#and it’s not a statement about you specifically just the state of this social world they made and forced on us

[burrowdarling]

Like I Do (18+)

Summary: It had been a rough time for you since the Bengals season came to an end, it felt like nothing could go your way. Instead of letting Joe in, you shut him out. He takes his time showing you what you mean to him the best way he knows how.

Pairings: boyfriend!Joe Burrow x girlfriend!reader

Requested: Yes | No

Warnings: oral (female receiving), praise, dirty talk, feeling down, negative talk, definitely missing stuff so MDNI

Note: Hi! Surprise! This was something that came to mind and I just sat and busted it out while watching the games today. I do still have a texting fic coming out in the morning as planned, so take this as a bonus. I hope you all enjoy! (not proofread, apologies!)

Word Count: 3.2k

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Taglist: @burrowbarbie @definitelynotdomanique @one-sweet-gubler @plushkhiii @enchantedinfinity @iosivb9 @hellsingalucard18 @hotburreaux Feel free to comment or message me if you'd like to be added to the list!

You started the week, feeling like you could take on the world. You made a plan, things seemed to be going well enough at work, it was as if nothing could bring you down from your high. Except there was something and that feeling of invincibility didn’t last very long unfortunately. After the games on Sunday, you could feel it in Joe too. The tension in the household was prevalent, making it hard to keep up the peppy act when you weren’t feeling in very high spirits either. Sure, you were used to your mood sometimes feeling low, able to push through the week while you looked forward to the weekend. This week just felt particularly tough. Everything felt like an uphill battle, getting yourself out of bed, managing your workload with being back in the office, and keeping the house together. Joe had been busy himself with some meetings about changes to the team, putting in long days at the facility and drowning himself in workouts at the gym or film in his office. You knew this was typical for him, but with your current state it felt like the world was closing in around you.

As if the tension at home wasn’t enough, you had to hear it from your coworkers, the guys specifically, about the Bengals not making the playoffs. It was as if they knew exactly what they were doing, feigning for a rise out of you. The feeling of your skin heating everytime it comes up while trying to maintain your composure. You knew Joe tried his hardest to get them to even have a possible chance, realizing other people didn’t think the same way. Your social media was flooded too from “fans” making comments about how Joe could do better than you, he was too successful to be with “someone like you”. Making statements about how Joe didn’t need anyone holding him back, acting like they knew him and his best interests.

It wasn’t just what people said though, it felt like anything you wore didn’t suit you. You were usually a confident person, able to brush off any negativity that was thrown your way. Secure in your style, your personality, especially your relationship with Joe. He always made you feel like you were the only girl in the world. Recently, with him being gone as much as he was, it was easy to feel like he was doing it out of spite. Maybe he was reading the same things you were and was too much of a coward to admit it to your face. You knew deep down these thoughts weren’t true, but they were too loud to shut out. You were getting sick and tired of all of the outside noise. Instead of drowning it out like usual, you found it to be suffocating. It was pulling you into a spiral, one you haven’t felt in ages. You felt like you weren’t good enough, pretty enough, capable even.

There were times, when one thing could knock you down by the knees and make you feel weak. It would shut down some of your defenses, making you more susceptible to nitpicking and criticism. You knew what you signed up for when you started dating Joe, willing to persevere with whatever life would throw at you to be the person you loved. Everything else just felt so heavy that you started to believe some of the things they were saying. If everyone says he’s better off, I’ll make sure I’m out of his way.

You tried your best to throw yourself into your work, getting as head as you were able to distract yourself from your thoughts that were swirling. You stopped putting in as much effort to your clothes, wearing anything you could that wouldn’t bring attention to your frame. You stuck to your office, only being around your coworkers when you had to, which even then you tried your best to avoid at all costs.

As the week went on, Joe started to be around more which made him harder to avoid. Things were finally ironing out for a plan for the next season, making him more available and able to start enjoying his offseason with the person he loved. He knew he was being a jerk unintentionally, leaving early and coming home late to get things done. He knew he had a tendency for throwing himself into things and blocking out everything else, the repercussion being that you were caught in the crossfire. He never meant to hurt you, he was trying to do better and be better for you, more present even when it was hard. With the offseason starting, he knew he needed to make you a priority. The only problem was that it seemed like you were avoiding him.

Joe wanted to do better, show you how much he cared for you and everything you did for him. He knew he couldn’t make up for how he's acted or the lost time together, but he could start now by putting his best foot forward. Joe was able to see how much time and effort you put into making your house a home, wanting to do something nice back for you. He knew how much you loved his cooking, a rarity during the season due to his hectic schedule. He made a nice meal for you, cooked your favorite while he set the table with flowers and candles. He waited by the door for you to get home, feeling like an eternity before you finally walked through the door.

He took in your appearance, your clothing a lot baggier than you usually wore. You had dark circles under your eyes, your shoulders were dropped low and were visibly shrinking into yourself. His heart was cracking in two, not being able to shake the feeling like he was the one that did this to you. If he was around more, gave you more of his attention. He could only hope that thing would go up from here.

“Hi hunny, I made us some dinner. I hope you’re hungry, it’s your favorite,” Joe said, opening his arms to embrace you. You stepped into his arms, lightly wrapping your arms around his waist. It was nothing compared to your usual hug, feeling half-ass and resistant. Joe tried to shake it off, wondering if you were just tired.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just a long day,” was all you said, letting him go and walking towards the table where Joe had everything set. You felt tears well up in your eyes, doing everything in your power to hold them back. You wouldn’t let him see you break down, not when you saw just how much effort he put into tonight. The inner voice in your head nagged at you, telling you that you didn’t deserve this, him. You tried your best to stifle it, to get through dinner so then you could take the time to be alone.

Dinner was mostly silent, your responses were short and sweet to any conversation he attempted to start with you. Joe was trying his hardest to pull you out of this funk you were in, bringing up anything and everything to get you to talk. You silently cleared the table, trying your best to stay out of Joe’s reach. You were aware of his attempts, but you were too absorbed in your negative spiral to truly see he was trying.

“I’m gonna go shower” you said quietly as you started to walk out of the kitchen.

“Can I join you?” Joe asked, hopeful to have some time to reconnect with you. He missed you, all of you.

“I’ll just take one myself, take some alone time” your voice slightly wavering at the direct confrontation, your eyes facing the floor not able to meet Joe’s gaze.

Joe wasn’t having any of it, always showering with you whenever he had the chance to. It was something you both enjoyed, treating it as a way to reconnect with one another at the end of the day. He could tell there was something off with you, having a feeling he knew part of what was happening. You were avoiding his touch, sleeping just out of his reach whenever you got too close.You were making sure to keep your distance, though it was painful to do it.

You were stopped short before you could fully leave the kitchen. You felt Joe’s large hand circle around your smaller wrist, stopping you in your tracks. His touch instantly brought you a sense of relief, you didn’t know how much you truly missed him.

“Come with me” Joe said, sliding his hand down to meet your hand while guiding you up the stairs to your shared bedroom. He didn’t let go of your hand until he stopped in front of your floor length mirror that was sitting in the corner of your shared bedroom. He lightly pulled you so that you were standing in front of him, letting him loom behind you, your height difference evident.

“Why am I in front of our mirror?” You questioned, looking at him through the reflection.

“Tell me what you see,” Joe said, looking straight ahead, his voice coming off low and firm. 

You tilted your head to the side, confused “me and you?”

“No, tell me what you see when you look at yourself” he settled his hands on your hips, his grip tender as he stroked your hips gently with his thumbs creating goosebumps across your skin.

Your eyes caught his in the mirror, feeling more comfortable than holding your own stare. 

“Don’t look at me, sweetheart, look at you. Tell me all the good things you see.”

It was hard to hold your own stare when you were wishing you could look anywhere else. Joe could read you like a book, could tell you were feeling off about yourself. He was always the first one to reassure you whenever he got the chance, this time you never gave him one. It seemed like he was taking matters into his own hands.

“But you’re so much nicer to look at” you said with a light laugh, but Joe wasn’t having any of it. His eyes told you everything you wanted to know and directed your gaze back to yourself, I’m not playing games.

“Umm, I like my eyes,” you said, sounding more like you were trying to convince yourself rather than tell Joe.

Joe lightly chuckled behind you. “Why?”

“I like how they change colors depending on what I’m wearing, I can always make them look nice whenever I do makeup.”

“So you like your eyes, how they change.” Joe moved his head so that he was resting his jaw against the top of yours, using you as a chin rest though his eyes never left yours. “Tell me what else.”

“I don’t want to come off like I’m bragging or anything, not like there’s much to-”

“Pointing out what makes you beautiful isn’t bragging, it’s stating facts. Though you could brag about it all you want, I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“I guess I like my hair, though I feel like it’s too short for my face since I got it cut.”

“I like it short, it makes it easy for me to see all the cute little faces you make or when I make you blush.”

Like clockwork, your cheeks immediately started to heat at his admission. 

“My boobs could be bigger.”

“Your boobs are perfect, they fit just right in my hands,” he says as his hands slide up your front and rest on your chest. You feel his breath catch in his throat at his discovery. “No bra?”

You shook your head, meeting his eyes again in the mirror, “I have felt like putting one on to be honest, felt like extra effort.”

He dropped his hands to the hem of your sweatshirt, looking at you for permission to take it off. With a soft nod, he slipped the fabric over your head, leaving you shirtless and feigning for his touch to be back on your skin. Joe moaned at the sight of you topless, he always loved your tits.

“I want you to see what I see. A beautiful, sexy woman who I get to call mine. It’s not just your outer beauty either, you have so many other wonderful qualities about you that I fall harder for each and every day.”

Joe moved to be in front of the mirror, turning his body to face me. He gave me a mischievous wink before dropping to his knees in front of me.

“I’m gonna eat you out while you watch yourself in that mirror. You’re gonna see exactly what I get the pleasure of seeing every time I go down on you, every time I get you under me or riding me. The one catch is you have to keep your eyes there, if you stop then I stop. Got it, sweetheart?”

You couldn’t help, but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. It was truly a challenge he was posing, one that made your skin prickle with heat just thinking about it. “And how exactly are you gonna know if I stop?”

“Easy, my eyes will be on you making sure your eyes are on yourself.”

With his gaze never leaving yours, he grabs ahold of the top of your jeans and pulls them down, taking your panties with them as they slip down your legs. Joe paused to slip the sneakers off your feet before completely taking the clothing from your legs, leaving you naked standing above him.

“Absolutely fucking beautiful” he mumbled, with his gaze on your legs as he ran his hands up your bare skin. Joe paused at your knees, moving to spread you open. His hands continued up your thighs to spread you wider, the anticipation burning hotter inside of you. When Joe’s eyes land on your pussy, you sink your teeth into your lower lip to fight back a groan, feeling your heart rate increase by the look in his eyes.

“Look at you, already so wet for me.” Joe licked a quick stripe through your center, immediately making your head fall back. He gave you a quick smack to your thigh, pulling you out of your trance. “All for me?”

“Always for you,” you whispered, a sharp intake of breath hitting your lungs when he trails his fingers gently through your slit finishing his pass with a short brush to your clit. Your body felt electric, his touch igniting you leaving heat in its wake. 

Your comment earned a strong groan from Joe in response,”now that sounds like my girl.”

He placed gentle kisses to both of your hip bones, showering you with praises each time his lips touched your skin. It was like he was slowly putting you back together one kiss at a time.

“Beautiful.” kiss.

“Smart.” kiss.

“Kind.” kiss.

"Funny." kiss.

“Generous.” kiss.

“Stunning.” kiss.

You lost track of how many, the praises continually spilling out of his mouth. Making his way across your belly as he trailed his way to the apex of your thighs at a painstakingly slow pace, at least to you. It felt like an eternity passed before he finally had his mouth on you, 

Everything felt overwhelming, it getting harder and harder to keep your eyes open let alone on yourself in the mirror. It felt like his touch was everywhere, your senses heightened. Everything he did felt amazing, your hands were knotted through his hair as you held on, trying your best to stay standing. His mouth was relentless on your wet heat, taking everything he could get from you. It was hard for you to admit to yourself, but you looked hot like this. You had this god of a man on his knees before you, his mouth devouring you like you were his last meal. You let the feeling wash over you, a moan slipping past your lips as you looked down at Joe.

Sure as shit, his eyes were on you, watching your every move. He smiled against your pussy briefly before getting back into the moment and sucking your clit into his mouth. Slipping two of his slender fingers into you, he began to pump them in and out, slow at first and gradually increasing speed. He arched them just right, hitting your spot with the right amount of pressure time after time. You could feel the knot building in your stomach, finding it hard to hold back any longer.

“I’m not gonna last long,” you breathed out, unsure of your voice.

“You don’t need to hold back, come for me. I want to taste you pretty girl.”

It didn’t take much to fall apart above him, his name falling past your lips in rapid succession as your orgasm washed over you. You rode out your high, pulling his head more into your pussy, earning a satisfied groan from Joe at your actions. He always loved when you would tackle what you needed from him.Your orgasm felt more intense standing up, leaning on Joe for support while you gained your bearings.

When you finally came to, you released Joe from your grip and let him up for air. Your hands trailed down from his hair to his jaw, lifting his chin to meet your eyes.

“I’m sorry for how I acted. Everything just became so heavy this week and I know how hard everythings been for you, I didn’t want to put anything else on your plate,” you said honestly, watching Joe’s eyes soften at your words.

“You can always come to me with whatever you’re feeling no matter how I am, don’t you ever forget that. You’re so goddamn important to me.”

You smiled down at him, following him as he stood up from the floor, his eyes never leaving yours as he towered over you. He brought his hands to rest on your hips, pulling you into him to rest his forehead on yours.

“So how do you feel now, hmm? It was so hot watching you, I could see when you really saw it in the mirror. My girl finally is realizing just how much of a goddess she is.”

A new wave of blush crept up your cheeks, you knew he was right. It was hard to admit that this worked as well as it did. You had a new wave of confidence in yourself, knowing you could take what you want, what you deserved. Joe had a way of making you feel confident in yourself, you just needed a reminder. 

“I don’t want it to go to my head or anything, but there was something about having you on your knees for me. Having someone as strong and powerful as you at my mercy was a major confidence boost. I’d want you with less clothes next time though.”

“Baby, I’m always at your mercy, you're my absolute weakness. I’ll be on my knees for you anytime, anywhere just say the word. You were a good girl and listened to me though and good girls get rewarded. Get on the bed, I’m not done showing you yet.”

[sliding-graphite]

I don’t know how many people here are actively pondering the class divide that happens on a global level,

Because I don’t even know how many of my followers don’t live in a place that has a deep history of being a colonizer.

I’ve been just… trying to keep myself away from despair and envy. Over the people who helped make the art and media that kept me living and hopeful for the world and myself.

Staying hopeful rather than numb and dependent on fandom spaces. I falter, of course, and still.

I try to remember this one post I saw here: ‘first rule of being on the Internet is that you gotta have something else going on for you besides just the Internet.’ And I’ve been… uh… not great at that balance.

So to whoever feels the same, AND to those who don’t know what the heck I’m on about,

Those are my few cents that amount to nothing in British pounds, Euro cents, or even USD 0.01.

… but at least when the depression hits, I remember a stream clip from someone who gave me a lot of hope in my early adult years:

“(NSFW joke retracted), it’s been 8 before breakfast!”

[indefenseofjoy]

Being Venezuelan is deeply lonely.

I suppose that being from any dictatorship or any country with a terrible conflict such as Palestine or Ukraine also is. But I’m only from Venezuela. So I can only speak to that experience.

You might be wondering why I am writing this in English. Well, because most people here speak English, and I don’t need to explain this to other Venezuelans.

So… allow me to continue.

Being Venezuela is deeply lonely.

Let’s start with the obvious, less controversial part of this statement. Most people leave. Over a third of our population has migrated. This means everyone, and I mean everyone, has many friends and family members living abroad. Many can’t return. Many can’t leave.  And until 25 years ago, we were the country that received migrants and refugees, not the one that produced them. So we are not emotionally prepared for this. I don’t even want to get into my specific situation. I’m sure it is not the worst, but it does isolate me a bit from my peers, even the most well-meaning and empathetic ones. And I’m sure it is not the worst one, but I hate it.

I also lived abroad for a year. Only a year though so I can’t claim to know the migrant experience. And I was lucky to live with my three best friends. But I imagine it is deeply lonely too.

Then let’s talk about the second, more controversial thing, but not the most. Living in a country with conditions such as ours is quite isolating. It is hard to relate to movies, to TV, to the foreigners you see in social media. Can’t find a film, TV show, musical… about living in hyperinflation, about a week long national blackout not caused by a natural disaster, political prisoners, exile… at least not depressing biopics or dystopia. Maybe that’s why I like Derry Girls so much….

And now the most controversial one. The world has turned its back on us. Our elections are stolen, our media censored, our children imprisoned and tortured, our indigenous people neglected and poisoned, a manmade humanitarian crisis…And whatnot. All of these because we are governed by a dictatorship, not some international sanctions. And some governments have expressed their support, but nothing goes further than that. And people complain that we are getting attention other problems should get, or we become jokes. We have to convince people that we are being oppressed, that we have the same right as anyone to fight for our democracy. But as we are not the perfect victim (and I could go on and on about that) we are on the receiving end of very dehumanizing speech.

And then you compare your situation to the USA were if one county in one state does something slightly wrong it sparks a global outrage. Then our entire country and its diaspora becomes the victim of massive human right violations, we become the bad guys.

And I just want you to compare that life experience.

And to top it all off, before you ask, I do have psychological assistance. And I’ve compared notes with other friends that also have the privilege of going to therapy. And our therapist are also going through this traumatic experience in real time. And they are sadly not well equipped to be dealing with this.

I am willing and able to help educate people on the topic of Venezuela. But tonight I just wanted to vent. So if you have questions or comments I will get to you, but maybe not right away.

[opbackgrounds]

The Romanticism of One Piece V: Personal Freedom, The Idealized Child, and Monkey D Luffy

AO3 Part I Part IV

“God will not have his work be made manifest by cowards” —Ralph Waldo Emerson 

In chapter 507, Oda writes his thesis for the entire series when he has Luffy state that the Pirate King is the freest man on the sea. It’s a simple statement said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but it completely recontextualizes everything that’s come before it while setting the stage for everything to follow. 

When making a close analysis of this entire scene, you’ll notice that Rayleigh spends much of the conversation not directly looking at the Straw Hats. He’s physically turned away from the people he’s talking to, and the framing Oda uses often puts an added layer of distance between the two parties. 

It’s only when Luffy refuses to hear the secrets of the One Piece in favor of having his own adventure that Rayleigh turns around. He looks Luffy in the eye, and…he smiles. Rayleigh had already agreed to help coat the Straw Hat’s ship, but you get the impression that in this moment Luffy’s passed some sort of test, that Rayleigh finally sees in Luffy the same potential Shanks did all those years ago. 

It’s impossible to say if this is the reason Rayleigh came out of hiding to save the Straw Hats later in the arc, but there’s no denying that he went above and beyond to ensure Luffy was strong enough to make it through the New World. After all, there’s no reason for him to spend two years training Luffy if he wasn’t rooting for him to become King. 

It’s scenes like this that make Luffy a deceptively difficult character to write about. On the surface he seems like the perfect shonen archetype: simpleminded, glutinous, with a vague enough end goal to support a long-running manga series. But it’s as you dig into the specifics that he becomes increasingly difficult to define. 

One reason for this is that Luffy remains amazingly consistent as a character over the course of the series. He is both the unstoppable force and the immovable object. He will not be denied once he sets his mind on something and remains unshakably sure in his own convictions. He starts the manga fully convinced in what he believes a pirate to be, spending much of the East Blue saga beating up rival pirate captains for not living up to his exacting standards. While he does go through character development, it is less a change in personality than a refinement of what was already there, like burning away the dross from a precious metal. By becoming a better leader and captain he becomes a better pirate, and at heart, Luffy has always been a pirate. 

I’ve already mentioned the importance of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract to the Romantic movement, but he wrote a second work that was just as influential. In Emil, or Concerning Education, Rousseau lays out his theory of childhood education. He was very concerned with maintaining that which was natural, starting with the infant remaining unrestrained by the binding chains of swaddling clothes and continuing through adolescence with Robinson Crusoe as the only book his imagined student ever studies.

By the age of 15 his student would have learned nothing of history or ethics or metaphysics. In Rousseau’s own words, “You are probably alarmed at the number of subjects I have brought to his notice. You are afraid I will overwhelm his mind with all this knowledge. But I teach him rather not to know them than to know them” (emphasis mine).

It was during the Romantic era that childhood began to be understood at its own separate stage of development, rather than seeing children as very small adults. A veneration bloomed for the innocence of childhood, similar to the myth of the noble savage that was equally popular at this time.

My favorite example of this idea of childhood innocence I stumbled across in my reading was Percy Bysshe Shelly’s strange and unfinished poem "A Vision of the Sea". The poem rather gruesomely depicts a ship ravaged by a terrible storm that’s killed everyone on board except a mother and her small child. There are also a pair of tigers that fight a bunch of sea monsters to the death, but that’s mostly unrelated to the point here. 

Shelly describes the child of the poem—again, surrounded on all sides by death and destruction—like this

She clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee; It laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder Of the air and the sea, with desire and with wonder It is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near, It would play with those eyes where the radiance of fear Is outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high, The heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye,

The mother bemoans their fate and tells the child not to smile. She recognizes that death is near, understands the hopelessness of their situation. She mourns. But the child, still innocent and pure, just wants to play with the tigers.

Is there anything more Luffy-like than that?

Oda has said in multiple interviews, most recently when talking with Iñaki Godoy when he visited the set for season 2 of the live action, that he writes Luffy as an idealized child. He recognizes that as people enter society they lose personal freedom in exchange for social responsibility, so he created a character that truly has the freedom to do whatever he wants.

But for as childlike as Luffy can be, he isn’t actually a child. He bears enormous responsibility as captain of the Straw Hat Pirates. But it’s a responsibility of his own choosing, because he wants to, and it’s not something that’s been forced on him by the world. Luffy’s continued rejection of his Grand Fleet shows how he eschews any attempts to add any additional responsibility he does not want.

To the Romantics, society and civilization were seen as corrupting forces, so anything that stood apart was by default pure. The solution was to be found in nature and the natural. After all, Adam and Eve only fell after eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If one could separate themselves from this knowledge, they, too, could enjoy paradise. 

This idea would eventually snake through Europe, developing as it went, until it landed on American shores, and in the 1830s the Transcendental movement began in the United States. It marked the first true American philosophy, and overlaps with American Romanticism. The central tenant is a focus on self-reliance and an inherent distrust of institutions, which they saw as corrupting of the spirit. 

One of these early Transcendentalists was Henry David Thoreau, who famously spent two years living alone in the woods as a sort of experiment, building his own house and growing his own food, stretching the limits of his own self-reliance. His experience would become the basis for the book Walden It’s here he muses on a great many subjects, and was preoccupied with the artifice of modern society. 

To Thoreau, too much stock was put into material things, with countless people working jobs they hated to support a living that the world told them was required before they could be accepted. The same man was judged completely differently depending on whether he’s dressed well or poor, or the size of their house, or by working a socially acceptable job. People enslaved themselves to the ever-changing whims of modernity and denied themselves the satisfaction of living exactly as they pleased. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau’s close friend and fellow Transcendentalist,  “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment”. And to quote Emperio Ivankov when explaining how they managed to carve out a slice of paradise amidst the hells of Impel Down, “We have our freedom”.

Neither the veneration of childhood nor the self-reliance of the transcendentalists match exactly with what’s presented in One Piece, but in Luffy there’s an interesting mix between the two. While Luffy makes his reliance on his crew clear, he is beholden to no one but himself. He maintains a child-like innocence and wonder all throughout the series, but unlike many characters who follow this template, he isn’t naive.

Luffy has a unique ability to cut through bullshit. He relies on instinct and follows his heart above all else. During Alabasta when Vivi was worrying herself into knots over the enormity of the coming civil war, he maintained a laser focus on the root of the problem: Crocodile. For most of us, as we grow up our vision is clouded by the outside interests of the rich and the powerful. We get so tripped up trying to make our way through the complexities of modern life that we lose sight of what’s truly important. We worry in equal measures over the past and the future, and in doing so miss out on the beauty of the present. Contrast that to a character like Luffy, who is so committed to the present that no future scheme survives contact with his whims, and who remains so unconcerned about his past that he had no idea that he had a father. 

Thoreau makes it clear that he spent two years living in the woods because he wanted to. During the early chapters of the book he says outright that he didn’t want or expect others to follow his path, but to find fulfillment in their own way. For some, this can be seen as selfish, and to an extent Thoreau agreed. He, for example, said he didn’t believe in giving to charity. To him, it was better not to give than to give out of some kind of obligation. 

Likewise, Rousseau recognized the child’s ability to turn self-love into selfishness as they grow into adolescence, and took great pains in describing how he would instruct his imaginary student in pursuing his own happiness without infringing on the happiness of others, by having him empathize with even the lowest parts of society. 

Selfishness in One Piece is often treated positively, and is one of the key traits that makes a good pirate. In order to chase one’s dreams without abandon, you have to be willing to shove everything else aside. It’s why characters like Yassopp and Olvia are never condemned by the narrative for abandoning their families, and is even the crux of the entire Baratie arc while Sanji struggles to find his “spear of spirit”.

One of the most commonly sited examples of Luffy’s self-centered morality comes in Impel Down. He doesn’t free the prisoners or team up with character like Crocodile out of some moral outrage for the despicable conditions of the prison or because of the inhumane torture of his fellow man. He just wants to save his brother. If he could have reached Ace without setting off a riot he would have, and wouldn’t have felt guilty about leaving the rest behind. 

A more interesting example, I think, comes from Luffy allowing Robin onto the crew after Alabasta. It’s easy to forget that Robin at this time had just finished helping Crocodile orchestrate a civil war. The artificially-created drought displaced and killed untold numbers of people. Innocent people, who had personally done her no wrong. While Robin had no intention of giving Crocodile the in-universe equivalent of a nuke, her plans put Vivi and other people Luffy cared about at enormous risk. 

And yet, he says she isn't a bad person. Why?

Well, Luffy’s selfish. He doesn’t judge people by their clothes or their work or if they help start civil wars. Robin personally saved his life twice, and for him, that was enough.

The secret that makes Luffy work as a character is that his selfishness is often exerted in the service of others. During the post-Marineford flashback Luffy makes it very clear that he’s ultimately motivated by the desire to not be alone. Similar to what’s described in book IV of Emile, he’s experienced suffering and takes great pains to avoid feeling that way ever again. He’s very quick to recognize others who are hurting and is willing to fight on their behalf.

Nothing else matters. Luffy’s willing to work with psychotic criminals like Bege if it means saving Sanji. He’s willing to team up with Crocodile if it means saving Ace. He’ll declare war on the World Government for Robin and take on the biggest bounty in the East Blue to save Nami. Luffy lives a life without regret, and in doing so does the sort of things that readers bound by the constraints of society only wish they could.

Luffy doesn't fight in pursuit of systemic change. He’s not a Revolutionary. He helps the gladiators of the Colosseum not because he recognizes the horrors they experience under Doflamingo’s rule but because they gave him food. And he expects to be judged in the same way, not caring how the citizens of Fishman Island look at him, but leting them come to their own conclusions based on what they see. Yet systematic change follows wherever he goes, the chaotic, disrupting force of Luffy’s personality refusing to kowtow to any of the great powers of the world.

This brand of selfishness would be terrifying if Luffy were not so quick to make friends. In searching for his own liberation he ends up liberating others by complete accident. At the same time, the characters who catch Luffy’s attention are the characters who fight for themselves, even if they aren’t strong enough to win without his help. This is seen from the very earliest chapters in the series, when Luffy only intervenes on Coby’s behalf after the latter insults Alvida, or how the Straw Hats only help Usopp fight off Kuro because he’s first willing to protect his village. Even the Revolutionary Army is only interested in helping those who are willing to pick up arms, making this a theme that transcends the pirate-focused narrative. The overwhelming force of nature that is Luffy empowering rather than conquering as he pursues his own ultimate freedom.

With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that the original Joyboy was the first pirate, or that Luffy is his successor. The character of Joyboy seems to be based on Caribbean myth brought over by West African slaves, and is a figure of dance, joy, and chaos, uniting people via celebration. It’s no accident that every big arc ends with a party and that people are brought together by their ability to genuinely laugh and be happy. 

(Credits for this go to this reddit thread. Sadly sources on the real world Joyboy myth seem to be sparse)

While the ultimate significance of Joyboy and the nature of Luffy’s devil fruit have yet to be revealed, Luffy is no stranger to fighting against in-universe religious powers while ultimately taking the form of a god himself. It’s important, I think, that Oda portrays religious beliefs fairly neutrally up until the point where they cause human suffering. Skypiea remains a theocracy even at the end of the arc. The destruction of the spirit tree grove of the Shandians is treated with utmost seriousness. Dorry and Broggy fighting because of their belief in the god Elbaf is one of Usopp’s main inspirations throughout the series. And yet in both a literal and figurative sense, Luffy is God’s natural enemy. 

Because at the end of the day no one, not even God, should stand in the way of progress and liberation. For Luffy, he finds that freedom in his adventures across incredible and impossible lands. This is something that would have resonated with the Romantics of old, as they often found God not in dark, dusty churches, but in nature, and their pursuit of the sublime. 

[communistkenobi]

Kind off topic from your actual posts but I like when you use the phrase “ceding ground” in an argument. I may have said this before. It’s a little combative which is helpful in terms of thinking about what in the goal of making a certain statement or responding to something someone said.

YES!!!!! it has been so helpful to my understanding of the world to think of all discourse as ‘situated,’ as part of and connected to (contested) social and political contexts. speech is an act that does something in the world. It is why we understand saying “I do” or “I promise” is both a speech and an act, not merely speaking but speaking a social obligation into existence through speech. And we also understand that these words are backed by various forms of power - “I do” as a wedding vow is a speech-act, but one that only has force as a speech-act because the church and the state enshrine marriage legally & institutionally. To say “I do” is to get married, to enter into a social unit (‘the family’ or ‘the household’) that is the foundation of many state administrative and economic processes like census data, tax records, wages, urban planning, social service provisions, and so on. 

And in that context we understand that speech is not just contributing free-floating ideas to some public square or marketplace where we all weigh and measure the merits of each one, but that it is tied to and articulates specific visions of power. When speaking of “biological sex,” this is not an innocent or simple ‘fact’ that is being contested; you are invoking the authority of medical institutions that produce this source of knowledge & all the violences therein. You are invoking justifications for eg US political histories of white women being as legally classified as non-labourers and non-white women as an eternally labouring underclass. You are invoking histories of psychiatric violence that insists transgender people are suffering from behavioural, sexual, and identity disorders. You are invoking the rationale behind medical violence done to intersex people. “Sex is biological” is a violent sentiment because it is produced as knowledge through violence.

And of course many people don’t realise they are doing this, they don’t know these histories, but the principle is generalisable and can be recognised by anyone (hate speech is probably the most ‘classic’ example for guys who love talking about free speech, see also yelling “bomb” in an airport). discourse is historically situated & the refusal to acknowledge this is endlessly frustrating. Like the “Protestant work ethic” didn’t emerge from the ground fully formed one day, it was produced in material processes of history. You don’t just ‘say’ something, you articulate visions of power. And “sex is biological” is a eugenicist, colonial vision of power. That is contested ground and not an inch should be given, not in discourse, not in research, not in policy, not in law

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

Thing is, Taika's right. Why should he be expected to comment on everything going on even if he barely knows anything about it? Why should any celebrity? It must be frustrating as hell to constantly hear the demands for comments and knowing if you say one thing even slightly off then you will be shredded for it. Even celebrities who try to advocate for peace and ending violence are slaughtered because they didn't use the precise language their fans wanted them to.

I don't think Taika said anything wrong. There are people out there who really do only have the capacity to focus on one awful thing at a time and that is not a bad thing! Not everyone has the spoons to keep up with every awful thing occurring in the world and they should not be expected to force themselves to, whether they're a regular person or a celebrity. I don't know for sure Taika is one of those people, but after that interview I suspect he just might be. Yes he's uninformed, but he's aware he is and and he's absolutely right about the demands to comment. Fans can be disappointed he's uninformed but he's still right. He shouldn't have to comment! It's not his or any celebrity's job to discuss the state of the world! It's their job to entertain. Why must it fall on them to tell their fans what to think?

I have seen a lot of "let go of your need to defend celebrities" of late and yet no "let go of your need to attack celebrities for not conforming to your exact expectations." You (general) can be disappointed in your fave. It's allowed. But there's no reason to hang them from a public gibbet for it. Be disappointed and hope they learn and do better, same as you would for any other person. Because celebrities are just people. You don't have to agree with everything they say or do but you also can't expect them to do and say everything exactly as you want them to.

(talkin abt this post)

all of this 100%. also there’s this idea that if you have a large public platform you are morally obligated to use that platform to raise awareness for social issues, and like, i don’t necessarily disagree with that statement, but then that idea moves onto the matter of which social issues the celebrities or ofmd blogs on tumblr with like 2k followers should be using their platform to promote. which is a stupid discussion bc the answer should be “the ones you are informed about” but instead people act like celebrities need to be informed about whichever ones are making headlines at the moment, and if they aren’t informed and they aren’t promoting awareness, or even if they’re just not promoting awareness in the specific correct way, then that celebrity is criticized and labeled immoral.

[caparrucia]

I read your post about the Dead Dove Do Not Eat tag, and how you think people should take more responsibility for their own experience in the fandom sphere, and I very much agree with the points you raised. I just have a question regarding this one:

" "But what if I read something that wasn't tagged X?" Well, that's very unfortunate for you, but if it is genuinely that upsetting, you have a responsibility to yourself to only browse things explicitly tagged to not include X."

So, when I'm writing fanfics, and putting them on Ao3, should I tag their lack of things they don't include? Like, none of my fics include self harm, because I'm not willing to read it and even less willing to write it, should I put "#no self harm" in there, for people who have a worse reaction to it than I do and are following your advice?

Not asking "is it a moral imperative" because I know it isn't, but is it something you think would actually help anybody?

So, let's talk about context, because like all great spats in Fandom, this is about context.

Tags are contextual. They're flags that are trying to bring a specific demographic to your fic. Or, conversely, keep a certain demographic away from your fic. Tags are also never comprehensive. It is impossible to tag a fic comprehensively, because there will always be more tags. You can tag for the food that appears, the clothes, the political framework taken for granted. You can tag for gender or sexuality of the characters, even if the story is not about that per se. (See the large number of people annoyed when you write trans characters in stories and don't advertise it widely, despite their genital configuration having anything to do with the story at hand. Hi, Pokemon fandom. No, I will never forgive you the harassment and transphobia.)

The wording in the post, I acknowledge, might appear very dramatic at first glance. But that's because it's responding to a very dramatic, very aggressive statement. The way that certain people weaponize their trauma to try and shut down art they do not like. "This triggered me!" Is a really shitty comment to get, as a writer. Because it's usually a trap. If you extend sympathy, you will quickly find that the person yelling at you about this doesn't want platitudes or commiseration or actual resources to manage their triggers. They want you to take your fic down and remove it from the world, because "it triggered them." They want to treat your fic like a dog with rabbies: putting it down is the only conceivable solution, and no amount of polite rebukes (or, let's face it, annoyed snarking) will get you anywhere. They are not having a conversation with you. They have deemed you responsible for doing them harm (your work triggered them, therefore you, personally, set out to trigger them) and they're not willing to take anything less but the obliteration of your work as restitution.

The response "lol, that's a you problem, if it's so bad, you have a personal responsibility to not read anything that isn't explicitly stated to not include the thing that triggers you" is very mean. I acknowledge that. But it's not a response that comes from community, it's a response that aims to communicate clearly and concisely that you're not available to entertain any kind of overwrought nonsense and that you're not available to be emotionally blackmailed into removing your work from circulation.

Triggers are like allergies. The people that have them have to manage them to their best of their ability, and the people who don't have those triggers could stand to do more to be accommodating, for sure. Current tag culture is in fact the result of years upon years of the Wild West Internet that us old farts are constantly talking about. See, in the old internet, there was no social expectation for tagging. You got a title, you got a rating (not always!), sometimes you got a pairing. Anything else was a roulette. Like literally anything. I used to be in FMA fandom way back before AO3 and tag culture was a thing and let me tell you, the amount of times I ended up mid-incest fic because the initial premise sounded like a cute brothers bonding scenario? More than once. There was no tag for incest. Someone threw a fic into an IRC channel with a generic "this one was good!" and it could be ANYTHING. Literally anything!

Here's where I disagree with a lot of The Olds who whine about The Old Days: the Old Days way of doing fic? Awful. Shitty. Traumatizing, legitimately. I love tag culture. I think tag culture is one of the nicest, most amazing things we as a fandom have come together to do. It gives so much freedom for the author to choose how much they want to spoil/warn form, and it also gives readers so much freedom of choice! It's a great system! Not a perfect one. No system is perfect. But it's a great compromise. I don't think people understand how utterly revolutionary the Archive Warnings are, in AO3. Just narrowing it down to those four! (Underage, Non-Con, Graphic Violence and Character death, for those uninitiated, as well as the opt out of Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings.) This system allows the most widespread triggers and preferences to be respected. If you don't like fic about people under 18 doing anything relationship related? Slap that Underage and the Choose Not To Warn archive warning in your exclude options and you're good. Same for non-con. Or Character death! The way the Archive is setup, this guarantees you will not see fic with that.

That's revolutionary! It's great! We should hype it more.

This is one of the reasons why I'm so testy about the Dead Dove tag. I know the ship has sailed, the tag has changed meaning and it is a completely different function now, than when it started. (This is also why I don't respond to the handful of people who insist that my history is wrong and the tag is useful actually! They're missing the point of the post and also I was there when the tag first came about. I'm in the reblogs of the original post.) The problem with Dead Dove is not itself, but that its a symptom of people - most commonly antis, but really, this isn't a group-specific behavior, stupidity is policy neutral - using tags not to find fic to read or to filter out fic they don't want to read, and instead using them to find people to harass. That endangers the whole system, because people stop using understandable, straightforward tags for their stuff and instead start making convoluted spaghetti tags that only make sense in-group to try and avoid getting caught in the harassment campaign. And that sucks! That kind of behavior should be publicized and blacklisted in fandom. Ostracize people who try to misuse categorization tools as weapons of abuse, and endanger the entire system in the process. Fuck them.

To your point, should you add "no self-harm" to your fic? I don't know! I don't know your fic. Does it make sense for you to add it? Do the rest of the tags in your fic paint a picture that might require that clarification? I think the underlying conversation is that people who fearmonger about their triggers and try to use their trauma to bully strangers on the internet are really very stupid. Most stories don't include a tag about self-harm because most stories don't include any self-harm at all. Same with sexual acts. Or crimes. Tags highlight content that might be expected based on the culture the fic is coming from. If you write fic for the alien incest show (Trigun) and your fic somehow doesn't have any aliens or incest in it, it would be worthwhile to tag it for it. Just because people might expect it! Or if you're writing about depression and spiraling and mental health crisis for a character but very specifically not about self-harm? Yeah, that'd make sense to highlight that.

Ultimately, as the author, you get to choose the tags you put in, and in doing so, you choose the audience you're targeting. This is where the triggers as allergies metaphor breaks though. Fanfic is not a necessity. It's a privilege. It's a gift writers give their fandom and no one in their fandom is entitled to it. That's why tags are optional. That's why you can still rawdog fic the way we used to, and read through "Chose not to warn" And all the stories that have a fandom and a pairing and a rating, and then nothing else. No one's life is being endangered, if they don't get to read any given fic. Does it suck to be excluded in a community space? Sure! But it's not life or death and treating it like such is the source of much of the headaches around this.

Fanfic is a gift. If you have very bad triggers, you have a responsibility to yourself to only accept gifts that are explicitly for you (tagged around your personal triggers). You can always ask, but an author is always entitled to decline to tag their work. And they're not being an asshole for it. Social media has poisoned people into seeing any interaction as a you vs them situation, but the truth is people are just trying to vibe.

[familyabolisher]

i'm sorry in advance for asking you about what was essentially, a small part of a month old jokey reply to a post. that said, what would you consider the implications of the "this world is enough" quote being said by specifically Joyce Messier to be, along with the ensuing "(...) this is the greatest and kindest arrangement the atoms had in them"... it's just that this is one of my favourite quotes in the game and your post made me realize I had been engaging with it in a rather superficial way.

It’s a very beautifully worded passage, which I think contributes in large part to why people latch onto it so much. Unfortunately, it tends to fall victim to the classic phenomenon whereby lines which are rhetorically effective and on the surface appear to articulate a clear and compelling sentiment find themselves isolated from their broader textual context in fan reception & thus taken at face value. The full passage is:

JOYCE MESSIER - "Great bodies of water, forest-covered surfaces... clusters of light where the cities lie. You've seen the montage, we all have -- this world is enough," she concludes.

CONCEPTUALIZATION - It *must* be. This is the greatest and kindest arrangement the atoms had in them.

Stripped of its political teeth, I imagine the idea of a world composed of the ‘greatest and kindest’ arrangement of atoms is somewhat comforting, as a poetic expression of a sentiment of hope and optimism for the world around you and for yourself in turn. However, it just can’t be easily cleaved away from the fact that Disco Elysium is an overtly and unsubtly political game; it’s a game about communism, and it’s a game which thinks about communism in such a way that the sentiment given here is undercut at just about every turn.

We see that this idea of a ‘greatest and kindest arrangement’ is coming in response to Joyce’s statement that ‘this world is enough.’ Joyce, in-game, is an ultraliberal strikebreaker invested with a huge amount of power relative to capitalist hegemony; put simply, she is not someone whose political voice is one with which the narrative aligns. To think about the present condition of the world as ‘enough’—and to respond, as does Harry’s Conceptualisation, with the suggestion that anything else would be less great and less kind than they are at present (such that all failings of greatness and kindness in the present state can be countered with the superlative)—is a sentiment coming from someone for whom the continuation of the capitalist social condition is hugely beneficial. Put simply, Disco Elysium, read holistically, is just not a game which believes that the capitalist social condition is ‘enough,’ and nor that it is the ‘greatest and kindest arrangement.’

Like—the game takes great pains to suggest that capitulating to the inevitability of the present condition only reveals the limitations of one’s framework. Time and time again, the game makes appeals to inevitability—of the fall of the commune, of the expansion of the pale and the consumption of Elysium—only to suggest that it is only by imagining a total rearrangement of the atoms, if you will, that we can prevent it. I wrote in more detail about this reading here if you’re interested, but the long and short of it is: the presence of the anomaly in the Dolorian church guides us as players towards the idea that the entropy of the pale is a construction of Dolorian moralism, which is to say, capitalist hegemony; the fact that infra-materialism, a theory of Mazovian socio-economics, suggests at the defiance of traditional laws of physics in a manner that may at first seem absurd but by the end of the communist plotline is proven possible in the fact that the tower is able to stand up on its own is in turn a suggestion that the pale’s entropy, too, is a ‘fact’ only inasmuch as it exists within the boundaries of what hegemony has termed factual. If the tower can stand, why can’t the world be overhauled at such a fundamental level that the expansion of the pale could be stopped and the Moralintern could be evaporated? This is the sentiment of the communist quest; rather than accepting the present condition of things (the “greatest and kindest” such that nothing else could possibly be better—it is worth remembering that greatest and kindest does not necessarily mean great or kind), the very belief that they could be changed is what allows change to take place. This is the sentiment communicated in Steban’s “In dark times, should the stars also go out?”.

My comment on the original post was just me being slightly glib about the fact that people consistently latch onto that line out of context. It’s a good line—it’s prettily expressed, and it’s certainly helpful for articulating the different political conditions at play in the game. However, I’m not convinced people are engaging with it in a way that fairly accounts for what it does relative to the rest of the text. This tendency to latch onto poetic language at the expense of thinking seriously about what the sentiment in question actually communicates reminds me of what Evrart says of Joyce:

You - "But she told me a beautiful story about the discovery of the Insulinde."

Evrart Claire - "Of course she did. Rich people have the best stories. About all the interesting things they've done and seen, all the beautiful places they've been to. It's just sentimentalism. She can afford to be sentimental -- and she can afford to lose as well."

I wouldn’t reify Evrart as the voice of the working class in Disco Elysium either, but I think this particular line cuts to the quick about how Joyce’s elevated, obscurantist language often makes it difficult for players to situate what she says within the context from which she appears to us.

[biomaterial]

This is hands-down, one of the most solid and well supported pieces I've read on substack in ages. The premise, by drag queen Kochina Rude, surrounds what community means in the present era of queer visibility, the state of politics, and the reliance on businesses as queer third-spaces. It's a SF specific lens, but I feel it rings true for a large swath of the US, and beyond, with frustration and fatigue surrounding language vs action, individualism, and everyone being broke. While I recommend you read the entire piece, here are a few meaningful excerpts.

The current nightlife business model can no longer support those tasked with creating the culture San Francisco is known for, and our workforce has been paying the price for years. (Ask any bartender or security guard how many jobs they have.) The abundant, cheap labor the nightlife industry relies on to sustain itself is no longer possible within city limits; workers have moved across the bay or out of the area just to make ends meet, even if San Francisco remains the center of their social world. The drag queen supply has also just straight up exceeded demand; not just locally, but on television, as indicated by former reality TV contestants reporting fewer opportunities and empty schedules. (I’ve given up on keeping track of these girls, and I work with them.) On top of that, we’re living through a period of inflation and income disparity in the most expensive region in America, and anyone with a stake in the entertainment industry would be hard-pressed to deny what we’re seeing with our own eyes and in our bank statements. To sum it up: we’re down bad, divas.

...

As a queer person, I no longer believe that identity politics will save us. Unity and hybridity (separate parts that comprise the whole; or, intersectionality) come to roost in affinity: a commonality of characteristics suggesting a relationship to shared interests, causes, or circumstances. On paper, I may have next to nothing in common with my heterosexual friends in tattoo shops or hardcore bands, but we possess a unified outlook on life based on shared experiences from our youth. In contrast, I find that I do not typically share affinity with most other gay people I meet at the gay club. (Ooh, she’s “different.”)

...

It’s true that I’m sick of talking about community. But I’m entering the new year with the understanding that sometimes we must take a step back and re-examine our relationships to things to remember why it’s worth doing. One must never forget that we—me, you, and everyone we know—are all worth it. A Jewish proverb attributed to Pirkei Avot from the early common era (first and second centuries, CE) states: “you are not obligated to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

[liedownquisition]

Jason Todd's timeline and "Age"

So, there's a lot of discussion of Jason Todd's age esp as relative to other sidekick vigilantes, particularly Tim and Mia. I believe the exact words are usually something about a "grown ass man beating up/trying to kill teenagers."

DISCLAIMER: This particular post is specifically regarding the "grown ass man vs teenagers" statement, I have posts regarding the "tried to kill them" portion and other stuff like "seriously Jason Todd is like being shot by a marshmallow gun compared to what goes on directly before and after him in these incidents, also you don't bitch about the right stuff, also a lot of you prop up characters who are Objectively Worse, and no that's not hate on your fave it's just me calling out hypocrisy". It just takes time to find digital copies of the panels I'm using. NOTE I AM NOT JUSTIFYING HIS ACTIONS. I'm just saying y'all blow it out of proportion for petty character hate. Like, shit, they're superheroes. Jason's soooo fuckin' tame. He's not even framed as a big deal to the teens it's only the adults that think it's that much of a problem.

Courtesy readmore post cut:

Now, to start off, we all know Jason died at 15 & a few months off from 16 (if you want me to dig up panels, sure, but I figured at this point that wasn't in question). Tim at this point is somewhere between 12-13, and we have this panel in Lonely Place of Dying which takes place a few months later:

So that's a ballpark of 2-3 years between Jason and Tim.

But Tim's age is really fucky and they keep de-aging him tbh. We can extrapolate that his confrontation with Jason was between the ages of 16-17 bcs it's after the arc where he has his incredibly shitty 16th birthday in Robin Vol2 #116 and before Red Robin where he's stated to be 17. This would put Jason between 18-19 at the time. (If you really want me to find panel sources for Tim's birthday and his age in RR then, sure, but I don't think they're necessary. I used it more as a guidepost for Jason's age, since we have a clear idea of what the age gap is.)

At least, on paper.

Mia for her part I've had a hard time finding like, on panel mentions of her age and if anyone can direct me to it being explicitly stated I'd love that. I'm rereading old comics but it's a LOT of comics to hunt down & dig through. To my understanding she was fifteen when Ollie first met her, and there's at Minimum of about a year and a half between that to her meeting Red Hood, more likely at least two? because there's at least few months between that and her joining the Titans, the Doctor Light stuff, then One Year Later, and then returned to Star some 3 months after Ollie came back to run for mayor? And then Jason not too long after. So, two years feels safe. Puts her at 17-ish, Jason at 19-20

Once again, I specify: on paper.

People would happily point out at this point that the upward stretch of a 4 year age gap is a "huge gap in maturity." And yeah, under normal circumstances, I'd agree.

But, and this is going to get contradictory bcs I found Two different timelines (BOTH written by Winick, lmao), and depending on how you read it it could be up to three different possibilities. Let's Start with Batman Annual #25: Daedalus & Icarus.

Timestamp before Jason's resurrection, which is pretty well known at this point:

Next, him waking up from a coma afterwards, when he escapes the hospital:

Now the above could be interpreted as either 1 year after he died if we're assuming that it's using the same "start" point to count as the resurrection (unlikely), or one year after he came back (more likely).

Next, the timestamp right before a guy recognizes him and sells him out:

And, finally, the timestamp before being put in the Pit:

That is, count it up, between 3-3 1/2 years where Jason was dead, in a coma, or otherwise not particularly... cognizant of the world around him. His ass is NOT developing emotionally, socially, or mentally like this, which pretty handily bridges the gaps there. Taken at face value, Jason's maturity level is going to be, unironically, younger than Tim's in the wake of these setbacks.

Now, if we go to Lost Days issue 1, it doesn't specify how long he was dead, nor how long he was in a coma, so we'll just carry those two over, what we DO have is this from just after Talia brought him home:

This puts him as being on the streets for five months, so we're at just shy of two years so far. And then we have this:

Which is right before Talia puts him in the Pit.

So, in summary: 6 months dead, 1 year coma, 5 months on the street, and something like 1-1 1/2 years with the League which...

Actually puts us on almost the exact same timeframe either way. 3 to 3 1/2 years. It just changes whether Jason was on the streets or with the League for longer.

And is utterly incomprehensible because comic timelines are a freaking nightmare.

If we're being generous, then that would put Jason at a minimum of 19, maybe toeing the line of 20 for UTRH, again, on paper, because like hell are you convincing me he did less than a year's worth of training abroad throughout Lost Days. Yeah maybe they trained him in fighting while he was catatonic, muscle memory and all that. But the other teachers that we KNOW of? The bombs, guns, probably something to get him up to date on handling all that tech we see him using, Egon, potentially arguably All-Caste if you want to draw from n52...

but you'd have to knock at least a year and a half off of his internal/personal development from death & coma, at minimum. Maybe you could argue he was somewhat developing while in his "the lights are on, but nobody's home" phase, you can't say it's at the same level as a normal person might when going about their day to day life, and it's difficult to measure. But he's not hitting the kind of milestones that he should be for his age. I wouldn't put him at anything less than two years behind. So if we use our upper estimates on Jason, and lower estimates on both the developmental setbacks and Tim/Mia's ages that gives us:

Jason toeing 20, mentally 18, fighting Tim at 16. 2 year gap, kind of stretching the physical age gap if we assume Tim had just barely turned 13 when he showed up to be Robin. - OR LESS

Jason maybe 21, mentally 19, fighting Mia at 17, two year age gap again. Honestly, still not that big of a difference - OR LESS

And, to be frank, that's not even counting the mental development issues that come from the intense physical trauma from dying - and I swear to fuck don't give me the "He's not the only one who died he's not special" speech.

HOW MANY OF THE OTHERS YOU'RE USING AS A GOTCHA LOST, *GESTURING AGGRESSIVELY ABOVE*, LITERALLY MULTIPLE YEARS OF THEIR LIFE.

Not counting adults, of course. Barry lost years, Hal lost years, Ollie I think also lost a couple years? but A) they came back still adults, bodies pretty much the same. B) While Jason's body didn't go through a magic growth spurt in canon, it did still grow esp while with the League.

I'll eventually get around to Titan's Tower & GA#72 (tbh, there are other people who've already done Titan's Tower and it'd probably be better than what I do, so I'm more going to focus on the latter, but there IS a specific part of the former that drives me nuts that I don't see brought up a lot), and maybe if we're feeling spicy all my issues with UTRH starting with how Winick is just as guilty of retroactively writing Jason as being inherently a bad penny since his Robin days as any of the other "modern" writers. Like, bud, Severe enough Head Trauma is legitimately enough to change someone's personality, not to mention trauma. It wouldn't hurt your narrative for that eerie difference, the Shade of What Once Was if you're really going for RH being Like that.

Final addition: I swear to god if you use my post to start up some kind of petty-ass ship war or flame other characters I will immediately turn off reblogs and replies I am Not Dealing With That Shit, please and thank you.

Anyways, @glitter-stained, your interest made me decide to actually put the work in now to pull it up rather than passively gather stuff to dump whenever discourse pushes me over the edge so, here ya are. Looks like you did have it closer on the mark than I did.

[a-dragons-journal]

Forgive me for showing my fangs a little here instead of being as delicate in phrasing as I usually am, but. Periodic reminder:

sweeping "humans suck, humans are evil, the world would be better off if humans disappeared/had never evolved" statements may be cathartic but they're thoroughly inaccurate (ie, the vast majority of uniquely bad effects of humans on the planet are a) extremely recent, like within the last couple centuries, b) the fault of an extremely small minority not the entire fucking species, and c) fixable)

hating being human isn't the same as hating humans. I get species dysphoria is a thing. I get that it's often hard to fit in as a nonhuman in human social groups and that can make it easy to slip into hating everyone around you. Please fight that instinct

villainizing people for traits they didn't choose, such as the species they were born into, is neither cute nor fair. No species is inherently good or bad

misanthropy is cathartic in short term vents or whatever but genuinely embracing it wholesale as a philosophy is liable to lead to you hating humans, human society, and being in a human body more and more over time and thus make your life worse by constantly reinforcing a thought pattern that makes you angry and upset

you are not immune to being part of human society (translation: just because you're nonhuman doesn't mean you're not included in statements about the effects of the human population on the world, ie "humans are killing the planet")

related, you are not better than humans for being nonhuman. looking at my fellow dragons in particular on this one. I get it, draconic pride is a thing, dragon brain probably says you're the supreme being and all else is beneath you especially anyone who annoys you. Mine does too. Please recognize that is an instinct you are supposed to FIGHT, not something that's TRUE AND THAT YOU SHOULD EMBRACE. Good fucking gods.

some nonhumans are also human (it's me, I'm some nonhumans) and you are making sweeping "humans suck, why would I ever want to be human, all humans do is kill the planet" statements in the presence of people included in those statements, which is insanely rude (and no, you don't get to "but you're different because you're nonhuman" me! you do not get to decide to ignore half of who I am because you don't like it, you do not get to decide I'm not "really" human, and also see the previous bullet point). this goes doubly if you're in a space like a DIscord server where people have expressly stated they're not comfortable being tacitly included in statements like that

saying "but I don't REALLY mean all humans, I just mean the specific ones at fault!" after the fact does not actually change anything if every other thing you say is constantly "humans humans humans" and not the group you're actually referring to, or at the very least doesn't change how it reads to everyone around you

[fataldrum]

The Magnus Protocol and The End of History

In episode 21 of TMP, Leonardo Kennings, co-treasurer of the Magnus Institute, debates the Institute’s plan to participate in the London Millennium Exhibition.  

The calculations provided by Dr Welling and his team presuppose that any outputs from the site will be broadly balanced; that as a symbol of the future it captures both optimism and despair – the belief in a better world and the terror that a new millennium will bring nothing except new ways to suffer. It is my belief, however, that the actual balance of energies involved will be profoundly skewed towards the fearful and despairing[…]

This modern social and political order, following the fall of the USSR, has taken root in the popular imagination as a natural and final state of society with an emergent and inherent stability. The turning of the millennium is therefore felt as an “end of history” to borrow a term, and in this context the Dome may be seen as a monument to this order. A full stop. 

I’ve been hearing a lot about The End of History lately and wanted to share some information for those who are unfamiliar. Note that this is based on secondary sources like Philosophy Tube and the podcast If Books Could Kill, because I’m not about to read 400+ pages of a neoconservative being deeply wrong about everything.

In 1992, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History and The Last Man. In it, he makes a pretty bold claim: Western liberal democracy is the final stage of society. After the recent collapse of the Soviet Union, people worldwide would accept capitalism and American-style democracy as the objectively superior way of life. 

Once every country adopted liberal democracy, there would be no real need for major social change. Small events would continue to happen, but the overall shape of history is an arc that ends with liberal democracy. Everything else would just be minor adjustments. That’s it, guys, we won. History is canceled!

Admittedly the word end can be a bit deceptive. On one level, Fukuyama was describing liberal democracy as the final destination of society. But he was also using end in the sense of a goal, borrowing from the works of Hegel. 

I don’t need to tell you that Fukuyama was full of shit. Every major event since 9/11 has been a massive callout post for him specifically. To be fair, he wasn’t alone in his bullshit. Plenty of Western political scientists assumed the fall of the Soviet Union would lead to mass adoption of liberal democracy. 

There was a lot of misplaced optimism at the end of the Millennium. Take, for instance, the Millennium Dome in London.

A massive undertaking, this 48-acre building would cost £789 million and be the ninth largest building in the world. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister at the time, declared confidently that it would be "a triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness, excellence over mediocrity." Critics called it a Museum of Toxic Waste, based on the site’s history as a gasworks. 

The Dome contained 14 zones aiming to depict modern British life. There was a concert by Peter Gabriel. There were daily acrobatic shows, and a special Blackadder film.

In the statement, Kenning asks the foreman how long the Dome will last. He went quiet for a moment, then told me he wasn’t sure. “Could be there forever!” he said, with an odd manic edge to his voice. “Or it could be gone in a year. You just… never know. Do you? You never know what’s coming.” 

Organizers predicted the Dome would bring in 12 million visitors per year. They got just over half that. It was closed after a year, and even then, it cost over £1 million per month to maintain. The government couldn’t even sell the damn thing, because who needs the world’s ninth largest building? It ruined a fair number of careers. To quote the Sunday Times: 

At worst it is a millennial metaphor for the twentieth century. An age in which all things, like the Dome itself, became disposable. A century in which forest and cities, marriages, animal species, races, religions and even the Earth itself, became ephemeral. What more cynical monument can there be for this totalitarian cocksure fragile age than a vast temporary plastic bowl, erected from the aggregate contribution of the poor through the National Lottery. Despite the spin, it remains a massive pantheon to the human ego, the Ozymandias of its time.

Kennings describes the Dome as “almost uniquely dangerous to our work as a place of power, adding, “It is my firm belief that not only is this site already on its own journey to become a decidedly hostile locus, but that the future it represents, and that we are being pushed to incorporate into our grand ritual, is unfit being so profoundly and irrevocably poisoned.”

The Magnus Institute burned down on December 24th, 1999. The Dome was officially opened to the public on December 31, 1999. It appears Kennings was right about one thing: the Dome was a very bad idea for the Magnus Institute.

[akirathedramaqueen]

No better than any royal

It's an analysis regarding classism in Helluva Boss and Blitzø's part in it.

Warning: Apology Tour spoilers. Be advised if you haven't watched the episode yet. And also it's big as hell itself, I am not good in being laconic thing.

I wanted to write a post about the thing which bothered me for some time already, but I wasn't sure how to articulate it properly. Now that the 'Apology Tour' has come out, and we've got another parallel on the same thing, I think I need to grab my shit together and try to analyze this to the best of my abilities.

See, something tingled in me a while ago when I noticed that Fizz, when stating in the 'Oops' episode, "If you think you are superior to anyone, then you are no better than any royal.", was looking at Blitzø the majority of the time. And, of course, he specifically says "neither of you", so... yeah. No doubt he was addressing both Blitzø and Striker.

There is an opinion going around that Striker as a character is designed to be compared to Blitzø. They are both prejudiced towards privileged people (here you can read a wonderful take from @tealvenetianmask on the class rage Blitzø experiences to get deeper into his reasons), with Striker taking it to the extremes as far as killing them with joy, while Blitzø... well, hurting one particular royal in his own way.

Then there's the next person, who says Blitzø's behavior resembles that of Striker, in the "Apology Tour" newest episode.

He says that right after Blitzø throws an accusation that Stolas has just a turn-on for people he looks down on. I like, by the way, how the camera moves up to Stolas, showing their significant physical difference in height and symbolizing their gap in social status.

Which is him, by the way, doubling down on a similar statement in the 'Oops' episode.

I am with you on this one, Fizz :.)

Stolas is very upset about it, and very justly so - Blitzø is putting words in his beak, assuming his mindset, demeaning his feelings, and disrespecting his wishes that he was very clear about. Blitzø means it, unfortunately, and, my take is, he is as much of a classist as the rich assholes like Stella whom he hates for the same very reason.

Just hold on with me for a moment. Look at this.

They are all the same. Stolas is the same.

Blitzø is treating Stolas unfairly based on his social class. Blitzø has a negative opinion of Stolas based on his social class. That's pretty much the definition, although more often than not it's referred to people of lower social status. Still counts in my book.

Don't get me wrong. Stolas is not innocent. He is raised in the privileged world and he takes advantage of it. He is treating his workers unfairly (remember that stressball imp guy?), and this also needs to be addressed... But it does not change the fact that Stolas's genuine feelings got mocked by Blitzø because the latter is so adamant in his superstitions, he does not believe anything the prince says.

And, to add to that, I think Blitzø takes great pride in being the 'I-made-myself' guy, running a successful business they said is rare for an imp. He is insistent in letting everyone know he has a transaction with Stolas, not a relationship. An exchange. A business deal. A fair trade, however stupid and twisted does that sound. He hates privilege, and he is afraid, insecure even, to be associated with it. He does not want to become like them.

And Blitzø, like Fizz said, thinks he is superior to ones who mingle with blue bloods and take from their riches. He thinks he is superior to blue bloods themselves because he earned everything he owns, and they got a birthright to hold onto.

Which, essentially, makes Blitzø no better than any royal.

That does not make him irredeemeable, though. He has plenty of reasons for behaving like that. He suffers every day from injustice. He is at the bottom of the food chain, he has to wait for 5 years to get an appointment for an essential vaccine, he gets ridiculed all the time for just existing. For just being an imp.

Blitzø just needs to understand, that, however privileged Stolas is, he is as fucked by this system as Blitzø is. Stolas had the whole life planned for him, he had no choice even in whom to marry, and he had to put up with years of abuse and trauma to hold an image. He did not have parents and has no friends. He struggles to survive in the environment where people like him are not welcome. He suffers because of the same system as Blitzø does, albeit differently.

I am not trying to compare who has it worse. The only point is that Blitzø is oblivious to the fact that Stolas can get hurt. Physically and emotionally.

Blitzø needs to understand that Stolas is different. Blitzø needs to give Stolas a chance to prove he is wrong. Blitz needs to let their relationship flourish. And through Stolas, he will eventually see that there are probably more royals who are not so horrible as he thinks. That everyone is different regardless of their social status.

As a closing note, I want to say that I wait for Striker's return. I think that there will be a point where they will meet again, but that time Blitzø will mature and prove that he has changed. And no one will dare to say that Blitzø is just like him ever again, which would be a perfect closure for the class conflict.

[limpinglizards]

what if i wrote an essay about a will wood song. would you still love me. okay too late i did it anyway

“I / Me / Myself” as Martyrgender Anthem: TLDR; Cis guy orders in perfect Transgender, shocks nonbinary baristas⁉️🤯💥 (1.3k words)

Will Wood's The Normal Album is thematically concerned with deviance, mental illness, and the failures of science and society. It explores the gap between claimed identity and actual behavior; the question of whether outside influence corrupts us, or our worst natures drive us from within; and the relationship between biology and societal artifice—often pitting the social and medical models of disability against each other. Its songs weave between these themes, each having its own "home" subject but frequently flitting off to visit a neighboring idea for a few lines. The album doesn't come to any concrete conclusions through said exploration—Will has stated that he usually writes as a means of self-expression rather than to push a political point[1]—instead acting as an exercise in drawing attention to those uncertainties which we take for granted. (As an aside, I've always felt that "Memento Mori" has the least in common with the larger themes of the album, but it does fit with that exercise, being about the profound, universal uncertainty of death.)

As a track on the album, the issue of selfhood within society is what "I / Me / Myself" is about, too.

It's a biting send-up of both the ways we make ourselves palatable and the ways we transgress, viewed with regards to gender ("Outliars and Hyppocrates" takes a similar focus, but through the lens of mental illness instead). However, inspired by a few factors, I'm personally beginning to read "I / Me / Myself" in an additional way: as an expression of a desire for the innocence conferred by victimhood—a wish for the ontological inability to cause harm. These factors are namely: online discourse over the perpetuation of transmisogyny; Will Wood being a cisgender man, as he (understandably) had to specify around the time the song first got popular; and the alternate lyrics on the 2018 demo version of the track. This urge to martyr oneself falls in line with Will's ambivalence over moral goodness, as seen in "Laplace's Angel" (and both "Half-Decade Hangover" and "Against the Kitchen Floor" off “In case I make it”), and with his more self-referential songs about his struggles with fame (which at their worst are cloyingly self-important, to a degree that would put Morrissey to shame—see the unreleased track usually titled a variant of "Monkey's Paw" or "Public Statement").

The chorus of "I / Me / Myself" repeats the singer's wish to "be a girl." But what does it mean to be a girl, from the viewpoint of the song? It opens with its protagonist having made themself, through the strain of weight loss, fit beneath their "skin"—a mere surface layer, part of their (self-)deception. Here, the implication of disordered eating goes hand in hand with the cultivation of femininity; an implication made explicit in the bridge of the 2018 version, which reaffirms the protagonist's dysmorphic desire to be small and underweight. They make themself "brittle" in order to become "pretty," associating feminine attractiveness with weakness. The first chorus asks if they have made themself "pretty enough to lie to," as in, to be flattered—but also manipulated, gaslit. Even the parody of the stock phrase "a little girl in a big world" makes it clear the desire is to be an ingenue, naive and vulnerable. The final chorus doubles down on the links between victimhood, girlhood, and martyrdom, asking, "Am I pretty enough to fucking die?" Meanwhile, in the 2018 version, they wish they were a girl specifically so the listener would want to "kick [their] fucking teeth in." "Would you please objectify me? I'm just a hunk [of] . . . burning self-loathing," they plead. To be a girl in this way is to be both desirable and deserving of violence.

This fantasy of victimization is obviously a self-destructive one. Its appeal, aside from the allure of self-harm for self-hate's sake, lies in the fact that if one remains forever a victim, one never takes on the role of perpetrator. Innocence means freedom from culpability; the protagonist already avoids responsibility for their sense of self—seeking external validation, allowing others to establish and restrict their identity ("let me be the void you fill with taxidermy fingerprints," offers the 2020 album version)—so why would they want responsibility for their moral or interpersonal failings? Which, taking this character to be drawn from Will's persona, could be numerous indeed (although he maintains plausible deniability about the events of his life for privacy, he is open about his imperfections). This reading places "I / Me / Myself" in the neighborhood of "...well, better than the alternative," a song about an adult who has gone "wrong" and longs for the lost innocence of childhood. This yearning is articulated through projection onto a daughter character in the first verse, after which the lyrics drop the gendered allusions, but not before mentioning "lab rat girls and pretty white rabbits." These dehumanized figures mirror the protagonist of "I / Me / Myself," who hopes that, like a martyr (or daughter, or laboratory sacrifice), their suffering will assure their goodness and value.

Although I find an analysis of the lyrics to support this reading well enough, I'd like to return to the outside influences on my interpretation. With regards to the relevance of transmisogyny, the online queer spaces I occupy have pointed out a specific rhetorical practice of AFAB trans people, namely that of positioning ourselves as inherently more vulnerable and easily victimized because of our upbringings as "girls"—implying, intentionally or not, the inverse: that trans women are more prone to or capable of violence. This position of essentialized innocence is argued from in order to get away with misbehavior, especially towards said women. Given that humanity's universal capacity for harm connects to the wider themes of The Normal Album (as put in "Laplace's Angel," "if you were in my shoes, you'd walk the same damn miles I do"), this gendered dispute over it seemed pertinent to the narrative of "I / Me / Myself." I also feel encouraged to read the song as using girlhood as a formulation for a specific kind of idealized victimhood, rather than the more straight-forward trans reading, because of the songwriter's gender. Art is not autobiography, but the personal quality of Will Wood's work leads me to factor in his authorial intent more (although I don't delegitimize readings that discard his input). He made his intentions with this song clear after its initial reception, especially due to the vitriol it received by those who read its message as transphobic. Speaking of vitriol, the newly released 2018 lyrics reemphasize the violence and spite at the heart of the song, winding it tighter around that narrative of self-destruction; I wouldn't be able to factor them into the overall analysis if they hadn't just come out! Altogether, I feel that these elements help paint a clearer picture of how I came away from the material with this observation.

My point is that "I / Me / Myself" is in part about the cultivation of a very specific "myself." A self that—whether loved or hated, spat on or embraced—can do no harm. A claimed identity that absolves any actual behavior to the contrary. This individuation is motivated by a social species' need for approval, its expression found in a uniquely human, "superego"tistic drive towards moral purity. In the song's commentary on conformity and deviation, it acknowledges these drives as influenced by environmental actors, but reserves an empathetic frustration for those who lean into that influence. I use the phrase "martyrgender" fairly glibly in the title, fully aware that the gendered performance of vulnerability is often weaponized against the transfeminized and degendered (including women of color); I'm also aware of the dubious images of butch Joan of Arc and ex-Catholic transmasculinity that term might conjure. I see this tune as, in Will's typical irreverent way, an attempt to satirize, and perhaps even reclaim, that performativity.

[1] https://genius.com/29047424

[kariachi]

WoG: Reboot!Kevin probably has PTSD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Those of us who have watched any version of Kevin: Thank you for affirming what we all knew.

Seriously though, it's nice to hear a WoG weigh-in on at least one version of him, and I think we can safely port that shit over to the rest of the Kevin's we've met given *gestures at their everything*

'He probably has some degree of oppositional defiance disorder' like so so many of the symptoms aren't ticked off by one version or another or both. Like, I know the diagnosis itself is often used to turn natural responses to chronic mistreatment and trauma around to be a problem with the child rather than a problem with their circumstances, but again that's just Kevin. In and out of universe. The first two sequels straight up were like 'okay but what if Kevin's problem was just that he was an awful kid with poor victims for parents and he brought his homelessness and shit on himself', and gods know I've seen chunks of the fandom that weren't any better.

The PTSD portion is harder to specifically back up for a tv character, especially one whose mentality isn't focused on, given how much of the symptoms are internal. Especially when, in the Reboot particularly, the character isn't in a secure place in life. Like, there's 'feelings of social isolation' the symptom and then there's 'being socially isolated' the fact of life for a homeless, abused runaway with no proper friends.

There's a few things we can say probably are the case- 'difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep' can easily be put into the Reboot!Kevin pile given there's a whole episode about his severe sleep issues, 'having recurring memories or dreams relating to the event' and 'having distressing thoughts' could maybe be put in an OG!Kevin pile given he openly states he has dreams where everyone he knows is out to hurt him often enough to think it's normal, 'engaging in risky, reckless, or destructive behavior' is just a straight Kevin thing, etc- but there's not really enough we see on screen to make a real viable assessment, even by the standards of media analysis which are by requirement looser than actual real-world diagnosing of real life people. We can't say that he doesn't though, for much the same reasons, especially with WoG giving a 'probably' to one version of him that is at most even keel on the 'traumatic events' scale. For instance, we don't know for sure that either Kevin has chronic flashbacks tied traumatic events (one could maybe make that argument for OG!Kevin, given one of his statements in Nor Iron Bars a Cage, but-) but also since we don't get focus on this stuff we don't know that they don't. Such is the struggle.

So, we can reasonably say Kevins in general, at least so far as we've seen them, have patterns of behavior in line with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, likely as a result of trauma from abuse and neglect. We can't quite pin them for PTSD, which in their case would likely end up being C-PTSD given, again, *gestures at their everything*, but we have Word of God that at least the Reboot version probably has the condition and can reasonably safely port that 'probably' over to the likes of the OG version. Any further issues and disorders are solely up to interpretation by the viewer at this point in time.

[northwest-by-a-train]

Zadie Smith's lack of any hill she's willing to stand on, much less die on, has made her a wonderfully blessed novelist. A very apt mimic of any particular coordinate of the political spectrum, a wicked satirist of modern bourgeois mores, a reader with an incredibly wide palette. Though she has gotten less adventurous as a writer as the years have gone on, she has gotten better at the craft, and she did build from a higher mastery than most.

That said, most of her energy, and in this she joins a great many writers coming from the urban working class of color, seems to be spent not being conflated. Conflated with other black female writers, conflated with protestors, conflated with critics of the establishment. Oh, she does criticize, empathize, recognize herself. But always prefacing it with layers upon layers of self-justification and differentiation. She, like her icon & model David Foster Wallace, feels the need to set herself apart from anything we could categorize her as in bad faith.

So she is a feminist, but worry not, she still loves Updike, Larkin and Pound. She is a utopian socialist but she has nothing in particular to say about the state of the world. She of course has an opinion on the current conflict in Palestine, but she won't tell because it's not important and it's "just words".

Of course you can read Larkin and Pound as a committed leftist feminist and think your personal opinion on world politics is irrelevant compared to what is going on in the world. My gripe is that someone with such high literary pretensions, such admiration for the gusto of free spirits both past & present (someone willing to go to bat for Kanye's trumpist phase in the name of poetry in the very same magazine where she so artfully defends at length that no statement from either student protesters or counter-protesters has value, nor hers) someone who spends so much of her time quoting moral philosophers and pondering the future of writing... That this someone has essentially given up on politics.

My gripe, my visceral annoyance at her, my point is that the "towering mind of her generation" has given up on politics except as background, coordinates to tack the nuance-lacking masses onto, but that great spirits transcend somehow. No wonder she loves Harold Bloom & James Wood. Or that she's a child of Blair's cool Brittania. As a public intellectual, there is no duty to say anything meaningful, or whereof one cannot speak, to remain silent. If your thesis is that you have none and the dead are more important, why spend 4000 words talking about yourself, and how above it all you are and how ineffectual anyone writing about it is, and how you're the only one smart enough to have the dignity of recognizing it ? Why not make form fit content, as you have so often done ? Why not attack specific words, specific utterances that ignore the dead, instead of fighting strawmen ?

The truth is that Smith's outbursts of calling for dignity, reason, nuance, cooler heads are not anything new, not anything groundbreaking, nothing unprecedented, even by the great. You can hear echoes of it in Camus refusing to denounce colonialism because Algerians refuse to speak French. It is the cry of the moral esthete, for whom to side with the dubious, the inarticulate, the incoherent, the angry, all that is like poison to her. Oh, yes, she can defend Kanye's nonsensical racist, and already then antisemitic rants. But Kanye is an artist, "one of our best living poets". So are any writers of dubious politics, any convicted felon, any instance of sustained personal cruelty worth defending against the mob. Their sensibility just hasn't been expanded far enough, they just don't get it. The mob hasn't created anything worthwhile. The mob is childish, does not know the right words, does not rise up to the occasion like it should.

The truth is that Zadie Smith stands for something. If she really believed in the dead, or in utopian socialism, or in responsible public intellectuals, she would have written differently. She stands for transcendence. Her right to be in the world without anyone being able to make moral pronouncements on her, her work, the work of others. She stands for a plane above this world that matters to this world in ways she finds complex and delicate. She stands for herself being judged only on, and from, this plane.

Thankfully, like a child in a playground that insists the game she devised is very good and we should all follow the rules, and really she is a skillful player and we will all have fun with once we simply follow the rules, we are all free to ignore her.

We are free to live in the real world and make real moral decisions, getting our hands and our consciences dirty, yes, but also stand by real human beings. Beings whose freedoms to play pretend, to read and write, to transcend, is hampered by real people who do not care for the right words or the correct moral stance. We are free to fight for a liberated Palestine though we may be partisan, simplistic, quick to anger and inarticulate.