#and so much of the actual political ideology is lost on me Because of the price point

[squintsintwink]

Cyberpunk 2077 is my favorite anti-capitalist game that I spent 70 dollars to play

[weirdmageddon]

the original post i want everyone to see is way out of my hands now, so i’ll repost this again here as new but separate post. it touches on things i want to go into more depth about.

@wasabikitcat gets this idea. this reply—thank you so much for not just understanding what i was going for, but putting my exact thoughts into cleaner words on the bad reading comprehension site.

i can't believe how misunderstood my point was about “spirituality” (i didn’t know it was that much of a loaded phrase!), but thank you for putting what i meant into more nuanced terms.

it's something that can be hard for me to put into words, and maybe i gave people the wrong impression by using the word "spirituality", since words mean different things to different people. i just haven't seen people discussing it so i wasn't sure how to really put it. but regardless of terminology, this reply is exactly what i'm getting at. and this is coming from someone who has a very scientific mind. i wouldnt even consider myself a traditionally “spiritual” person in the normal connotation of the word.

edit: this one as well!

i see this as a cultural/political factor that we shouldn’t ignore, because this sense of meaning has driven people's motivations since the beginning of human civilization.

there's a primal aspect that hasn't really left us but there seems to be no room for it in our modern culture because half of these “guides” seem to be driven by “i cant wait for civilization to collapse so MY ideology can rise from the ashes" and the other half of it seems to be driven by greed. and often they are hand in hand.

i would really like to see actual enlightening ideas stemming from buddhist thought, analytical psychology, collective unconscious, and archetypes to take off in the public consciousness. (completely divorced from jordan peterson. just the original jungian stuff)

i am especially supportive towards getting people interested in carl jung's works. his idea was to get people to understand, "what myth am i living?" based on the same archetypes and symbols that recur time and time again throughout human history that we can all collectively recognize regardless of culture. so it's a sense of meaning based in the self. i don't want people being sent down reactionary paths when looking for meaning in their lives.

i think it would benefit people to who feel lost especially in uncertain/unprecedented times like, with those “there's got to be more to this, something deeper,” insinct. i see that people are looking for this but get taken advantage of or manipulated.

but on this deeper sense of meaning in life thing, the Left isn't doing a great job at providing an option for “lost” people looking for meaning that the Right seems to be having no trouble with. i wonder if this is why we've seen so many of these lost young men flock to reactionary commentators?

this reminds me of an excellent point contrapoints made in her video about jordan peterson, saying,

“The last thing I like is that you talk about deep shit. I was watching a video where you and a couple of zany goons were talking about Plato and Aristotle and the meaning of life. And I thought, ‘Huh… on the Left, we don’t really talk about that kind of thing. All we talk about is how society oppresses people.’ And that might not be enough. Because people need to have a positive purpose in life. I mean, personally, I don’t give a shit. I’m pretty happy to sit here watching the same three seasons of Strangers with Candy until I die. But other people, like Dostoevsky, Camus, other white guys who talk about lobsters…they have this need to have purpose in the face of suffering, and like, not just complain about patriarchy. I guess it’s easier to not complain about patriarchy when patriarchy isn’t the thing that’s making you suffer. But I do think that an education that only teaches people about oppression is inadequate. We spend four years teaching undergraduates why capitalism is bad, and then we say, ‘Well, you’re educated now. Good luck getting a job under capitalism, bye!’ …And that really kind of sucks! But you know, I think that’s a point that can probably be made without comparing transgender activism to Stalin.”

speaking of her, this is a related post i wrote earlier on young men being radicalized and how to approach communication

and by the way, if you are interested in learning jungian psychology and want to see what it’s about, here are some resources to get you started:

i think the jung subreddit has a great collection of resources on its about page.

i highly recommend Demystifying Jungian Psychology to start. it’s meant for beginners. it is available in english and spanish. you can currently find the book in the comments section here. since sometimes these links lead to a 404, i don’t want to link directly to the google drive page. i want you to have a link to the original thread in case it gets broken.

[saixria]

@angels-bullshit well you asked for it TELEMACHUS RAMBLE

I’m sure there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Telemachus represents open arms. For one, he immediately accepts Athena as his friend with open arms and offers the goddess of wisdom some wisdom in We’ll be fine, that’s just. Peak open arms behavior.

Besides the obvious, we can look into the motif (literary, not musical) of light vs dark in the musical (which might also be obvious but anyway). Even if we ignore Polites’ whole cut song “Your Light” about being Odysseus’ “light”, the light motif is actually kept in Open Arms — “we can light up the world here’s how to start”. I think this motif symbolizes the positive impact of open arms. Much like Circe said, “maybe showing one act of kindness leads to kinder souls down the road”. If you inspire the world around you by being kind, you will in turn be treated with kindness. This is contrasted by the motifs of darkness in “I am your darkest moment” and “the world is dark” signifying ruthlessness. Instead of trying to change the ruthless world around you, you must become ruthless too to survive. There’s inherent selfishness to ruthlessness since you’re ensuring your own survival over others.

WHAT A TANGENT OK HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO TELEMACHUS? He has this line in Legendary “so I could bring the world some light” which references Polites’ whole “light up the world”. Let’s not forget ��tell me Athena why you came to my aid” has the same melody as “what keeps you up so late at night my friend” from cut song Ismarus where Polites is asking Odysseus this. (HM I WONDER WHAT OTHER CHARACTER IS UNABLE TO SLEEP DUE TO GUILT)

The light thing comes back so many times in we’ll be fine. “Then his light went dark” (can be interpreted as Polites, his “light”, dying, but I prefer to interpret it as him basically getting traumatized, losing his original enthusiasm in his belief that everything would go smoothly and he’d be able to get home with all 600 men as he suffers his very first casualties) “life could be that bright” — Not only is Athena talking about Odysseus losing his light, she herself has also lost hers as she lost her one and only friend and the positive impact he had on her life, and now it feels as though her life has gone dark.

“I know it’s light you’ll find” — Telemachus is literally acting as Athena’s light here as Polites was Odysseus’ 😭😭 he encourages her to help Odysseus, to embrace the Open Arms ideology of making a positive impact on the world around you and you’ll end up positively affected as well. In bringing Odysseus light, perhaps she herself will also regain hers. From all this, Telemachus clearly represents Open Arms and is to Athena what Polites was to Odysseus.

Now how does Telemachus embody ruthlessness? This part is much shorter since we don’t have as much to analyze (perhaps we’ll get more in Ithaca saga) but Telemachus doesn’t shy away from being ruthless when the need arises either. He fights Antinuous in Little Wolf to defend his family’s honor, and in Ithaca saga he will also help kill the suitors (perhaps we will get more on his mindset here, but don’t take my word on that). He is willing to do what it takes, even if it’s cruel like hunting down all the suitors, to protect his family, and killing the suitors IS what’s necessary and an act of ruthlessness.

(Though actually this is making me realize “boy I wish I could so I could bring the world some light” was referring to… killing monsters. Maybe this shows that even in Legendary he’s wanted to make a positive impact on the world by being ruthless in a way, further showing that he’s the true balance of Ruthlessness and Open Arms)

Anyway, Telemachus was really only able to achieve this balance because of his circumstances, just as Odysseus was forced to fully embrace ruthlessness because of his. While Telemachus has faced hardships (the suitors) that requires ruthlessness to be dealt with, hes also a crowned, sheltered prince, largely unaffected by even darker aspects of the world like war and death as Odysseus has been, so Telemachus was able to retain part of his innocence and his “light” while Odysseus’ was stripped from him. Both of them were products of their environments, and it’s quite fitting how Odysseus went to war to protect his son, and his son ended up being a “better” person than Odysseus was forced to become. Telemachus means “far from battle”, and indeed Odysseus has succeeded in keeping his son far from the darkness of war and its aftermath.

[wrotelovelytears]

Pluto might be in Aquarius

But that's only half the story.

Now I'm not one to believe only the planets inspire change in people but the environment they live in, their disposition and their current state of being impacts them just as much. Astrology without the consideration of culture and context is just astronomy. It has the body but not the soul.

I start with that because of all the current global happenings. I understand the importance of spiritual and religious practices, and they don't exist in a bubble of their own. It is highly related to the cultural movements and ethnic practices of a region. If we are going to be honest religions/spirituality would not exist with out those cultural foundations. Literally there would be nothing if ethnic and cultural differences didn't play a role.

Hoodoo wouldn't exist if African Americans didn't. The Greek Pantheon wouldn't be a thing if the ancient Greeks didn't interact with the Egyptians, Nubians and Macedonians. And it should be very well known the Romans stole their whole flow and rebranded. The same Romans who took Christianity and set the foundation for the many versions we see today.

I say all that because I've noticed a lack of connecting between the social/political climate, traditions and belief systems. We can't pretend that Vedic astrology isn't an actual part of Hinduism because it wouldn't exist if Hinduism wasn't here. And Hinduism is the result of two very different populations interacting with one getting colonized and pushed south and the other needing a system/ belief to justify it. We can't pretend that tropical astrology isn't a more Eurocentric method because the signs, planets and their meanings are not the same outside of Western/Eurocentric ideology. In fact it's heavily based off of Roman and Greek interpretations, the base of Western Society as a whole.

I'm not going to pretend that Pluto moving into Aquarius is the only reason why we suddenly "see" more social changes, more standoffish behavior, more coldness to our fellow human. All Aquarius is doing is putting it on the internet. It sent a tweet out and we all saw it. These issues aren't a magical happening, they are the result of centuries of bs pilling up. Of cultures merging in ways that weren't possible before modern technology. Of colonization. Imperialism. Chattel Slavery. The Arab Slave trade. Ethnic cleansings.

People weren't passive before the shift into Aquarius, people were ignoring it. It's really easy to do when you have no personal reason to care, in fact it's probably something all humans can relate to on one topic or another. Trust me I was heavily into activism spaces a decade ago, everything being talked about in media now was talking about then. It was talkes about when my parents were growing up in the 60s. My grandparents in the 20s/30s and so on. Aquarius just put it in our faces (again, and will continue to do so) and said "now what? ".

I want people to not just lean in to spiritual/religious practices because they are popular but to look into the actual meanings they have. I want people to understand that yes you can be spiritual/religious and your ethnic background does impact how you practice. I want people to understand these changes we see in France (they lost their standing in Africa, literally all their former colonies told it to cope, and that's leading to their collapse), South Korea (this is not the first, and sadly won't be the last time, power has been abused under the name of "anti communism", in fact ask South East Asians how they treated there and you'll see this was going to happen), the United States (a country founded on genocide and racism isn't going to magically be less of those because a Black woman got to run for office) etc aren't solely a shift in the Star positions.

I see people point out the French Revolution happened the last time Pluto was in Aquarius (but they also had lost all the land in the US and Haiti told them to fuck off, so it wasn't just not eating cake, it was the lack of slave labor to fund their empire). Or America getting it's freedom (Britain was getting close to abolishing chattel slavery (again free labor, people hate to lose their free labor), the Irish and Scottish were also giving the English a hard time, they had to pick between the people next door or the ones over the Ocean). At that time it was the lack of free labor that pushed those movements, yeah everyone didn't have slaves but they all benefited from that system.

So many astrologers say don't let the stars determine your life but literally turn around and do that. Astrology is a tool at the end of the day. That's it, because if someone doesn't believe in it that doesn't change what happens. Conformation bias would have us believe differently but that's just part of our nature to lean towards that which supports us, not questions us. It's a practice that spans the globe and millennia because we can all look up and see the same stars at night. Maybe not as bright because light pollution, not the same positions because stars go supernova and the solar system moves, but it's still up for everyone on the planet. It's something that regardless of where you go, there's some meaning to it, maybe not always spiritual but a reason nonetheless. And it's never the same, obviously or else this would be a very boring plane of existence, and there's overlap because humans gonna human no matter where we are.

I implore you to think on your upbringing. Think on your ethnic group(s). Think on your current country of residence. Think on what you were taught in school. Think on your family. Because that's what's impacting you. That's what makes you make the decisions you do. Not just Mars moving through your third house (this is just an example, if that's happening for you good for you or I hope it gets better idk) .

Pluto in Aquarius isn't bring change. It's humans and our individual motives that are and always have.

Aquarius is a sign that puts the spot light on things already in motion. It makes you think because if you don't you can't understand. It makes you detached because if you feel it too much you might get hurt. It makes you remember because this isn't the first, nor the last time it will happen. Aquarius is the personal motive made public part of human nature. The selfish desires that push for survival. The seeking of like mindedness. The drive for community, but only if it's the same as you. Aquarius is the when of the story.

[theamityelf]

Eyyyy it's me again with my trash English but I have been struck with an idea when thinking about the minis au (it's just so cute)

Hear me out

You know the minis like mini thh and mini sdr2

And we have v3 soooo I was thinking

What if the minis from thh and sdr2 were together in v3

And they would be like a set so like let's say for example kokichi has to take care of the luckster set aka makoto and nagito or rantaro has to take care of the forgotten their talent set or you could make hajime have his talents but he and izuru fused thingy :D

I in all honesty don't know what set would work with who so I'll leave that up to you on which set would consist of who and who it would work with

Mini Classmates AU Masterlist

I love it! Oh boy, let's see...I could go based on talent, but I think I'm also going to have some consideration for just what combination would be cool, lol.

(For example, if I were going just by talent, then Impostor and Junko would probably both go to Tsumugi, but that's too easy and denies Junko the opportunity to make a meaningful difference.)

...

Kaede: Keeping it straightforward with her; she gets Sayaka and Ibuki. It's the musicians. They get along well.

Shuichi: I'm giving him Sonia and Byakuya. The only real backstory rationale for this is the idea that they're both serial killer enthusiasts and also Shuichi is like the nepo baby of the detective world (joking)? But that's not the actual reason. Really, it's because it's cool to place a bad influence like Byakuya on Shuichi's shoulder– someone who will praise him for lying in trials –and also it's funny to give Shuichi someone kind of high maintenance. I want Shuichi sweating, trying to make accommodations for the Ultimate Affluent Progeny and the Ultimate Princess. And I want Sonia sitting on the bill of Shuichi's cap with her little legs dangling off and her ankles crossed.

If Kaede dies, he'll take her minis in, and vice versa.

Rantaro: He's getting Hajime and Kyoko. Memory gang! I honestly don't think Rantaro would trust his minis all that much, but Kyoko doesn't need trust to be effective (though it definitely helps); she just needs access. And he has to take her with him, everywhere he goes, or risk being executed if she's lost or killed. For now, I'm saying it's normal Hajime, but we can put a pin in that, for later.

Kirumi: Oh, Taka and Mikan are the clear answer, but I kinda want to give her a spicier combo...Like, Taka and Mikan are fitting, but I don't know that they really bring out anything new in her. But if I gave her Makoto and Nagito? Now we have this hypercompetent person dealing with Makoto's clumsiness and Nagito's craftiness. She's not wholly unreceptive to Nagito's ideology, but she's very pragmatic about when it is and isn't helpful. Nagito and Kirumi are having a very polite conversation about how it's their natural place to serve, and Makoto is just waving his arms like "NONE OF THIS IS RIGHT!" Yeah, congrats Kirumi; you get Makoto and Nagito. If you see Nagito climb into Makoto's tiny bed instead of his own after you both get back from planning a murder, no you didn't. ;D

Angie: In a vacuum, she'd get Mahiru and Hifumi. But oh boy, consider...if she got Impostor and Junko...No listen, her canon arc is going from "It's going to be fine," to "Actually, maybe I need to make it fine by taking on a leadership role based on manipulations I haven't unlearned from my upbringing." How short do you think her "It's going to be fine" stage would be, if she knew that her minis were "person who is lying about their identity to everyone" (because her handbook tells her Impostor's talent) and "person who definitely has bad intentions but I can't pin down her exact deal" (because she can read Junko pretty well, but not well enough)?!

Does she assume that everyone else's minis are also up to no good, or does she reach the conclusion that she has been given these minis because she's the only one who can handle them? Whatever the case, her vigilance in keeping Junko on the straight and narrow reads to everyone else like she's just trying to evangelize her poor minis. She is genuinely a little unfair to Impostor, in that she considers them and Junko to be at the same level of "needs me to fix them". I'm giving her Impostor and Junko, because it'd be fun.

She'll be keeping Junko in check with a smile on her face. But since this is a case of her character flaws coming in handy, what this means is either that she still won't get to grow as a person or the moment she grows as a person is the moment she lets her guard down and Junko gets to do something underhanded.

Tenko: Obvious answer would be Aoi and Akane, and that would really be a fun dynamic that would help divert some of her obsessive energy away from Himiko...Other possibility is Leon and Nekomaru, which would be mainly because

1. It's important to see that, despite her "degenerate male" thing, she's still a very caring person to everyone; the game didn't make this as apparent as I feel they could have. It would be cool to have her still say her "degenerate male" stuff but be very careful with Nekomaru and Leon. (My concern here is that it reads like I'm trying to punish her, and I'm not. I just like what this could bring out in her.)

2. Ryoma would do well with Aoi and Akane. Yeah, it's really just a matter of Tenko and Ryoma both qualifying for both pairs of athletes, and I think Ryoma would get more out of having the energetic and positive Aoi and Akane than Tenko, who is already energetic and positive, would.

So, Tenko gets Leon and Nekomaru. She's pretty strict with them, and Nekomaru is super respectful; Leon is rebellious, but Tenko can definitely handle that. (Alternate option is, she gets Aoi and Akane and Ryoma gets Sakura and Hiyoko, but that's not the way I'm playing it.)

Ryoma: Aoi and Akane. Given how positively he reacts to Kaede in canon, this arrangement would be good for his mental health. Not to be 100% serious, but these two are going to pretty much explicitly be his reason to live for a while there. Making sure they get all the food and exercise they want really gives him a sense of purpose, and they push for him to get back into tennis, since it's clear to them that he still loves it.

Korekiyo: My immediate thought is Toko and Gundham. For a moment I considered what Sakura and Hiyoko or Celeste and Chiaki would bring out in him, and either pair could be really cool, but if his minis are both girls, he genuinely might kill them to get to his 100 friends count, once it's clear he's going to be executed anyway. (Which could allow for a situation where Sakura manages to protect Hiyoko and escape, but Celeste and Chiaki would pretty much just die in that situation.) He probably doesn't consider Toko a worthy friend for his sister. (As fun as it would be if Gundham had to protect Toko.) OR, it could be a nice character moment where he chooses not to kill his minis even though there's no reason not to. That'd be nice.

Anyway, I think Toko and Gundham are the match for him. Their quiet, subdued, poetic vibes would go well together, he would take Genocider Syo very much in stride, and just generally I think it would be a pleasant grouping.

Miu: Chihiro and Kazuichi. Her maternal side would come into play, and Kazuichi would love that. Honestly, both Kazuichi and Chihiro would be pretty overwhelmed (in different ways), and I really kind of just want to let that dynamic ride.

Gonta: ...Thinking about giving him Mahiru and Hifumi. Mahiru would be glad to give him advice on how to be a gentleman, and Hifumi would be an example of what not to do (and, ever so occasionally, what to do). Plus, they'd both get a kick out of being closer to bug-sized, artistically speaking; Mahiru can take pictures of bugs that come up to her knee, and Hifumi can get inspired with thoughts of whatever show or manga is relevant to giant bugs. All of that said, Gonta only gets anything out of this arrangement if we take it to be true that he genuinely does need (and want) to be a gentleman, and I'm just not sure whether this is the most interesting angle for him.

Mondo and Fuyuhiko would be wild. Imagine those two giving Gonta masculinity advice, and Gonta just being like, "...No, I think I'm good actually."

Actually, I'm back on Mahiru and Hifumi. I think that could be fun. Gonta gets Mahiru and Hifumi, Mahiru and Hifumi get giant bugs.

Kokichi: Mondo and Fuyuhiko feel fitting for his talent, because they belong to crime groups, but the combo doesn't feel interesting enough. Chiaki and Celeste sound fun, because games and lies. But I'm giving him Mukuro and Peko. Because everything he doesn't like about Maki is something he'll also dislike in them, and tease them about. He doesn't trust them, and like Angie, he considers it his job to prevent any damage they might do.

(If Kirumi dies, I think he'll really push to take care of her minis, because I'm picturing a murder trial where Nagito is firmly supporting Kirumi and Makoto is either confused (because Nagito made sure he didn't see the murder, but he knows enough to know that Kirumi's alibi doesn't make sense) or missing (because he did see the murder, so Kirumi had to hide him), and Kokichi's takeaway would be that Nagito is too into the killing game to allow to run loose and also Makoto might be trustworthy.)

Kaito: I could have given him Kazuichi and Chihiro, because being an astronaut is science, but I would have found the combination just insufferable, lol. (I'm half-joking. It could have been fun.) And Mahiru and Hifumi would also be fun for him; I kind of want Mahiru to yell at him. But I think Sakura and Hiyoko are the coolest option. Hiyoko can fuss at him and laugh at his expense, and Sakura can express concern when he shows signs of his illness.

Tsumugi: She gets Celeste and Chiaki. Let the doll dresses (and video game references) roll.

Kiibo: He gets Teruteru and Yasuhiro because Hiro would hate it, lol. And I believe Teruteru could work with the premise "Giant robot has to take care of me."

Maki: I'm giving her Taka and Mikan because it's funny. It's a fitting combo, for the talent she lied about having. She lied to them about it, too; when they find out that she's an assassin, they're dismayed, but also she's been taking care of them for days now, so they're also worried about her and trying to get her to open up. When Taka tries to encourage her, she's annoyed. She's also annoyed when Mikan falls over or acts all sheepish and she has to help her with things. But she takes care of them, and she does so very well.

Himiko: The obvious answer would have been Celeste and Chiaki, but I'm tempted by Mondo and Fuyuhiko. Imagine Himiko with a mean-looking gangster guy on each shoulder. Imagine Mondo and Fuyuhiko getting into an explosive argument and Himiko just going, "Nyeh, you're so loud...You're lucky you're cute." Chiaki and Himiko have too-similar energies, anyway. So, Mondo and Fuyuhiko have a home at last.

[f1ghtsoftly]

Where can we go from here? Gender-Critical Feminists, Radical Feminists and Our Political Moment

For years, Gender-Critical women have pushed far-right ideas under the guise of “radical feminism” pulling us into the culture war should feminists even bother to get ourselves out?

Hi all, I am starting to publish opinion pieces alongside my news roundups. These will typically be published on Wednesday, as my schedule permits me to write them, but I am too excited to share my first! 

When I found myself at odds with “gender ideology” in college I, like many of the women reading this, lost a community of friends and colleagues alongisde a feeling of “belonging” within a certain sect of American society. I personally struggled to reconcile with the idea that the invert theory of homosexuality seemed to have found considerable purchase among progressive democrats who began to believe that access to “healthcare” to make gender nonconforming people more gender-conforming was an actual civil rights issue. Coming into consciousness as a woman and a lesbian for me, and so many other women, meant recognizing that neither the mainstream “right” or “left” party in the United States has an interest in elevating the status or addressing the material needs of the women who vote for it. It also meant recognizing that women have much less collative power than many of us realize. It can feel tempting, when feeling cast out and without allies, to look to the women who position themselves as leaders of the Gender-Critical movement as allies and to subsequently write off the way they ignore, parrot, and work with the far right as realpolitik, but is not.

The erosion of women’s rights is not just occurring from attacks on Title IX from Democrats and the cancellation of lesbians in q**r social circles it is also coming from draconian restrictions on women’s healthcare and the disturbing phenomenon of online trad wives. Gender-Critical Feminist leaders tell us that we must be “pragmatic” and work with the right, not only do we prove our critics correct, but we also tell women who are harmed by abortion restrictions and evangelical religion that their problems are not really a priority to us. We alienate scores of women who are victims of misogynistic violence and patriarchal control. We ensure that we will continue to be a puppet of the right in the future and damage our reputation and legacy. My issues matter, but they aren’t more important than a sister dying in a hospital in Texas because she did not have access to the healthcare she needed. The insistence by activists that it is not only tone-deaf but revealing of their priorities, which are transparently not feminist.

A look at the other political priorities of many Gender-Critical feminists reveals even more problems as they promote eco-fascism, dangerous carnivore diets, violence against immigrants, and advocate for “religious rights”. This has gone on for years, but at this particular political moment, with the right poised to take all the levers of federal power, it is becoming increasingly important for Radical feminists to push back. For too long some women have tolerated right-wing women in our spaces and our names under a sense of urgency and fear. Women have allowed them to “compromise” on reproductive rights, to be cruel to transgender people, and to ignore conservative attacks on women, people of color, and LGBT people. Isolated principled women have always pushed back against appalling racism, homophobia, and misogyny of “Gender-Critical” women like that online isn’t it time that we make a cleaner break? Clearly, with Republicans so firmly in control of so many levers of power, it is obvious to everyone that the worst aspects of “trans ideology” are dead. You can be sure though, that the legacy of “Radical Feminist” women who collude with the very people who should be their enemies, will not die in the minds of women as easily.

The end of the worst SJW excesses doesn’t mean we don’t still need radical feminism as an independent political force. We need activists creating a grassroots coalition of women so wide and so powerful that we don’t need to run after any and every alt-right woman and cultist who claims the title of “radical feminist” or tolerate their fiction that Donald Trump is some kind of warrior for women. There is no wider movement or patriarchal institution to turn to for protection. It is only we who can build liberation for ourselves, and only by creating a grassroots base of support can we hope to stem the tide of what will surely be another decade of reaction and restriction of women and maintain that into the future.

What will you do to stop this? Now that Republicans have power, will you fight for women harmed by their policies and the cultural institutions they promote? Or will you shrink back into your own life, happy to ignore all the women who will be harmed by their brand of regressive misogyny? Undoubtedly, I know the broader coalition I have been working with will eventually shift, from opposing the left to that of the right, but that will take time, and not only will much more damage already be done, but the masses of women will not be better educated about how and why this happens. We need feminist political education to get out of the cycle of reaction and overcompensation, women must understand no male can free her. We must make a grab at power for ourselves.

[horizon-verizon]

Reasons Why the Westerosi Houses Didn't Overthrow the Targs After they Lost their Dragons

feudal oaths and ideology of loyalty to one's monarch...yes it matters, even though lords have also been known to break oaths or press for their own interests, this is still something considered relatively taboo (remember Ned's hatred for Jaime killing Aerys).....this is still a feudal society, guys.

(if you have in mind that they should have ousted the Targs out of some idea the Targs caused too much havoc or misery to the lords and peasants) #1, the Targs actually provided more years of sustained peace [ozymalek/PheonixAshes] than when the houses were all leaders of kingdoms pre-Conquest [list of a lot of warring across Westerosi relams pre-Conquest], inclu the years AFTER the Dance -- the Targs were "dramatic" but also most of their issues stem from patriarhcal abuses adopted from pre-conquest Westerosi leading into inevitable succession crises...if there ha dbeen no Targs and a Westerosi lord somehow "unifed" the realms through Conquest (even Dorne), you can't tell me there wouldn't be any wars or crises of succession...come on! The War of the Five Kings occurred even without any Targ tomfoolery, bc by then they were long (1 and a half generation away) gone by then.

The Targs were pretty and pragmatically tolerant of nonTarg Westerosi customs and never tried to stop them from practicing MOST (right of first night to be excluded); plus the Widow's Law was pretty beneficial as well.

some houses actually got to become Great Houses or Paramount Houses BECAUSE the Targs made them so: the tullys, the Baratheons, the Tyrells.

Post Dance, Rhaenyra's sons Aegon III and Viserys II were more or less pretty good at keeping things together...Viserys esp so before and during his own reign. And esp by keeping the women of their family out of politics or practicing enough autonomy and authority, since some felt the Dance happened bc they had authoritative and powerful queens (F&B tries to convince use female rulership was a disorderly and dangerous thing) so that the lords or any possible rivals couldn't or had not much to protest, etc.

[radfemsiren]

I know that it's a sacrosanct among radical feminists, but I don't think that witch hunts were intentional persecutions of women.

There were a lot of men burned as witches. In Salem 1/3 of victims were male, in Europe generally around 20% were, and in the East majority of witches burned were male.

This seems like too much male victims for allegedly misogynistic campaign.

Don't get me wrong, I see that even per my words women were harmed more, and yes, it's because of misogyny. But it wasn't the prime reason for witch hunts themselves - they started because of paranoia and religious hatred (it was the time of Wars of Religion and also christianity in 16-17 centuries in all forms was strengthening its chokehold on society). And what is actually almost universal to all victims is that they were considered undesirable by their communities. And yes, since misogyny was commonplace, women were spared less empathy, especially elderly women.

And also the narrative of connection between women and magic of any kind, including healing one, emerged during witch hunts. Before them magic and healing practices were viewed as mostly male thing, and in some parts of my country they still are.

Once again, witch hunts are undeniably a testimony of misogyny of Early Modern Europe, but they weren't some kind of purposefully misogynistic conspiracy. Moids of all groups and ideologies always think of women as morally inferior in their way (fascists think that all womens are commies, atheists think that women are superstitial, christoids think that women are godless, I bet you know this), but saying that all of their political or cultural movements are therefore covers for misogyny is delusional. But the narrative of witch hunts as a campaign against folk healers or some unproven witch cult are IMO pointless because they paint Middle Ages as some feminist utopia (no fucking they weren't, though they weren't a trad dream either), and also operate on comic book logic of some shadowy evil men crafting misogyny in 16th century instead of pointing out how they highlight actual gruesome misogyny of the time.

And also I genuinely doubt that midwives medics of the time were beneficial for women, but accounts of harmful practices that I read were from 19th century, so one can argue that actual knowledge was lost during witch hunts

I feel like that’s what feminists are saying though no? Like the characteristic of the witch-hunts were that it was fanatic mobs persecuting hated groups: and women were the biggest oppressed, hated group. When it comes to the church being threatened by women gaining power and learning medicine, I can’t speak on that because I’ve never researched this topic.

I will say though that the idea of “well all men are misogynistic so calling out specific cultures for misogyny is pointless” is an excuse I really hate. Religious people come to me everyday with examples of specific atheist men that are misogynistic as an attempt at a “gotcha” and its such a logical fallacy. It doesn’t sway me in the belief that a theocracy will always be a thousand times worse for women than a secular government: the overall function and practice of an ideology are what’s important, not cherry picking parts you like or dislike.

There are dogmas that incite hatred and misogyny and punish critical thinking and individual thought: the mechanism of organized religion is one of these. Authority must always be obeyed, and obedience to man and god is the priority. You can sprinkle nice little anecdotes of Jesus being nice to prostitutes (Muslims have similar stories too, like of the prostitute that gave a dog water and Allah forgave all her sins) and still the foundation of Christianity and Islam are clearly antithetical to women’s liberation.

[bestworstcase]

@tumblingxelian from here

As the person who started the "Give that girl a cult" tag, I kind of disagree. RWBY Beyond already made it clear Ruby has a lot of people focused on her in a Great Uniter sense. Add in how many issues she's been having and judging by the movie continues to have with playing the role needed of her. & that there's a nationalistic/fascist movement being aided by the villains & I feel like Ruby being admired not playing into it makes zero sense. The memes of Jax just screaming in frustration cos Ruby is much, much, much closer to the icon he only pretends to be are just memes and not realistic expectations for the volumes story. I should also clarify, cult was just picked cos "Fan club" doesn't have the same connotations.

mm to clarify where i’m coming from, my main point of disagreement with the "ruby gets a [celebrity] cult" angle is with Where and How it will have narrative impact (i think ruby’s celebrity will be more of a personal stumbling block for her tied into the summer rose mystery and an issue that exacerbates the nascent civil war, not smth she can take advantage of in the political conflict vs the crown) and how prominent it’ll be in terms of the amount of specific focus put on people adoring her.

but the main bone i have to pick is with specifically the "ruby is literally going to be deified / silver-eyed ascended savior / tea as communion wine" type stuff (like this other anon) where "cult" is being used explicitly to mean religious veneration. THIS variant makes me want to bite people 

but anyway, to your actual points: i get that the jax meme-ing is largely exaggerated joking around, but at the same time the main thrust of all the real speculation in this vein is that ruby’s celebrity functions to set up a personal conflict between herself and the asturias twins and strengthens her coalition’s hand against the crown because she’s admired, an inspiration to the people, etc. 

in the same way that "salem’s gonna show up a year late with starbucks to explain her ninety step plan for beating the gods" is an unserious joke that follows from things i do seriously believe, that salem’s ultimate goal is to get rid of the brothers and the heroic side will hear her side of the story as probably the last major narrative turning point… no one is joking about jax going "NOOOO!!" while he bleeds supporters to ruby’s accidental cult of personality because they don’t think her celebrity is going to play a meaningful part in defeating the crown, yeah?

i’m also using the memetic joke phrasing in the prev post mainly because i didn’t want to just repeat stuff i’d already said in the one right before, but—well, okay:

1 - the crown isn’t a vanity project. jax is arrogant, but he does also fundamentally believe that he’s doing what is best for his nation; it’s an ideological project. and the ideology is more or less, "vacuo was broken and exploited by foreign invaders long ago. outsiders and those who aren’t willing to fight to the death for vacuo make this nation weak; to become strong again, loyal vacuans must band together to get rid of these people and fight for ourselves and our way of life." when jax imagines the "old ways," he envisions himself as the kind of king who holds himself equal to all his people ("he wasn’t going to hold himself above them")—he’s tying himself in a mental knot here to hold this belief while also putting half his forces under mind control, obviously, but the cognitive dissonance here is buried very deep. 

2 - the MAINSTREAM, NORMATIVE city vacuan cultural view—expressed by many different vacuan characters, including sun—is "we lost our identity and our way of life because people were too soft and content; we let the other kingdoms come here and take what they wanted, and then they left us with nothing but sand, heat, and bitter memories. but hardship and fending for ourselves for so long has made us strong, so we don’t need anyone telling us what to do!" <- i am condensing but much of this is lifted verbatim from the speech sun makes to rally eleventh hour support against the crown. in that speech, he rhetorically equates the twins to the "other kingdoms" who, like the crown, "promised prosperity and paradise."

3 - now. i don’t believe rwby is going to play straight this idea that vacuans were to blame for the conquest of vacuo, because a) the nomadic vacuans in after the fall hold very different cultural attitudes, b) in the 9.11 animatic oscar explicitly refers to all this as a "history of colonization," and c) rwby doesn’t blame faunus for being persecuted or the people of mantle for being repressed, why would vacuo be different?—these are cultural views that i expect to be challenged in v10.

4 - notice how similar these normative/mainstream views are to the crown’s ideology! the crown is more extreme, more violent, but it’s really not that far off from stuff the good-guy vacuans say. before the 9.11 animatic, this was the whole basis for my thinking that the crown would be the arc antagonists in v10—at the end of the book, the defenders turn the tide by flipping the nationalist rhetoric around; ideological victory to the crown. dump tens of thousands of refugees from another kingdom into this situation, and what happens? popular support for the crown explodes. 

5 - BTE is a villain origin story. it’s just the prelude that sets the stage for this explosion of popular support; the main event is in v10, and i think this time the crown is going to be much stronger. in the book, it’s a fringe movement extremists and a roughly equal number of unwilling "recruits" under jax’s thrall, but almost every city vacuan character we meet expresses hostility toward "outsiders" and "traitors" and a lot—not all, but a lot—of what the crown believes is normalized to some extent; a really significant number of vacuans were just one refugee crisis away from breaking for the crown. vacuo has had two refugee crises in swift succession and there’s atlesian and mistrali warships allied with the faction that welcomed the refugees flying over vacuo now.

6 - it doesn’t matter that those foreign ships are there to defend vacuo too; vacuan nationalism is grounded in centuries of colonial occupation and the optics are really, really bad for the coalition. here is what jax is going to be screaming from the rooftops: "half or more of vacuo’s population is outsiders now, people from atlas and vale who never lifted a finger to help us but expect us to sacrifice everything to save them—give up our food and water when we scarcely have enough to sustain ourselves, give up our homes, spill our blood and defend them with their lives. they’re weak, pathetic cowards who came running to hide behind us instead of fighting for their kingdom, and they expect us to believe they’ll fight for us when the time comes? no, they’re just here to do what the other kingdoms have always done to us—they’re the real threat. are we really going to sit by and let these foreign invaders take our country from us again?"—and a lot of vacuans are gonna buy that bullshit.

7 - not least because a lot of it is… kind of true. vacuo has a very long, very real history of suffering at the hands of these other kingdoms whose people it is now being asked to make very real sacrifices for. both CFVY novels emphasize that food and water are already scarce before the kingdom doubles in size and vacuo is weathering onslaught after onslaught of grimm because of the refugees. it’s a really tough situation, and for someone like jax it is a massive political windfall because it’s so easy to twist that reality into a justification for hatred and violence.

SO,

here’s what really stands out to me about the 9.11 animatic and ruby’s celebrity in B4:

nora’s section: establishes that the vacuans are really angry, like "throwing junk at small orphaned children in a screaming rage" angry

oscar’s: the shade coalition is holding on by its fingernails against grimm drawn to the city in droves.

ren’s: the asturias twins get broken out of prison, and he reflects that salem has the advantage because it’s easier to exploit fear and anger than to overcome them. 

winter’s: popular support for the crown is booming ("atlas go home" and "long live the crown" grafitti)… and then the second refugee crisis arrives, provoking what is quite likely another days-long unrelenting assault of the city by grimm. also, when the shade coalition isn’t running itself into the ground fighting grimm, they’re distributing food and water to refugees. (=the crown’s talking point here is "see? they only care about helping THEM, not US")

qrow’s: he feels optimistic because he sees the refugees coming together, trying to support each other through this crisis and atone for past wrongs. the old divide between atlas and mantle is healing. every single character in this section is a refugee, and the "remember her message!" mural seems to be something the happy huntresses organized. 

"it was a relief for us," says nora of reaching vacuo, "but for the vacuans…"

and boba: yang takes ruby to specifically a boba shop that relocated from patch to vacuo after vale was evacuated; so this is likely a neighborhood where a lot of valean refugees settled and that means the vacuans who live here are going to mostly be the type of people who were willing to open their community and absorb that second wave of refugees, i.e. the shade coalition’s support base, people like the nomadic vacuans in ATF who would never be swayed by jax’s rhetoric at all because they weren’t already xenophobic… which BTE implies pretty strongly is a minority position within vacuo proper.

B4 is a character-driven piece focused on ruby’s personal struggle, and the beyond spots are all pretty light, pretty hopeful, and pretty opaque about the situation in vacuo for reasons of being optional side content.

the 9.11 animatic, on the other hand, was meant to be an episode of the show proper, so it does not hold back on the foreshadowing / setup at all: from nora to ren to winter there’s a pattern of escalation with vacuan support for the crown gaining ground, getting louder and bolder, and then qrow’s optimistic conclusion is focused very tightly on the refugees, with an acknowledgment that things are "bad, probably never been worse" beyond the small good he chooses to focus on… which conspicuously does not include any vacuans participating in these small acts of kindness or atonement: it’s klein and willow and the happy huntresses looking out for other refugees.

here’s what i think is going to happen with ruby’s celebrity in v10: the refugees from atlas and mantle will adore her—she’s the girl who rallied the whole world to come help them, and got them out alive when salem attacked and their general lost his mind. the refugees from vale will love her—she’s theirs, after all, born and raised in vale, and look at what she’s started. the minority of vacuans who threw open their doors to welcome the refugees will think the world of her—if atlas hadn’t fallen so quickly, these are the people who would have done whatever they could to send help, and her example is an inspiration. 

and the rest of vacuo is going to fucking hate her. she’s the girl who asked the whole world to come running to help atlas and then the very next day dumped atlas and its problems into vacuo’s lap. is it fair to pin the blame for everything on ruby? fuck no, but she’s the face of this crisis for better and worse.

she’s not a threat to jax; he literally could not ASK for a more perfect scapegoat. she’s the girl from beacon who abandoned her school instead of fighting to save it. (<- explicitly how the crown and basically the entire shade student body views the beacon survivors.) she’s the girl who begged the world to come help atlas and then not even a full day later ran away AGAIN, dumping atlas on vacuo. she’s the reason the sky is crawling with atlesian and mistrali warships. she’s the reason grimm attacked the city every few days for months on end. the satellite she used to send her message is a fuckoff huge battleship looming over vacuo now. she keeps asking vacuans to set aside their differences and work together with the tens of thousands of refugees burdening the kingdom, and all of those refugees think she’s the best thing since sliced bread…

i think ruby will be a polarizing figure—possibly divisive enough that her return might be the final straw that rips the kingdom in half. ’cause like. the people with the most reason to admire her are also the ones the villainous nationalist group despises and wants to get rid of, and the 9.11 animatic flags hard that the crown’s support among vacuans has skyrocketed since the refugee crisis began. they’re not a fringe group anymore.

so on the one hand, the pressure put on ruby is going to be orders of magnitude more intense than ever before because she’s a celebrity beloved by the coalition’s supporters, most of whom are refugees, and between that and finding out vale is just gone now right after getting back, to judge by her characterization in rwby x jl2, ruby is NOT going to be coping well in the wake of her resolution to be all summer was and more. 

and on the other hand, to the crown’s supporters, who could very well now be the majority of vacuans living in the city proper, she’s the perfect scapegoat and they’re going to utterly despise her, inflaming the existing divide and maybe splitting what fence-sitters still remain at this point one way or another. ruby is both the girl who united the world and the girl who tore vacuo apart—rwby does love its contradictions!—which is a) not going to help her mental health situation at all, and b) a problem she and the rest of the shade coalition can only solve by winning the ideological argument. 

to put vacuo back together again they need to beat the idea that "outsiders" make vacuo weak and therefore to be strong vacuo has to drive out everyone deemed un-vacuan. more to the point, they’ll need to overcome the feeling that vacuo is suffering because the rest of the world came together for the refugees. which… is difficult and unfair, because the crown are the ones refusing to play ball and making everything harder than it needs to be, and because if the crown goes into open revolt then the coalition is going to have to fight back and that will make it even harder to make a convincing case that the coalition really does want to be fighting for vacuo, for all vacuans, not against them. it SEEMS impossible. but saving everyone in atlas and mantle seemed impossible, too. 

also, waves vaguely, i expect the vacuo arc will mirror atlas in various ways and this is one of them: the ascendant political movement are bad guys this time, reactionary nationalists, and the heroes are going to defeat them the hard way, no cheating, which will incite the healing of vacuo.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Kamala aunty and the Hindu vote

Getting this out of the way, I'm voting for Kamala Harris. Biden really should've dropped out two months ago, and there's no other corporate democrat I would really endorse besides her, and not because of the identity politics. Well, sort of. If the Republican primary taught us anything, is a person of South Asian descent will continue to be the ideological punching bag of the white community.

South Asian men get deleted so hard I can't even find a GIF of Vivek Ramaswamy

How Kamala was treated the past four years by the democratic administration of Biden's was nothing short of egregious. Every impossible problem to solve she was blamed for with no tools address the root cause, and she stayed in there looking dumb like a loyal corporate employee. Now the entire system is banking on the political capital they were sweeping from underneath her to stop a literal convicted felon from retaking power and pardoning himself.

Not to mention the states where votes actually mattered 8 years ago were too sexist to put in a woman in power before, so now we're hoping a woman of color would go over better?

Candace Owens already showed how envious she is of Kamala's biracial swag with some really dumb comments.

Her black half isn't what's the issue is, because she embodies a lot more blackness than Asianness in her disposition to the American psyche. And the precedent for half black Presidents that perfectly fall within the cookie-cutter corporate democrat on policy has already been set.

It's her Asian side that might stoke the xenophobia that caused the whitelash red wave of 2016; y'know, because she's going to be subject to nearly the same misogyny Hilary was.

As an Asian-American, Kamala Harris and Andrew Yang weren't just the two candidates I identified most with, they were the best candidates in that primary, period. But they got dismissed and belittled so immensely because of the need to appeal to milk-toast whiteness. Republicans pander hard to grab minority votes, Democrats just avoid putting any minorities in significant positions influence. Don't believe me? Seen any LBGTQ+ positions in real moving and shaking positions?

The DEI stuff the right is going to criticize the entire scope and sequence of how Kamala became the candidate isn't good or fair, but it's not entirely wrong. Because of just how hollow the Democratic Party treats anyone with the poor affliction of being a minority.

There's a key part of the South Asian diaspora Biden lost exactly that Kamala herself is a part of, which makes things interesting to say the least..

Kamala does have the best policy on Israel of any candidate, but that's not saying much since her policy is essentially Obama-lite.

But that means she might lose her own identity vote on just that considering how abhorrently Islamophobic naturalized Indian-Americans have gotten in their support of Narendra Modi

I don't care how effective the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has been at curbing Chinese aggression, the Nationalist imagery isn't a good sign for any society, really.

Especially when Muslim civil rights in India have all but evaporated. Nikki Haley wasn't particularly bad on Muslim civil rights compared to other Republicans, even as a half-Indian, she didn't buddy up to Modi (probably because he's done more to encourage gender-based violence in India than stop it), and I expect Kamala to actually get the misogynistic slander from conservative Indians because the hyperpatriarchy only comes when it comes to the opposition.

Being half Brahmin though certainly can't hurt her chances with her Hindu base, right? Well, Hindu men certainly have deeper roots in the red pill movement then we'd like to believe, and the first ones they point the finger towards are Hindu women that didn't choose them. Nikki Haley was polling better but Vivek Ramaswamy ate up her press pretty handily. Everyone sees Asian feminine beauty as valuable, but our misogynistic standards prevent us from seeing that type of ethnic image as leadership-worthy.

At least it's not Gavin Newsom. But that might not be enough for South Asian American males dissatisfied with their lot in life. Trump's message is appealing to us because it feeds into our vanity and takes responsibility off us as to why our sisters are meeting the model minority myth and we aren't. While we're not solely to blame, at least the right has some crazy narrative that explains why life didn't turn out to what was expected of us, even if that narrative twists it in a way that will end up just making us feel more isolated, because the right has the most racist women in the country, bar-none.

Well, women on both sides of the political spectrum are equally pretty racist in their courtship preferences, it's just liberal women will explain things in vague externalities and icks rather than being a sign for public restrooms in pre-1963 America.

In either case, this is a biracial black woman who was never in touch with the struggles of an Asian man, never really having been related to one even though she's an Asian woman. To a lot of Asian men, Trump is just more of what we expect of the lunacy of American politics, versus Kamala might be one of those people who actively makes us feel subhuman by being of the same race but still treating us as less than, like many desi women have been doing since biracial marriages within 1st generation South Asian Americans began getting normalized.

The normative view has to become where femininity isn't inherently more attractive than masculinity, especially so that women aren't just fit to be more educated and start making more, but actually lead society in meaningful ways.

I think if you're an AAPI in any capacity and you're not voting for Kamala Harris, you're missing the point somehow. But we're not the movers and makers of these elections, because we always reside in states that are firmly blue or red (well, at least until 2016 when Georgia did a thing). Kamala Harris's black vote definitely extends further than Biden's, but by less than makes actual sense. Can't do much worse than Biden on the Hispanic vote, but Kamala Harris if anyone is how you do that.

So if there's fundamentally just about how identity works in America, we will have a POTUS 47 in 2025. But we've learned the two decades in America has been anything fair to identity. Heck, as a Muslim teacher of a liberal arts content area in a red state I feel at the time. My supervisors won't make exceptions for me they readily make for anyone else, not that they were requirements to begin with, just because my identity bears the ugliest parts of the model minority myth. I don't look Asian enough to be Asian, and the media makes my ethnic identity look to threatening to be trusted with novel ideas, at least.

That's at least something this candidate and I have in common. Biraciality and Multiethnicity isn't well understood in our discussions of intersectionality in social and political discourse. The only people that try to make sense of it are the ones that actively try to erode the ethnic barriers enclaves self-segregate on. Kamala has had to think about that because it's a fundamental part of her identity.

I'm not voting on identity or identity politics, as the right would claim I will. I'm voting because at least this candidate has the capacity to understand me, because they're not a white, entitled, spoiled brat that tried to overthrow the government when he didn't get his way. Y'know, fundamental stuff like that.

Because I'm still American through-and-through, regardless of what my ethnic background is. What's more American than having a minority prosecutor in a liberal enclave? That's literally one of the top 5 career options every desi child is given when they think about their careers.

So yeah, Kamala2024. Bite me.

[sunnist4rs]

Blare White is super misogynistic… he also supports trump. You know the anti abortion, pro rape guy. I think you may be defining who you love/idolize and what you say you think based on who entertains you the most on social media/YouTube and your personal connections rather than really getting into WHY each view is right or wrong factually/ethically, and aiming to be consistent. To be clear I myself am a radfem and (within that) critical of gender ideology I am not trying to convince you to not criticize gender ideology or to not criticize specific trans identified people. Yes: some people Blaire white and that kind of guy opposes are also fucked up people who do harm. But the enemy of an enemy does not alone make a friend and I encourage you to look with a more critical eye at anyone aligned right wing and against women, whether they are novelties or famous on YouTube or whatever else or not

Among other things remember Blaire white is just a man who calls self woman but hates the other men who call themselves women. His critique of them is typically either copied (without him really understanding) from feminist women, or at other times basically rooted in him saying those other trans women are ugly or don’t pass or haven’t done [insert random shit] “Blaire” thinks makes him a real woman and these other trans women into pretenders. It’s just an egotistical man getting attention and money off of this while still claiming he’s a woman and doing so for sexist (“I pass as feminine so that makes me a woman” = sexist) reasons. This issue that is actually impacting women and girls (a category that doesn’t include him)

Thanks for sending me this ask (and being so civil about it). Before I joined the radfem community (and when I wrote my bio) I was pretty conservative but the more evidence of woman’s oppression I’ve seen, the more leftist I’ve become. This has left me feeling kind of lost because the people like Blair White who I used to turn to for comfort on bad days and to hear what I thought were reasonable political opinions no longer click with me. I don’t resonate with her (I’m gonna use she/her even though I’m he’s a dude because I do have that personal attachment right now so it just feels right) beliefs anymore but distancing myself from her feels wrong because she’s been a part of my life for a while, y’know.

I don’t watch YouTube much so I haven’t seen one of her videos since I became a radfem. But, I do remember how my old community used to act so Ik if I did watch another video of hers I’d be disgusted and disappointed by her behaviour (I almost want to avoid watching her at all so that I can keep pretending I align with her side- also I’m aware this is pretty parasocial, I’ll work on that). While I’ve become more aware of this I’ve continued to defend and preach how good her content is as a way of pretending I do still like her to myself. I knew I was doing this but I didn’t really think about it until now.

I’m pretty good at thinking critically about the media I consume, it’s just something I’ve always done when discovering something new to enjoy. But I think Ive developed a blind spot for people I previously loved as while I agreed with them in the past. Now however, me promoting their ideology is hypocritical at best. I’ve been practicing separatism (that’s not the word I want to use Ik it) more and more in my daily life. I now realise the next step I need to take is starting to distance myself from these people as they’re making me into someone I don’t want to be (hypocrites are one of my biggest red flags).

Thanks again for the ask as it’s genuinely helped me uncover a therapeutic break through lol. Whether or not that was your intent it’s definitely gonna help me be a better feminist and improve my life so thanks.

[cypress-punk]

The thing i like about Char Aznable is that he got what he wanted. He killed the Zabis, or at least, 2 out of the 5 but they all died. Only Mineva, a literal infant, survived the One Year War and for all intents and purposes the Zabis that killed his father and robbed him of his birthright are gone. The man won in every way that mattered.

Except.

Now he's got nothing. Char has always been motivated by revenge. He got his revenge. What's left? His dabbling in his father's political ideology and his focus on Newtypes were really only ever dabbles. Had Lalah Sune survived then maybe he would have redoubled his focus on her after the war, but she didn't. So he's left with politics. With Contollism and its focus on independence for Spacenoids and he isn't...really into it. Like yeah he joins AEUG but he does it under a new alias. He calls himself Quattro Bagheena for tax avoidanc purposes instead of Char Aznable or Casval rem Daikun, two names much more famous that would have almost certainly attracted more people to cause. He doesn't tale a leadership role in the organization and instead lets psychos like Wong run it who are business men larping as military commanders. Why? Cause he's looking for a way out. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And yet he can't help himself. He still has convictions about the rights of Spacenoids. He can't bring himself to do nothing in the face of the Titans, so he acts but not in the capacity that actually retakes that birthright he murdered the Zabis for stealing. Cause he doesn't want it. Doesnt think he deserves it. Part of this is regret at Lalah's death part of it is his own loss of direction after achieving his previous life goal.

In Char's Counterattack we see Char taking up the role of leadership at last but he hasn't done this to become an enlightened newtype leader who will lead humanity into the future as his father dreamed of doing. No its all an elaborate suicide attempt. He is still trying to find a way out. His melancholy over Lalah has only grown. He has become obsessed with Amuro and the idea of the two of them killing one another. He wants absolution and he is, crucially, not in his right mind any longer. Hes lost in the call of Lalah's voice echoing through space. He moves to execute the axis shock because he knows that Amuro will kill him for trying it. Whether it works or not is irrelevant. And he gets what he wants ultimately. He and Amuro kill each other. The Axis Shock is stopped, Neo Zeon collapses again, leaderless, but that wasn't relevant. Char found his way out.

And thats kinda what Char is to me. A vengeful man who got vengeance and realized he didn't know how to live without that mission. Instead of growing beyond it he lets that lack of purpose and his regret at the loss of what he saw as his one shot a future consume him. Its a lovely tragedy he lives through.

[sp00kyvision]

Seeing it again after a long time, the "Gnomes" South Park episode feels so thematically conflicted it is starting to make my head hurt, which means I need to construct a "breadtube" style essay on what the fuck it is trying to say.

Tbh "thematically conflicted with what it is trying to say" can go for bunches of South Park episodes, but this one stands out in particular for me since it had such a cultural impact at the time.

Things in the episode that landed for me:

The critique on utilizing children for political centered messages. Not only is it often utilized in arguments to generate pathos, but it doesn't take into account the actual thoughts of the kids being involved. They are just a tool to generate sympathy without proper utilization of expressing a thought-out message. Not to mention when you involve kids in this kind of propaganda it is VERY structured upon a specific "script", and the children often have no clue what the hell they are even talking about. When Tweak's father makes the "joke" about selling his son to child slavery if he loses his coffee shop, it makes sense to his character in a dark way. He pretty much is already using children as free labor through having them be "spokesmen" against the satirical big corporation coffee shop totally not based on Starbucks. It's obviously not the kind of child slavery people usually imagine when they hear the term, but it is ideologically applicable in this circumstance.

The critique on the idea that small businesses are inherently moral by all standards. This should go without saying, but I think people do tend to get lost in the idea that just because someone owns a small business they are not above using tactical and manipulative maneuvers to stay on top. I enjoy the complication of the figure of a local business owner as a someone just as capable of making the same moves a corporate business does.

The whole underpant gnome thing with "Phase One: collect underpants -> Phase Two: ? -> Phase Three: profit" was pretty clever. It makes sense why it became a meme and subject that outlasted the episode. Very versatile logic that can be applied to a multitude of critical topics.

Now, with that out of the way, onto the parts of the episode that DIDN'T make sense to me:

The whole conclusion of the episode is unapologetically pro-capitalist and pro-corporate competition. Obviously, I don't subscribe to this ideology. The real thing that irritates me about it, though, is how it feels like it comes essentially out if nowhere. The episode spends its whole runtime depicting the owner of the 'totally not Starbucks' coffee shop in a bad light, only for them to kind of circumvent that at the end in a way that is hard to follow nor convincing. It really just has me wondering what is even trying to be claimed here. I feel like a stronger message would have been the ethics of utilizing children for sympathy in political messaging, but they decided lean into the topic of capitalism that just feels like a half-assed afterthought.

You could maybe argue that the ending is a joke not meant to be taken too seriously, which sure, but the framing doesn't really feel that way to me. It genuinely leaves the impression that you should accept corporations on the basis of supplying quality goods to people that lead to growth in revenue. Either I'm missing something, but that is the gist I got, and other people seem to share this sentiment since actual economic professors have praised the episode as a defense of capitalism. The praise is inherently surprising to me because the pro-capitalist message just comes off extremely lazy, and therefore an unconvincing defense by any means.

This highlights a problem I have with a good portion of South Park episodes. The writing tries so hard to define itself by its centrist perspective it ultimately ends up kicking itself in the ass. Genuinely, what am I supposed to get out of this episode? Why did it feel the need to shoe-horn corporate defense to an otherwise interesting and nuanced satirical critique on the ethics of pathos messaging? What was the actual goal here?

[honourablejester]

My thoughts on Ravnica’s Ten Guilds

Since I’m reading through Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica for D&D 5e. I have some obvious favourites, but just some general thoughts counting down the line. Also, apparently, some character concepts as well. What I'd play if I was playing this guild. Heh.

Azorius Senate

The Law, capital letters. I have mixed feelings on the Azorius. I tend to have a mildly chaotic bent, so they automatically ruffle my feathers slightly. On an ideological level, they are complicated for me. Especially since they appear, at the moment in time this book is set in, to have lost their foundation and started becoming increasingly autocratic in response. Kneejerk, that inclines me to fight them. Heh.

However. I deeply enjoy investigators, librarians, functionaries and general paper pushers as a character archetype, so I could actually see myself playing an Azorius. An investigator or advocate for the accused or legal secretary who is getting increasingly alarmed at the direction things are going, and who might be looking for ways to investigator or reform the Azorius from within. The Azorius feels like somewhere my favourite knowledge cleric/fey ranger build could do some good. Or a bard. Might be a good place to try a bard. Heh.

Boros Legion

They don’t really spark joy, for much the same reasons as the Azorius. Worse, in some ways, as the Boros are the true enforcing arm. A paranoid military army led by angels that fears it will be undermined from within by corruption and temptation … Not generally my cup of tea, despite being primarily a cleric player.

That being said. A while back I had a thought for a warforged paladin who’d been blasphemously built in the form of an angel. And, well. That could go interestingly with the Boros? Given what they’d likely think about such a creature, especially as paranoid as they are. Did someone commission a blasphemous construct from the Izzet? To what purpose? Sure, she says she only wants to do good, but can we trust her? A warforged redemption paladin who doesn’t know who made her and who genuinely is a good (and trusting) person, but who may actually have been built for a less salubrious purpose. Could be interesting!

House Dimir

Now, see. House Dimir is everything I should adore. Spies! Messengers! Couriers! Lies and secrets and misinformation! Knowledge being power! A guild of assassins and spies disguised as couriers and reporters. Such a juicy tangle. I really should adore them, and kind of do? It’s just. One tiny thing. The Dimir rely on memory magic to hide their dealings, quite casually, and that … can go thorny places for me. They are, in a lot of ways, quite cyberpunk, actually. Mind wiping, implanted memories, orders given by thought transmission. It is cool and thorny and interesting. It just could go bad places for me.

Which is such a shame, as I really want to go play old-school spycraft with these guys. Dead drops and coded messages and deceptively simple orders that have snowballing effects. Maybe not even someone who willingly joined, as such, but who did a favour for someone once and got pulled in progressively deeper, trying desperately to keep their head above water and not let on. Rogue is the obvious first thought, but also I’m thinking GOOlock, because Dimir kind of behave like a warlock patron anyway, in the sense of ‘inscrutable instructions’, and Ravnica also has ‘old gods’, Nephilim, who have equally inscrutable goals. A messenger torn between two equally terrifying and inscrutable masters might be fun! If I play very carefully around the idea that my memories might not be my own.

Golgari Swarm

My far and away favourites! A subterranean undercity built among the sewers and the ruins and the deeper things beneath, full of farmers and sanitation workers and shamans and necromancers. The guild that’s shat on by everyone else, and who patiently wait until the time is right to prove otherwise. Assuming their own factional politics allow, of course. Anyone who knows me, it should be obvious why I love these guys.

Here I would play a rogue. A phantom rogue. Or a gloomstalker ranger. Or a swarmkeeper ranger. Or a spores druid. Or a grave cleric. Or a life cleric. I do suspect this would be the guild I’d play most if I had the opportunity to do so. Lots of options. Though I think swarmkeeper might get first dibs, for, well, obvious reasons. An urchin drawn down into the deeps by the gentle chittering of vermin, the welcome of those equally despised. The artifice and arcane rules of the city above is not for them. There is a simpler, warmer sort of existence down here.

Gruul Clans

Again, mixed feelings here. On the one hand, I feel like Ravnica is playing a little too hard into ‘raging barbarians’ for the Gruul, with the repeated emphasis on just tearing it all down and ‘might makes right’. The Gruul as predators and enemies of all softer or weaker peoples feels reductive. However. This is a power to the image of a people of the wilderness hunted into smaller and smaller reserves, into the rubblebelts and run down sections of the city, into nature restored by tearing the city down to make way for it. There’s something post-apocalyptic about them, both in the sense of their world, the world of nature, having been ended by the city, and then the city in turn being torn down to make way for them again. I feel like if they had a bit more of the Golgari’s ‘it’s all cyclical’ sort of philosophy, plus a little less ‘band of savage warriors led by the toughest and most brutal’, we could really go somewhere with the Gruul. I do quite like the Slizt and Gravel Hide clans, for example.

I would play a Gruul. I don’t know if I’d want to rise within the clans, especially if ‘might makes right’ is the mechanism, but I wouldn’t mind playing a defiant inhabitant of the wastelands, determinedly defending my patch from encroachment, taking pride in survival, in holding to a way of life that the city would destroy. Stars druid, possibly? Or ranger. Or ancestral barbarian. Or wild magic barbarian, the strange, stubborn magic of those places where the city and the wilderness have destroyed each other and become entwined. Yeah, that could be fun.

Izzet League

Ravnica’s mad science guild. BUT. And this is actually the fun part for me. They’re also the guild in (at least nominal) charge of public infrastructure. Plumbing. Transport. Power. Lights. The plumbing for your toilet is in the hands of people who will accidentally clone two million rats in your piping while trying to build a sewage system around the principle of mass shit teleportation relays. Which is fantastic. I love them completely. Second favourite guild after the Golgari. The fact that they’re mostly goblins does not hurt at all. Also, with the current unrest, they’ve all somewhat taken a turn for the Bond villain and are researching superweapons, so that’s extra fun. In the people, again, responsible for your plumbing.

I fully want to start out as a plumber. Attached to the Laboratory of Orientation (aka the teleportation lab). Because, look, a sewage system based on the teleportation of shit is an efficient sewage system! No pooling, no piping, no leaks. Stench teleported away before it gets bad. I’m telling ya, it’s a great idea! Do we necessarily want a bunch of tiny portals honeycombing the structure of our buildings? Absolutely. Don’t even worry about it. I got my engineering degree right here! (Fully a conjuration wizard. Maybe some rogue, maybe some artificer. And yes, they’re a goblin).

Orzhov Syndicate

I mistyped that as ‘sindicate’, which is likely apt, given that they’re mostly an undead banker mafia with a thin veneer of Catholicism on top. Think the Borgias and you’re close. They’re currently getting closer and closer to outright war with the Azorius, because the thin legal veneer over a lot of their racketeering is getting ripped up by the Azorius’ growing paranoia and dedication to writing out loopholes, but for the moment they’re just doing their best to increase the divide between their legal and illegal ventures to hide them better. It’s all very much ambition and greed and a veneer of respectability.

Which is why it baffles me that bard is not a suggested class for them, because whispers bard was my literal first thought. The suggestions are cleric, fighter, rogue or wizard, and I’m baffled, because unless you’re playing a straight enforcer, the Orzhov would seem to be the Charisma-based guild? Deception, Persuasion, Intimidation, no? Whispers bard, conquest paladin if you’re aiming enforcer, assassin or mastermind rogue if you’re aiming for the blackmail route, order cleric or celestial warlock if you want to act the part of churchman better. Orzhov is about vicious social climbing in a system where the top spots are all jealously held by undead oligarchs who most certainly won’t be clearing a path for upward mobility unless forced to do so. My first thought was whispers bard, a lean, handsome young thing who has tasted poverty and will do anything to avoid sinking so low again.

Cult of Rakdos

Not going to lie, I get a strong tang of Warhammer 40K’s dark eldar from the Rakdos. Dark hedonism and violence, the seedy underbelly of the city. They don’t do a lot for me, not gonna lie. They’re probably my least favourite of the guilds. I do like the theatre aspect, the circus of fear, the ideas of ‘backstage’ including basically spycraft, but they’re a chaotic evil guild and it does show.

If I was playing a Rakdos character … guild-owned dark speakeasies are mentioned. And if we’re talking that, something a little noir flavoured … I could be a Rakdos femme fatale, maybe? Less ‘evil’ and more ‘amoral’, a songstress who likes to destroy her enemies in interesting ways. Bard again, possibly glamour bard, although I really like creation bards, and there’s an interesting bit of blasphemy about the song of creation in the mouth of demon-worshipper that could add something. Glamour does work better for the femme fatale, but creation tickles me more. Yeah.

Selesnya Conclave

If the Dimir are giving cyberpunk vibes, the Selesnya are giving me … also cyberpunk vibes, with a solarpunk skin. The ‘city and nature entwined’, green gardens and growing cities, very solarpunk, but the emphasis on collectivism, on the destruction of selfishness and desire, on the subsummation of the individual into the peaceful, coherent whole … there’s a dystopic edge running under them. Less obviously than the Azorius or the Orzhov, but definitely present. (I’m realising that, in MtG terms, I don’t vibe well with White). And, see, I like a lot of their overall goals. I love the natural cities thing, I love striving for overall good. I tend to play neutral good. They just … I get a ‘death of the self’ sort of vibe from them that weirds me out a bit. They seem weirdly more culty than Rakdos to me.

Playing a Selesnya character … I want to be a gardener. No higher ambitions, no greater thoughts. An innocent, who genuinely just wants to help the plants grow. A dreams druid, I think. A gentle druid focused on healing and shelter. And maybe I meet some things for the first time that make me … question. How innocent can you afford to be?

(I am probably being unfair to them, and it probably says a lot about what I’ve been trained to see, given that the Selesnya are broadly good, decent people. I just … I kneejerk distrust it about them. I want to cleave my own path).

Simic Combine

My third favourite guild. Mad science, biology edition! With bonus lovecraftian oceanic vibes. And yes, they are just as dystopic as the Selesnya, and they’ll do it rewriting your body, but I just vibe with them more. I love the zonots. Simic home territories are sinkholes called zonots that pierce through the layers of city and undercity to the buried ocean beneath. Immediately, this adds a whole other layer to Ravnica as a city and a planet for me. The city is at least partly built over top of an ocean. The Simic are also currently divided between the isolationist faction, who believe that slow, cyclical evolution and staying connected to nature will win out, and the adaptationist faction, who believe that we need to evolve now, by hook or by crook, because the system is collapsing and we need to keep up. These are the Simics gearing up for war, by way of aquatic supersoldier experiments.

I think I would like to play an adaptationist spy. Or information-gathering operative, at least, I would want to be a mutated Simic hybrid, so I’m not like Dimir level passing for any old joe soap on the street. I think I’d want to be either an alchemist artificer or a fathomless warlock. Maybe the fathomless, the result of an experiment, more than the one performing the experiments, which would be the alchemist’s wheelhouse.

Other Thoughts

I would so love to play like a Golgari-Simic campaign that’s about exploring the depths of the undercity/underocean for secrets. The zonots and the undercity are so cool. This is a city planet where the city has eaten the world, but strange things lie underneath, and I’m vibing with that so much. We could bring along a Gruul, digging for the foundations of the world that was lost. A Dimir, making sure nobody unearths any superweapons or nothing. Possibly an Izzet, in the hopes that we do. I just really, really, really want an explorer party to go digging under Ravnica.

I also wouldn’t mind a Golgari-Gruul ‘scavengers living on the edges’ sort of campaign, a sort of post-apocalyptic urban scavenger, literal ‘seed of new hope’ where the cycles turn back towards wilderness again.

And then there’s a noir campaign, your Azorius-Dimir-Rakdos sort of game, with possibly some Izzet spice in the sense of ‘why was this Izzet plumber murdered: what did they build or what did they find?’. Heh.

Ravnica does have such a lot to recommend it as a setting. Feelings on WotC aside, this place has such cool, complicated vibes.

This is my VtM Nosfertu talking, though: Golgari for the win!

[letters-to-rosie]

You said last month that it's not Ekko if he's not involved in activism, anarchism, just actively doing shit to make a change. I absolutely agree. But you also said you "come out of a particular background and that means [you] have certain thoughts and approaches to social change that leave out things that others do and are involved in". Would you please elaborate further on that? Not just for writing Ekko, but for the sake of knowing and maybe applying to real life. You made me curious.

So I sat on this for a while not because I didn't want to answer it but because I wanted to answer it thoughtfully, and I've typed out some things that didn't feel right, but I'm going to try again now.

I tried to find the exact context for where I said that and I failed lol so I am working off memory, but again I will try.

So in terms of background, I'm a Black American. When I was young, I pretty much assumed that my family history would be depressing and I didn't want to look into it. And some of that is there: family trees that get lost once you hit enslavement, dysfunction you can pretty much trace right back to that period, having to explain to people that your family is on the light side not because of consensual relationships but because you're from one of those states that exported slaves, you get the deal. A byproduct of this is that by the time I was an adult and wanted to dig into it and found that there was actually a lot to learn, many of the elders I wanted to learn from had passed on.

That, mixed in with me trying to understand my... financially turbulent?? life led me to engage with black radical thinkers as an adult. And that led into left-wing politics in general. So that's like half of it.

The other half is I've always been the type of person who likes a hands-on problem. My approach to social change has always just been "find a problem and throw myself at it." And that translated into a social service background. Even now, to pay for my classes, I work in social services at my university, still throwing myself at a problem that's sort of followed me around for a decade or so now. I'm not in love with the conditions of trying to fight a problem within the walls of an institution that helps perpetuate them, but for me, the immediacy of people's needs supersedes any need I feel for ideological consistency.

On top of that, I study race. And media. So imagine my excitement when I see Ekko!

I don't know that I've ever encountered a character who checked so many boxes. He sees problems and throws himself at them. He practices radical compassion with people struggling with substance use. AND their victims. And even though he's fighting Silco, he knows that the problems in the city go straight to the top (I oughta write a fic someday where he does make it across the bridge and gets to yell at the council because he so deserves that).

He grieves. I've said before that grief is the emotion that has most defined my adult life. I feel like I'm always grieving. And Ekko models how you do that and keep moving. Rather than giving into the hopelessness of the setting, he creates a place where people can heal and be their best selves. AND HE HAS NATURAL HAIR!!! My natural hair journey is another story but it's honestly tied up in all of this lol.

He's like a treasure trove of things that matter to me, honestly. I'm not even sure how much I realized it at first. But as time passed, I'd keep going back to this character and thinking. His revolutionary spirit is truly to be admired. And I think that evolution in how I've thought about him comes through pretty clearly in my writing, as I come to fully embrace a bottom-up style of conceptualizing revolutionary thought and practice. I know I'll grow and change as I get older, learn more, and do more, but at this particular moment, I think Ekko has a lot of value for me.

So what am I not interested in? Off the top of my head...

versions of the character that leave out that political dimension. I'm not inserting politics into the show. The division between what is political and isn't is a false one. If the politics aren't registering, that's because they're close to the politics of the status quo

which is not to say I think everybody has to write him with politics fully foregrounded, but I wish more people would, you know?

and speaking of the politics, not really interested in ones that aren't radical. Not trying to pass a certain purity test, but we can keep in mind that Misfit Toys shows Scar beating up a dummy Enforcer, in gear. Which they probably got by fighting them. Fun!

another thing I think is key and I would like to see engaged with more is that Ekko doesn't view people using shimmer as enemies. I honestly wonder whether the Firelights know as much as they do about Silco's stuff because they have members who formally worked in the syndicate.

and I bring that up because another thing that the show as a whole and Ekko's interactions with Jinx invite us to think about is not viewing anyone as too far gone. I think in the rush to clearly delineate good and evil, we make too many lines and ignore the material conditions that motivate and contextualize people's actions.

and on that note, I don't like to make Ekko a paragon. I think casting him as a pure soul who is working tirelessly for his people ignores his indignation at the situation around him and how he is actively choosing, every day to do the things he does. I like to keep agency foregrounded.

To close, I wanna share some quotes, because y'all know I love reading revolutionaries.

“It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.” —Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“We have chosen a different path to achieve better results. We have chosen to establish new techniques. We have chosen to seek forms of organization that are better adapted to our civilization, abruptly and once and for all rejecting all kinds of outside diktats, so that we can create the conditions for a dignity in keeping with our ambitions. We refuse simple survival. We want to ease the pressures, to free our countryside from medieval stagnation or regression. We want to democratize our society, to open up our minds to a universe of collective responsibility, so that we may be bold enough to invent the future. We want to change the administration and reconstruct it with a different kind of civil servant. We want to get our army involved with the people in productive work and remind it constantly that, without patriotic training, a soldier is only a criminal with power. That is our political programme.” —Thomas Sankara, Speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations

“Let me just say: Peace to you, if you're willing to fight for it.” —Fred Hampton

[understandingbimbos]

So. There's a few things I need to address. My documentation and study of bimbos began as a personal project. I only started a blog because I was putting a ridiculous amount of work and thought into this and figured it should be shared (and still, there's SO much I haven't shared yet...). And that's part of why this blog isn't so well managed, not consistent, and very informal. I write every post with the assumption whoever reading will have some familiarity with the fetish and that was kind of a mistake when dealing with subject matter as delicate as this and if I want to be able to attract literally any other audience. But the blog is here now so its kind of a moot point. I won't be rewriting posts. I want to kill myself every day, its astonishing I can write anything. Anyway, recently I discovered an adult performer named Celestina Blooms, in particular, this video:

We share a lot of the same thoughts. And her criticisms of BimboTok are a lot better articulated. Here are some of things she's said that stood out to me (paraphrased):

"As an actual political movement, the Gen Z bimbo isn't actually very helpful beyond being satire because there are contradictions."

"It makes no sense to be expected to have every single decision in your life, in every area of your life, be a form of activism."

"If you don't spend enough time watching all their videos to completely get the point it looks like they're satirizing the ideologies they're preaching."

"They're kind of taking this thing and being like 'Hey! This thing is leftist because I'm leftist and I said so!' when the thing is still something very tied to a lot of systems of oppression."

"I think there's an issue with saying that being feminine is feminist."

"Because there are so many minors on TikTok they'll come across this trend and see the cute aesthetic and cute clothes, and for good measure, the ideologies a lot of them agree with and be like 'Fuck yes! Sign me up!' and before you know it they're dressing like a bimbo, calling themselves a 'bimbo', and all this stuff while not even being aware of this whole other world of bimbofication as a fetish and unknowingly calling attention to themselves."

She also brings up Pink Bimbo Academy in this video (not by name, and if you somehow see this Celestina, sorry for blowing up your spot!). I bring this up because PBA actually reached out to me like two weeks ago. We had an extremely brief conversation. He lost all interest as soon as he realized my blog isn't primarily about real life bimbos and, like Celestina, I don't believe bimbos are really a real life thing. This is the reason for my last text post (now pinned).

Up until this point I didn't realize Pink Bimbo Academy was a guy, or extremely weird. He's one of those bimbo enthusiasts that genuinely believes every woman should be a bimbo, unless they're trans that is, because according to him a bimbo can't have a penis or possess any "masculine" qualities. He seems to view bimbofication less as a fetish and more of a means to an end. To him, bimbos are the peak of femininity and bimbofication only helps women to become more of who they're "biologically" meant to be. He has entire rants against feminism up on his website and aspires to create an actual real-life bimbo finishing school, like he's a super villain or some shit, like the antagonist of every school-set bimbofication story come to life. And unfortunately, he's basically the resource for bimbofication online. I have to assume not everyone that follows his guides reads all his posts and FAQ but its more than disappointing to have a transphobe be one of the main vanguards of this fetish today.

Anyway, I can't recommend Celestina's video enough. Its a bit long but all worth watching and has made the prospect of writing this book exciting again. I would suggest this video of hers too:

Post-script: After over an hour of writing all of this I realized I actually did something extremely stupid here. Celestina follows me on here, possibly one of the first people to follow me. I kept wondering why one of her icons looked so familiar and it took me until literally just now to figure it out. I hope she doesn't mind the plug, because you all should follow her too!

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