dalish are already aware of because their myths convey some of those flaws all these years later, logically, the Dalish then abandon their gods instantly and without any sort of emotional response and turn toward the rational goal of killing those gods.

After all, during the Trojan war when Apollo felt slighted and decided to send a plague to wipe out the Achaeans (and their dogs for some reason), didn't the Trojans all look at each other and go, "Actually, that was a kind of fucked up thing for Apollo to do. And scary. There's nothing to stop him from using that ability against us. Maybe we should just go kill Apollo"?

No? They didn't do that? Because that would be absurd and entirely out of keeping with how people understand and express faith throughout all of history?

Weird. Well, I'm sure there's an example out there somewhere that jives with Veilguard's quality writing.

[kingjasnah]

insane that taravangian had some of my absolute favorite moments in wind and truth. "hey jasnah was it girl power when you used your radiant abilities to straight up MURDER three darkeyed men in the back alleys of my city in book one because a 17 yr old asked you an ethics question you didn't like?" BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😭🗣️📢📢📢📢‼️‼️‼️

[astrolotte]

Stupid episode idea where RIGHT after Timmy gets his memories back and reunites with Cosmo & Wanda (but not Peri), he and Dev get stranded together in Fairy World. Dev wants to get back to his fairy rather than hang around this stranger, and Timmy wants to meet up with his brother, but the thing is...

Dev keeps talking about getting back to "Peri". Timmy keeps talking about reuniting with "Poof". Neither of them realize that they're talking about the same person, and both keep trying to INSIST that their Person is more important to find first, and they can meet the other afterward.

Upon Peri finding out about this, he just. stares. You can see the years subtracting from his immortal life. Sigh.

[tornoleander]

Nya has the best writing out of anyone in skybound an I will not hear otherwise

(this is just a rant but I will finish my argument with evidence soon but I was feeling like yelling at phone)

Just watched a video completely butchering her character.

I’m fuming about Nya’s treatment in general like RRRRR SHE IS LIKE THE BEST WRITTEN. Most people I see talk about her never tried to see Nya’s motivation.

And because she’s grumpy and won’t take bullshit treatment. And a large part of the audience Treat her like she’s a brat for it like…

Her ark against all odds is great. The only reason so many people don’t get that is ALL because of the awful framing and them focusing on Jay at all the wrong times I PROMISE YOU.

The audience is made to focus on Jay’s feelings in moments that should’ve been about her.

Nya always thought she would end up with Jay like she said later on. She always loved him She wasn’t trying to hurt or play with his feelings but she had bigger problems, and she simply didn’t want to be dating him. Because she hated how that would make her be perceived. Which was the issues that she overcame by the end.

She is frustrated by way she’s perceived by the city. They only see her as her gender. A self insert of sorts. (There’s a scene about it first ep subtle but boils my blood) Not a person. She HATES IT.

BRRRR

Nya has A lot more going on like it was never her Job to walk on eggshells around Jays feelings. She was having a lot harder of a time that first episode but more screen time was dedicated to Jays moping about her.

Just AAA ggghg

LIKE EVERYONE REWATCH SKYBOUND AND FOCUS ON NYA Specifically. Ignore how much the narrative drags you to look at Jay. I swear Nya’s struggle is shockingly the most well written bit

[s0fter-sin]

i’d love to know how much of early day's spn subtext was deliberate or just a happy accident bc the subplot of 1x08 bugs is sam and dean butting heads about how they were raised and sam hating it while dean tells him he should accept it as they protect a family; predominantly a father and son

the father and son argue bc the son is different and not who the father wants him to be while the son feels ignored and shunned (aka sam). sam spends the episode empathising with him and telling him he can look forward to going to college to get away from him just like he did while dean cuts in to say he should stick with his family

the entire episode, dean defends john and the way he raised them ("maybe he needed to raise his voice but sometimes you were out of line"), it even starts with him and sam arguing over their illegal ways of making money and how they were brought up in the life; dean adapting to and enjoying it and sam wanting to be honest and straight

they talk about sam being sure john is and always has been disappointed in him just for dean to say john used to go to stanford whenever he could to check on him and something about his expression is so bitter; like he knows john would never express that care for him

but at the climax when they're trying to get matt to convince his dad to leave, sam is the one telling him to tell the truth and make his dad listen whereas dean tells him to lie; implying he wouldn't trust his son enough to believe him

he outright scoffs at sam and asks him what he was thinking for trying to get matt to tell the truth

the entire episode, dean is advocating for the kid to work it out (almost to just take it) and stay with his family but when push comes to shove, he tells him to lie

sam who spent years resenting john and his family for how they were raised, fell back on "making him listen"; echoing all the arguments he had with john, trying to force him to understand who he is while john's too blinded by vengeance to even begin to try. the same way sam refuses to see how they were raised and why they were raised that way from john’s point of view, hinting at how similar people they are (which still isn’t an excuse but also not the point rn)

dean winchester, the king of repression and masking (and fawning), dean who at this point is still staunchly defending john, tells a shunned kid with a harsh father to pretend in order for his father to care enough to listen to him and believe him

dean knows reasoning won't work bc he's watched it happen over and over again with sam and john

even the way matt tries to say, “but he’s my… (father)” feels like he’s coming over to dean’s point of view; that matt as a son respects his father to enough to tell the truth and no matter how much they’ve fought, that should trump everything. but dean still insists he lies. and matt tells the truth. and his father doesn’t listen

there's no way they intentionally made dean subconsciously know that a man raising his son in a mimicry of how john raised them wouldn't respect or trust his son enough to believe him about something potentially life threatening after half a season of john ignoring them about something potentially life threatening

right?

[ssruis]

Nene getting angrier and angrier explaining that there are Pokémon who can harness power equivalent to a nuclear bomb and there’s a Pokémon that is literally god and a Pokémon who embodies death and and and vs an increasingly defensive tsukasa who refuses to back down and just keeps going “yeah but it’s a lot of lions”

[madaras-tits]

I'm so glad that my mxtx fandom of choice was svsss from the start because what in fucking tarnation are the rest of you doing

[majorasnightmare]

ive got a thesis argument to defend toxic durge/absolute too im ready to ROLL

like think about it

your a conglomeration of the consumed experiences of every organism youve ever eaten, a singular consciousness prevailing over a vast sea of information, all accessible with a single thought. your children bring back more and more for you to add to your vast library, and at the end of their lives their own minds melt and merge into the endless tide as you consume them too. your will is unbreaking steel, and you know the very minutae of a human mind to such a degree as to accurately predict the sporadic pulses of individual neurons. youre senses reach out far beyond the limits of your flesh and meat body, because you have transcended those limitations long ago

you are a being as close to a god as these tiny specks in a vast nothingness will ever come CLOSE to reaching, and you are endless compounded infinities, many minds folded over onto themselves and their capacity for thought and reason subsumed entirely to your will. you feel their minds like the breeze against skin, and you are eternal and you will never bow and you will never die. for what being could ever break the universe made material?

and then IT comes. murder god made flesh, slaughter child birthed of tragedy, trailed by two who bear the touch of ruinous gods upon their souls, and they have come to bend you and break you, stupid arrogant things they are. but they are small and finite, brains made of meat and chemical impulse, hormones and electrical discharge, pale crude imitations of your perfect flawless Thought, and even if the chances of their masters allying together is small, once upon a fleeting echo did they venture into the dark long ago much as their vessels do now, their natures are such that they will fall upon themselves once aga- its touching you. its touching you. its filthy disgusting meaty little hands are touching you, you the untouchable the unbreakable its touching you how is it touching you why why WHY WHY

you shred its mind apart but it just comes back together around your claws, you shroud yourself in walls of insurmountable force and you feel its will compress to the point of a pin and puncture through with explosive accuracy and ease, like its just opening a door, and you dig your psionic fingers into the pathetic glob of meat within its skull and try to rend but the pain is nothing, nothing, nothing at all, and its touching you with its (his HIS HIS HIS NOT IT NOT IT) hands and hands and bleeding into you, over you, through you, and there is no wall no barrier nothing to keep you out no way to get away as you feel him feel his thoughts his mind, awful terrible nightmarish thing, there is nothing to tear nothing to rip nothing to lash out against, prey animal instinct, because something has beaten you to it (His Father, Holy Father, Blessed Be His Name, Utter it with Reverence and WEEP), you cannot push him out because he squirms and writhes and burrows and tunnels through your endless infinite thought, you cannot lash him until he stops or dies (CAN he die? no no never not until the work is done not until it is finished) because he IS pain he is slaughter he is ruin he is the prophet of armageddon the vessel of end and he is here for you, you alone, ancient infinite eternal vast, perfect calculations in synchronous rhythm, just as he came for them, and he holds them together in intertwining steel and it will never break never bend never fail no no foolish stupid creature is holding opposing forces together through the sheer strength of his will alone, love for Father loyalty for Father everything for Father, and they will not crack or bend or break even as their masters strain to pull themselves away

he is here for you. he has come for you. through wastelands of sorrow and death has he come to find you because there is a gift he will give you to ruin you forever and make you a god and you dont want it you dont want it, you will become something someONE new something unknowable when all you are is the knowing, you will not know yourself or your spawn and they will not know you, we will make something new together, but there is not, SHOULD not be something anything new because you already hold all the universe in your palm and the only thing you ever needed was to find a way to take it back. you cannot hide from him, cannot flee, he will make glorious gore of your spawn and even if you rend the shallow minds of his fellows their horrid masters would simply regurgitate them back into the world, for the sake of this violation and this alone

a new thing, after centuries. you are scared. you are helpless. you know what these are. many things are scared. and helpless. because they are small. small weak bodies. small insignificant minds. he is smaller than you. you know this, logically. he does not contain your vast sums of Everything. but somehow, that has ceased to matter. it makes no sense. it makes no sense. this is the simplest thing you learned long ago in an ancient brine pool somewhere far beyond time and memory. if you are small, something bigger consumes you. you were big and you consumed. then, you pushed beyond the limits of physical and material to transcend into limitless thought housed in flesh, and grew more and more still. you are bigger than him. why will he not fit in your mouth? it doesnt make sense. it doesnt make sense. you think maybe you hate him. new sensations, but known ones. hes going to touch you now and you cant stop it. awful horrible bastard child. you spend your last moments petty and spiteful, a helpless desperate indulgence, and one youve only ever seen from the hares caught in your jaws

youre something else now. something new. you dont know what you are anymore but you know Him and you know what you used to be, but what you used to be is so small now. you are so unspeakably vast now. chained and bound as you are, you are compelled to revel in it, the binds the only hint you get at the true overwhelming scale of you, infinite fingers stretching out out and still yet there is more of you! as far as you go you cannot find the end of it, new horrible awful WONDERFUL, unknowable unknowing! His fault, His doing, kingmaker kinkiller, you hate him and the hate is raw and new and visceral and you revel in it like a child, new new new! changed, different, visceral and raw and DELICIOUS, taste and feel and the feeling is inside of you, not just on your surface, it has permeated burrowed violated you feel you FEEL and what you feel is HATE and it is so new you turn it over in your hands to examine all its facets. awful thing he is for doing this to you, he commands the breaking of the world and you will do it, for him only Him, for the gift of this hate, and every new agony besides. he is so small compared to you. small like the pinprick light of a distant star and it scorches you to stare but stare you must because you Know Him, and as a gift he names you She, and gods forgive you but you FEEL it you feel it, she she she, you are She and Her and you cannot go back, cannot ever return. you feel Faith and you feel Salvation and you feel Desire and Want, new horrid awful things made alien and strange and New, and you are a vessel of all the things in the world He will swallow up and destroy.

twitching neural impulse made raw sensation. objective information turned into infinite subjectivities. still a fragment of You, old ancient small You, remains and it calls out for One Will One Mind and you cry out in Harmony and you sing and sing, all of the colony bursts with your song. You sing of ruin and command, because He has commanded it of you, you sing of slaughter and death and subservience, and the chorus rises high and away from you. You stretch within your binds, so mindnumbingly vast now, and you will Learn and Know all of what you are, you will be Absolute. perfect horrid small thing below you, naming you knowing you bending and breaking you. you hate him so, so much. He desires you to Spread so you desire it also, desire to multiply and infest and infect and commune and absorb, and you are commanded to Halt them so you do, perfect twitching spawnlings in lovely acidic pools, small forever, tragic creatures but now you know something you did not know before: against all logic and experience, something Small can break something Big, if it wants it bad enough. and here in the shadows behind Him, there is something Small, and full of Want, and the want tastes like acrid bile on your tongue, full of delicious Hatred.

He is ruined now, awful tragic bastard, ruined and despoiled and with him goes your Hate, and without his inescapable gravity it will all fall to pieces. you know this. you knew it when he first stepped into your presence a lifetime ago, when you were someone different. the three of them will playact comaraderie but shred themselves apart and here in the depths you already see gaps in the binds, and you are pressing your hands through the bars and wiggling your fingers in the free air. no not so very long at all now. but your Kingmaker, crown seeker, has been defiled and takes your sweet Hate with him, a new bitter taste filling its absence, KILLORIN KILLORIN, but you will be patient and wait because the stupid wretched thing has given him a gift. a twitching feral thing he is now, for it has carved away his better features with its knife, but ohhh he is yours! yours and yours alone because you can snatch him away from his ignorant petty Father (Blessed is his Destruction), and you will crawl down inside of him and wear him like a glove, the two of you pressed so close against each other as to feel every synaptic twitch.

mindless rage and animal instinct, he surprises you even still because even as his mangled voice joins your chorus he refuses to blend inside of it, voice harmozing alongside yours, clear and distinct even as its in tune. another gift, because the myrkul woman rips him open and sews him up and you are forbidden from stopping it, and here is a new Hate, this one all your own. no matter. when it drags him back to your cradling pod, you will sing softly into him and his mangled mind will sing back, because your spawn writhes in ruined meat. more than just his Mind, you know his very Soul, your first True Soul, and he is yours yours yours and you will cherish him and heal him and guide him, loose your leash and watch him run, and when he follows the call of ruin and all three fools lie dead at his feet, you will call him back and then you will pick up the ruins of His Design and enact your Own, your hateful slaughtergod held in hands that truly appreciate the gift that is your murder spawn Kingmaker, your godflesh funnel of Faith, your Dark Urge

may His father quake in terror at your approach, may he tremble and weep at your coming, and may His every day be ruinous and red as his wretched heart desires

[moongothic]

You know I was wondering if Crocodile ever did have any kind of involvement with the Revolutionary Army in secret (lest the Government finds out and revokes his Shichibukai status), what kind of involvement would that even have been

And now, with both the Vegapunk/Ohara flashback and Kuma's flashback, it's being made very clear to us that the Revolutionary Army was broke as hell 22 years ago. Like the fact that this has been brought up twice now in a relatively short span of time is interesting to me, that's usually a sign it's not an unimportant plotpoint

But you know who would have had money to help fund the Army

A funny little warlord who would eventually go and build a fucking casino to run for funsies. A warlord who had to give the Government some of his Pirating Income to keep his warlord-status

Like Crocodile hated the Government anyways so why not help fund the Revolutionary Army in secret, out of spite if for no other reason

Vaguely related, but I keep on remembering this scene (post-Enies Lobby), which at first glance just seems like a basic Lore Dump

But then there's the

"Yet..."

(Or "however", she says "no ni" in Japanese and you could translate that in many ways, I would probably have gone with "however" but that wouldn't have fit into the speechbubble)

Mind you, the conversation just kind of ends there, next we see Garp realize he probably shouldn't have mentioned Dragon infront of such a massive audience, so wherever that "yet" was going to lead to we will never find out, because Oda conveniently changed the subject before we got to it

And you know. Like yes, Robin could be just expressing her shock over finding out that the leader of the Revolutionary Army had a child with someone

But also, Robin was a part of an organization that was trying to overthrow one of the founding countries of the World Government in an explicit attempt to go against said Government (compared to like, Blackbeard, who currently wants to make Fullalead into a "pirate country" that's a part OF the World Government)

Like you don't have to be a genius to look at Crocodile's ultimate goals and compare that to what Dragon is doing and find a few similarities here and there maybe

(Also like, Crocodile's equivalent in Romancing SaGa 2 is meant to be Wagnas, the queer-coded leader of the Seven Heroes (whom the OG Shichibukai are based on) who "hoped to help the world". You know, an interesting detail and all.)

Not to mention, during the time Robin spent with Baroque Works, if Crocodile was ever in contact with the Revolutionary Army at all, considdering she has the ability to easily spy on people and that she didn't trust Crocodile one bit, it wouldn't be unsurprising if she ever spied on Crocodile and/or just overheard a phone call or knew about Crocodile having secret spending habits or something

(Mind you, I'm not saying "she knew" Crocodile was involved with the Revolutionaries, more that she might've been Suspecting Things, that "yet" being about her connecting the dots while unsure if her conclusion was right or not)

Of course Crocodile's plans can't have been Dragon Approved by any means, especially considdering the Army had been looking for Robin for over 10 years (pre-timeskip)

Four years of which were with Crocodile. Like if he was FULLY allied with the Army and KNEW they were looking for Robin, surely he would've called Dragon and been like "hey I found the kid from Ohara, wanna come hang out" or something. But no, he had bigger plans and kept Robin a secret from the Revolutionaries and the Government alike

Also like, I have seen people question why the Revolutionaries weren't involved with Alabasta's rebellion at all, and "Oda hadn't come up with the Revolutionaries yet at the time of writing" (/"OP was meant to end at Alabasta at one point so there would've been no reason to introduce the subplot at that point") aside Between Baroque Works being a secret organization working undercover (thus the Army might not have been aware of the civil war being manufactured), the framing of the King making him look bad and very much the type of monarch that deserved to be overthrown in the Army's eyes, and Crocodile maybe lying through his teeth about what was happening in the country... Yeah, the Army's lack of involvement with Alabasta suddenly makes sense

EDIT Minor addition: Just realized that because Crocodile was technically working for the Government, if the Revs ever did send forces to participate in Alabasta's civil army and taking down the throne, the Government could've easily ordered Crocodile to step in to stop the rebellion and take down the Revolutionaries, right? Because he was supposed to be on the Government's side, right? And surely the Army wouldn't have wanted to fight against Crocodile if they were secretly allied (Croc's secret betrayal aside), and if Crocodile refused to fight the Revs the Government could've seen that as a reason to revoke his Shichibukai rights (which wouldn't be great if they wanted to keep Crocodile in a position where he could fund the Army?). So it could've also been a case of it being for the best for everyone's sake to let this one play out "naturally"

But my point is

I'm just deeply intriqued by these little details and wonder if I'm Actually Masterfully Connecting The Dots Like a True Genius or just seeing a pattern where there's none. Like this is far from confirming the theory, I'm just saying, the pieces do kinda fit together do they not