#and look they’re both wrong for using those words to describe bigotry

[seddair]

-

[inkdemonapologist]

Okay but I do actually want to know both the things you love and the things you could rant about from DCTL?

OH BOY UHHHHHH okay lets see, I'm gonna see if I can do the "add a readmore after you post it" thing and see if that'll keep it stable.......

But also, much like Sammy, I am incapable of shutting up unless you strike me in the head with a blunt object, so uh, forgive my wordiness:

THINGS I ENJOY:

- DCTL gave us Sammy's ink addiction and like, if you had asked me before all this "what would you most like to see in a franchise?" I would not have answered "one of the characters drinks ink accidentally and then discovers that he can't stop" but boy that sure is my favourite concept that I LOVE to see handled literally any other way than how the book handled it!!!

- I like what it added to Tom and Allison and Norman!! Like, it's not big twists on their characters or anything -- we already knew Tom felt he was doing the wrong thing, so getting to see his CRUSHING GUILT over creating the machine isn't New Information, but it's nice to see and understand more of him; for all of them I feel a lot more attached to them after getting to see more of them as people.

- Like 90% of the "I LOVE IT" category for me is how the book handled Joey, and Buddy's relationship with Joey. The way Joey isn't a Sinister Mastermind Who’s Just Screwing With Everyone but just manipulative in a more mundane way -- someone who thinks of himself as just the guy with the vision to call the shots; he wants what he wants and this is how he's learned to get it; he exploits people not through devious schemes, but just by offering them something that they want or need and asking too much in return, expecting their loyalty for his favours. And the way he interacts with Buddy, making Buddy complicit with him and keeping Buddy off-balance and insecure while making him a favourite and treating him as Special is just PERFECT --  gives a lot of content to kind of extrapolate off of when pondering what must've drawn the others in and convinced them to ignore the red flags. I was initially frustrated with the idea of Buddy not being an artist and jUST DECIDING TO LEARN TO ANIMATE ON THE SPOT ("I've never done this before but I'm sure I can just do an artist's job" is a weirdly common throwaway thing in media and as an artist iTS A PET PEEVE) but actually the way they use his plagiarism to make him trapped in a lie in ways Joey doesn't even realise ends up being a neat echo of other employees (coughTOMcough), who were involved in much graver sins but suddenly felt they couldn't object or they'd lose their one chance, just like Buddy. There's a lot here that I think is really great.

OKAY THATS THE GOOD STUFF, LET'S COMPLAIN ABOUT SAMMY:

- Uncomfortable Bigotry Vagueness that we all knew was gonna be in this list -- I dunno man, a guy committing a microaggression and getting startled and defensive when he's called out for it doesn't necessarily completely ruin his character I GUESS, but the way this was handled is just SO WEIRD AND VAGUE that it's uncomfortable and it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose. "Is Tom black?" is a question I actually have to ask because the text sort of implies he is while also dancing around it and apparently Word of God said he's not??? which makes Buddy's comment nonsensical???? And I mean, you could go that route, since Buddy wonders to himself if Sammy talks to everyone like this -- HE ACTUALLY DOES!! Even within the text of the novel, he uses "Joey" instead of Mr. Drew, which is consistent with his audiologs in the game -- but that makes the writing suggest "this character THINKS this guy might be racist but actually they're reading too much into it and it wasn't racially motivated at all, he's just a jerk!!" wHICH IS SOMEHOW EVEN MORE ICKY??? Anyway like yeah I guess it's not inconsistent with his character that while Sammy Lawrence may not have any specific grudge against minorities he has probably not checked his privilege or done the work to challenge his own internal biases, but “Your Fav Probably Contributes To Systemic Racism In Ways He Hasn’t Considered, As Do We All When Our Assumptions Go Unchecked” is still a wild thing to wade through in a fun story about demonic cartoons

- but yknow so is T H E   H O L O C A U S T

- Sammy's voice is wrong. I'm actually okay with him being a weird awkward asshole, I already kind of assumed he was and that's part of why I like him!! but there's so many places he doesn't quite... talk like himself? And not just in terms of word choice, like -- so in his monologue at the end, he's described as talking so quickly that his words are "tumbling out faster than he can speak them," which initially seems fine; like yeah, that's a Standard Scene we're familiar with, the person who's been Driven Mad With Insight becoming more and more manic as they try to convey it -- until I tried to imagine it and realised that Sammy doesn't talk like this. That's a really consistent quality I always notice about his voice; whether he's almost giddily excited in prophet mode, or he’s his irritated and overworked human self, or he's violently angry and his voice has that echo effect -- he always speaks very deliberately. He enunciates carefully. There's some circumstances where I'd buy this as showing that he's Not Himself, but I feel like those would kind of need to be in the middle of his transformation, not at the end of it.

- In fact a lot of the scenes with Sammy kind of have this feeling -- that it's not necessarily an exploration of Sammy as a character, but that he is filling a trope or archetype role here. Once he's fully transformed he excitedly describes the process as more of a mental compulsion, which is in contrast to his weird yeerk-infected behaviour when trying to get ink from Miss Lambert. Both of those scenes don't seem wrong on their own because they fit tropes we know -- but they feel weird when you try to fit them together.

- I also just in general am not a fan of the ink acting like a weird yeerk. It can be a parasite I guess but when it starts overwriting and puppeting people and crawling around to enter their body that's just a completely DIFFERENT kind of supernatural story and it’s not what im here for!!!

- THE FREAKIN!!! HE WILL SET US FREE!!!! WHY????????? SAMUEL LAWRENCE WHAT IS HE SETTING YOU FREE FROM??????? Sammy has No Motive for any of what he's doing, other than just Ink Made Me Do It. The whole thing that was INTERESTING about Sammy as a character is the contrast between this frustrated, ornery musician with no specific love for the cartoons he works on, and the manically devoted cultist he becomes. What happened in the middle there? What made him desperate enough to shift his mindset so much? "Something supernatural made him do things that don't benefit him in any way" is a very boring answer to this question!!! Susie was a victim who implies that her transformation has forced her to do things she didn't want to do, but we can still see her motive -- she wanted to be Alice, so she took a sketchy offer to try to get what she wanted. Even now, her violence echoes that goal -- to be a more perfect Alice. What did Sammy want? WHO KNOWS. Even in his ink-addled state at the end, we don't understand what he hopes the Ink Demon will even do for him, and in fact he seems to be responsible for creating the very scenario he's begging Bendy to reverse in the game.

- [sighs loudly into my hands]

- Overall I'm left wondering if the author just..... didn't like Sammy Lawrence? And I don't mean that in the sense of him being a rude jerk -- like, Joey is not a good person, but the author seems to be interested in him and in what makes him tick. There doesn't seem to be that same interest in Sammy. Sammy's role in the story is that of a monster, transformed into something murderous, unable to prevent or choose it. He's not a victim of anyone but the ink, no one had to manipulate him or figure out how his brain worked or what he wanted or what he feared or give him any reason to do the things he does -- ink got in his mouth and overwrote his personality. And we don't even get to see that change, not really. He starts out angry and defensive and continues being angry and defensive up until his very last scene, denying his ink-stealing but not really much else. We see all his prophetic sketches but we never see hints of this in him, we never see him start to act more excited and hopeful, we never see him seek out the demon he desires to please. Why do we never see Sammy struggling between his dismissive angry front and a building religious fervour he can't quite suppress? We don't get to see any of the in-between. There's no interest at all in why or even what it looked like as Sammy became what he became, when, to be honest, I suspect interest in precisely that is one reason he's such a big fav.

- It's funny, in a "cries into my hands" kind of way, when Sammy is just knocked in the head while monologuing and immediately removed from the story without further mention, like...... that sure is the pattern with him, isn't it, he just tries very very hard and never actually gets to matter, but it also fits right in here, too, in this book that doesn't want to think about his motives -- he rambles nonsensically, explaining nothing, gets one trademark phrase, and then is hastily removed so the story doesn't have to think about him anymore.

...................I think that's most of it.

...

Y'all............ I'm not ready for Sent From Above.......... I'm just not.... I'm not emotionally ready...... like..... Sammy has to be in that right..... he’s Susie’s boss and she has that big crush on him..................................... I’m not ready

[pluviophile-bookworm]

AWAE 2x8 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

This goes out to Kyla Matthews for her birthday today. She’s brilliant as Ruby and I hope to see her in something new soon (unless AWAE finally gets renewed, of course #renewanneewithane).

“I plan to have several beaus and be proposed to several times.” Oh sweet Ruby, always such romantic aspirations. I love her. 

Anne is really good at proposals. I hope she gets to propose one day. I know that’s not how it happened in the books, but this is a different take on them, so why not in this continuity? Somebody please write me a fic. 

Phillips, on the other hand, is not as eloquent. But he gets the blessing. Too bad (not!) there won’t be a wedding after all. 

I like how Anne’s hair is growing back. I plan on drawing her in every stage of her hair growth, so I’ll probably do this one right after I’m finished with this review. 

The girls are so fascinated by the idea of a wedding. I just hope all of them truly appreciate what an empowering move it will be of Prissy to choose herself over societal expectations at the end of the day. 

Will Billy’s cruelty ever stop? And will internalised homophobia stop tormenting Phillips into bullying his students? I unfortunately think the answer to both of these questions is no. 

“Sometimes I find bigotry very inconvenient.” I love how well Bash is taking this. But the part about the bog... I don’t want to think about it. And the bigotry doesn’t stop here. Billy, of course, who else. 

I’m glad Rachel is trying to apologise, but she seems to lack the vocabulary to do it well. And the bigotry won’t end with one apology, unfortunately. #blacklivesmatter

“I hope whoever we get next will actually be interested in teaching.” You go, Gilbert! I’m glad someone is finally addressing Phillips’ incompetence when it comes to educating young people. They’ll be a lot better off with Miss Stacy. 

“Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is a passionate individual, alright.” Yes, she is, and of course, Gilbert’s always known it for as long as he’s known her. Also, I love how he and Anne are, in a way, sharing a snack in this pair of parallel scenes. 

Sweet Ruby! “I’ve already monogrammed several kerchiefs with the initials G.B.” Too bad you’ll have to change it. 

“ A beautiful wife to her husband.” What does Josie know about that? There are more important things than beauty and I’m glad Anne is well aware of that. Books are a great thing to “enter your new life” with. 

I bet this is the moment that made Prissy think twice about getting married. Being denied her human right to pursue higher education is a good enough reason for any young woman to run away at the altar. 

Breaking the window with Cole’s clay - how unfortunately clever of Billy. I bet Phillips will lay the blame on his usual target now, even though Cole had nothing (but the piece of clay) to do with that. And look how Phillips picks up the clay like it’s a piece of... a different substance that my blog type doesn’t quite allow me to say out loud, or type here. I guess you cna figure it out for yourselves. You know what I mean.

No, Phillips can’t be seriously doing that. I can’t even watch. But I do love the dignity with which Cole stands up to his so-called “teacher”. “If you want to hate someone, you should look in the mirror.” And then he just walks out. We stan a legend.

You know, eye health is important, and it seems to be one of the more underrated messages of AWAE. Plus there’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading glasses, regardless of age. Both my parents have reading glasses, though they’re “too young”, as some might say. Taking care of your health has nothing to do with age. I hope Marilla realises that.

I’m beyond pleased to see there is no trace of bigotry in the doctor’s treatment of Bash. There are some decent people at least. 

A good doctor Gilbert will be, for sure. If he passes out at the sight of a shot (not that I don’t but I’m not aspiring to become someone who might give them on a regular basis), how is he going to handle the profession he aspires to? Remains to be seen. 

“Why do you think Mr. Phillips hates you so?” Good question, Anne, and I know the answer well. He just can’t accept himself, so he’s bullying anyone who reminds him of what he is. And right now, that’s Cole. Internalised homophobia is horrible. I almost feel bad for Phillips himself. 

There, Cole came out to Anne. And she has the best reaction ever, even though neither of the two possess the vocabulary to describe what Cole just said he is. Gay. Used to mean “happy, bright, colourful”. Such a beautiful word. And some really important topics are being discussed there. Seriously, this show had a bright future that was cut short. #saveannewithane

There, Anne proposes that they have a friendly marriage if they don’t find their “romantical kindred spirits”, as she so beautifully puts it. This might have been so beautiful. Too bad it won’t be after all, but I’m sure that, in Charlottetown, at least, where people seem to be more open-minded (or is that just Aunt Jo and her friends? Even so, they’re enough.), he will one day find a lovely young man and the two of them will never feel unlawful together. I love thinking about that. 

“A beautiful place where black people dance beautifully in the snow” Poor, poor Bash. What he’s about to see will unfortunately be far from pretty. How many times will I say “unfortunately” within this review? There’re too many of them already. But what can I say? Sometimes things get a little bit... unfortunate. Unfortunately. 

The guy from the train is kind of like Phillips in a way - he despises Bash for dealing with similar problems better than himself. I feel bad for him.

Prissy’s mother seems to be a good woman. “Educated wives who think for themselves.” Sounds good. And also, Prissy, yes, you are a child. And no, you don’t know what you want. Not yet at least.

Hey, there’s Mary. I guess Bash had to go to the bog after all. Otherwise he wouldn’t have met her. All clouds have a silver lining, I guess. Even this one. 

“Pretty-ish piece of property”. Nice alliteration. Bad notion. I’m glad Anne wants to be “equals and partners”, and “life mates”. Also, didn’t Topanga once use that last one in an episode of Boy Meets World? Wait, I’ve got it noted somewhere... yes, as early as episode 1x9. She used it to describe a spouse. I guess it’s sort of universal now. Life mates. I like it. 

“I don’t shy away from the truth of how I feel like some fellas I know”. I see Bash’s position as captain of the Shirbert ship and his love for teasing Gilbert about it haven’t changed one bit. 

Marilla “bequeathing” the brooch to Anne was a lovely mother-daughter moment, and an underrated one at that, given their history with that brooch.

Maybe it wasn’t Phillips’ words about Prissy not going to college; maybe it wasn’t her mother’s words; maybe it wasn’t even Anne’s innocently insensitive words that made her reconsider getting married. Maybe it was a compound of all those things. But whatever it was, I’m glad it happened. Still, even under the circumstances, as someone who has never seen a wedding from the bride’s side of the family (one of my male cousins got married a couple of years ago, so I’ve seen the groom’s side), I can’t but feel the thrill of the wedding preparations. Even under the circumstances.

The way Gilbert’s looking at Anne, one’d think he wants it to be him and her up at the altar. And it will be - someday in their bright future. But their wedding will be nothing like this one. 

As I said, this is a supreme moment of female empowerment. Prissy as a runaway bride, I mean. And I’m happy the girls got to share it with her. And that they could laugh about it despite all that the people will surely say soon enough about the whole affair. A beautiful ending to the beautiful essay about weddings and marriage that was this episode. 

Let’s sum up: Ruby wants multiple proposals; an elegant pretend-proposal coming from Anne and a not so elegant one from Phillips; Billy is a douche to Cole and Phillips acts as an outright monster; Cole faces bullying with dignity; Bash faces bigotry with no less dignity, wants to see the bog, meets Mary; eye health is important; the good doctor faints at the sight of a needle; Cole comes out to Anne; a friendly proposal; Marilla bequeaths the infamous brooch to Anne; Prissy is a runaway bride in a supreme moment of female empowerment.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

12 Angry Men: A Product of the Times

Despite what shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best would have you believe, the 1950s in America were not a ‘simpler’ time.

The soldiers came home from World War II, the economy expanded, and the nation’s population grew and thrived, all seeming like absolute wins in our nation’s history.  The suburbs grew, and the ideal nuclear families began popping up.  Everyone dressed to the nines, the War was over, and so was the Depression that preceded it.  America was prosperous again.

At the same time, the Korean War began.  McCarthyism kicked off a terrified hysteria about the invasion of Communism.  Sputnik was launched, the Cold War was off and running, and Americans lived in fear behind their white picket fences.  Men went back to work, women went back to the home.  Rock and roll was born, and the young people, now called teenagers, started rebelling against the conformity of their parents.  Racial tensions began rising.  Oppressed people across America began looking to the future for change.

This was the world when 12 Angry Men made its debut in theaters.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Simple.

In order to truly understand and analyze any work of fiction, we must first contextualize it.  To do that, we have to know what the culture was like at the time.

Why?

As I’ve mentioned many times on this blog, no piece of media is an island.  Everything we watch, read, or listen to is a direct product of the culture it was created in.  The creators were influenced by things around them, be they other pieces of media or simply events and attitudes of the time, and as a result, the film, television show, or book is a reflection of the culture, be it critical of it or embracing of it.

Such is the case with 12 Angry Men.

The premise of a jury made up entirely of middle-to-late aged, middle-class white men passing a decision on a Puerto Rican boy from the slums seems, by its very nature, firmly set in the era of the 1950s.  The attitudes of multiple jurors seems to emphasize this fact with plenty of prejudice against the defendant for his background, ethnic and otherwise, his age, and even his relationship with his father.  12 Angry Men is definitely a film that is discernibly made in an era that is behind us.  To some, that would be enough to seal its doom with the ultimate stamp of disapproval any ‘old’ movie can get: the verdict of ‘Dated’.

As those of us who indulge in older films are more than aware of, sometimes, older movies just don’t hold up quite so well.  When that happens, oftentimes the film is referred to as ‘dated’.  Oftentimes, the things that people consider ‘outdated’ are things that can’t be helped: slang, clothing, hairstyles, special effects, technology, or even styles of storytelling that were popular at the time of the film’s release.

Therein lies the problem.

By that logic, that definition of the term dated, every single piece of media ever made is ‘dated’ and therefore, nothing is ‘timeless’.  This is bad news for every creator of art who desires to make something that will outlast them.  If everything is connected to the culture, the times it was created in, then nothing is worth watching outside of the era it was created in.  This would lead to many classic films, television shows, and books becoming long-forgotten.  Even now, there are many who don’t like watching things made before the date of their birth, claiming they are ‘cringey’ and ‘dated’.

Again, by that definition, they’re right.

Here, though, we have a different definition.

The term ‘dated’, the idea of being directly connected to the era and culture of a piece of media’s creation, is easy to forgive when the ‘datedness’ extends to a mullet, a mixtape, or a money-shot that looks a little cheesy by modern standards.  However, that form of dated is not the problem.

‘Dated’ is really only used in a negative context when the movie or show it is describing is not as enjoyable to modern audiences as it was when it was released, suggesting that the passage of time has done more to damage the film than credit it.  This definition of the term ‘dated’ exonerates films that have not lost the enjoyability of their core story in the years that have followed.

Being ‘dated’ is far more damaging when it is attached to outdated ideas.  It is there that we have our problem.

An outdated idea can damage a film ten times more than any pop-culture reference therein.  These are the films based around inherently problematic elements, that never address (and in some cases seem to promote) ideas that we now know are problems.  It is this definition of ‘dated’ that we need to apply in order to tell how well 12 Angry Men has held up.

Looking past the clothes and the hair is the glaring problem of the all-white, all-male jury.  Definitely an effective reminder that this film was made in the 1950s, for sure, but that could be as much a reminder of the times as it was an effect of them, for as the film tells us, there’s quite a lot of bigotry going on in 1950s America.

The only character in the film who is not explicitly Caucasian is the unnamed defendant, the Puerto Rican boy from the slums.  It is his fate in the hands of the twelve men, and unfortunately, to some, his fate doesn’t seem to matter.  Juror #10 notably holds the opinion that he is one of ‘them’, displaying superiority and prejudice that cannot be overlooked as ‘harmless’.  During his rant on the subject at the end, he is ignored, abandoned, shut down by his fellow jurors, who are more fair-minded.  As Juror #9 (Curiously, the oldest of the bunch) points out early in the film:

“Only an ignorant man can believe that…Do you think you were born with a monopoly on the truth?”

An important idea in this film is that of open-mindedness, of fairness to our fellow men.  The movie stands as a jarring mirror to some of the bigoted ideas held by many in the 1950s, in more ways than one.  While the film definitely has a biting opinion of those who look down on people from other backgrounds (ethnic or otherwise), there’s also an interesting look at the youth of the 1950s in the film.

The defendant is a young man, basically a boy, accused of killing his father after a fight.  In the first age of teenage rebellion, Juror #3 speaks the words of parents who feel wronged by their children, while simultaneously carrying the guilt of spurning them to rebellion in the first place.  The idea of making your sons into ‘men’ at age nine is treated as being a problem, driving a wedge between both father and son, a possibly irreparable one.

These themes alone would seem to date the film right away, with the heavy emphasis on ideas that were prevalent at the time, if it weren’t for the context with which the ideas are viewed.

Rather than glorify either idea, or present them as being acceptable in the culture, both of these elements are viewed critically by the narrative and the characters within it.  The film, while not exonerating the rebellion of the children, acknowledges the part that parents play in it, and outright views racial prejudice with disdain.  Not only was this a demonstration of progressive thinking, it’s also still relevant today.

In fact, there isn’t a whole lot about this movie that isn’t relevant today.  The idea of ensuring that our justice system works is one that will likely never go out of style, and the critical mirror the film holds up to some of the ideas of 1957 holds up very well in an era where some haven’t moved too far beyond the same thinking.  The film, and the ideas it was based around, still resonate with audiences who see it today, managing to leave an impression over sixty years since it’s original release.

On the other hand, there is a total lack of female characters entirely, (hence the title), leading to some remakes to add a female judge (to keep the name) or change it to 12 Angry Jurors or in some cases, 12 Angry Men and Women (In other cases, the title has been changed to 12 Angry Women.)  This would seem to be the response directed at the one issue the film never addresses, that is, the lack of female representation.  If anything, the lack of it makes the critical reflection all the sharper, the world of the 1950s being dominated by men in general.  The absence of female presence is telling, leaving the twelve men as the focus, all with ideas that (for the most part) are familiar with one another, if not shared by each other.

In short?

12 Angry Men loses some of its enjoyability only if one has no concept of our society’s history and current climate.  It was relevant in 1957, and it remains relevant today, in a culture not so far removed as we might think.  As we continue to progress, 12 Angry Men will stand forever as a landmark and a reminder, no less moving now than it was over sixty years ago.

Thanks so much for reading!  Remember the ask box is always open if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, or just want to say hi, and I hope to see you in the next article.

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on House of X #3

Ah, back to HoX in what feels like the first time in forever.

Death and Memory:

As we might expect for an issue that concerns itself entirely with a special forces mission, the issue starts with an exploration of the psychology of the participants - starting with Scott himself, although the idea of a mission leader who has to overcome his fears and doubts for a higher purpose isn’t particularly novel for the genre. 

Throughout HoX/PoX, there’s a significant part of the fandom that has focused on question of consent - which is something we’ll definitely get into in this and future posts - but it’s noticeable that this discussion doesn’t include this segment, where Scott is very careful to describe the mission as done by “people who accept the mission for what it is” who “understand the stakes and the risk.”

I like how the responses from Cyclops’ superiors not only emphasize the themes of the series but also the character of the speakers: Xavier’s response is (a bit too?) intimate, talking about Scott’s thoughts with the first-hand knowledge of a lifelong mentor who is also a telepath, emphasizing the concept of “family” which we’ll see bandied about through House of X #6, and most crucially promising him that “you’re not going to die. I won’t allow it.” As we learn later, Xavier is being quite literal.

By contrast, Magneto’s speech is all high politics, emphasizing the righteousness of the mission, the Achillean route to immortality “by their mighty works,” and the role that national myth plays in turning real people into icons that live on after their death. We’ll see quite a few Krakoan Founding Fathers as the series goes on, from the Five to the Quiet Council. Given the existential nature of the threat that Cyclops’ team are facing down, it’s not surprising that they’re treated with a bit of Nathan Hale hero-worship. 

So let’s talk about the team composition. As people have noted, while some of them make a lot of sense (you need psychics, you need teleporters, you need sneakers and fighters), others are a bit odd. Archangel’s an odd inclusion, given the restrictions the mission will place on flying, although to be honest we don’t know what his or Husk’s role was supposed to be, because they never get to do anything. 

Focusing more on the broader parameters of the mission: Cyclops is quite up-front about Mother Mold as the proximate danger and Nimrod as the ultimate danger, as well as the no “taking Krakoan fauna with us.” I would agree that Mystique’s body language and dialogue wrt to maybe breaking that rule are quite suspicious here, but if there is any significance to this plot thread, it’ll have to wait for Powers of X #6 and/or Dawn of X.

Incidentally, I don’t buy at all arguments from some elements of the fandom that the X-Men are being mind-controlled or are pod people - we see Archangel and Husk disagreeing with Monet, Cyclops clashing with Mystique...and between Wolverine and Marvel Girl. Prefiguring her role in establishing the Second Law of Krakoa, Jean Grey argues for sparing the “human crew” as non-combatants (”they’re not soldiers in the war...they’re just scientists”), whereas Logan argues that the Orchis crew are constructing “machines to exterminate a species,” making them war criminals as well as military personnel. 

Incidentally, I really like the Krakoan flower on the Blue Area of the Moon being used to boost the X-Men’s space capabilities. It’s a lovely sci-fi touch, and one that shows Krakoa as both innovative and outward-facing but also expansionist if not outright colonialist. 

Machines Infographic:

It’s really hard to discuss Sentinels without thinking about Hickman’s other infographics about ascending hierarchies of machine intelligences.

It’s highly significant that the Alpha Sentinels are set aside from those above them as non-sentient and non-replicating...hence why they are referred to as “drones,” which suggests an insect metaphor. (Incidentally, the original Alpha sentinels seemed to have some awareness, so there’s clearly some retconning going on.)

the Master Mold is replicating, adaptive, and self-aware, all higher functions that we associate with...well, human beings (and maybe AIs?). And yet the Master Mold is clearly lesser than the Mother Mold, because it “is incpabale of improving beyond its ultimate Sentinel state” - in other words, because it lacks the full range of cognition and imagination.

Mother Molds can not only produce Master Molds, but it can also produce Nano-Sentinels who have no limits to their abilities - it’s all very similar to how Hickman conceptualizes Omega mutants vs. the rank-and-file.

While much of HoX/PoX have focused on the threat that Nimrod poses, I’m surprised we haven’t seen as much discussion about what the way that Hickman describes the Omega Sentinels tells us about Karima Shapandar’s role. 

Most importantly, however, we get an info-dump about what Moira learned in her 9th Life (which also shows how Moira continues to exert influence on the plot from behind the scenes): it turns out that “while emergent A.Is are unavoidable, an anti-mutant Nimrod is not.” We don’t know why that’s the case, and I’m really curious whether part of the plan has something to do with creating a mutant or mutant-friendly emergent A.I, possibly through the Cerebro database. 

It’s particularly ominous that we haven’t seen any follow-up on what the “incomplete” Nimrod origin files might mean - did the X-Men miss a backup or a failsafe? Did they get the ordering of Mother Mold and Nimrod wrong? Or is it just a dropped plot thread?

One thing that I like is that Sleeping Giant, Moira’s new plan, involves essentially an Orchis protocol for the Orchis protocol, looking for humans reaching “technological thresholds” at the same time that Orchis is looking for mutants reaching their own thresholds. 

Project Achilles Infographic:

I’m not surprised that much of the fandom have focused on the nature of the Krakoan legal system, but I am surprised we’ve seen so little focus on the “Project Achilles” legal system. 

To begin with, it’s not a good sign that someone who committed crimes in New York City is being tried in a super-max prison somewhere in the snowy mountains. Even more troubling is the discussion of “extra-constitutional requirements” of running this prison.

Finally, while it might be a bit pedantic, there’s osmething really really weird about the Department of State, the branch of government that’s supposed to be involved with foreign policy and diplomacy, running a domestic federal prison. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is a real thing, and there’s a good reason that it falls under the Department of Justice. Again, all this should be troubling.

 A Fair Trial?

Things don’t get much better when we get inside the courthouse, where we see an armed judge chatting with an armed and armored Attorney General, whereas the defense is a clearly intimidated civilian. 

The facade of justice begins to slip even more when the judge says “we’re charging your client” (judges don’t charge defendants, prosecutors do), and then brings up a “twelve-strike rule” that seems to follow the logic of “felony murder” in that the “intent” of the accused no longer matters.

For his part, Sabertooth is clearly enjoying playing the role of the outlaw, establishing his position that as far as he’s concerned, his physical strength places him above judgement or punishment. Something to keep in mind when we get to the question of assessing Krakoan law. 

With her scent if not her reputation greatly preceeding her, Emma Frost arrives on the scene in a characteristic burst of high style and ominous undertones. The Cuckoos’ casual anti-human bigotry, equating humans with “monkeys...using tools...playing at civilization” suggests a poisonous reflection of the old Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon analogy. On the other hand, the White Queen and her “daughters” struggling with the new paradigm of mutant names > human names suggests that building a new, separate, mutant culture is more of a struggle than Magneto would like to admit.

As someone who’s very much interested in the nation-building side of the House of X story, the idea that the nascent nation-state of Krakoa would have negotiated for extra-territoriality is quite fascinating. At one and the same time, we’re shown the need for it - everyone from the judge to the prosecutor to the bailiffs are instantly drawing guns on un-armed defendant counsel and making it very clear that the judge had concluded that “that...thing is a killer” before the trial started - but we can’t ignore the long history of extra-territoriality as an expression of imperialism, either. 

Then again, I wonder how much of the reaction of Western readers is due to the fact that we’re not used to seeing the U.S on the receiving end of demands for extra-territoriality. I wonder how people from countries that were formally colonized or made to sign “unequal” treaties feel about this storyline? 

In the face of knee-jerk violent responses, Emma gets very personal about her diplomacy. She doesn’t use mind control to get her way, because the State Department has already given her all the leverage she needs by granting diplomatic immunity to “all Krakoans on United States soil.” That being said, as much as Emma is here to make a political point that “mutants won’t be judged in human courts,” she isn’t afraid to push back on Tolliver by threatening to make very clear how little the gun matters in “equalizing power dynamics.”

Omega Cycle Infographic:

This infographic is something of a sleeper - I haven’t seen much if any discussion with regards to Karima Shapandar’s role in either X^1 or X^2 timelines. However, it establishes quite clearly that the process of creating Omega Sentinels is a horrific violation of consent, where a person’s “host systems and organs” are replaced well before the “human host becomes aware of the combine consciousness.” Note the explicit comparison to “recovering from trauma.”

I’ve seen it asserted repeatedly that  Karima Shapandar sided with Orchis (or later on with the Man-Machine Ascendancy) because she was excluded from Krakoa, without much evidence cited. This infographic suggests another reason - by proceeding from Union to Adaptation, Karima’s consciousness may have been altered, changing her allegiances along the way. 

There are also implications for Ascension in the X^3 timeline - is “integration of host and machine” a process of cultural exchange and preservation or a hostile process of “infection”?

Crossing the Heller-Faust Line:

Before the action kicks off, we get an interesting thesis: “self-preservation is entirely rational...it’s the panic it produces where errors get introduced.” Throughout the next two issues, we see both sides acting in the name of self-preservation, but also constantly making decisions that ratchet up the body-count.

The initial context has a lot to do with Hickman’s fixation on the mechanical singularity and trans-humanism: continuing her X^2 interest in preserving humanity-qua-humanity, Omega Sentinel’s fear is that an out-of-control Mother Mold will result in the grey goo scenario, if the Sentinels’ drive to wipe out mutants leads them to wipe out humans as the source of mutation. It’s certainly easier than fighting the sun.

Indeed, throughout the next two issues, we will see humans wrestle with their fears of their own mechanical creations: Sol’s Forge is set up with failsafes to jettison Mother Mold into the sun, Dr. Gregor doesn’t initially want to wake up Mother Mold until the A.I has passed a test for sociopathy. We’ve seen what it looks like when A.Is fail this test, and it’s not pretty.

 At this point, the X-Men arrive and what proceeds is a back-and-forth volley of both sides trying and failing to outflank the other. Both Krakoa and Orchis were “expecting to be fully online before we got their attention” and find themselves thrown into a fight before they were fully ready, and their improvizations make things more violent: first up, Orchis calls in the “drones from Mercury” (again with the terra-forming) who will kill Marvel Girl, all in the name of “a little fight for the survival of their people.”

Next, Kurt teleports onto the station to double-check their information and runs into Omega Sentinel - at this point, both sides are willing to talk, Omega Sentinel recognizes her opponent as a person and seeks to understand the X-Men’s psychology.

By contrast, Gregor and Erasmus under-estimate their foe with “a linear plan for a non-linear foe,” allowing the mutants to bypass the hanger bottleneck. Erasmus responds with the assymetric response of a suicide bomb, but I think there’s a fundamental ambiguity as to whether he’s doing this in the name of “whatever it takes to build a better world” or whether he’s doing it in the name of “don’t let them win.”

And so the X-Men lose their ride home, in what turns out to be only the first of many fake-outs.

[aridara]

Fun times: that literal motherfucker of @hominishostilis wrote a response to a post that I made all the way back in 2017. Except that I discovered it just now, because he blocked me a long time ago because I dared to point out that he defended literal Nazis.

Anyway, since I hate him, here’s my reply to him.

1) You’re lying, lol. Not only did you call basically anything “repetition” without actually making any sort of argument, but you also called basically anything “false” without actually making …. any sort of argument.

This is completely false, by the way. For example, Hominishostilis claimed that me calling Richard Spencer “the father of the alt-right” was the funniest thing they ever heard anyone call Spencer. In response, I...

Linked to Wikipedia’s page about Richard Spencer, which describes his views in detail.

Linked to Wikipedia’s page about the Alt-Right movement, which explains where the movement came from and specifically cites Spencer’s webzine “The Alternative Right” as one of the sources of the movement.

I pointed out that Spencer was the one who coined the term “alt-right”.

I pointed out that Spencer is a speaker and organizer of many alt-right meetings.

I pointed out that Spencer promotes the same ideals as the alt-right.

I pointed out that a good chunk of alt-righters looks at Spencer as a leader.

This is NOWHERE near “calling basically anything “repetition” without actually making any sort of argument”, or near “calling basically anything “false” without actually making any sort of argument”.

Kind of like when you ignored huge swathes of things that factually proved you wrong in leu of presenting any actual rebuttal to them.

Note how Hominishostilis will never - and I mean NEVER - actually mention one single thing that 1) was supposed to factually prove me wrong and 2) I ignored without presenting any rebuttal.

2) It’s my post, on my blog - why would I need to link to it?

This requires some context.

You see, in this post, I answered one of Hominishostilis’ posts... without reblogging said post, because Hominis’ post was utter shit, and I didn’t want that shit on my blog. However, I always quoted the bits that I was addressing, without altering them; most importantly, at the beginning of my post, I placed a link to Hominis’ post. That way, if someone wanted to see Hominis’ post in full (for example, to see if I represented his post accurately, or if instead I deliberately omitted important stuff from his post), they could’ve done so.

Hominishostilis threw a shitfit, as you can see in this thread. He claimed that I edited his reply (I did not), then smashed what’s left together, out of context, as some kind of “gotcha” (it wasn’t a “gotcha”). He claimed that I cut out HUGE sections of his argument (because they were useless repetition), snapped up the quotes I figured I could use to misrepresent his argument (I represented his argument accurately), and then blocked him so that he couldn’t even reply (HE was the one who blocked ME). He also claimed that I was wrong to not reblog his post, because apparently I knew that lazy people would just read my response and agree with me (this doesn’t explain why I linked to Hominishostilis’ full post...).

The hypocrisy comes from the fact that not only Hominishostilis did NOT reblog my post; but, unlike me, he didn’t quote anything from the post that he was responding to, and didn’t link to the post he was responding to.

3) You literally can’t prove that, but you continually assert it as some kind of fact.

This refers to my claim that Trump is a fucking bigot. And yes, I did prove it. I asserted it as some kind of fact because it IS a fact.

You present it as a black/white situation while ALSO asserting there’s no other options besides the ones you present,...

That’s because there literally weren’t any options. Trump is a bigot; that is an undeniable fact. People who voted for him either knew that fact, or not; in the former case, they either considered Trump’s bigotry a positive trait, or a negative one. There are no other options. If you voted for Trump, the only possibilities are:

You didn’t knew that Trump was a bigot. You voted for him.

You knew that Trump was a bigot, and considered it a positive quality. You voted for him.

You knew that Trump was a bigot, and considered it a negative quality. You voted for him anyway.

...and that “by all evidence Hillary would have been better” - another assertion you can’t prove, lol.

Note that he never proved that Hillary would’ve been worse.

4) Bigotry “literally” doesn’t kill people.

This claim is completely and utterly absurd, not to mention contrary to all evidence and reason.

It’s also not an excuse to assault people because you *think* they might *eventually* hurt someone.

Yes, it is. If you have reason to believe that someone will harm other people, you’re allowed to act to stop them. It’s that easy.

What people label “hate speech” and “bigotry” has also been stretched over opinions that aren’t even hateful.

This is hilarious, considering that he constantly defends bigotry.

That’s the point you keep conveniently ignoring - you’re still pretending that only the most evil of evil people are the ones being attacked when it’s not. You’ve ignored all evidence of this and dismissed it because that would require you to think critically for two seconds.

No, I did not ignore that. However, I know the following:

One: only a relatively small minority of people on the left attacks inncoent people for no reason.

Two: Hominishostilis is an unreliable narrator. He actively defends neo-Nazis and denies that they did anything wrong. When people correctly called the neo-Nazis at Charlottesville “Nazis”, Hominis falsely claimed that they called innocent non-Nazi people “Nazis”. So, his word isn’t valid evidence. This means that, when he claims that we’re attacking innocent people, we cannot accept his word as evidence.

5) http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Trump+supporter+set+on+fire , you are a moron.

Hominishostilis is trying to rewrite what happened. The context is that he linked me to a video, claiming that it showed “Trump protesters literally sett[ing] a Trump supporter on fire”. I pointed out (correctly) that the video did NOT show what he claimed.

6) He really isn’t. I explained that rather thoroughly, but you again chose to ignore that whole argument and circle back to your “well he DOES STUFF VAGUELY LIKE NAZIS!!”,...

This is false, by the way. Both the claim that Spencer is not a Nazi, the claim that I ignored his “arguments”, and the claim that my arguments bioled down to “well, he does stuff vaguely like Nazis”.

then accused me of “defending him” (LOL) He’s a white nationalist, he’s a racist, but he’s still not a “Nazi”. You’re the New McCarthyists, but instead of The Red Menace it’s “errebody is a NAZI!” Not every racist nationalist is a Nazi.

Presented without comment.

7) Addressed this - it’s not just “Nazis” being attacked, it’s not even mostly “Nazis” being attacked. It’s mostly ordinary people, fellow leftists, and anyone who seems even vaguely conservative these days.

I’m cutting out this bullshit because, besides having been already disproven a million times, there’s the fact that the evidence that he brought to support his claim (his own word)... simply isn’t enough.

8) Nope. Debate them, mock them, show people how indefensible and stupid their arguments are. We’ve gone over this twice now, my guy - it’s not “Nazis” being suppressed.

Blah blah blah, I’m cutting out more bullshit.

Also, fun fact: this entire thing originally started when tumblr user Slimetony wrote: “how dare you advocate violence against people who advocate violence. let them advocate violence in peace. who are you to suppress their right to advocate violence.” Which highlights the hypocrisy of certain people (alt-righters included), who have no problems with bigots advocating violence for no reason; but have big problems with people who advocate for violence against bigots.

Slimetony mocked alt-righters, and showed how indefensible and stupid their arguments are.

Hominishostilis got pissed. He couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept the fact that Slimetony highlighted Hominis’ hypocrisy.

9)Until someone acts on it, that’s exactly what they are. They’re just words.

You know, I issued a challenge to all those who claim that hate speech - including advocating in favor of discriminating against / deporting / harming marginalized groups for no reason other that they dare to exist - is protected by “free speech”. The challenge is to:

Find one space (an online community, a country, a political party, an organization...);

Where hate speech (described above) was freely allowed;

Where bigotry did NOT quickly spread within said space, becoming more common and worse as a result.

Literally nobody who tried my challenge has ever succeeded. Ever. Which leads to the following conclusion:

When a space freely allows hate speech, it ALWAYS leads to said bigotry spreading within that space, becoming more common and worse as a result.

So, yes, hate speech, despite being “just words”, leads to violence unless challenged. If challenging it requires fists, I don’t have any problems with it - because it means that said hate speech is quickly leading to causing violence, at which point I’ll have to use my fists anyway.

[momma-mogai-sphinx]

hi! i’m a 15 y/o lesbian who’s really struggling with her identity. my dad and siblings both disagree with the idea of gay marriage and i feel pretty rejected. i keep wondering if i’m just faking my sexuality for attention, even though i know i’m not. i feel weird and abnormal, and worst of all, my friends think it’s trendy and funny to be apart of the lgbtqia community when it comes with a lot of struggles. could i possibly get some positivity or kind words? or a way to feel better? ty. 💞

I have a few things I could share, actually…

I definitely understand how it is you might be feeling right now, so let me tell you—as someone who grew up in quite the inhospitable home, in a wildly homophobic town, who continues to live happily in said town despite all the odds—it can get better.

I know that can be hard to believe sometimes. I know there are things in your life which are far out of your control; systems that you might not understand, but which have a powerful effect, not only on how much you’re allowed to do and say before your identity is called into question, but also on the very course and structure of life itself. I know it can be suffocating and feel like there’s no escape. I know following the axiom “work hard and have good morals” to a t will never be enough to grant you your personhood in the face of blind bigotry.

But let me tell you why holding on is worth it.

It can be exhausting to be endlessly scrutinized by “normal” society. A single slip up could have you mercilessly questioned on the basis of whichever marginalized identity they decide is going to be society’s downfall today (one that could be and often is largely irrelevant to whatever situation led you to such a discussion to begin with). One false move might see you kicked to the curb (or worse) by your so-called “allies,” your friends and family when they deem you too low in the social hierarchy to risk their image. When you try to argue for or against something, they will see you as nothing more than your marginalized identity, see you as a spokesperson for others who share this identity. And they will use this not only as a way to dismiss you as foolish and “backwards,” but as a means to bully and harass you into complete silence.

It can be frustrating to be erased. When you find a character in a work of fiction that you see a lot of yourself in and headcanon them as sharing an identity with you, they’ll ask, “Why does everything have to be about you?” “Why do you have to make it political?” “Quit sexualizing them, they’re a child!” They ignore the fact that your group has gotten next to no representation in the past (and that you can’t influence the text just by having a headcanon); they fail to see the problem in politicizing someone else’s identity when they’re just trying to be; while they get to flaunt their sexuality around and have it catered to wherever they go, you can’t even mention the fact that you’re of a marginalized orientation without being demonized for it. And when you try to bring any of these things up and discuss how and why they should be changed to give people of all marginalized orientations and gender identities a fair share of the “privilege?” They say, “You have marriage equality and can identify as whatever gender you claim to be. What more could you possibly want? Why are you asking for all these special privileges?”

And, because of all of this, it can be infuriating to be right. It can be maddening to know that, no matter where you go, there will be people with their “hot takes,” prepared to tell you (or, rather, other bigots who already share their opinion of you) why your identity is “a phase”; why it’s sinful or perverse; or even why it can be reasonably commodified for the consumption of another group that doesn’t understand your struggle one bit (and largely doesn’t care to). And their audience will nod along, taking notes on how to “debate” those nasty SJWs and secretly feeling validated in their sheer contempt for those fellow human beings who don’t fit their preconceived notions of what is good and natural. They’ll be told that, when you speak up and point out how there are many examples of people happily identifying as non-straight and/or non-cis for most of their lives (and that it really shouldn’t matter to them whether or not some teen they’ve never met is questioning their identity), they can make leaps in logic to show how “gay marriage is just a ploy to destroy the family and western ideals! We have to stamp the gay out of these kids before they get indoctrinated!” and then show you some bunk statistics about cis people who detransitioned or something (something that really doesn’t matter, given the fact that plenty of trans people are much happier living as their actual gender). When you explain that they shouldn’t be using their religion to justify hatred of an entire group of people, and that calling someone’s identity sinful isn’t much of an argument since you (likely) don’t share the same principles of morality, they’ll gaslight you and say you’re against freedom of speech and freedom of religion (ignoring how such notions have historically been used to enact physical violence against groups whose very existence they disagree with, without ever asking, “Who’s silencing whom?”). When you try to explain how homosexuality is perfectly normal and the existence of trans and nonbinary people is just a side effect of building a complex society that puts value in both emphasizing personal identity and categorizing patterns… When you try to explain why consuming queer media without having at least a semblance of understanding of queer struggles… When you try to explain why all of this can make being queer dreadful at times–not because of anything inherently wrong with us, but because of the way society alienates, silences, and enables violence toward us–and that our “pride” comes from a place of resistance against it all and not because being queer is “cool” and fun… They will not listen.

But there is relief. From all of this.

There is solace in knowledge, comfort in history. When you find yourself in times of despair; when you wonder whether or not it’s worth it pressing onward, knowing how much suffering there is to come…

Remember where you are. You are a young branch atop an oak tree that is both vast and timeless. The tree needs you to survive. As you stretch your wanting leaves toward sun, you may forget that, far below you, there are roots, ever-boring their way deeper into the earth. For as long as this tree has tasted the sunlight, it has been anchoring itself into the soils of time. The roots refuse to be forgotten. When the sun feels like a lifetime away, remember the roots. Remember where you came from.

You come from fire, an untamable flood. You’re descended of wild spirits, unrelenting.

Their Excellence is in you.

Before you is a legacy of roaring lions. After you? That’s for you to decide.

Let your exhaustion be a name. When society tries to dictate who you’re allowed to be, be uncompromising. Refuse to be silent about who you really are.

Let your frustration be a voice. Make art, make music. Tell your story. Refuse to have your struggles erased.

As fury entwines itself with passion, you will become unbreakable as you are unsilenceable.

Emboldened. Empassioned. Empowered.

And when you tire, come to the fountain of knowledge and drink. Know their names, know their stories. Know your roots.

Know Marsha P. Johnson.

Know Silvia Rivera.

Know Harvey Milk.

Know Gilbert Baker.

Know Karl Heinrich Ulrichs.

Know Michael Dillon.

Know Lili Elbe.

Know Lucy Hicks Anderson.

Know Christine Jorgensen.

Know Bayard Rustin.

Know Magnus Hirschfeld.

Know Simon Nkoli.

Know Ifti Nasim.

Know Jason Jones.

Know Barbara Gittings.

Know Audre Lorde.

Know Angelica Ross.

Know Emil Wilbekin.

Know Frida Kahlo.

Know Nancy Cárdenas.

Know Your History. Know how Far we’ve Come.

-

And, look. No one expects you to be passionate at every stage of the game. You don’t have to be the paradigm of the perfect activist every second of the day. You’re allowed to just be exhausted and need a break to recharge. You’re allowed to just be frustrated when people treat you like you’re a representative of the entire LGBTQ community and expect you to know everything about our history and be able to recite all of our “policies.” Never forget that just being you is powerful enough.

Hell, you’re even allowed to feel sometimes that it’s hopeless and wonder if there’s even a point to all this work we’ve done if bigotry still prevails. But what’s important to understand is that is that how you feel and what is true—while both very real and very important to your lived experience and absolutely worth taking seriously—are not one in the same. You may feel that there is no purpose in continuing on with what seems to be a never-ending fight; but know that there is a community, all around you. There are ears to listen, hearts to sympathize, words to encourage, and hands to guide. It may get dark, may become hard to see the way forward. But it’s okay to cry out into the darkness and watch it illuminate with love and compassion and understanding. We are here.

-

There’s a GSA at the school at which I work, and one thing I always try to tell the students who attend about is (what I like to call) “The Breath of Absolute Clarity.” Unlearning the lies we’ve been taught from birth and learning ourselves is a long and arduous process, one that may take even a lifetime. But in every story I’ve ever heard about a queer person accepting themselves (including my own), there is always described this moment; this one instance (or perhaps several) of perfect understanding of oneself. For some, it can be a spiritual experience, tied to their religious beliefs. For others, it can be seen as a moment of self-actualization—where the turmoil of human existence ceases its chaotic chorus, if only for a second, leaving nothing but the sound of a beating heart. Whenever and wherever this moment comes to you, whatever you see, however it must happen… You will know. In this moment, you will know, beyond any feasible shadow of a doubt, Who You Are.

This moment will not last. It is not unquestionable. You may forget it in your darkest times. But if you really try to hold onto it, it will come back to you. Like a towering tsunami, it will invade your senses so completely, you will know as intimately and as viscerally as the human mind can comprehend anything what it is to be unapologetically you.

This moment is not the be-all-end-all of understanding yourself, but it is a start. It’s the moment where questioning and certainty are no longer mutually exclusive; where not having all the answers doesn’t equate to a dizzying network of what-ifs; where you understand just being is enough. Maybe you’ll wake up one morning, years in the future, and your partner will be laying in bed next to you, and you’ll think to yourself, “They know me.” And in a single breath, you will feel absolute clarity.

-

So, with all of that said, I hope your takeaway here can be this:

You are more than the lies and the misunderstandings about your identity.

More than a cog in a monstrous machine.

More than the exhaustion and frustration you feel in the face of unyielding bigotry.

More than the questions you have about yourself.

More than even the history and the legacies that precede you.

You are a human being

You are not broken

You are not worthless

You are not a disappointment just for being you.

But above all this, the one thing I want you to know is that

***TL;DR***

You Are Not Alone.

Just keep holding on. Things can change if you just keep holding on.

[yelloskello]

i fucking hate the stag/doe - butch/femme thing. I hate it. I hate that we are explicitly told that we’re not allowed to use these terms, and for what? I went a’googling to see what lesbians were actually saying in regards to why they’re lesbian-exclusive, read the arguments straight from the horse’s mouth, and it amounts to this:

TERFs (and no, I do not mean lesbians = terfs, I mean it is TERFS who came up with this) straight-up believe that bi women and trans women just weren’t there in our history. They say that butch and femme carry the weight of a painful history and fighting for our rights in the words, and that when anybody but lesbians use the terms, they’re putting it on like a fancy dress and calling it an aesthetic.

As if bi women and trans women just straight-up weren’t there for that history, too.

They argue that ‘nobody fights men to use phrases like bear/otter/twink!’ and quite frankly, i’m pretty fuckin’ sure bisexual men and/or trans men can happily use those terms, too, so shitty argument there pal. 

So they kick us out of a history that we were actively a part of, and younger lesbians who want to do the right thing but don’t know the history of this argument latch onto it, and bisexual people... Within the last year... Create the terms stag/doe, since it’s evidently morally wrong to use terms that are part of our own history, but since we can experience the same kind of dynamics in our relationships, we need SOMETHING to describe them. And what do people say?

‘wtf this is so dumb/fucked up, this is just watered/down butch and femme, they’re literally the same thing, why would you make up new words to mean the same thing?’

because we experience the same goddamn thing, just because we like multiple genders doesn’t mean we always hop on “opposite” genders, we can have relationships with similar-gendered/nonbinary people, even outside of a relationship we are still part of the community, we still experience Gay Attraction, and it can still be part of our identity because we’re still LGBT+, but we’re not allowed to use those terms! We’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.

I hate the wave of separatism that we’ve gone through. I hate the idea that everything has to have shit exclusively for them, even if it has a history of being used by multiple sexualities. I hate that people think No Experiences Overlap Ever, when in truth, marginalized people (and I don’t mean just queer/LGBT+ people - I mean PoC, disabled folks, etc) have SO much more in common than anyone might ever think. Yes, some groups do have things that exclusively happen to them, as a white person i’m NEVER going to fully understand the struggle that brown and black people go through, there’s SO much i’m still ignorant to concerning that, i’ll never pretend all our experiences are exactly the same, but there are also at least some issues that I can strongly empathize with because I hear what they go through and can see similarities in the way i’m treated as an AFAB person or as a bi person or as a nonbinary person. A microaggression because you’re gay and a microaggression because you’re brown are both microaggressions, even if they’re presented in different ways, over different issues. Multiple groups are denied housing and jobs for their identities, even if it’s done quietly behind closed doors so the law doesn’t crack down on peoples’ bigotry. As a trans person I can feel the personal pain of my people being accosted in bathrooms by bigots, and I can look at how black people are assumed to be criminals by virtue of simply walking around in a store, and even though the issues are very different, I can see the similarities - we both are mistrusted by “””normal””” society based on hideous stereotypes - and I can feel for them, even if I don’t experience being assumed to be a criminal personally. I listen to them and I believe them not just because they’re fucking people who deserved to be listened to and believed, but because I have seen how general society treats people like me, so why should it be so hard to believe they could be treated like shit, too?

People think that our struggles are so fucking exclusive that they lose all empathy for other groups, thinking that the only people who have ever suffered are themselves. It’s always baffled me that LGBT+ people can be so fucking ignorant and racist and hateful when you think they’d be able to tap into their own hurt and understand that other people are being treated in similar ways because they’re ‘different’, too. But then again, LGBT+ people can barely understand how other subsets of LGBT+ people have struggled, so I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising. I think of how ace people can write a laundry list of things they personally experience, and other subsets will scoff and say ‘yeah as if we don’t go through that too’, completely fucking ignoring what that overlap means. Thinking that since they go through that, anybody else who reports that they might, too, are just Faking, or trying to steal the spotlight. How can people so completely lack empathy? Why are we not there for each other? Why do we not care about anybody else? Why can’t we recognize the same fucking pain we’re all going through, even if that same pain comes in different flavors, and try to be there for each other because nobody should have to go through what we’re going through?

Like, it’s a complicated issue. Like I said, yeah, groups do have stuff that effects them exclusively, and it can be frustrating to express unhappiness with something exclusive to your group and have people who clearly aren’t actually understanding what you’re going through say they can relate. But denying that there are any similarities at all just drives us farther apart when right now marginalized people desperately need the support of one-another. 

(I was gonna give bi people’s Double Discrimination as an example of that exclusivity, unwanted by communities on either side of the fence, since obviously lesbians and gays don’t experience that... But y’know who probably can empathize? Mixed race folks. Or folks with invisible disabilities. Or ANYONE who’s caught between both communities, not x enough for one and not y enough for the other.)

Speaking only of communities that I am personally in: in LGBT+ circles, separatism breaks up the subsets and causes infighting. In circles concerning disability and mental/physical illness, it isolates its members, denies them support, makes them feel like nobody truly understands, even people dealing with the exact same disability or illness, because symptoms can be so widespread and varied. Hell, even when dealing with our oppressors, separatism fails to actually try and change the views of the people oppressing us: i’d much rather have narratives where men are gentle, kind, feminine, loving, supporting, open to their emotions, and respectful permeating our culture, teaching young boys how to be as they grow, than narratives where men are just evil.

There’s a lot of gray area. There are people who have been so hurt by oppression that I do not blame them one bit for prescribing to a separatist narrative. But I mean in a general sense... I don’t want separatism to be pervasive. I don’t want it to be the mindset people automatically turn to regardless of what they’ve gone through. I want sympathy and support for the people who have been hurt, and I want the groups that have been doing the hurting to change. I want people to recognize the similarities between each other and be unafraid of empathizing and sharing.

The butch/femme and doe/stag thing is a result of separatism, and I can see where they get the idea for it - basically pulling the ideas of appropriation from communities of PoC telling white people not to appropriate their stuff - but they’re lashing out at the wrong people. When a white person appropriates locs, they’re seen by the public eye as being carefree, trendy, and cool, while black folks are still punished for wearing the same look that occurs naturally for them. When a white person puts on a war bonnet, they’re seen as being high-fashion and ‘exotic~~~’, while literally desecrating a sacred part of a culture they don’t belong to in any way, shape, or form. When a bi person calls themselves butch, they’re a part of the community that shares the exact same history, their histories are literally interwoven, and experiences extremely similar dynamics, at the very least, as lesbians. These are two very different things. Tell cis/straight people not to appropriate the terms, but remember, other LGBT+/queer people aren’t fucking cis/straight.

anyways this got way longer than I was expecting but shit, I got like 60 followers, who gives a damn what I say, right? peace.

[tariqk]

PS for folks with privileged identities who want to call people saying mean shit about their identities “discrimination”

Because I’ve been getting this crap and I’m going to reference this again when it happens.

Examples:

If you’re white and you see people making mean comments about you and you want to call it racism.

If you’re straight and you see people making mean comments about you and you want to call it heterophobia.

If you’re cis and you see people making mean comments about you and you want to call it cisphobia.

If you’re a man and you see people making mean comments about you and you want to call it sexism.

If you’re thin and you see people making mean comments about you and you want to call it “thinphobia”.

If you’re affluent and you see people making mean comments about you and you want to call it classism.

TL;DR

You’re using the wrong word. Use “prejudice”, and know that these folks are prejudiced for a good reason. Disagree? Want to know more? Read on.

Why you’re using the wrong word.

We could refer to the dictionary definitions of both racism and sexism to do this, but they’re typically meaningless (they’re a kind of fallacy), because dictionaries are records of how people use terms, and not as authorities to the actual term themselves.

So in order for people to agree with your argumentation, you need to use definitions that everyone finds mutually useful, and defining “sexism” and “racism” as “people who hate you because of your identity” is of limited utility.

Why it’s of limited utility

There are several reasons:

If you have hate for an identity, it’s usually called several things:

bigotry if it’s really literally hate towards that identity

prejudice if it’s a negative view that identity that colors your interaction with people of that identity

You can make arguments about how it’s counter-productive for folks to feel this way about your identity, but to be honest, those feelings are shaped by something else that’s covered by the terms you want to appropriate, because…

A lot of people feel this way about your identity because they experience discrimination and suffer material and physical disadvantages because of their identity is made to be in opposition to your identity.

And that’s why they use terms like “racism”, “homophobia”, “sexism”, “transphobia”, “transmisogyny“, “fatphobia”, “classism” and “ableism”. It refers to two things that operate together:

The prejudice or bigotry that those in the majority feel towards a person’s identity.

The institutional and social power that makes it possible for those with prejudice and bigotry to make the lives of marginalized folks very difficult or next to impossible.

“But my life is difficult too!”

I’m not saying that your life isn’t difficult.

“But you’re saying that how I’m feeling about people saying mean things isn’t valid!”

No. I don’t want to have to waste my energy like this, but if your life is difficult? That sucks. I hope it gets better. But let’s not talk about you for a minute and focus on other people. I’m going to give some examples:

Black folk cannot exist in public, anywhere in the world, without their existence and validity being called into question and, more often than not, having violence enacted towards them.

Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) have to get past the institutional and social damage of over 600 years of colonialism, which include poverty, discrimination, lowered health outcomes and less social and community wealth.

Trans folk literally die forty years before everyone else. Like, the reasons are myriad, and oh god, depressing, but they literally die in their thirties when other people can reasonably expect 80+ years of survival.

Violence against people who are lesbian, gay, bi and a-spec are still a thing. Even in Western countries. Just because they won a few legislative victories doesn’t erase the centuries of discrimination. They’re still recovering from an epidemic that literally destroyed an entire generation of folk.

Women are… hoo boy. You know what? Women have to deal with a culture that subjects them to relentless scrutiny about their appearance and behavior, are still, around the world, subject to relentless intimate partner and other kinds of violence, struggle to represent themselves politically and commercially, and… listen, okay? I could bombard you with statistics and lists and if that still doesn’t change your mind I don’t know what to say.

Fat people suffer worse outcomes with the medical community, and we’re only finding out that the reasons why.

It’s expensive to be poor. Poor folks get dinged left right and centre, and furthermore, poverty in itself reduces the mental bandwidth that is available for poor folk to deal with their day-to-day decisions.

It’s been decades since we figured out that executing disabled folks was the beginning of, oh, I don’t know, history’s worst genocide, and we still have “progressive” folk making arguments that disabled people should be sterilized or, I don’t know, killed as a burden towards society.

This is an incomplete list. God, it’s an incomplete list, and I’m sorry if you’re marginalized and you’re not included here. But I included all of these examples to illustrate what they had in common:

They happened to folks because on their identities.

They harness state, institutional and social power against those identities to make the lives of those marginalized worse or kill them.

When people say your identity makes you privileged, no one is saying that your life can’t be hard. No one’s saying that. Your life could very well be hard. Hell, your life could be very hard because one of the above identities, or other marginalizations that you might have to live with. But it’s not hard because you’re a dude. It’s not hard because you’re straight. It’s not hard because you’re white. It’s not hard because you’re cis.

Just to be clear:

When a marginalized person gets angry and says “fuck $privileged_identity”, what happens to you, the privileged person? Nothing much. You’ll feel sad, or get upset.

When a privileged person says “fuck $marginalized_identity”, it contributes to that marginalized identity’s worse outcome. Maybe you won’t kill them. But you’ll make their lives harder in some small way.

Heck, you might not even have to do or say anything. That’s how discrmination and oppression works — not by a group of Bad People™ taking the effort of doing Bad Things™, but just… people not seeing Bad Things™ happen more or less automatically, because they’re conditioned to not see it when it happens.

It’s men expecting women to look and defer to them in a certain way, whether they’ll be personally violent to women if they fail to do it. It’s white people expecting BIPOC folk to behave in certain ways, whether they’ll personally be responsible for causing those BIPOC folks grief. It’s straight people closing their eyes to gay and trans folk dropping dead due to governmental malicious neglect in the 80s. It’s abled, affluent cis and thin folk closing their eyes due to medical and social neglect happening now.

That’s why words like sexism, racism, transphobia, ableism classism and fatphobia exist. They’re to describe this shit. They’re not for you to use, because those things I talked about at length? They don’t happen to you. Not that way.

“Wait, so what word should I use, then?”

Well, I did give you two options: bigotry and prejudice. But I’d advise against using “bigotry”, because it presupposes that marginalized people hate you. Maybe they do, but it’s also likely they don’t, and it’s probably easier on you if you assume that they don't hate you, personally, considering how often marginalized folk bend over backwards to accommodate privileged folks. That’s right, they do. And yeah, you don’t see it because you’re privileged, and marginalized folk know better than to express it to your face because they might suffer for it.

So if you have to describe it, use prejudice. It’s pretty much something you can use on a technical basis, because it literally means “people thinking bad about you without having all the facts about you yet”. And yeah, maybe you’re not like the other privileged people that they’ve had experience with yet, but you know what? This prejudice? It’s part of survival, as pretty much outlined in stuff like Schrodinger’s Rapist.

Maybe you aren’t a Bad Privileged Person. But if the cost is between thinking badly of you unnecessarily and… well, getting hurt or killed? Who can blame them?

[nightcoremoon]

Callout post: me

lying, manipulative, hold grudges, constantly paranoid, would absolutely 100% check out a teenager if nobody was looking because "it's a harmless crime", liar, cycle through idealization and devaluation, 'sick of fat people trying to be the next civil rights issue and making it that much harder to get civil rights for people who are ACTUALLY oppressed like gee idk poc and muslims and the mentally ill and queer people', frequently fantasizes about committing violent acts against people I rationalize they deserve it including family members, untruthful, attention whore, pedantic AND pretentious, tells lies, doesn't believe in one sister's claim of sexual assault (went to smoke weed with the alleged perpetrator), UNAPOLOGETICALLY AGAINST ASEXUAL EXCLUSIONISM (LITERALLY FUCK YOU DUMBASS FOURTEEN YEAR OLDS WHO SHRIEK THAT QUEER IS A SLUR, SHUT YOUR GODDAM FUCKING WHORE MOUTHS YOU DUMBASSES AND GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE OR READ A BOOK), would absolutely punch a child over an insignificant internet argument, secretly sought out sexual pleasure from two friendly seemingly platonic encounters with two girls I just met within twenty four hours, overreacts to the slightest provocations and has bitches at or vagueposted at several people who did not deserve it, has used mental illness and physical handicap to evade trouble from being late for work because video games and laziness and excessive sleep, has spent maybe a thousand dollars on fast food in 2018 alone, evades bills for medical care from an actually great clinic, lying sack of garbage, gave up on calling out family's bigotry and is now an accessory to prejudice, despises terfs predominantly for their refusal to fuck me because of being trans and yet meanwhile would not engage in sexual relationship with another trans woman or cis man unless reeeeeeeeally drunk, can and will blame being sexually assaulted as a child which probably didn't even happen because I don't think I remember it, unabashed furry, probably as addicted to video games and masturbation AND LIES as I almost was to alcohol, pretended to have almost been an alcoholic just to "win" facebook arguments about addiction, doesn't give a fuck my dad almost died from heroin JUST because he's a *little* homophobic and racist and classist and xenophobic because of a christian upbringing, would literally fucking murder him if he EVER PUTS HIS HANDS ON ME AGAIN, only slightly depressed because of laziness and a lack of drive and ungrateful to my family because hey they didn't kick me out for being trans so HEY THATS SUPPORTIVE ENOUGH FOR SOME OTHER PEOPLE SO WHY CANT I BE HAPPY WITH THAT, legitimately salty about ~the friendzone~ and just makes fun of incels because everybody else does, takes the moral high ground for not being a misogynist even though I don't deserve a pat on the back a lap dance and a blowjob for not hating women, overly sensitive about stupid things, thinking about faking having a trigger warning for more discourse credit, HUUUGE ASSHOLE to men I deem unattractive for no other reason than every single ugly fat guy I've ever met has been an asshole, rationalizes it after the fact because they eventually say something shitty because all men are terrible, probably a little bit of a cisnormative misandrist because trans men tend to be much better people, finds trans men attractive (specifically and significantly more so than cis men) so must clearly be fetishizing them, relatively okay with people referring to me as deadnamed and the wrong pronouns so probably just lying about being trans to everyone including myself, not 100% okay with the hijab for 'no reason other than all organized religion is evil and opposed to its mandate and the shame it forces on many women in many situations the exact same way I'm opposed to no sex before marriage and wives being subservient to their husbands and treating women as property in the torah and quran alike because ITS ALL BRAINWASHING' so is clearly not unlearning islamophobia and doesn't want to let that go, hypocrite because I believe in the basics of judeochristianity

and loathe atheism and atheists entirely because their smugness and smarm literally sets my blood pressure through the roof of what is safe and normal and yet claim to hate all organized religion, mansplains yet gets so pissed off when other people mansplain to me, judgmental of other cultures because they don't have the exact same values that I have, james gunn apologist, talks and talks and talks about anarchosocialism all damn day but would beat the shit out of a coworker for leaving me to do things because they're lazy because "any job worth doing is worth doing well" and other capitalismisms, literally couldn't give less of a fuck that his mother is dying because people die but it's no reason to make my life slightly harder and making me work hard when I work because BOO HOO MY LEGS HURT FROM THE LITERALLY MOST MILD CASE OF MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY I COULD'VE BEEN BORN WITH, hasn't actually performed real suicide attempt ever but still claims to have done so to attain sympathy that may result in physical affection, countless other shitty terrible things that yeah I recognize are bad but CANT SEEM TO CARE BECAUSE I HAVE DEPRESSION... WHICH IS THE WEAKEST FUCKING EXCUSE IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE GODDAMN WORLD

I am not a good person, okay?

I just pretend to be sometimes.

I'm sick of doing it, I'm sick of trying to do well and earn people's approval by doing and saying the right things only to just be ignored which is a step up from receiving many anons that hey, never actually told me to kill myself, but did take my words out of context to paint me as a racist. I am not the kind of racist who would vote for trump and march with the kkk. that is one of very few good things I can say about myself. but I'm an arrogant, violent, and angry opinionated perverted manipulative judgmental lying asshole. I'm not a good person. I have let myself fall so much and I deserve to be alone. my only connections to people were built on personal gain and I swear to myself that I do love them but those feelings fall away in direct correlation to how much they interact with me. I could love you to the point of obsession and stalking and one month later be completely and totally disinterested. I'm a bigot who pretends to not be bigoted and just parrots what other people say not because I believe it but because it's the right thing to say, and I only say what the right thing is to say because whenever I say a good thing something good will happen to me and if I say a bad thing something bad happens to me. it's all just self preservation, nothing else at all. but now I'm at the end of a road of just trying to do good and I'm alone. out of the only two friends that I can really say that I have left, one is far away and trapped in a guilt spiral that I caused by being too clingy, and the other has been behaving in a way my mind has decoded as defensive around me which makes sense as I have been very... the best way to describe it would be the way a dudebro incel interacts with any person who possesses a vagina/breasts but sneakier. in both relationships I've pushed my own wants and desires in extremis... I can't for the life of me recall the last time I have ever offered something in return other than my own company or paying for a meal at a restaurant or I guess transportation. and instead of sex I just want them to express even the slightest bit of intimate platonic physical affection towards me but that's still a lot to offer someone who has clearly expressed the existence of a sexual and maybe something near the realms of romantic in one of the cases physical attraction because for this aspec it's practically the same fucking thing.

and I've manipulated them to attain this goal. at this point my shit brain has considered just fucking going to town on my wrists with a razor blade to draw sympathy so that I'll get a hug or something beyond just a simply hello/goodbye, and finding a way to induce tears to concoct a sob story to reach the same end result, and one time very briefly via threat and intimidation so you can clearly see that I've gone far too into irredeemable territory. I've been playing and replaying cry of fear because it's just too similar to my own issues and the first ending where he just kills everyone he loves and then himself... I see me in that ending. and it scares me so much more than the sprinting screaming twitching one hit kill chainsaw guy ever will. I don't want that to be me, I want to change something, but I just can't get the help that I need. I had hoped to go for a domino effect, where if I could be cuddled for like five minutes or something, I'd have the energy to be more hygienic, which would make me feel capable enough to take on two jobs, which would get me the cash flow I need to pay my bills and take care of my hormones, which would put me in the headspace necessary to effectively use psychological help, which would let me get over my illnesses and actually become a more successful person instead of the pathetic husk I am here in non-fantasy land.

but that won't happen.

I'm just sitting here in the dark angsting about how nobody will touch me in a way that would produce oxytocin, and it's making me so sick, so physically sick, that it's affecting my brain too. I'm in pain, nauseous, vengeful, spiteful, paranoid, judgmental, and lonely. I'm stuck and I can't even kill myself because my mind wants me to stay alive and suffer through all of this because "oh it gets better" people have been saying that for well over half of my life. I was six or seven years old when I asked my mother to kill me, and that same level of desperation and bitterness has only gotten worse as time goes by. when does it get better? I'll tell you when it gets better, after I'm in prison or comatose or forty five years old with a cane and bad eyes and high blood pressure and lung cancer from all the secondhand smoke I've breathed in my life. when my life is over, that's when it gets better. I DONT WANT THAT. I WANT A NORMAL FUCKING LIFE RIGHT NOW. I WANT NORMAL FRIENDSHIPS AND A NORMAL HOME AND A NORMAL EDUCATION AND A NORMAL CAREER AND A NORMAL FAMILY. or at least I want someone to hold me and make me feel like I'm not so horrible and broken that I can't be touched.

but that's too much to ask for.

[wedontcareaboutyourbinary]

1) I don't really have any opinion on MeToo other than nice if it works but as far as I know it's a binary issue with the whole oppression aspect. It's my friend who's into that stuff and wants to punish evil-doers and all that jazz while she can. So when these random guys targeted me and started following me around and do the occasional butt grab and weird panting in my ear while looming over me she sees this as a prime opportunity to implement her newfound power. But based on the

2) “compliments” they were panting into my ear and that nonbinary isn’t really a thing and I go around tits present and I presume they were straight so even if they didn’t tell me they thought I was a woman I assume they were aiming all this to a woman in their minds. So it’d be misdirected misogyny or something like that. Kind of when people think I’m a foreigner because I was given an exotic name but it’s not actual xenophobia because I’m not a foreigner. But anyway it’d be co-opting

3) women’s experiences because misogyny is meant for them. If they would’ve somehow guessed I’m nonbinary then I could’ve said it’s transphobia or whatever the word is for nonbinary people or maybe exorsexism if I had corrected them and as nonbinary isn’t a thing they probably wouldn’t have believed that. But as they probably thought I was a woman it had a misogynist intent and a non-woman can’t experience misogyny even when I was harassed it wasn’t about me and I can’t make women’s

4) issues my issues. So if it gets reported everybody will view it as misogyny and I end up leeching on women’s work to end harassment towards them unless I correct it by outing myself. I mean if a man is mistaken as a woman and harassed based on that they can’t say it was meant for them so why should I be allowed some special treatment just because I happen to look like a woman to everybody? It’s my problem I should solve by myself and not use it to make issues that aren’t about me literally

5) about me. There are lots of actual women who get harassed without me barging in to mess it up for them just because I pass as a woman and could go on forever wondering is all harassment I ever face really about people aiming it to me as a “woman” or me as a person they don’t like or respect. Statistics say it’s the former but I’m not going to stick around to ask when people start groping me so I aim to respect women and stay in my lane and stay out of their business both good and bad.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I’m going to start with the part that I at least can find vaguely humorous: you have here sent an ask saying that an issue is binary, to a blog whose URL is literally ‘we don’t care about your binary’.

Oppressive binaries are generally false ones constructed to condense the oppressive structure into a nice straightforward us vs them situation. This is useful for the oppressors, not least because it makes everyone who doesn’t actually fit the Designated Oppressed Group question their own experiences no end, and it splinters various marginalised groups because they don’t see the common roots to their marginalisation.

The binary is false. Gender is not a binary. Neither, shockingly, is gendered oppression. And I pointed out yesterday that there are several systems interlocking within the realm of gender-related oppression.

The idea that gendered oppression is a binary issue relies either on subsuming everything bad that happens to non-cis people under misogyny (and a lot of it does overlap, not least because of ‘misdirected misogyny’ and the fact that, thanks to the oppressive group doing their best to model ‘them’ as a single cohesive group, anyone who isn’t a cis man is likely to get boxed into ‘woman’ at some point, but misogyny does not explain everything that trans, NB and genderqueer people face!), or denying that anyone who isn’t a woman could ever be oppressed for something related to gender.

That, as Lune pointed out yesterday, is gender reductionism. It focuses on a specific identitarian distinction (between ‘man’ and ‘woman’) without any actual regard for the lived experiences of non-cis people. As such, it is not a functional model for explaining the marginalisation of non-cis people.

Of course, how much of that I can really explain to you I do have to question, given your statement that ‘nonbinary isn’t really a thing’.

Please think about who you sent this to and why you worded it that way, anon. What is prompting you to ask a group of people who consider themselves nonbinary for advice, when you apparently don’t even believe that ‘nonbinary’ is a thing someone can be? Hell, what’s prompting you to identify with the label if you don’t believe it exists?

I’d wager that someone else’s words are coming out of your mouth there. Do think about why you’re letting those words do that. Why are you holding onto that version of the world? What’s it offering you apart from invalidation, dismissal and erasure?

but it’s not actual xenophobia because I’m not a foreigner

You know, I’d be inclined to say it is? It’s a negative reaction to something perceived as being From Elsewhere, so the people having the reaction are definitely, you know, xenophobic? Even if they happen to be wrong about the thing being From Elsewhere?

And if this is meant to be a parallel to your experiences of misdirected misogyny: you’re pulling a complicated mental runaround here that would imply that bigotry is not real when directed at you because you’re not the Target Group, and that said bigotry is directed at you because you are mistakenly assumed to be the Target Group.

Taken together? Those two things would suggest that the people who harassed you, even though they presumably harassed you because they assumed you were a woman, aren’t actually misogynistic, because it can’t be misogyny if it happens to you.

Does that make sense to you? Does that sound like a sensible way to model oppressive systems? Because to me it does not.

If they would’ve somehow guessed I’m nonbinary then I could’ve said it’s transphobia or whatever the word is for nonbinary people or maybe exorsexism if I had corrected them and as nonbinary isn’t a thing they probably wouldn’t have believed that.

I mean… it was transantagonistic anyway because they assumed your gender based on cissexist criteria? Oppressive systems overlap! I’m going to have to repeat that a great many times, I suspect!

And again with the ‘nonbinary isn’t a thing’. What is it, to you, anon? And whose definition are you actually working off?

I can’t make women’s issues my issues

… more than one group of people can have the same issue? Oppression is not as binary as a lot of analysis would make it. 

(And I know we love the binary analysis because it makes things so simple and easy to understand, and if we try to analyse things in a less binary way things get incredibly complicated. But if our theory is not complicated, it will be wrong. And that is worse.)

You’re talking about a kind of harassment that serves to reinforce power. Misogynistic social structures are a major power dynamic where that kind of harassment is used to reinforce that power, but it is not by any means the only one.

Again: yes, absolutely, be aware of who’s being disproportionately affected, be aware of why you’re being targeted, none of that is bad practice exactly, but this is about an incident in which you, you specifically, were harassed, correct?

Whose experience is that if not yours, anon? Who is actually the target of this harassment that was directed at you if not you?

I’m also going to point you to the last point described in this post, the Mistaken Identity Argument. Please have a read through of that post, and take a good long hard think about what it might imply about NB people as a group and their experiences that you’re so willing to deny your own experiences this way.

(Exclusionary rhetoric is often recycled. Yes, that post is from a ways back in the anti-ace discourse, comparing it to the exclusion of bi people. The underlying principles will likely hold true across a great many other cases. And you really are repeating the Mistaken Identity Argument damn near word for word here.)

So if it gets reported everybody will view it as misogyny and I end up leeching on women’s work to end harassment towards them unless I correct it by outing myself.

This is honestly a fascinating (if disturbing) thing to read, because… well, surely, if your experience is misdirected misogyny, and gets reported and understood to be a misogynistic attack, then it being reported will in fact help women work towards ending harassment motivated by misogyny? How is it ‘leeching’ when it’s helping women get where they want to get?

The only explanation that’s actually occurring to me is that you think it would somehow be inappropriate for the success of one group to have beneficial effects for another group (in this example, it’d be somehow inappropriate for efforts to reduce harassment towards women to also reduce harassment directed at you). Which… what even. Curb cutter effect, for one, and for two, oppression overlaps. That is the way of things in this bastard society.

I mean if a man is mistaken as a woman and harassed based on that they can’t say it was meant for them so why should I be allowed some special treatment just because I happen to look like a woman to everybody?

It would be an attack motivated by misogyny directed at someone who is not a woman. It would be harassment, and the man in question would be well within their right to be upset and distressed over being harassed.

I’m not sure what this was meant to clarify. Yes, the man is not necessarily an intended target of misogyny. But if they got taken for a woman and harassed over it, then it’s still that man who has been harassed. It might not have been ‘meant for them’ in the sense that they’re not actually a woman, but someone decided that they were an appropriate target and harassed them because of it. It’s still wrong even if it’s ‘misdirected’ misogyny. That goes under the same principles that any other case of non-women being on the receiving end of misogyny-motivated harassment would.

(Also: you realise that there are men in the world who go through harassment for exactly the same reason you did? There are trans men who haven’t, can’t or won’t transition in a way that gets them read consistently as men?)

There are lots of actual women who get harassed without me barging in to mess it up for them

And how, precisely, are you messing things up for them? Are you forwarding any kind of argument or politics that contradicts the aim of ‘reduce misogynistic harassment’? Sure, having to contend with an understanding of oppression that isn’t binary means more headwork, but if we don’t do that headwork, we’re going to be working from a bunch of faulty premises. Unless you’re also going to start arguing that non-cis people don’t experience any kind of independent oppression, that shouldn’t be all that controversial a statement.

Statistics say it’s the former

I’m not going to argue with you about why you think you’re being targeted, but my inner scientist will never shut up if I don’t address this: of course the bloody statistics say you’re being targeted for being read as a women when most of them don’t even account for the existence of nonbinary people.

How many official documents have you come across that have options beyond ‘man’ and ‘woman’? Society is exorsexist, folks! And outside the realm of assorted alphabet soup communities, most statistics won’t go any further than the official documents.

So like. Yeah, women are disproportionately chosen as targets of harassment. But let’s not get too wrapped up in what statistics that don’t even acknowledge the existence of NB people say about our experiences, mmkay?

Now, for the record: please understand that what you’ve plated up here displays a great deal of exorsexism. There’s the blatant ‘nonbinary isn’t a thing’, for starters. Quite frankly, there’s fuck all we can do to explain exorsexism or anything else to you if that’s the stage you’re operating at. I can go on all I like about how NB people specifically face forced invisibility and denial of identity, how this serves to splinter marginalised communities and play them off against each other, how modelling gendered oppression as being about man vs woman disservices NB people specifically, but if you can still find it in you to respond to that with ‘nonbinary isn’t a thing’, then… what the fuck are you expecting from us?

Then there’s your incredibly binary-centred understanding of oppression. This blog spends a lot of time on the subject of how binary-centric privilege politics fail NB people, and here you are, just… plating up more of the same. Why? What are you expecting us to say in response to this anyway?

Further: other NB people in the world have experienced harassment. A fair few of us have experienced it while closeted and pretending to be women, or just straight up being misgendered as women. When you say that misogynistic harassment couldn’t possibly matter when it happens to you because you’re not a woman? You’re telling one hell of a lot of other NB people that you don’t think we’re allowed to be angry or upset about the harassment that happened to us, because that also happened while we were being misgendered as women.

And I’m going to get very serious for a moment here: what you’re doing - distancing what happened from yourself, giving every excuse you can think of as to why it wasn’t actually bad, why it didn’t actually matter - is classic trauma survivor mentality.

It’s a survival tactic, it’s the kind of thing that keeps us alive when we have nowhere else to go. When you’re making it about your experience of having a certain marginalised identity the way you’ve done, it has splash damage. It’s a mental framework designed to endure, not to improve.

I don’t know if that’s what going on with you. I don’t know a great deal at all about your situation. I can’t do more than offer ideas.

And based on the fact that basically everything I’ve said here is the same stuff I said yesterday, at greater length, I can only assume that you’re not hugely open to taking in those ideas at present. That’s for you to deal with in your own time, you’re the only person who can live your life. I don’t know what you’re expecting us to offer you when you can’t even do us the courtesy of believing that maybe we do in fact exist as NB people.

So I’m going to return to yesterday’s questions that you never answered: do you honestly believe that it’s okay that you were harassed because it was by mistake? Do you honestly think that your harasser should get away with doing what they did because they did it making incorrect assumptions about you?

I’m not asking for some defeatist blather as to why you aren’t allowed to have an opinion on your own life and experiences because someone else was transantagonistic and exorsexist on top of being misogynistic and misgendered you. I’m asking do you honestly believe that what happened was okay and should be dismissed?

- Cade

[theloganshannon]

Black LIVES Matter

This title may seem slightly off-base from our country’s latest event of current news in race relations, but this is something I’ve been meaning to put together for quite some time and haven’t been able to until now. Needless to say, this is going to be pretty exhaustive. The latest events that happened in Charlottesville have added some nuance to the situation, as well as deepened my understanding and strengthened my conclusions. There’s a lot to say and a lot of different angles to take, most of which only add fuel to the flame. This is because the issue at hand is so emotionally centered that most people’s initial response is one purely of emotion; though at first hand this seems admirable, because the human heart is so unreliable it is actually just counterintuitive. The people who act out of hate are simply acting on a dangerous emotion of the human heart. Don’t get me wrong, there is great pain when it comes to the topic, but for one to respond with the feelings associated with the natural gut reaction to the horror we see puts one in a very precarious position. Your only logical progression will be for you to end up reacting with the same dangerous emotion. To let your feelings dictate your response leaves you prone to hatred. If you are perpetually emotional towards these scenarios, you WILL hate! And by now the majority of us surely realize just how illogical that is. But as I get started, it sadly appears to me that far too many still just don’t get this.

Now before you question me on how I could so easily separate emotion from this issue, let me stop you, because that’s not what I’m saying at all. In the last paragraph notice how I said, “If you are perpetually emotional towards these scenarios, you WILL hate!” The problem I’m pointing out is not that we get emotional about racism, but that we remain emotional about racism. Out of some self described righteous indignation we feel entitled to rage against the moral failures and despicable acts of others. Yeah, it makes sense, it does. At least in the most juvenile sense possible, it makes sense. But that’s the thing, it’s childish! And it’s foolish! We are going to get upset about bigotry, we will, but we cannot act on that emotion. This is because, as James 1:20 (AMP) says, “The [resentful, deep-seated] anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God [that standard of behavior which He requires from us].” Instead, we can only act on what we know is true. Truth transcends emotion. It’s much more natural for a human to be emotional than truthful. It is so difficult to look at this objectively, but we must view it this way if we want there to be any improvement. In Psalm 11, verse 3 we find these words, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The answer to that question is at the beginning of the verse, the righteous must restore the foundations where men have destroyed them. To restore and continue in that which is right we must return to the truth of the matter! So let me share with you a few things that are true.

1.      You are angry! I am angry! Believe me I am angry. We are all angry! Well, anyone with their eyes opened at least a quarter of the way is angry. Here, though wrong (because we are incapable of righteousness on our own), anger seems to be the only reasonable reaction. We find it absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary to rid ourselves of our “admissible” malice, because after all we’re right. The guilty party is wrong. And anyone who doesn’t express how right the people with the right view are and how wrong the guilty are, are wrong too. And anyone who doesn’t express how right the people with the right view are and how wrong the guilty are, in the correct amount or manner that we believe they should, are wrong too. Whoa, that jump was a little extreme, wasn’t it?! And yet, that is it exactly what everyone and his brother, mother, and significant other is doing! Somehow we forget, and even a good number don’t believe, that we ourselves are personally capable of committing the same evil acts that literally every single other human has committed. We are all so much more alike than we are different, and the same goes for this idea of what we’re capable of. Given the correct circumstances, anyone of us could commit crimes the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. Perhaps you find that comparison a bit severe, but I had to take it to the maximum intensity in order for you to get where I’m coming from. Let me start by being honest about myself, and I hope you’ll follow suit. I am completely capable of racism. I am completely capable of bigotry. I am completely capable of favoritism. I am completely capable of divisiveness. I am completely capable of hate. In fact I know I’m guilty of a number of these. In a word, because I’m capable of evil, I am evil. Forgive me if you disagree, but all of this is true for each and every one of us, not just me. We’d like to think that we’re all inherently good, and that doing wrong is the exception, but (without going too far down that rabbit trail) that’s simply not consistent with reality.

“As it is written and forever remains written, “There is none righteous (none that meets God’s standard), not even one.” Romans 3:10

2.      Okay, let’s get back to my title, Black LIVES Matter. I remind you, curb your emotions, because I can see several different groups getting upset about a few of the things I’m about to say. Let me first make it clear, actually, ALL lives matter! This is true; it’s not up for debate. Nor is it shameful to make this statement, as some are making it out to be. It’s true, and it’s okay for you to say, but it does happen to be beside the point. I’ll explain… We need to approach every aspect of existence with the assumption that life is valuable. Whether it’s in correlation to ethnicity, disability, or unborn children. I may have just smacked a hornet’s nest, but I’m still speaking the truth and if you’re peering through the lens of reality, not sentiment, there’s no legitimate rhyme or reason for you to disagree. With that being said, to act like the term “black lives matter” is unnecessary and offensive is completely ridiculous. “All lives matter” and “black lives matter” are virtually interchangeable phrases. As well are the phrases “brown lives matter”, “yellow lives matter”, “red lives matter”, “white lives matter”, and simply “lives matter”. So yes, “All Lives Matter” as well as “Black Lives Matter” are both true and acceptable to say. To get up in arms at anyone for either one, though you have your reasons, is just well, emotional. It’s a symptom of childish offense. Being upset about not being categorically included is petty and pointless. Being upset about people being upset for the previous reason is petty and pointless as well. On top of that, the reason that the term, idea, and even organization BLACK Lives Matter even originated is that systematically, historically a specific group of people, African Americans, has been mistreated and dehumanized throughout our country’s entire existence. That’s undeniably true. A large majority of this group does still feel marginalized and they’re simply attempting to make people aware. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that! Many supporters of this idea are promoting it without violence or emotion. But it cannot be left unsaid that there are certainly organized elements of the movement that are acting on their unreliable emotions, resulting in their commitment of acts of violence. That is uncalled for, unwise, and unacceptable! I, at least at a surface level, get it, but that is not the answer. Because I am not personally experienced here, I’m going to leave that at that. I cannot speak beyond the logic. Have one more look back at my title, Black LIVES Matter, the reason I have “lives” in all caps is that life is what is at stake, which is the important thing! The reason I use the word “black” instead of “all” is because, though all lives matter, it is this people group that have the unfortunate necessity to question whether or not those around them think their specific lives matter!

“Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us?...” Malachi 2:10

3.      White supremacist groups exist in our country even to this day. Obviously. And their ideas are still much more alive than many of us of realized. This is what we witnessed in Charlottesville several days ago. Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and their acolytes all gathered together for a protest. What exactly were they protesting? There’s really no answer to that question. This extremely troubled group of people feel like they have been left unheard, and they are angry about it. They have allowed their emotions, fueled by baseless prejudices, to take control of them. Hate has consumed them! Their corrupt notions of racial superiority mingled with their feelings have resulted in a horrifyingly obscene display! What transpired was nothing short of a riot. It got so disgustingly out-of-control that Heather Heyer, an extremely admirable and innocent woman, lost her life at the hands of a rampaging terrorist! The man is deeply troubled, he is so detestably wrong, he deserves justice, but he also needs help. Everyone must do his part to denounce the evil that exists, but as I’ve spoken of before, we must do it with the recognition that it easily could’ve been us! If we’re truly honest with ourselves, we cannot claim to be better. Besides, look what is happening when we respond out of self-righteous rage... Certain people are retaliating with the same type of violence! The people of Antifa, etc. have shown themselves to be no better in the midst of their belief that they are. Violence and hatred toward the violent and hateful is violent and hateful. It feels justified, but it quite frankly isn’t! So yeah, one side is to blame for initializing the incitement and the tragic loss. No one’s arguing against that! But there were certainly several groups that negatively contributed. It’s just true. Yes, motives were different and only one side clearly has race relations right, but angry violence is unacceptable from whoever exhibits it! Now let me briefly address the myriad of people who are criticizing President Trump for not speaking out in the way that you desire… I understand what your plight is, that the leader of our nation ought to immediately, eloquently, and intensely criticize these groups. I agree. But I also do think the president is trying. Feel free to disagree with him, I do on several things, but I don’t think anyone has the right to judge his motives or the state of his heart. According to James 4:12 (AMP), God’s word says, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy [the one God who has the absolute power of life and death]; but who are you to [hypocritically or self-righteously] pass judgment on your neighbor?” You may not like it, but when it comes to this, that’s the end of the matter. In case I haven’t made it clear enough yet, once again: White supremacy is completely unacceptable! It has no place anywhere! It is inconsistent with reality and completely void of morality! It is awful, nasty, and vile! But there is only one effective response, one of reason and peace. Each one of us is only responsible for our own reaction and subsequent action.

“What leads to quarrels and conflicts among you? Do they not come from your (hedonistic) desires that wage war in your members (fighting for control over you)? You are jealous and covet (what others have) and your lust goes unfulfilled; so you murder. You are envious and cannot obtain (the object of your envy); so you fight and battle. You do not have because you do not ask (it of God).” James 4:1-2 (AMP)

4.      Love is rooted in truth. There is only one source of truth. God is the source of truth. God is the very essence of truth. God is truth. God is also love. So love is truth. Throughout the Bible, once you are reconciled to God through his grace, we are shown that to exemplify, extend, and multiply love is what it takes to fulfill the will of the Father. Through a relationship with Christ, God intends and does equip and enable every true follower of His with everything they need in order to walk in love for their Lord and for everyone around them! With that in mind I say the following things: I love white supremacists! I detest what they stand for and do. I love the violent opposers! I detest what they do. I love the violent members of the Black Lives Matter movement! I detest what they do. I love corrupt cops that abuse and misuse their power! I detest what they do. I love those who stand up for what is right! I love those who do this and politically disagree with me! I love the misled with good intentions! I love everyone! I don’t always feel like doing this, nor do I always succeed, but love is the truth so I pursue it. And, though I have the facilities to love, because of the fallibility of man I am unable to accomplish loving anyone and loving them well on my own. As Matthew 19:26 says, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Only through the transforming, restoring, and redemptive power of Christ is anyone ever able to truly love and accomplish the change needed to eradicate the world of hate and all other wicked forms of evil! I choose to love because I choose to be consistent with truth! I will love by listening to all points of view when it comes to whatever issue, correcting where correction is needed, assisting where assistance is needed, and comforting where comfort is needed! So should you if you want to walk in what is right and what is real. Let dealing with the truth in love be what dictates your motives, decisions, and responses.

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore (unselfish) love is the fulfillment of the Law.” Romans 13:10

“For the whole Law (concerning human relationships) is fulfilled in one precept, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (that is, you shall have an unselfish concern for others and do things for their benefit).” Galatians 5:14 (AMP)

 There really is only one answer to the issue at hand. His name is Jesus! Even the most optimistic individual is prone to anger, hatred, cynicism, and sharpness. The only thing that will truly satisfy our souls and heal our great divide is a relationship with the God of Love! The one and only Creator of all things. You and I belong to Him and He loves us all equally! May He draw you near and extend His many blessings to you today!

[gloryformore]

all the gay asks :~)

thx babe you're my favorite ;)1. describe your idea of a perfect datea picnic in the park in spring or fall, where it's warm but not stifling like the summer heat of the south. snacky foods, we bring our journals and run around taking pictures. maybe we go on a lil walk around the lake but honestly, as long as it's with someone I like (i.e. my gf) I don't really care (also museums!!!! r hella cool)2. whats your “type”femme, kind, passionate, I guess I kinda have a thing for short people??? bc I've never dated anyone taller than me3. do you want kids?yes, if that was something my SO wanted as well (vi wants kids)4. if you do, will you adopt or use some other form of child birth?with vi, I would carry the child(ren) or we would foster/adopt5. describe the cutest date you’ve ever been onlast Wednesday!!!!! vi and I went on a date for our 4 month anniversary and went to this adorable little coffee shop / art bar thing??? and it was warm outside and nice and we sat in big comfy chairs and worked on friendship bracelets and art journaling and it was wonderful6. describe your experience having sex for the first time (were you nervous? or was it easy peasy?)I've never had sex with anyone7. are you a morning time gay or night time gay?night time gay for sure!8. opinion on nap dates?yes please (vi and I are both constantly in need of naps)9. opinion on brown eyes?adorable!!!!!! beautiful!!!! underappreciated!!!10. dog gay or cat gay?BOTH I used to be dog gay but I was catsitting for my neighbor this week and fell in love with her cats???? but considering vi is allergic to cats I'm more likely to be a dog gay11. would you ever date someone who owned rodents or reptiles??????? potentially?????12. whats a turn off you look for before you start officially dating someonepeople who are rude unnecessarily. people who don't CARE about anything, don't seem to have any passions and aren't willing to express their love and excitement. people who don't care about others or themselves very much at all. 13. what is a misconception you had about lgb people before you realized you were one?that all lgb people wish would rather be straight (tbh it's the absolute opposite I love who I'm attracted to and I love being able to embrace myself and having the opportunity to challenge the biases of those around me)14. what is a piece of advice you would give to your younger selfit's okay to embrace femininity in yourself and in other people. it's okay to struggle and change and don't let anyone discourage you from exploring yourself and liking others. it's brave just to be you. you don't have to do anything more than embrace yourself. 15. (if attracted to more than one gender) do you have different “types” for different genders?n/a really? because I'm really just attracted to women and woman-aligned nb people and I kinda have the same type for both??? 16. who is an ex you regret?my first girlfriend (her name is elana) who was very rude about my struggle with mental illness and just generally forced me into boxes I wasn't comfortable with in our relationship17. night club gay or cafe gay?cafe. I hate partying. I love tea and hot chocolate. 18. who is one person you would “go straight” forcole sprouse riverdale era19. video game gay, book gay, or movie gay?book gay (movie gay is close second)20. favourite gay ship (canon or not)mal and molly from the lumberjanes comics and Betty and Veronica from riverdale! and Kelly and yorkie from black mirror: san junipero 21. favourite gay youtubercece (@problemsofabooknerd) is a gay booktuber and she does videos with her gf sometimes and they're absolutely adorable (plus she makes lots of queer recs videos!!!!!! check her out)22. have you ever unknowingly asked out a straight person?nope23. have you ever been in love?yeep24. have you ever been heartbroken?yeep25. how do you determine if you want to be them or be with someoneI think it depends on the qualities I admire in a person? like with my current gf I fell for her because of how energetic and passionate she was (qualities I already have myself) and realized those were things I wanted in an SO (someone who was just as excited about things and hype as I am about music and books and things) and things I wanted to express with her26. favourite lgb musician/bandhalsey? I don't listen to enough lgb musicians it's honestly very sad27. what is a piece of advice you have for young / baby gaysgive yourself time to explore. it's okay if you change, it's okay if you pick new labels or no labels or if your language becomes more nuanced along with your personality. it's okay to do whatever feels most comfortable for you. there's no rush, you have a long time to love ahead of you28. are you out? if so how did you come outmostly, yes. I came out as bi in 7th grade and over time have realized I'm not really attracted to men/man-aligned people so now I identify as a nonbinary lesbian and mostly I come out to people by talking about my gf (I am assumed a gay girl, which is close enough to my identity that I don't feel too uncomfortable if gender is harder to explain to certain people)29. what is the most uncomfortable / strange coming out experience you have I haven't had many weird ones????? except I came out to half of my math class when a guy said he wanted to go balls deep in me and I was like "no thanks I'm gay I have a girlfriend and you are the LAST person I would let near my body"30. what is a piece of advice for people who may not be in a safe place to express their sexualityexpress it however you can. don't suppress your identity, but please be safe. journal using code words. start a blog. find a support group. join a forum. do whatever you need to feel like you aren't destroying yourself by hiding. I promise, your safety is the most important thing. just don't let bigotry convince you that there's something wrong with you. I love you so much and you deserve to love in the way your heart wants.

[blackwoolncrown]

I literally have to keep myself from hating people so much when shit like that goes down, I don’t mind that they disagree, I mind that I explicitly state precisely what kind of person I’m talking about in my posts and a bunch of asshats always make pointless reaches to project whatever their prefab argument is on my post so they can be a dick. I am not talking about people who just ‘disagree’ with SJ posts. I’m talking about people whose blogs are devoid of actual analysis, experience or intellectual merit who literally just go around reblogging SJ posts that have been passed down through their shitty little friends so they can just go ‘OP is an idiot/lol SJWs are so lame/wow this post gave me cancer’

There are so many people who do just that and only that. They might specifically be anti-feminism, anti-...people-caring-about-racism, or whatever, or just anti-SJ in general, but the thing is they have NO actual investment in the improvement of relationships between humans. They have NO actual investment in actually bettering understanding between two parties. All they want to do is laugh at people they don’t agree with, and that’s easiest to do by belittling their point and positioning themselves as if every SJ argument is ~soooo ridiculous~. Meanwhile, their entire blog is 90% reblogs with very little original content, because without a fall boy, they have nothing funny to say. Without anyone to kick, they don’t have an argument to stand on. Interestingly enough, since the once-a-year-flood-of-douchebags has flown in to my mentions, I’ve been playing with what they sound like these days and sadly they’re exactly the same. Any argument that touches on a fact of intersectional bigotry that they, personally, have never experienced, gets immediately thrown out as ludicrous. Words fail me when I attempt to describe just how podunk and uneducated it looks for a person to go WELL THAT SURE IS DUMB when it’s simply clear that it’s *new* to them. These are adults whose first reaction to something they don’t understand is THIS IS STUPID instead of just “I don’t get it”. Also, not surprised at the amount of men still using the 4chanian logical fallacy where they go ‘oh you’re mad now haha I win’. Someone yesterday used that one and like, for those who haven’t dealt with it, it’s basically them taking the position that a discussion online is a Battle Of No Feelings and the first person to show emotion is the loser.

So, not only is that not what arguments or debates are about, but that’s also always 100% a front on their part. For instance, a guy yesterday landed on my dash after his lengthy back and forth with a mutual of mine about how, according to him, protesters in the streets deserved to get hit by his car because they were blocking traffic.

For the record, he admitted that he had never been stuck in traffic due to a protest. For the record, as far as I can remember on her behalf, both myself and my mutual have either been in traffic that simply detoured from a protest (Wow! You mean you don’t HAVE to run people over?), and I have been in protests where traffic was being directed around.

So first of all the entire situation his angry argument was based on was purely hypothetical. Second of all his understanding of how traffic and protests interact is uneducated because he’s either never actually been in one,driven up to one, or seen how traffic moves around them, and instead of ASKING what happens, this guy clearly just sat up in his head concocting a fantasy of driving up to one and being late for work, one that filled him with so much anger that he decided to write and DEFEND why he figured protesters deserved to get hurt and or die. But his tactic, once I dealt with him, was ‘haha ur mad’. And he’s not? Being so frustrated by imaginary traffic that you advocate vehicular homicide is not a neutral position. But this comes down to men being awful. They really honestly feel that their misanthropy is neutral. Hate is, I regret to inform you all, a feeling. And it’s hate and confusion that motivates people to constantly leech on to arguments aimed at bettering the world and constantly derailing them with pedantry, apathy, and just plain chuckefuck bullshittery. I don’t reblog even most of where my posts end up, but it’s been exhausting seeing how many people specifically dance around my point in order to build a nice strawman, when they could have just as easily not said anything if they didn’t agree. There’s nothing wrong with just letting someone be ‘wrong’ in your opinion if it’s not literally something that endangers people. People like this think they are doing something very noble by vigilantly attacking every slightly-different-and-more-empathetic-than-theirs stance on tumblr dot com, but the true reality is that it is an addiction. 

Arguing with people on the internet feels very good- so good that people enjoy watching it. Any time I do bother getting into discourse, someone ALWAYS sends me a congratulatory ask specifically talking about how GOOD they feel seeing it. It’s vicarious righteous anger. And it’s the same way those asshats feel, loading their blogs up with snarky one-line disses at the end of a feminist post they don’t like, or an anti-conservative post they don’t like, or a post about toxic masculinity they don’t like. They didn’t have anything to say, but it feels good to be able to shoot another arrow into your enemy, doesn’t it? And people are chasing that feeling. That’s why I don’t like when I get compliments on discourse, and that’s why people will specifically twist my VERY simple fucking points in order to get a jab in. It’s sad, it’s really, really sad.

[thecourt-rpg]

BELLATRIX THEOXENIOS is a TWENTY SIX year old FEMALE HUMAN that uses SHE/HER. They are known for THEIR SWIFTNESS, CUNNING AND MASTERFULNESS. Unfortunately, they are also known for THEIR INTRANSIGENCE, INTOLERANCE AND RUTHLESSNESS.  

Their face claim is EMERAUDE TOUBIA, and they currently live in FATESWALLOW as a PEACEKEEPER.

Trigger warnings for kidnapping, murder, and abuse.

Stories about the supernatural had always fueled people’s imagination, myths and legends have existed since times immemorial, most with dark undertones about the intentions of the creatures described. There’s little surprise, when one thinks about it, that some would have taken those stories seriously, would have wandered off in search of things that go bump in the night, would have instinctively seen them as threats to all of humanity and wanted them eradicated.  

The brotherhood is old, and few documents actually exist to provide its current members with a specific timeline, in fact, most stories about the monsters they hunt are transmitted orally. They’re fighters, they have no time for record keeping, after all. Killing is a demanding calling, especially their brand of it. Their lack of respect in written history is perhaps what explains why, as centuries passed and the human world evolved, the creatures they exclusive hunt these days – the creatures they still know about – are restricted to vampires and werewolves. Any other legends are met with dismissiveness and scorn, two different species are enough to provide a serious threat to the human world, and there is no need to look for dangers where there are only shadows.  

They recruit members from former victims, survivors of attacks, or their own offspring – rare as such people are – and Bellatrix had known no other life than this one. She’d been born into it, and more importantly, she’d been born for it, never a soft-spoken, affectionate child, never one afraid of loud noises or dark corners. She’d excelled at training, and while she could have been more obedient, more respectful of her superiors, her skill far surpassed that of others in her age group. Despite her mastery of numerous weapons, both ancient and modern, it was clear she preferred hand-to-hand combat, often times charging heedlessly into battle to get first shot at a kill.  

Being so good, so fast had made her conceited and indifferent to those she viewed beneath her. She wasn’t an easy person to get along with, even among her own people, but then again, the brotherhood was not a place to make friends, or lead a regular life. She wasn’t alone though, not when it came to her skill, nor to the isolating tendencies it gave her. Hunters always went out in teams, three, or four, even more if they were to attack a nest. Those they hunted might be less than human, but they were stronger, and faster than even the best trained soldier could be, and aid in dealing with them was considered necessary. Even so, collaboration between hunters was fraught with trouble and despite her confidence, it came as a surprise to her to realize she excelled at that, just like she excelled at everything else.  

Her partners quickly became her whole life, and although the first time they’ve shared a mission had been a fluke, they continued in the same form from then on, refusing to pair up with anyone else. For someone who hadn’t dealt in sentiment, the strength of her feelings terrified her at first, until she realized they felt the same way. It was, ultimately, a relief to trust the people who were charged with your protection, so deeply. It was a relief to know she wasn’t alone in finding the blind obedience their superiors demanded frustrating. It was freeing to have people assist her in her schemes, no matter how rebellious, or haphazard they sounded. They began sneaking out, spending all their time together, not just on missions, and training together. She became a better shot, their expertise with knives improved. Where she hated taking advice from her teachers, she had no trouble listening to her teammates, and becoming a better fighter because of it. Together they were unstoppable and lethal, so much so, in fact, that word of them had actually spread throughout the legendary underworld they navigated. Vampires and werewolves both showed signs of recognition when they attacked, but, riding on the adrenaline fueled wave of their success, they ignored the dangerous signs, and one day finally paid for it.  

The ambush separated them in a labyrinthine forest, and Bellatrix wasn’t worried, at first, there were other times when they’d have to split to track a mark, and they had protocols in place to find each other again before returning to camp, but the trails they’ve found were a mere diversion, its goal to divide and conquer, and she didn’t know whether she took the wrong turn, or if traps were waiting for all of them at the end of their path, and for all her skill, she couldn’t fight seven vampires at once. But being the cowardly, dishonorable creatures they were, they had no plans to kill her – it wasn’t punishment enough – and instead dragged her back to their lair, blindfolding her and feeding off of her to keep her weak.  

It was mostly the abrupt change in temperature that warned her something was terribly wrong. It was winter where she’d been, and now it felt like spring between one step and the next.  Another clue had been the fact that they’ve removed the blindfold, seemingly uncaring whether she could recall the way to their lair or not. She thought it was because they had finally decided to kill her, but they made no move to approach her and slit her throat, which was a mistake, just like their sudden carelessness to the danger she posed was. The place they’d ended up in was teeming with blooming trees and despite her efforts to ignore the uneasiness in her mind, she became aware she was no longer anywhere near the place she’d been taken.  

For the first time in a while, fear gripped at her chest – if she couldn’t guess where she was, then how were her friends supposed to find her? They had the same training after all, the same skillset – if she couldn’t figure something out, they’d have trouble as well. Yet despite that, she knew she had to get free. And, for once, her love of knives in a world where modern weaponry was easily available, had finally paid off. She’d been patted down before being tied up, but they hadn’t found all the daggers she’d hid, and she cut down her ropes, taking advantage of the fact they paid little attention to her, and stabbed the vampire who was supposed to guard her, before fleeing.  

It wasn’t that she thought she could escape them that way, but there were still six left, and she needed time to lay out traps. Luckily, all forest were more or less the same, and she was well versed in fighting in the woods, trained since young to ignore pangs of hunger, or weakened limbs. She killed every last one of her kidnappers, before emerging from among the trees, bleeding from multiple scratches and half-drained of blood. She passed out and woke up in a hospital bed, with only vague memories of having been found and moved. She didn’t trust them, seeing how the images contained winged creatures, with sharp ears and rows of sharpened teeth, but it wasn’t long until she saw them again, when her doctor entered the room.  

Not one for dramatics, Bellatrix didn’t recoil or scream, or start crying, and simply tried to absorb her shock at the apparition. Days passed until she could find it in herself to speak again, the one who’d drawn her out of her shell human, like her, a psychologist who specialized in those who slipped unintentionally into this world. The Court – she’d called it – and gave her a brief rundown of its structure claiming, outrageously, that all species lived here in perfect harmony. Bellatrix was not going to believe that, but she couldn’t very well contradict her without raising suspicions.  

After all, she was not supposed to know anything about any other supernatural creature, until she’d been attacked by the vampires who dragged her here. She was offered a way out, but encouraged to adapt to this new world instead, and although her skin crawled at the thought of treating monsters like fellow citizens, she daren’t argue. Somehow this seemed like too momentous a discovery to let herself squander it and, armed with the knowledge that she knew how to leave, she took a job as a Peacekeeper in Fateswallow, her training helping her pass the entrance tests. And although she trusted her partners with her life, she wasn’t as certain they could follow her there, in another world, the thought of having to do what she’d set out to do alone, leaving her hollow and dejected. But there was little time for moping around, with all the secrets she had to discover, all the weak spots she needed to exploit so she could blow this thing wide open and end this bizarre world once and for all.  

At Least Three Potential Plots for Your Character  

 ENEMY OF MY ENEMY – Bellatrix might have trouble adjusting to the idea that there are more things out there for her to hate, but nothing quite measures up to her dislike of werewolves and vampires, and because of her job, she cannot only keep her interactions with humans. She’s likely to meet others who, because of circumstance, or bigotry or a combination of both, hate vampires and werewolves, as well.  

 HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT – Bellatrix took advantage of her training to get a job as a law enforcement officer, swearing to defend the very people she hates. This plot can be related to regular days on the job, whether it’s her catching someone red-handed, or being called to deal with a public disturbance; or it can deal with the conflicting feelings that arise as she has to pretend to view all people as equal, and even help those she feels are unworthy of being saved.

 BLOW  A KISS, FIRE A GUN – even if she feels like she’s fallen of the face of the earth, and that there would be no tracks to lead her teammates to her, she cannot quite lose hope completely. If anyone can find her again, even in this place, it would be them and she spends countless hours looking for any sign that they might have crossed over too.  

[reneeacaseyfl]

Trump says Ilhan Omar ‘hates Jews’ to defend against racism claims

President Trump speaks outside the White House on Monday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

President Trump, unrepentant after hurling racial invective at four nonwhite lawmakers, accused one of the first two Muslim women in Congress of harboring animosity toward Jews in an apparent attempt to claim the moral high ground in an explosive contest over identity, patriotism and bigotry.

Trump asserted that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Somali-born refugee who fled civil war when she was 12, “says horrible things about Israel, hates Israel, hates Jews.”

“Hates Jews,” the president repeated from a lectern at the White House on Monday. “It’s very simple.”

The tactic demonstrated how aggressively the president has courted Israel and its most fervent American supporters, as well as his willingness to use that base of support as a bulwark against accusations of intolerance. So, too, it highlighted divisions within the Jewish community between those who look skeptically on a newly vocal left-wing flank of the Democratic Party and those who see these voices as natural allies in the struggle against religious prejudice.

Wrapped up in the protest against Trump’s language is discontent about how non-Jewish commentators have appointed themselves guardians of Jewish interests in a moment of rising anti-Semitism.

“I was disturbed by the president’s weaponization of people’s indignation about anti-Semitism from some of these women to cloud the accusations of racism against him,” Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

[Trump says they ‘hate our country.’ The Democrats he attacked say the country ‘belongs to everyone.’]

The charge of anti-Jewish animus was especially noteworthy because the quarrel’s basis — the dissent of the four freshman Democrats against an emergency border aid package and their criticism of Trump’s handling of immigration enforcement — bore no obvious relation to accusations of anti-Semitism that have dogged certain members of the liberal cadre. Omar apologized in February for comments suggesting that politicians were motivated by money to support Israel. She has also faced backlash for discussing the “allegiance” of Israel’s American proponents.

But the two issues — the fate of migrants detained at the southern border and the mounting incidents of anti-Semitism — have now been mixed together in a politically toxic brew.

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, compared migrant detention centers to concentration camps, Trump’s allies in Congress accused her of minimizing the horrors of the Holocaust. Hundreds of historians have since signed an open letter defending the use of analogies to the Nazi genocide, though not all agree with the accuracy of the freshman lawmaker’s claim.

It was again the accusation of anti-Jewish bias that became prominent in Trump’s escalating war of words this week with the progressive women of color. In addition to verbally attacking Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, he appeared to target Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Omar and Tlaib are the first two Muslim women in Congress. Pressley is black, and Ocasio-Cortez has described herself as a “Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx.”

Trump initiated the feud when he tweeted on Sunday that the Democratic women, only one of whom was born outside the United States and all of whom are American citizens, should leave the country if they were unhappy because they “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe.”

The comments were roundly condemned, with some in his own party chiding him while many others defended him against accusations of racism.

Trump, speaking at an unrelated White House event on Monday, said the women were the ones at fault. And the alleged wrong he chose to highlight, focusing in particular on Omar, was anti-Semitism. He also asserted that the women “hate our country,” in addition to Israel, and made the baseless claim that Omar sympathized with al-Qaeda. Trump previously called President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black commander in chief, a terrorist who was born in Africa.

Omar has been critical of the Israel lobby, at times using language widely seen as inflected with anti-Jewish conspiracy. Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, had advocated for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which Jews and Arabs would jointly govern. Both women support the movement known as BDS, for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Modeled on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the campaign aims to leverage economic pressure on Israel to win Palestinian rights. It bitterly divides American Jews, notably on generational lines.

These positions have brought the freshman lawmakers into conflict with some Jewish members of Congress. One of their especially outspoken Republican critics, Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, did not take issue with the president’s remarks on Monday, instead writing on Twitter that the onus of “self reflection” was on those with a “blame America 1st mentality.”

The charge of anti-Semitism lobbed by Trump was echoed by other congressional Republicans, some of whom said they regretted the president’s style while making clear that they sided with him against the Democratic women.

Monday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) advised the president to “aim higher,” but suggested that the more grave transgressions were those committed by his colleagues on the other side of the Capitol.

“They’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America,” he said, also accusing the congresswomen of being communists.

Sen. Susan Collins, the self-styled moderate Republican from Maine, called Trump’s initial tweets “way over the line,” recommending that he “take that down.” But she began her statement on the matter by chiding the freshman congresswomen. Among the issues where she disagreed with them, she said, was “their anti-Semitic rhetoric.”

Trump relished the support from fellow Republicans. He quoted Graham in tweets on Monday, adding, “Need I say more?”

The Republican Jewish Coalition also promoted Graham’s statement, writing on Twitter, “He isn’t wrong.”

Meanwhile on Monday, speaking at a forum on combating anti-Semitism, Attorney General William P. Barr said a “body politic must have an immune system that resists anti-Semitism and other forms of racial hatred” and condemned “identity politics” for breeding hate.

Some American Jews have objected to the injection of concerns about anti-Semitism into partisan contest.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) drew on long-simmering resentment about the way accusations of anti-Semitism were being deployed when he responded to the president’s remarks.

“I have been pretty polite about this and so have other American Jews,” the lawmaker wrote. “But you really have to leave us out of your racist talking points.”

He protested, “Your racism is your thing and we are not your shield.”

I have been pretty polite about this and so have other American Jews. But you really have to leave us out of your racist talking points. You are not helping us, you are not helping society, you are not helping Israel. Your racism is your thing and we are not your shield.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) July 15, 2019

Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, struck a similar note when he observed on Twitter that Trump was harming “the Jewish community” by “using Israel to defend his blatant racism.”

“He doesn’t speak for any of us,” wrote Greenblatt, who has previously spoken out against Omar, calling statements from the freshman lawmaker plainly anti-Semitic and urging House leaders to pass a resolution clarifying that the chamber prized different values.

#AntiSemitism is on the rise.@realDonaldTrump using Israel to defend his blatant racism only hurts the Jewish community. He doesn’t speak for any of us.

We call on ALL leaders across the political spectrum to condemn these racist, xenophobic tweets & using Jews as a shield.

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) July 15, 2019

Still, others saw danger in dismissing complaints about anti-Semitism as self-serving politics. While he hardly thought Trump’s accusation absolved him of blame, Amos Bitzan, a professor of Jewish history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said he worried about describing the invocation of anti-Semitism as a shield employed by racists.

“I don’t want people to say that everyone who levels the charge of anti-Semitism is racist, or on the far right,” Bitzan said, pointing to the example of Britain’s Labour Party, which has been roiled by complaints of anti-Semitism. The concerns, the historian said, have been dismissed as a conservative attack on the party’s left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

But Lipstadt, the Emory professor, said Trump was brazenly attempting to pit those most concerned about racism against those most concerned about anti-Semitism. Jews, she said, should be alarmed by the president’s rhetoric about foreign loyalty, and his suggestion that the congresswomen leave the country if they are unhappy.

“One of the tropes of anti-Semitism is that Jews don’t belong, that they’re more connected to each other than to the country in which they live,” she said, also noting that it was the denial of citizenship, under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, that paved the way for the Nazi extermination.

The “terrible irony” of the conflict over race and loyalty pitting Trump against the minority lawmakers, Lipstadt said, was that the president was “hoisting Omar on her own petard” — using a racist trope about loyalty similar to the one that she apologized for enlisting earlier this year against backers of Israel.

If the controversy were to have a positive outcome, the historian said, it would be Omar gaining greater insight into how the rhetoric of loyalty and belonging is deployed. By the same token, she said, Jews who were upset by the congresswoman’s comments about loyalty to a foreign country “should be equally outraged by this comment from the president.”

“Don’t weaponize your indignation and only see it on the other side of the political transom,” Lipstadt said.

More from Morning Mix:

A neo-Nazi unleashed a ‘troll storm.’ Now he could owe his Jewish victim $14 million.

A graphic suicide scene in ’13 Reasons Why’ drew outcry. Two years later, Netflix deleted it.

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