#but never understood the disadvantage of classes

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Today, the country indeed looks alien. The America many of us believed we knew now appears stranger in retrospect: The anger and resentment we may have thought was pitched at a simmer turned out to be at a rollicking boil. And one of liberals’ most cherished shibboleths from 2016—that Trumpism is a movement for aggrieved white men—unraveled in the face of a realignment that saw the GOP appear to give birth to a multiracial working-class movement. A second Trump presidency is the result of this misjudgment.

Democrats are a coalition party of the center-left

The Left has traditionally been associated with egalitarianism, which is by necessity concerned with the masses, the common people, the working class, but also the dispossessed, the marginalized, the disadvantaged

The modern Democratic party traces its roots most directly to the New Deal coalition of the 1930s, which it understands to have been a robust working-class and labor-rights movement

They also see themselves in the 1960s cultural revolutions and their repudiation of hierarchy, itself generally seen as the position of the common person, the masses, but also the dispossessed

The party takes its name from Andrew Jackson, great champion of the Common Man, at least as understood at his time, but it goes back to Thomas Jefferson, famous for declaring that "all men are created equal," and now excoriated for failing to live out that egalitarian principle

The Democrats are a party for the people, understood as capaciously as possible, the party that repudiates narrow nationalism and jingoism, in favor of spreading the benefits of American society widely, in opposition to favoring the privileged few

Why am I reminding you of all these things that you already know?

Because they believe so deeply that they are right in every way that matters, or at least incomparably superior to their opponents, they cannot begin to imagine repudiation from the very people in whose interests they thought they were acting, let alone in favor of the very person they swore was an existential, even murderous threat to those very same people

I think to appreciate the sensation, you might imagine a thief broke into your home, and then your family kicked you out in favor of the thief; someone broke in to ravish your spouse and they called the police on you; a sex offender told your children explicitly what he wanted to do them, and your children fought you to get out of your arms so they could crawl into the van knowing full well they'd never see you again

The shock is so existentially horrifying, such a betrayal of reality itself, that it would require rethinking all your most basic assumptions about the political order, human beings, and worst of all, yourself. Why would they do such a manifestly insane thing? Is there something I don't know? What did I miss? What did I do wrong? What do I do now?

Democrats cannot meaningfully internalize that they are the party of the privileged and the elite, by their own philosophy they are themselves the enemy, they write a blank check for the most lurid excesses of anti-colonial violence and call it "exhilarating" without dealing with the fact that given their assumptions, in this society, they are the power and not the resistance

But it's hard to ask yourself these kinds of questions and most people don't have the nerve for it, and so what we see instead, in another little paradox of human nature, is they're going to blame not the ravisher but the spouse

TL;DR, self-examination is hard, so now Democrats hate Latinos

[phalangemedes]

CAMPAL LIT ANAL 🔥🔥🔥

To start off with, a personalised character debrief, of sorts, so the nonsense I'm about to spout stems from my known perception of them rather than just inherent batshit:

PALAMEDES SEXTUS: Tall ergo mouse faced man with the jokes and no brain shut off button. Burdened with gifted kid ego AND gifted kid guilt. Disabled even for a necromancer (not genetic turbo cancer for the nuke blast creation of thanergy but allergies, aerospace thick specs, lingering hint of the 'tism (social cues whomst, Mr that evil nun who thinks I'm a murderer is now my BEST FRIEND. Decided he was going to marry a girl because he liked that she was puzzley. His life partner is low emotive and he's never noticed.) (RE:marry Dulci the man is a glutton for a hyperfixation. 12 years and he's like 'we'll be married, Cam's my best man, I love them')). Bred for necromantic psychometry and groomed for Wardenhood (I used "groomed" because he was a literal child when they lauded his intellect as sufficient enough to egregiously test him to see if he was worthy of the title of Master Warden (spoilers, a 13 year old is a tiny baby child, no matter how cute, clever OR smug they are) This neatly slots into the "gifted kid" issues in that his parents ALLOWED this to happen, nay, encouraged it as an accolade. So I wouldn't say he was actively abused, but neither was he "cared" for, which is prime reason as to why he latched onto the only emotionally available peer AND was self sacrificial to a scary fault (re: ka-boom)

CAMILLA HECT: Tall TANK with too much inside to contain without fidget. Burdened with an inferiority complex 20 miles wide and a dunces hat of imposter syndrome. (Some of this is that The Sixth don't really respect swordhands, some of it is that in the capacity they DO respect it, she isn't ranked the most highly (RE: Not an Alexandrite. I assume Epeids? Cause she will class herself as competent and I think the Sixth aren’t stupid enough to put her in the spec ed class once she’s a Cav Prime.) Low EXTERNAL emotion, high energy, Palamedes is patently the words and she's happy with that. (As we go through HtN and NtN it reads more and more like alexithymia, more so when she just finally bursts the fuck into tears). Focuses a little too hard on being "useful", to the point and beyond of harm/self harm. Treats loyalty in a similar manner. A 0% or 100% kinda bitch. Close with her sister, but NOT her fathers, which is an interesting one because we have minimal backstory on that one, but it very much READ as a "forbidden" thing to be with Palamedes not just in the act of lyctorhood ascension but a 'They never understood' way. So her choosing to be Cavalier Primary was her choice AGAINST the wishes of other, societally and inter-familially.

ADDENDUM to Cam: She is a Carer, not in a motherly carer role, a Carer with a capital C. She cares for those with disadvantages in a MANNER I have witnessed IN the caring profession. This is MOST notable in the dynamics with Nona but she does the same with Pal. Where Pyrrha gives Nona fun dad treatment, with no less care, and Palamedes is the voice of gentle reason, consent and options, Cam is loving enforcement and active encouragement. It’s a theme. I’d like it highlit to those of you that have never had one or interacted in what is a COMPLICATED dynamic, a Carer is not a SERVITOR, they are a companion, they see you at your weakest and tackle ills with compassion. Is it a CHOSEN role.

Likewise Cam being raised female and not necromantically inclined (on planet eugenics and Your Eggs Are So Useful To Us BabyGirl) has just had humility beaten into her, but there are various places (Dr Sex coming to mind the most vividly, Pal trusting her with reconstruction of his skeleton, him trusting her opinion on things HE is looking at necromantically) where she is AS bright as him, but is not afforded the same societal perks as him as a necro.

tl;dr

Golden boy brain box who is struggling to live up to it, doing anything to be Good Enough. Held together by Cam's trust in him.

Black sheep who is struggling to perceive herself as worthy, doing anything to be Good Enough. Held together by Pal's faith in her.

Cool, we got it? ONWARD.

GENDER; PERCEPTIONS AND CHANGES:

Pre-Canaan through Canaan:

Palamedes Sextus, Master Warden of The Sixth House is a seeker of knowledge, his pronouns are forgot/to/eat (j/k.) I don't think he perceives himself as much of anything, until he's forced to. He is a man as The Master Warden and for Dulcinea, but I wonder how much of that is the "breeding program" ethos of the Sixth and how much of that is his OWN perception of himself because he's not a TRADITIONAL feeling man, even compared to other men in the canon. When I joke he's a he/him lesbian it's because he FEELS, not female, but feminine. In how he interacts with space and people, with the touchy-feeliness, with the way he expresses himself vociferous and poetically. 'Male' to him seems to be a mantle he wears above the neutrality of who he is and the femininity of his affections.

Camilla Hect, Hand of the Library, is a swordswoman and a cavalier and a hand. Cam is beautifully ungendered, but not in the same way as Palamedes is more of a... I feel like she'd be shocked to be told there's a binary? Just generally. She's practical, but butch, she's just Camilla. A she/her in the same way as a ship or a car. Not like a mother but like a deity -- and THAT is from Palamedes' perception of her. If he's a good boy, she's the Goddess he lays his altar out for. She’s not a ‘woman’ for anyone, not her house, not him. I think that’s important.

New-Rho:

I know there're alotta trans allegories here, but I'm gunna be a party pooper and say this is QUEER but not trans, not because it doesn't follow the path but because I don't think there is a Tomb binary to start with. There's a fluidity and flux IRL doesn't have (because people like their lil ticky boxes). And Pal doesn't feel different IN Cam, he feels the same. More him. He's more outwardly affectionate, he's more fussy and stroppy. He's him but Settled. I think he likes being whatever he is as Camilla. I think because he always liked Cam more.

Cam remains Cam. And I am delighted with this because Palamedes' influence within AND without is the same? I fucking love this woman, she popped out the womb like this and she's just keeping on trucking. Someone thinks she's a sex worker? Unfussed. Someone thinks she's fucking Crown? Mild distaste but that's more on the fact Corona is a biiitch. Dual daddying with Pyrrha? It's a TITLE, Cam seems to like titles. Maybe that's what it is, Camilla's self expression is a list of titles given to her by those who love her. The only one she’s picked for herself is Cavalier.

PAUL:

LEAST they/them they/them in the world. OBSESSED with them, they have the feminine energy that Palamedes carries but in Cam's body?? But the siege weapon threat of Cam?? Obsessed to get to know them more. I sense I shall kiss them on the mouth.

THEM AS CHARACTER ARCHETYPES VS "PEOPLE":

I think in part some of the issue with Palamedes and Camilla is how, on the whole, they seem to have been type cast as Male Boss and Female Minion. Because a tall dude with some authority and a quiet woman are put together and people get weird about that. (Even IRL. ‘Which one of you’s the fork?’ well firstly, she’s the knife, SECONDLY… that’s my tall glass of baby girl that speaks in a countertenor)

And this is a two fold issue:

THE FIRST: The Necromancer and Cavalier dynamic as portrayed by Muir.

It's seen as crass to dick down your cavalier (From Abigail and Magnus, through to Judith and Marta with canonical romantic refusal and LATTERLY Judith's SECONDARY canonical refusal of Coronabeth. Interestingly I don't see much shit about Isaac and Jeannemary but that's another hillock to rot on.).

But that doesn't seem to be the main issue WITHIN FANDOM or (more) people would be coming for Abigail and her lovely ottery meat shield.

Or Griddlehark.

Harrow and Gideon are lauded as the greatest romance of all time and the power dynamic there is TRULY whack. (affectionate)

Heir to the throne and indentured slave?

Necromancer made of a bajillion babies and a Base Level Not-Even-Squaddie.

Abuser and abused.

FORCED cavalier and necro?

Witness and sacrifice.

Even if you view them as a complicated sister dynamic... there are ABUNDANT issues there and a staggering co-dependancy that plays out in a sapphic lobotomy. So we have a base line of what, in the Nine Houses, classifies as a Fuckin' Ride Or Die of a relationship.

(this is without the fact that the NORM is for a baby to be specifically born for a Necromancer. Either RE:The manyfold uncles or like Babs being chosen as a zygote. Which do I have to explain how eugenics and baby-promises are worse than two people choosing each other or NAH?)

THE SECOND: People see a man and a woman and they give them preordained gender roles, which they then do some A/B/O level gymnastics to make them negatively fit into the necro and cav dynamic. It's funny because they're grey librarians who look like librarians. They look similar, they act similar but for some reason the fact Cam has tits gets some WILD hottakes.

(My favourite (said with spite and loathing) was someone asking if Cam fancied Harrow because she let Nona touch her… I.. I just??? She was letting Nona express herself in a safe way, Nona, who is a VULNERABLE ADULT with sensory issues. (yes this was reddit how did you guess))

Which.. is peculiar when you think of how we meet them, in an investigative role where they are immediately, companionably mocking each other? Where, out the gate, Cam lunges to protect Pal and as quickly as that happens he calls her back to protect her?

The Cavalier is there to protect the Necromancer. And yet he is IMMEDIATELY portrayed as a shield.

There's also an inherent, and non-canonically spoken of trust about what Pal EXPECTS of Camilla. It starts off with her with the rapier and how although adept with it, it is not her main skillset. And it's played against the bum rush way Gideon had to give in the two hander, but it's also, OBVIOUSLY, something Camilla has done forever and a day. So their roles are already non-traditional, with the basics of 'your cavalier should be your sword' cause girly pop let his barn door have two because she patently WANTED THEM.

Likewise, when hoorah boot clack salute, stick up her arse, repressed lesbo challenges them for their keys Cam is hot to go, but she waits for him to catch up. And he was erring on denial, he was erring on losing KNOWLEDGE, which is his main gain from any situation, to make sure she didn't get injured. But he puts her in that fight for HER HONOUR first, not his, not the Sixth's, Camilla Hect.

When she's injured, other than a brief moment of being a catty princess to Jody and Marta who lol DESERVED, he CHECKS Cam. He's frightened, he's fretting, he just wants her to not have been stabbed quite a lot, and PATENTLY blames himself. He is a PHYSIOLOGICALLY ADEPT necromancer and he FEARS for her injury, because of the pain not the complications of healing. It's an obvious show of how he perceives her as an extension of himself but NOT a tool.

Likewise, the only thing Pal ever did wrong and honestly, Dulci you aquatic-bint your way out of that river and give him a SLAP, was that he left her when he went to nuke Cytherea. He did it as a kindness, he didn't want her to see, he THOUGHT he did the right thing. And he didn't, and there wasn't a right thing, but oh my god dude.

He acted like a cavalier to guarantee her safety.

And I see a lot of 'oh well he did it cause he was upset about Dulci' like?? Cytherea SPOKE to them about the Avulsion trial. He had to look "Dulcinea" in the eye when she asked him to siphon Cam. Do you not think he wasn't already turbo pissed off? Hurt? Upset? Do you not think he was already mourning her, that he chose Cam over her, because he said “no”?

Which is a good segue into 'Paul is problematic'. First up, buckle up my darling little babies, spiritual cannibalism isn't exactly a fuckin' jolly holly time anyway, cause it was made by a man with the moral compass of a rabid wolverine and tits covered in biscuit crumbs.

At no point does Palamedes not feel dreadful for squatting inside Camilla. He is the (un)embodiment of a nervous friend sitting on a mostly full sofa trying to make himself as small as possible and wincing whenever he accidentally touches someone. He is there ONLY because it's what she wanted. And we know that because they discuss it, PRIVATELY, and it overheard by Nona. He also offers Cam the choice, they keep going as they are, or they do something else. But it is together, whatever they do is together. And she chooses to not suffer alone. And that some a y'all shit on that is a choice.

Harrow TBI's herself to not lose Gideon, but when two people enter into togetherness with consent it's a no?? They had a big ol’ adult chat (or 50 off screen, who knows, babygirl can’t shut up so I imagine it was more) and there’s booing and hissing.

Wah wah they're co-dependent it's not healthy, SURE, but it’s extreme circumstances, it's grimdark space heresy. Cam is a victim of torture, starvation and other such New Rho hells. Palamedes was in the purgatory of river isolation post suicide and his only hope of survival was Cam. They are the reason the other kept going. Paul is them keeping going, Paul is their promise to the other that it'll be okay, because they're there. Yes, they're co-dependent but they are each other's reason for being.

Even in the real world, when everything is subterranean, sewer level shit, you are told to find a reason to keep going. It can be a concert in a few months, or your ageing cat, it can be your mother or your tomato plants. And it's not long term, but THEY don't have long term.

And they BOTH chose. Palamedes had no promise of what would happen once he was booted back out of Babs, did he go back in Cam and risk her soul, or did he try another body? Was he already compromised by Tridentarii taint? But he was willing, if it was for her.

Likewise she was at the precipice of a wound that really needed a necromancers attention (look how BoE left Judith, like jesus colostomy christ the woman is a menace but shoving a carrier bag in her then blood letting her to refuel your stolen tesla is rough guys). It needed HER necromancers attention. And that wasn't happening. And she couldn't take not having him any more.

And they didn't go into it blind, The Sixth as a house patently had more knowledge on the melange of souls than most (via all the secrecy that was shared with BoE etcetc), and Pal had just learnt more, first hand, shoved up inside Naberius feeling their edges bleed together. And they had felt what it was to be Them before. They BOTH experienced that, like, blood-sweat and worried daddy lap aside, they both knew it would hurt her, and I have no doubt it cut Palamedes up, but it ate some of him too. 'Oh it hurt her more' my DUDE the man was already bone dust and fuck all else all that COULD be hurt WAS hurt.

THIRDLY (I realise there was not initially three points but there sure fucking is now LESSGO):

SACRIFICE. I've seen it said, repeatedly, they have an uneven power dynamic because Cam 'sacrifices' herself for him.

WELL. Let's break that down with a direct comparison.

Gideon Nav, a woman who had never been loved, but had sometimes been useful, sacrificed herself for a chance to die with the knowledge of being wanted. She knew and wanted to be eaten, absorbed, nothing more than her sword. This was seen as a rejection by Harrow for reasons even GIDEON was aware of, poor kid.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, woman who, understandably, thinks she's cursed as all fuck, refused to take the sacrifice of Another Body and in the process made Gideon think she was being rejected. I think she is less aware, but not totally unaware. And it was in desperation. And she is so young, they both are, they were scared and staring at a bone wall or forever death.

But my point is their togetherness, no matter how complete, was born of VIOLENCE and the eradication of one of them, the violence of need, of desperation to belong, to not be torn from the one consistent point in their lives : each other.

Camilla Hect saw the buckshot shrapnel of her life partner embedded in Canaan's masonry (this is an actual sacrifice, he sacrificed himself for her safety) and chose to take the red string of fate and GANK IT until she got Palamedes back. Because they had a (theoretically possible) predetermined get-out-of-jail-free plan for if something took him first. They planned to never be apart, this was one plan of many.

And Palamedes Sextus, for his part, did everything he could to keep them safe, keep her safe, to make sure, even in the end, they would be together in the safest, sanest way possible. He dredged her from death both times they were shot, he sewed her back together from within the cage of her body. He resurrected them. He was a god FOR them, so they could stay them.

Was it actually safe and sane? Compared to gutty stabs and being consumed by a IANTHE, honestly, yeah.

Was it ideal? No, but it was better than death.

They lived, together. Discussed it, chose it.

If Palamedes is Decisive Consent and Camilla is Patient Protection, Paul is a Conversation with a lil line of kisses at the bottom. They're not made from love, they're made from necessity, but they are born BECAUSE of love, gentility. The difference between rabid hunger after suffering food scarcity and spending 14 hours cooking a meal for someone you love. They are both acts of consumption, but the tone is so vastly different.

✨anyway yeah hi I fucking love Cam and Pal and this is the hill I've chosen to climb and repeatedly die on✨

(I'd like to postface this with I love ALL these characters, I slag them off with the love of literary analysis, and none of them ever did anything wrong they are my tiny angel baby war crimes whom i wub them a normal amount.

...And I'm not getting the books out to quote shit so you're gunna have to embrace the Vibes.<3)

(shout out to @grievingbovine this is (partially) their fault *heart hands*)

[saintsenara]

Potions Master Edition: Slughorn/Snape. Was prodigiously talented Severus a Slug Club favourite, rewriting the textbook in the corner of their get-togethers? Or not, due to him being poorly connected, poorly socialised and well, poor? If not, there’s some delicious resentment baked in there. But Sluggy manages to get Sev to willingly attend a Christmas party! Add a splash of Lily to the cauldron for some extra toxicity.

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i don't ever imagine that snape was in the slug club. and partially this is for exactly the reasons you describe - slughorn obviously likes those with pretty faces and pretty manners, which snape doesn't have - but it's also because the teenage snape has no interest whatsoever in playing the game when it comes to how class functions in the wizarding world.

slughorn is evidently keen on taking on passion projects from among the group of hogwarts students who are at a disadvantage in a society which assigns such weight to name and lineage - especially if they're male, since it appears both that the trend in the wizarding world is generally for married women not to work and that it is more acceptable for a man to marry a non-pureblood woman and pass down his name than it is for a woman to marry a non-pureblood man. as we know from half-blood prince, he delights in finding little protegés he can use his connections to set up in ministry internships and then manipulate for the rest of their lives on the basis of their dependence on his patronage.

[i.e. dirk cresswell, muggleborn head of the goblin liaison office.]

we see this at play in canon in slughorn's treatment of tom riddle. but, while the teenage voldemort rejects the jobs slughorn tries to arrange for him, he does play the game while at school, simpering politely through slug club meetings and sending slughorn box after box of [presumably stolen] pineapple.

the teen snape has no such interest in doing this. while the teenage riddle we meet in chamber of secrets and half-blood prince has sanded off many of his rougher edges [the eleven-year-old riddle, for example, is written in a way which suggests he has an accent and uses words and expressions which would be understood as working class; the sixteen-year-old version does not], the snape we meet in snape's worst memory is still visibly working-class in his speech and mannerisms, and i can easily imagine this being a source of pride for him [a sort of "fuck these posh cunts who think they're better than me" vibe] while at school, especially in the way it would impact his relationship with james and sirius.

[and also the way that it would impact his relationship with lily, who does play the game. i think you can do something really interesting with snape thinking that going to the slug club, losing her accent, taking james' pureblood name etc. is her "selling out" - never realising that lily both may want to do these things, but also has to, since they're the only way she's going to survive as a muggleborn in the wizarding world.]

slughorn's going to view him as a lost cause.

but could the adult snape and the adult slughorn get together? maybe.

as you say, snape's going to harbour a huge amount of resentment against slughorn, not only for ignoring his genius when he was at school but also for doing literally nothing to prevent his radicalisation. it is impossible to imagine that people like lucius malfoy, rodolphus and rabastan lestrange, barty crouch jr., evan rosier etc. weren't slughorn's favourites - and, of course, we know regulus black was - and slughorn must have had a very good idea why they were taking an interest in someone like snape, he was just too afraid of voldemort [and of admitting to dumbledore that he'd told voldemort about horcruxes] to do anything about it.

but it's also the case that snape must be aware that slughorn has been brought back to hogwarts during half-blood prince so that he too can be a pawn in dumbledore's schemes. i think you could do something deliciously toxic with snape finding himself drawn to slughorn because of a shared sense that they're both being fucked over by dumbledore - and i think this could lead into some excellent hurt/comfort during the year in which snape's headmaster when slughorn, who must remember snape's affection for lily, begins to suspect that all is not what it seems...

but there's another potential snape/slughorn dynamic i think it's worth discussing, which comes with a trigger warning for the topic of the sexual abuse of a student by a teacher and which is under the cut.

in the films, slughorn is played as avuncular and broadly sexless - with the result that his wheeling and dealing comes across as grasping and a bit pitiable, but generally harmless.

the slughorn of the books, in contrast, is straightforwardly creepy.

he is involved in his students' private lives to an extent we see from no other teacher [his interest in harry's relationship with ginny, for example]. he socialises with students in private in ways which are abnormal within the hogwarts context - it's clearly acceptable for students to be alone in teachers' private offices for detention, but much less so for them to be called in for a glass of wine or to offer their teachers presents... he is happy to let his favourites bend the rules, but also to let them know he's doing so [lestrange and avery have clearly been allowed to be quite late with their essays - and to attend a slug club party while they're still outstanding - before slughorn finally puts his foot down]. the way his habit of "collecting" students - and the life-long influence he then goes on to assert over them - is described makes it sound exceptionally sinister, particularly since the text emphasises that many of his favourite students are also very good-looking. and he is famously willing to receive gifts in exchange for... favours.

and it is very striking that slughorn's two favourite pupils - voldemort and lily - have relationships with slughorn which differ in terms of their power dynamics than, for example, slughorn's relationship with someone like harry.

with harry - as, we can assume, with the children of rich, socially prominent, and politically influential families - slughorn is looking to bask in their reflected glow, and receive social cachet for being connected to them ["i can introduce you to harry potter", "well, of course, i know damocles belby terribly well", and so on].

with pupils who lack this social prominence, he is seeking to mould them into creatures who will do his bidding and rely on him for support [voldemort will be minister for magic in a decade "if you keep sending me pineapple"]. these pupils are made dependent on slughorn for their post-hogwarts position in the wizarding world, they are clearly expected to be grateful to him, and they are clearly expected to do things to butter him up which their posher peers are not.

they also lack the social power to risk rejecting him - i think it's very striking in half-blood prince that harry, ron, and ginny find the idea of hermione trapped in slug club meetings funny, without considering that, as a muggleborn woman, hermione needs the connections someone like slughorn can provide her even if she doesn't enjoy what she has to go through in order to make them. the same would be true for lily - at least until she married - and it would be doubly true for voldemort, who is not only presumed to be muggleborn by most people he encounters, but who lacks any sort of family support in the muggle world too.

[and voldemort refusing slughorn's job offers in his seventh year absolutely tanks their relationship - in a way which the horcrux conversation, which takes place when voldemort's in sixth year, does not. i think this is really worth thinking about both when unravelling why slughorn never becomes a death eater and when thinking about why voldemort is at borgin and burkes for a decade and has no political success until he has divorced himself from his old name and old appearance...]

snape - poor, saddled with his muggle father's name, friendless, under the radar of the rest of his teachers [james and sirius evidently get away with bullying him without any really onerous punishment], uncouth, desperate to be recognised for his talents, and so on - is an ominously plausible target to be groomed and abused by a teacher such as slughorn, who could act with impunity [relatively] safe in the knowledge that their social positions [even before we get into the power dynamic inherent between a student and a teacher] mean that snape would never be able to articulate what was happening to him and be believed...

and i talk a lot about how - when we think about how snape was radicalised into becoming a death eater - we need to recognise that voldemort appears to be the first person he ever encounters who offers him a chance at power and status which transcends the limitations of his class background. this dynamic could be made all the more potent if we imagine that voldemort is also the first person to believe him when he talks about being slughorn's victim...

and to promise him that he will offer him a chance for revenge.

[ga-yuu]

[Gilbert Von Obsidian Story Chapter 1]

----Part 1----

Once upon a time, in Rhodolite, the Land of Roses and Art, there was a strange encounter that was like a divine prank.

Black-haired boy: "Hey, why are powerful people so corrupted?"

A boy sitting on a barrel in an alleyway closes the thick book on his lap which looks inappropriate for his thin body.

The book was about the history of a continent spelled out in an archaic language that even scholars should find difficult to understand.

The boy understood all the contents with the ease of reading a picture book.

He asks the blond boy sitting on the ground.

The blond-haired blue-eyed boy with a mature aura didn't stop reading.

Black-haired boy: "They say continental history is the history of aristocracy, but there are no good people in it."

Black-haired boy: "Those who killed their own people to gain the throne, those who cheated other nations to expand their territory, and those who turned a blind eye to the suffering of their people..."

Black-haired boy: "This has been going on for a long time now. There should be a kind monarch who is equal and charitable to everyone."

Black-haired boy: ".....But no. Why would people like that ever go down in history."

Blond boy: "Of course."

Blond boy: "In today's society where class-based society has become the norm, a monarch who claims to be loving and equal would be the first to be eliminated."

Blond boy: "Once in power, you can never relinquish it. If the slightest disadvantage is incurred, they will meditate on it."

Blond boy: "The pain of others will be nothing. That's human nature."

Black-haired boy: "Hmmm, guess so."

The black-haired boy jumps down from his barrel, putting his small feet on the ground and smiles brightly as sun shining down the alley.

Black-haired boy: "I think humans are inherently conscientious creatures."

Black-haired boy: "It's the world that makes people greedy, not the people itself."

Blond boy: "According to your theory, there are no real evil people in the world?"

Black-haired boy: "Mmhm, because the essence of human nature is 'love."

Black-haired boy: "The corrupt monarchs who spun history could have been kinder to others if the world had been different."

Blond boy: ".......You are quite the dreamer."

Black-haired boy: "So what? I'm still a kid."

Black-haired boy: "And I like people."

The blond boy looked up from his book and couldn't help but snicker.

The red eyes of the dark-haired boy were full of compassion and tenderness.

.............

It's been several days since the princes of the three countries requested an extended stay for headache-inducing reasons.

After careful consultation with Sir Sariel and other princes,

Rhodolite is ready to welcome state guests.

Leon: "As, I've said many times, it's been decided that the princes from each country will stay for the four-country talks."

At a regular meeting of the princes, and key officials belonging to the internal affairs faction.

Once the agenda was settled, the matter was brought up with Leon, the leader of the internal affairs faction.

Leon: "His Majesty, the King has given his approval. The decision will not be reversed."

Leon's dignified voice silences the frustrated internal bureaucrats.

(I had expected this, but there still seems to be a lot of backlash)

Bureaucrat: "...I'm still not convinced. Benitoite as a friendly country and Jade as a neutral country would be fine."

Bureaucrat; "But why must we also accept Obsidian!?"

Bureaucrat: "Their former treachery, has gone unredressed to this day."

Bureaucrat: "There must be some nefarious plotting behind this stay too...it's too dangerous."

Leon: "I know. We have not forgotten the Bloodstained Rose Day ten years ago."

(Bloodstained Rose Day....I've only heard rumors)

Ten years ago, Rhodolite was invaded by Obsidian.

The princes went to the battlefield and stopped them at the border, so I, who lived in the royal capital, only heard rumors.

The sudden invasion, which could be described as a bolt from the blue, has left a huge scar on the Country of Roses.

That is the reason why the overwhelming majority of people are not comfortable with the stay of the Obsidian royal family.

(I don't know the details, I'll have to look it up next time)

Leon: "But now a country that has never been open to any diplomacy has come to the forefront."

Leon: "I think it's well worth allowing them to stay."

Bureaucrat: "But..."

Leon: "Besides, if anything goes wrong, I and Chevalier will take the blame."

Leon: "You have your thoughts, but swallow them for now."

-----Part 2----

The silence that fell in the drawing room was so heavy that even the slightest noise would have been unacceptable.

Bureaucrat: "Then, at least..."

The bureaucrat, who seemed to have retracted his fangs turned to me, who was in the last seat.

Bureaucrat: "Tell us why that woman is present here."

All eyes were on me and I felt as if I had been dragged all the way to the center of the stage.

(I thought someone would ask)

Many of the Bureaucrats here don't know that I am Belle.

One day, without any warning, a mysterious young lady appeared and began to stay at the court for her studies...

In addition, she was also escorted by the prince of Obsidian at the goodwill party and also seen dancing with him.

(The constant staring hurts....they must be suspecting I'm on the Obsidian's side)

Jin: "Emma is just a victim here, right?"

Emma: "Yes. I was asked to show the way by Prince Gilbert and he forced me to attend the party with him."

Emma: "I've never met him before and I don't know him personally. To be honest, I'm still confused."

(I wish it had been a dream)

Bureaucrat: "I don't think that 'Trampling Beast' would escort a woman for no reason."

Bureaucrat: "Excuse me, but even if you don't know why we still can't let our guard down around you..."

Licht: "The allies have decided that it's not a problem."

Licht: "Why else would you need a reason?"

Yves: "I can understand your concern though."

Yves: "But there is nothing suspicious about Emma. That much is certain."

(The princes will defend me but I'm sure all of them are equally confused as I am)

(....As Belle I was allowed to participate in this meeting to deepen my knowledge, but I shouldn't have come)

Luke: "Haa...such bad vibes."

As if to cut the tension, a lazy-sounding voice rises.

Luke sitting next to me, who also attended the meeting as a part of his studies,

Sighed loudly at the bureaucrat who raised his eyebrows in disapproval.

Luke: "I don't care what you think."

Luke: "Second of all, what do you even know about the Trampling Beast, to begin with?"

Bureaucrat: "Of course, everyone knows how notorious, he is."

Bureaucrat: "He has ruled numerous countries through the use of force, rewriting the maps of the continents at an extraordinary pace, and he is also a world bane..."

Bureaucrat: "He has never lost a battle, and as an ever-victorious marshal, he is a man to watch, a figure of great importance that the whole continent is on the lookout for."

Bureaucrat: "A cold-blooded, arrogant, evil royal family that tramples on so many things that it deserves the name of Trampling Beast."

Luke: "I didn't ask you to repeat the rumors about him. I asked you if you actually know about him or not and it appears that you don't."

Luke: "What if he just fell in love with Emma at first sight?"

(No, I don't think that's the case)

The bureaucrats could not hide their "what are you talking about?" faces.

Leon: "Heh..hahaha! That might the case too. Don't you think?"

Jin: "Emma is a pretty girl after all. No wonder the Trampling Beast himself fell in love with her."

Luke: "See? That's why it's not Emma's fault. Stop blaming her."

Luke gets up and grabs my hand.

Luke: "Let's get out here. Staying here anymore will suffocate you to death."

Luke: "Let's bunk this meeting together."

(As always, he's lazy....)

(...But since my presence is making the atmosphere worse, let's take advantage of Luke's kindness for now)

Emma: "Prince Leon, may leave the meeting?"

Leon: "Go ahead. ...Luke, don't tell Sariel about this."

Luke: "Of course, leave her to me."

(Why did this happen?)

----Part 3----

Luke led me by the hand and we came to the rose garden.

The tension finally dissolves as I am welcomed by the sweet fragrance that confronts my wounded heart.

Luke: "Feeling better now?"

Emma: "Thank you, Luke....sorry you also had to leave because of me."

Luke: "Why are you apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong."

His large hand patted my head and my cheeks relaxed.

(Thank god, Luke was there or else I would have cried)

Luke: "If you have any problem, you can always talk to me, okay? Even if you're dealing with a big bad tiger, I'll protect you no matter what."

A dependable smile is like a panacea, taking away the pain in my heart.

It was then that I felt relieved that I was not alone in this situation.

???: "Hmm, that sounds reassuring isn't it?"

(Mm...)

My heart jumps out of my chest as if to gouge out the pain that is about to subside.

A voice from somewhere and the sound of a cane hitting the cobblestones with a clang, painted the beautiful rose garden into a nightmare.

Luke: ".....Gilbert."

Mercilessly, Luke's muttering brings me back to reality.

I looked back awkwardly and saw a black figure among the petals blown up by the wind.

Gilbert: "Hello. Were you in the middle of a secret rendezvous?"

Luke: "Haa..if you know, then don't get in our way."

Gilbert: "But I want to. I'm lonely, you know."

Luke: "....The nerve of you."

(....Luke's attitude doesn't change towards Prince Gilbert)

Following the example of the goodwill party, he who is unperturbed, even though he is a Trampling Beast, I also hide my agitation.

But Gilbert laughed, as if he knew everything.

Gilbert: "You look unhappy, little bunny?"

Gilbert: "By the looks of it, did someone mistreat you?"

Emma: "....No."

Gilbert: "I hate liars, you know."

I felt a gruesome pressure on my spine that chilled.

No matter how calm I tried to appear, my instincts seemed to sense fear, and my face pulled into a tight line.

(It was the same when we first met. There shouldn't be a need to feel so 'scared'...)

Luke: "If someone is bullying her, then it's you."

Luke takes one step forward to cover me.

Luke: "You're existence is already terrifying. So stop scaring Emma."

Gilbert: "Aww, that's so unreasonable. I haven't done anything terrible yet."

Emma: " 'Yet'...means?"

Gilbert: "....Fufu."

Gilbert-sama only smiled meaningfully, but did not deny it.

Gilbert: "I don't like it when you're scared."

Gilbert: "I only want to be friends with little bunny here. So I think we must get to know each other as soon as possible...right?"

Gilbert: "Oh yeah, that's it!"

Prince Gilbert, who clapped his hands deliberately, ignored Luke and approached me.

Gilbert: "I still haven't thanked you for helping me that day."

Gilbert: "How about we go out together?"

Emma: "Go out?"

Gilbert: "Mmhmm. Just the two of us and no one else."

(.....No, I must not nod)

The Trampling Beast, the world's bane, the infamous Prince----"

It is hard to believe that he would want to got out with a lady like me just to 'friends'

(Probably he's trying to figure out who I am)

----FLASHBACK----

Gilbert: " I was interested in you."

Gilbert: "So let's take time and chat more, next time 'Belle'?"

----FLASHBACK ENDS----

(Prince Gilbert seemed to suspect that I am Belle)

(And maybe he's trying to get me to expose my identity)

Luke: "What are you up to?"

As expected, Luke looks at him suspiciously.

Gilbert: "I wanna be friends with your little bunny. That's all."

Gilbert: "If she keeps giving me this frightened look every time then---"

Gilbert: "It will make me sad and I'd end up killing her."

----Part 4-----

At first, I didn't understand what he meant.

I was so lost in the good-looking young man in front of me that I suspected that I had misheard him.

(No, I must not run away)

(Even though...I just got threatened flat out---)

The fear that came late was powerful enough to cower my heart.

Luke: "..You.."

Gilbert: "Luke, do me a favor and make up a good excuse to mislead everyone else, will you? We will be back in time for dinner."

Luke: "Why should I be a part of your evil deeds?"

Gilbert: "It's not anything evil. It's your job."

Gilbert: "Luke is a part of the external affairs faction, isn't he? So it's your job to make sure that your guests are happy....right?"

Luke: "......."

Gilbert: "It's your job too, self-proclaimed noblewoman of Rhodolite."

Gilbert: "If you piss me off, I will destroy your whole country. Of course, you don't want that, right?"

(It sounds like a joke, but I'm sure Prince Gilbert is a person who would do something like that)

-----Options------

Please give me time to consult. (+4/+4)

I can't nod. (+4/+4)

Okay, I'll go. (+4/+4)

-------------

Emma: "Please give me time to consult..."

(If only I could at least ask Sir Sariel for help)

Gilbert: "No."

Prince Gilbert mercilessly kicked out my only hope.

Gilbert: "I'm not going to give you any chances to decline my invitation."

I was at a loss and Prince Gilbert grabbed my wrist.

(....It's so cold)

Though he's wearing his gloves, I could still feel his icy cold fingers and I tremble.

Luke: "Gilbert!"

Gilbert: "Don't worry, I won't do anything cruel."

Gilbert: "You should know better than anyone that I don't lie."

Luke: "......"

(....What do you mean?)

Luke runs his fingers through his hair and sighs.

Luke: "....Emma if you don't want to, I'll kick this guy away right now."

Emma: "....I understand. But it's fine."

Emma: "Prince Gilbert is a guest of Rhodolite and I also have the duty to entertain him without being rude."

Emma: "Prince Luke...please inform Sir Sariel for me."

(I can't resist now)

Luke reluctantly nods.

Gilbert: "I'm glad you didn't turn me down. Let's go shall we?"

(Somehow, I'll just have to get through this peacefully)

........

(...Why?)

We boarded the carriage that Prince Gilbert prepared and headed to our destination----Hell.

(Out of all the places...)

(....He had to bring me here)

It is still naive to think he suspects my identity as Belle.

Prince Gilbert casually walks up to my original workplace without any hesitation.

(Prince Gilbert is not suspicious..he's 'sure')

Gilbert: "I reserved the whole place just for the two of us. Aren't you excited?"

He opens the front door and forces me into the bookstore.

I'm sure Sir Sariel would have arranged for another clerk to work in place while I was gone.

But for now, the bookstore is empty.

(Why on earth this had to happen?)

(Don't tell me our meeting the rose garden was also a part of his plan...)

(No, I don't think Prince Gilbert can plan all of that)

(But what if it was?)

A different emotion from instinctive fear engulfs my mind.

A cold hand was placed on my stunned shoulder and pushed me further inside the bookstore.

Gilbert: "I know you like books. You can relax here as much as you want."

Gilbert: "No more annoying stares. It's the only place where you can return to your true self."

Emma: "......."

Gilbert: "You look pale. Are you not happy?"

----Part 5----

Emma: "How do you know I like books?"

Gilbert: "It's a secret."

Emma: "And this bookstore..."

Gilbert: "It's a secret too."

Emma: "........."

Gilbert: "Just so you know....I'm an information-gathering hobbyist."

Gilbert: "When I don't know something, it makes me curious. So I'll try to find out about it no matter what."

Prince Gilbert smiles happily and puts his face to my ear.

Gilbert: "Are you feeling guilty? Belle?"

Emma: "........I'm not Belle."

Gilbert: "I hate liars. I told you."

Emma: "........"

The fangs of the beast are already set on me.

I had to lie somehow, but my mind was pathetically blank.

Gilbert: "Ah...Aren't you into this book lately?"

As if in pursuit, Prince Gilbert pulls a black book from the bookshelf and places it in my hands.

It had a black cover and its title was written in golden colour. It was a book that I'm reading currently.

(Just how much does he know about me?)

(...Where did you get this much info?)

Emma: "What's your purpose...please tell me."

With what little courage I had, I squeezed out my voice because my heart was about to collapse.

Emma: "Are you trying me threaten me or something?"

Gilbert: "I'm not here to threaten you. I want us to be friends."

Gilbert: "I'll tell you properly this time. I truly want to be friends with you."

Emma: ".....Friends?"

Gilbert: "Yes."

Gilbert: "See, it's just that simple."

(No way)

It's difficult for me to read Prince Gilbert's intentions before replying.

(But I can instinctively feel that I must not be friends with this guy)

Emma: "I can't be your friend, Prince Gilbert."

Gilbert: "Fufu...looks like you don't understand."

Prince Gilbert holds my hand and breaths into my ears.

The black book falls from my hand and before I could get it, he held my cheek with his cane.

Gilbert: "You have two choices, either you willingly be my friend or force yourself to be my friend."

Emma: "Nn...!"

My voice leaked out as I felt a sharp pain on my neck.

(Did he...just bite me...?)

The cold, soft touch and the itchy pain lingered on my neck eating away at my aroused heart like poison.

Gilbert: "If you won't be my friend....Belle will disappear."

Gilbert: "Rhodolite won't get their King and I will come with my troops to crush your country."

Emma: "....."

Gilbert: "So I'll ask you again, be my friend."

(I can only nod)

Because everything is in Prince Gilbert's hands.

To willingly be friends or force myself to be friends, there is only one answer.

Emma: "....Why do you want to go out of your way to be friends with me?"

Gilbert: "Good question."

Everytime, he giggles, his soft breath hits my neck.

Rather than embarrassment, unfathomable fear prevailed.

Gilbert: "You are said to have the most beautiful heart in all of Rhodolite."

Gilbert: "And there are many different criteria for evaluating a beautiful heart, but...."

Gilbert: "The beautiful heart in your case is 'loving others more than yourself"

(You must not be knowing this much about me...)

(....But I can't say anything back because I'm afraid)

Gilbert: "A heart that loves and cares for those around you and respects others more than yourself..."

Gilbert: "You were chosen as Belle because you risk your life to help others around you, right?"

(He knows everything)

Gilbert: "But you know what I think? No matter how beautiful your heart is, the essence of a person is 'false love."

Gilbert: "They pile on the ugly falsehoods and act as if there is love---when in fact there is no such thing."

Gilbert: "Even your beautiful heart is only a hoax."

Gilbert: "If you stay in a place like the royal court, where your greed is exposed, you will eventually fall."

Gilbert: "I for one, like to see it close up."

Gilbert: "I am curious to see how the most beautiful woman with the most beautiful heart in all of Rhodolite would turn out."

Gilbert: "So be my friend. That way, I will be the closest to you, right?"

(.........I cannot even process what Prince Gilbert is saying)

Prince Gilbert is also trying to get my understanding.

I feel a sense of self-indulgence as if he is just saying what he is thinking anyway.

(After all, what he meant by 'friends' does not seem to have a similar meaning that I know)

Emma: "I'm not sure if I have a beautiful heart or not, but...."

Emma: "No matter what happens, I will remain who I am."

Emma: "I doubt I can live up to Prince Gilbert's expectations."

Gilbert: "Hehe, it's going to be fun."

Emma: "Mm....!?"

He bit my neck again and I squinted painfully.

It was more painful than the previous one and I let out a soft painful cry.

Emma: "Stop biting me!"

Gilbert: "Did that hurt? Sorry."

Gilbert: "I like to leave my mark on my favorite things. It's a sign that you are my friend."

(I don't need this kind of proof)

When I turn around after brushing off Prince Gilbert's hand, I meet his blood-red eyes.

His lips were smiling but his eyes weren't and I couldn't help but look away.

(....Just like a real beast)

(Earlier he described me as having a 'strong sense of love for others'....)

(Maybe, I don't think I can love this Prince)

[ye-local-simp]

Can I request for silver and Sebek some headcanons for finding their crush trying to train in the forest in the middle of the night when really it's more about venting frustration on a poor tree because they lost a fight on campus being one against many and it hit them that they really don't have much self defense skills and how dangerous being here is for them?

[Finding their S/o trying to train]

[SILVER,SEBEK]

Silver:

-Silver is aware of your situation in the campus and as a boyfriend he is very worried.

-But as a student, he knows it isn't possible to be your bodyguard 24/7, even with Malleus.

-So one of his rules to himself is that he will protect you as much as he can.

-The first time you start training, he was actually asleep in a nearby tree so he could hear you venting.

-He listens to you, vent and applies comfort where necessary.

-He promises to help you train if he was awake enough, he promises that he will teach you as much as he knows from his own training.

-He might even get Lilia to help.

-Even if you are stronger now, he will never stop worrying about you.

Sebek:

-Sebek never understood why he fell in love with you, but he is now accepting that fact.

-Sebek thinks every human is weak so naturally he thinks you are weak too.

-But since you are magicless, it makes you even more disadvantaged than your peers.

-Sebek already guards Malleus and that is his duty,so he is sorry that he can't protect you 24/7.

- But when he hears you vent about the students giving you a hard time, he makes sure those students pay for they have done.

-That's also when he decides enough is enough and offers to train you if Malleus is in class or something.

-He knows you can't do fae training, but he can train you as much as a human could so you can at least protect yourself.

-He promises that he will never let you get hurt in his presence.

[wineaunt420]

This is a DC OC story‼️

Between my daughter Oc Kiera and her pops Johnathan Crane.

Tw: mentions of death, loss of limbs, mentions of religion.

Kinda hurt comfort, I guess??

More under the banner// psa I do not proof read lmao, I'm not smart enough for that.

January 6, 1988. You could say it was the day my life turned 50 fucking degrees but…I came out of the water of the womb and left half my brain behind…In some sense of the word. Nah. that day was just adding salt into the wound. I never understood why some people got it easy…normal life, normal family. No issues to call their own. Now I ain’t religious but but I guess god just likes to pick and choose his favourites, guess I just wasn’t one of em.

Its always pissed me off though, how much more favoured the more fortunate are. Like they don’t understand how lucky they are or rather how unlucky others are. I don’t know when empathy was suddenly just disregard like non recyclable plastic I’ve seen tossed out peoples car windows but alas. “The world kept spinnin”...It makes me distasteful of those people.

But anyway…January 6, 1988. I was six years old when I took the plunge. You always hear about helicopter accidents but you never think its gonna be you. I lost more than my legs that day. The…only reason I live to fight today was because my mother…broke my fall…ever since then its just been me, my dad and these stupid fucking hunks of metal. I suppose I should be grateful but you tend to get a taste of disdain for the world when you are held at not only a mental disadvantage but also a physical one. Thank you world! I really appreciate it…But ever the enthusiastic girl I am! I love to dance. Top of my class actually!

I never really liked the academics much to my dads disapproval but he can’t really get upset about it, especially when he should be grateful I'm even still alive after the not so metaphorical “flunk to the floor” I had. He loves me, ofcourse…I know he wishes I went into science or maths or…English at least, hah!...as if. Nope! Dancing. He is obviously proud of me, what will the odds set against me and all. He understands how much I love it and he supports me…I know why he worries of course.

With my history of poor coping mechanisms and just pots and pots of endless disaster brain soup it's a mystery why he doesn’t have me on permanent lock down. I should be grateful…to be alive…to have a loving father…so why am i so angry…

“Kiera…”

Why can’t I just be happy

“Kiera!”

Huh?

“Yeah? Sorry pops…” kiera zoned back in, looking up at her dad.

Crain sighs

“Lost in you’re head again?”

She nods, clicking a pen on her dads desk….

“Hey…”

Kiera looks up at Johnathan again “hm?”

“You are going great…don’t stress yourself”

Kiera smiles softly…he was good like this….always able to read me like a book and knew exactly what to say to make me feel….atleast a little calmer. My thoughts spiral and they stray…But Trust the shrink To drag me back to reality.

“I can't fuckin’ help it, pops…I'm just. Y'know…” Kiera strains, her lip quirking slightly.

“It's alright, pumpkin. I know…I might have somethin’ help keep your mind occupied. Got a few colouring books-”

“Dad I ain’t 6 anymore- oh my god….you still have my old colouring books?” She let's out a short, light Chuckle as her old colouring book from when she was a young girl is pulled from a drawr and unceremoniously dropped onto the desk, along side an old- rather disgusting pack Of Crayola.

“I haven't cleared out my desk in a while….” his hand awkwardly rubs At the back of his neck. It had been rough after the loss, but they found strength in each other.

“Clearly…” but there was no venom behind her words, she wasn't a hateful bitch…Unless she found reason in being so. Despite her distaste in taking part In such a childish activity, she found herself flipping throughout the pages regardless…pages half finnished, lazily scribbled in with pinks, purples and littered with little drawings that were dictated by no set lines. A time capsule back to the only time she was truly…Free. Free willed, free spirited and full of nothing but an overly positive view of the world. A time capsule of innocence. She knew she was anything but now. Far from it….her eyes landed on a truly poorly drawn biro sketch of two stick people. Anyone else wouldn't have had a single fucking clue who these two insignificant childish scribbles where, but to Kiera…the most significance was held. Her and John, Obviously when she was alot younger, hand in hand. But that wasn't all. It was clearly a drawing after the accident. But happy go lucky little Kiera….bless her.

forever Happy.

What the fuck happened…

“You ready To talk About it yet?”

John's voice cut through her train of thought Again.

Looking down her legs….or lack there of. She looks back up with a warmer gaze.

“No…I feel better now”

[theculturedmarxist]

[...]

A long time ago, while conducting research for my master’s thesis on how the economic reforms of [French President] Emmanuel Macron had closed the circle started by [François] Mitterrand, I came to realize that the old Thatcherite idea, “There is no society, only individuals with the freedom of choice,” had become so commonly accepted in contemporary society that both right– and left-wing neoliberals today feel no need to emphasize it. 

Social surveys have also found a shocking lack of empathy and solidarity among communities in the U.S. and Western Europe, exactly at the time the dominant political narratives have begun to insist on inclusiveness and tolerance toward others. Subtle distinctions in definitions can often reveal commonly understood and yet unspoken differences between terms that we prefer to use: Inclusiveness does not necessary oblige solidarity or empathy, just as tolerance in the absolute sense means merely withholding action based on existing animosities, which are acknowledged by the very need for the usage of the term in question. Tolerance, indeed, does not have to mean understanding and accepting increasingly distant “others.”  

A question must be asked: Are we now, through ideological terminology, searching for exactly those things that we are in fact missing in our social reality? The need to define ideological terms prompts this question in that it arises only when certain notions have left the sphere of unspoken social consensus—the very frame of political and social thought. 

In his latest book, The exiled terms, Todor Kuljić, who is among the most internationally recognized Serbian sociologists of the previous and current century, explains how four decades of neoliberal reforms have influenced significant changes in the language we use to discuss ideology and politics, noting that all the terms previously connected to class inequalities, Marxist ideologies, and collective struggles of the working class have been systematically replaced with less critical, less “communist sounding” terms.

In sociology curricula, the terms “exploitation,” “revolution,” and even “humanism” have been almost completely forsaken, while we can see increased usage of words such as “transition,” “transformation,” and “social exclusion.” The term “transition,” a case in point, normalises poverty and corruption in countries that need to be convinced that they will be much better off when they adopt neoliberal economic models. 

The famous comedian George Carlin put forward a notion that there is a cultural tradition in the United States of constantly inventing new terms, and “exiling” the old-fashioned terms, which derives from the constant need to make the brutalities of everyday life more easily accommodated. “Americans have trouble facing the truth,” Carlin once said, “so they invent a kind of soft language to protect themselves from it.” If poor people used to live in slums, to cite one of Carlin’s standup routines, “now ‘the economically disadvantaged’ occupy ‘substandard housing’ in ‘inner cities.’” 

Anthropological studies have shown that this tendency has certain connections with the totemistic belief of the earliest human societies that, by changing the way we verbally identify a certain aspect of reality we can change the reality itself. It appears that this has never been more relevant than in the case of the modern culture of political correctness, which proposes that we accept social problems as consequences of our subconscious thoughts and/or individual actions, and try to solve them by changing the language we use to define them—while never searching for their material causes.

Professor Jordan Peterson has claimed that modern-day political culture developed in a manner in which the previously presumed need for objectivity was replaced with subjective feelings and perceptions, while the very understanding of material reality has been, through relativization, reduced to little more than an inconvenience that can be regulated by state legislation and group stigmatization. On the other hand, Slavoj Žižek holds that it is precisely the abandonment of the collective (ideas) for the individual (interests) that has led our increasingly globalized political culture down this path. The neoliberal, postmodern left has merely followed the neoliberal right of the eighties in the project of eliminating undesirable terminology related to physical, class, and social reality—depending on the preference of each—from the common frames of political debate, since a consensus on understanding material reality is the first and necessary condition of the collective political struggle.

Žižek also claims that the phenomenon of New Age leftists striving toward zealous political correctness merely contributes to depriving formal and informal human relationships of what is the very essence of humanity. This is because following the increasingly strict standards of Newspeak, as Orwell would put it, necessarily increases the distance between people by making them focus on their differences, thus continuously reinforcing the same barriers neoliberal leftists wish to break free of, while, at the same time, leaving them unable to overcome the tensions of every-day interactions through humor and other forms of releasing the burdening contents of the individual and collective subconscious. 

Further, if we take into account the previously mentioned thesis of Professor Kuljić, we can also propose the question: To what extent is the modern neoliberal leftist obsession with political correctness a consequence of the absence of a language and terminology by which young people could articulate the actual causes of their fear and anger and the need to express political radicalism? Of course, leftists of this persuasion remain thoroughly within the existing frame of the globally dominant ideology and never challenge the economic and political system.

At the same time, neoliberal right-wing policies continue to insist on the previously discussed narrative of personal responsibility—or, rather, personal “guilt”—not for the problems of cultural inequalities, which their leftist counterparts remain unable to relate to their actual causes in material reality, but rather for the position of the individual in the new economic order. Now in social media we witness the rise of an entire generation of young conservatives who present success and failure in life—mostly defined by the acquisition of wealth rather than personal happiness—as a consequence of individual decisions and actions, entirely decontextualized and removed from one’s personal circumstances, class background, and social context. 

Unlike the previous authors of the self-help books from the early eighties, these new “life coaches” of the internet are heavily engaged in the relativization of ethics, with some going as far as to conclude that those who stay employed in times of low wages and worsening labor conditions, instead of risking their financial existence with private business gambles, have no one but themselves to blame for being exploited. Thus, in a perverted sense of logical framing, they arrive very close to an argument used by ancient Greek philosophers to justify slavery: “An Athenian would rather kill himself than become a slave.” 

Neoliberal leftists legitimize the unfair treatment of others for personal gain with the condition that you address respectfully the same people whom you are exploiting—and, as well, disregard solidarity as the core value of the left. Contrarily, the neoliberal right wing insists that participation in the hierarchy of social and economic power is a goal necessary to achieve and a matter of personal choice, and not at all of social reality. It is as though they, the neoliberal right wing, have forgotten with how much effort traditional conservatives tried to uphold the principles of ethics—even if many of those principles were not part of the initial humanist–Enlightenment agenda, or universal values as Immanuel Kant would define them, but served only to preserve position and ensure reproduction of the upper classes—as though there truly was no society anymore. 

Not even the Prussian militarists of the old German Empire ever went so far as to assert openly that there is no common good, not even a universal moral code, and that, rather, you should seek to enrich yourself at the expense of others just to prove your own capabilities to a society you don’t even believe in anymore. But modern-day conservatives have crossed this line by seducing today’s ever more fearful youth with the promises that, if they prove capable enough, they can assume the role of the oppressor themselves and exploit the weak, who deserve their fate for failing to seize the “boundless opportunities” of some neoliberal economic paradise.

Thus, prevalent neoliberal left– and right-wing ideologies have not just disregarded, fragmented, or redefined traditionally universalist principles of ethics; they have also forsaken many “core values”—an emphasis on collective solidarity or personal liberty, common wellbeing, or individual morality—which defined the differences between the significant left– and right-wing ideologies of the previous two centuries. Even more important, humanity has been almost completely exiled from the sphere of ideological priorities—in favor of politically correct formality in the case of the New Age left, or, in the case of the New Age right, in favor of a convenient indifference to social problems. The value of humanity, in the sense in which it was understood during the course of the 20th century, will therefore have a hard time finding its way back into the ideological frames of the new world order. 

Luka Filipović, among the youngest Serbians ever to earn his doctorate, holds a Ph.D. awarded by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. He has published numerous articles regarding the history of labor movements, communist parties, neoliberal economic reforms, and political turmoil of the late 20th century in Europe and Serbia. His book, Eurokomunizam i Jugoslavija 1968-1980,(Eurocommunism and Yugoslavia 1968–1980), is published this month by the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, where Filipović currently conducts his research.  

[scienceysideblog]

Finally finished the biography of Marie curie written by her daughter eve. I finished it a while ago but didn't realise I'd left this post in my drafts. I knew a little bit about Marie curie before reading it but I don't think I quite appreciated the struggles she experienced in her life, how incredibly hard she worked and how much she achieved.

Ironically, I get the impression she wouldn't have liked the fact I see her as such an inspiration. She said "in science we must be interested in things not persons" and she never really understood the way people reacted to her once she was famous.

Despite this, I cannot help but be inspired by her and hope that I have some things in common with her which will help me succeed as a scientist even if not in the same way she did. Although, I think the book has also helped me come to the conclusion that whether other people, even if they are my inspirations, think I will be a successful scientist isn't really what matters, the science I love is what matters.

I think she was the sort of person who if she saw a problem she could help with, helped without hesitation, someone who was determined, who worked incredibly hard, who loved her family and her country and her subject. She could've been a millionaire, if she and pierre curie had patented the extraction process of radium, but she rejected it because of her principles, because radium was an element and she felt it belonged to everyone. She said "humanity certainly needs practical men... But humanity also needs dreamers" and I think she was a dreamer and I think despite everything, in the end she was hopeful for the future of her laboratory and for the future of science.

My physics teacher (who also inspires me) told our class that the curies and the Einsteins are the people that don't give up. And I understand that even more now from reading this book. Marie waited for so long to go to university because she was working so that her sister could go and she almost gave up hope, but she didn't. And even during that time she taught disadvantaged children because she saw an opportunity to make a difference. Despite winning the Nobel prize she and pierre could not afford a laboratory and they struggled for many years doing their research in cramped unsuitable rooms. Eventually, some time after pierre's death Marie built her laboratory and multiple radium institutes.

I was attempting to compile a list of key quotes however, aside from this one, I think the most important are the ones I have mentioned earlier in this post as I still think about them regularly.

"if I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity"

I strongly recommend madame curie the book to anyone interested in her or in radioactivity because it is brilliant.

[justlarkin]

Yoritomo and Yoshitsune backstory!

Poorly Translated: "When was it that I first felt that the smile of my younger sibling was frightening?

Was it when I saw his face for the first time at the war camp on the banks of the Kisegawa River?

My younger brother, whose existence I knew of but had never met, looked at my face and gave me a smile that I could not read.

Then he said, "I want to be useful to my brother, that's all."

At that time, I thought to myself, "this brother is more of a nuisance than useful."

Both of us had the original legitimacy of "the source" and he could only be my political rival in the future.

In the future that I will create, there will be only one true "source," and beyond that, there will only be a struggle for everyone else's "ranking".

And yet, when I saw the hand that was held out to me unprotected, I felt an indescribable chill.

I guess he is just an unpredictable child.... I had no choice but to make that judgment at the time.

But no matter how many times I sent him to the battlefield, he always came back alive. Only with victory in tow, as if nothing happened.

On the battlefield, that child prodigy rode his horse down cliffs where anyone else would fall, turning any disadvantage upside down.

And my brother, many a time, had knelt before me, his eyes shining and smiling, but I gave him no praise.

Of course, it is customary of the samurai class to give credit where credit is due. If you have done something useful for your lord, you should be rewarded.

Then why? Because my brother always brought back the worst of the war with the greatest of the war.

He was good at surprise attacks, which were considered taboo by samurai at the time, and he took the liberty of closing the distance between himself and his political opponents, causing more trouble than ever before.

No matter how much distance you put between you and him, no matter how many times you cut him off, that brother will always come back with his ranking and a smile.....

That's why I didn't believe that he died... Even when my brother never came back that day.

When all of my major political opponents had been destroyed, I sent him off to his death, as I had always done, and he never came back.

Nonsense, there is no way that my brother would die even if he was surrounded by an army hundreds of times his size.

His head arrived? Such things can be faked in a multitude of ways. That is the only brother I fear in this world.

But it was definitely the best timing. With your disappearance, my political system is complete.

The distance between the Emperor and the Shogunate, the separation of prestige from real power, continuing on to eternity....

For this to be completed, my brother, you would have had to disappear from the world.

Oh, how terrifying. I was scared from the bottom of my heart.

If my brother had understood this, if he had done this understanding that...

When we first met, you said, "I want to be useful to my brother, that's all."

Then I must reward you. I must give you what you want."

[anarkissm]

continuity on claudette’s timeline and life before the fog! featuring lore crumbs from her cosmetics.

for the new year, claudette was invited to attend the exclusive Winter Gala at the Montreal Metropolitan Science Center. she pampered herself for the occasion, eager to discuss her role at the Montreal Metropolitan Science Center as the leader of its emerging tutoring program. proudly representing the Science Centre's educational mission and sharing how science had changed her life.

the Montreal Metropolitan Science Center seems to be inspired by the actual Montréal Science Centre in vieux port. it officially opened in 2000, and then in 2001: it created the Montréal Science Centre Foundation, supporting the development of innovative exhibition projects and educational programs, offering an annual sponsorship program that introduces science and technology to nearly 10,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. 2001 would most likely be the year she attended the gala and announced her involvement in the tutoring program. ultimately setting her canon timeline (and year/era that the entity had taken her) in the early 2000s.

claudette had come from a working class family, evidenced by her "science girl” superhero costume lovingly hand-sewn by her mother. and the shoe-box apartment she had come home to, after taking the bus from primary school (in her archive lore: claudette’s 8th birthday).

she would have likely grown up in ville-marie, in a neighborhood within walkable distance to the science center. a diverse borough comprising all of downtown montreal, including the quartier des spectacles; old montreal and the old port, etc.. as an arts and entertainment district, the quarter des spectacles is relevant to claudette’s lore continuity because she has canonically attended art festivals:

 a full on makeover for the botanist formerly known as Science Girl, worn as part of her city's outdoor theatre festival: stunning all-natural curls complemented with colored shades. a belly-baring top paired with a custom designed hoodie & pendant from the shops of st. laurent. baggy sweatpants for ultimate movement and a pair of reliable canvas sneakers that are flexibly worn in.

implying claudette’s life in montreal was fulfilling, happy, and relatively social after her 8th birthday, specifically as her parents began to fully accept that she is neurodivergent!  she was the leader of a prestigious science program where she was honored as the star guest at their exclusive gala. she would go out dancing after “a long day of science,” and she participated in outdoor plays. claudette would never be considered an extrovert, but she understood the value of engaging with her community and the humanities.

but, over time, especially after moving away from montreal to attend university as a grad student (completely separated from her home, her support system, and forced to change strict routines she had set for herself over the years), claudette became more and more solitary, burnt out of socially masking:

claudette is not the outgoing type. her brilliance provided her with a social handicap and she has fled the real world for chat rooms and forums.

chat rooms and forums were extremely popular in the early 2000s, specifically before the 2010s when social media platforms began trending aggressively. forums were at their peak in 2005, and chat rooms primarily died out in 2007. putting the time-frame of her abduction by the entity somewhere around this time! she was most likely taken by the entity after she was accepted into an internship program in biochemistry:

she was starting her internship at one of the leading centers in biochemical research. [wore] comfy clothes to keep warm while collecting samples in the wild. loose jeans with wide pockets and a utility belt to carry all her equipment around.

her internship seemed to be hands-on, working with nature itself in field research. collecting samples— raw data— and processing it into information. she was eventually allowed to lead her own field research project, working out of a cabin in southern quebec’s new england-acadian forests, far removed from urban life. where she studied extinct fungi:

she left the city behind. it was rainy when she reached the cabin— perfect for her research on the growth cycles of extinct mushrooms. this wet, grey weather would make them pop in the mossy forest bed. the forest felt like home. it was so much more than trees and grass and plants. she saw what it took to create life, a fragile and multilayered ecosystem that fascinated her.

living alone in a cabin in the woods is not easy. objectively, it is not even considered safe. the predictable setting of a horror movie. but claudette is familiar with solitude, with that eight-year-old child inside her that could spend hours observing plants and animals, uninterrupted. incentivized to live independently in order to prove something to herself, and her worried parents. she took a 15-week training course in medical emergency response; fixed the leak in the cabin’s ceiling; hiked regularly, split wood for the cast-iron fireplace, gathered supplies. checked her emails. a steady routine was good. comforting, to an extent.

from the research cabin, claudette cultivated and studied several extinct fungi. in particular: paleoophiocordyceps coccophagus, related to ophiocordyceps, a parasitic fungi that targets ants, altering their behavior in order to propagate itself, biochemically instructing the ant to kill itself and then growing its fruiting bodies from the ant's head to release its spores.

her research allowed her to understand the neural mechanisms of all organic life and how they interact with their perceived environment, as carbon-based lifeforms on earth. science allowed her to understand that organic life depends entirely on the illusion of the flesh, and its sensory constructs.

her passion for botany and science makes her a formidable survivor, like the other scientists: vigo, benedict baker, etc.... and a potential threat to the entity’s cruel simulations.

[megan77177]

My learning content （1）: 40 short articles and 3500 words

Fall in Love with English Hiding behind the loose dusty curtain, a teenager packed up his overcoat into the suitcase. He planned to leave home at dusk though there was thunder and lightning outdoors. He had got to do this because he was tired of his parents’ nagging about his English study and did not want to go through it any longer. He couldn’t get along well with English and disliked joining in English classes because he thought his teacher ignored him on purpose. As a result, his score in each exam never added up to over 60. His partner was concerned about him very much. She understood exactly what he was suffering from, but entirely disagreed with his idea. In order to calm him down and settle his problem, she talked with him face to face and swapped a series of learning tips with him. The items she set down helped him find the highway to studying English well. The teenager was grateful and got great power from his friend’s words. Now, he has recovered from being upset and has fallen in love with English

Different Countries Have Different Kinds of Englishes Voyages of people from England play an important part in spreading the English language. At present, English is frequently spoken as an official or common language in many countries, such as America, Singapore, Malaysia and some African countries. All based on British English, the English spoken in these countries can be well understood by native English speakers. But actually, these Englishes have been gradually changing in accents, spellings, expressions and the usage of vocabulary. Because of this fact, you can make use of the differences to tell which country the foreigners of your block are from. For example, if a boss fluently commands his driver, “Come up straight to my apartment by elevator and take some gas for my trucks and cabs”, instead of requesting, “Please come to my flat by lift and take some petrol for my lorries and taxis”, you can recognize his American identity, while the latter suggests that he is British.

A Hard Trip My sister was fond of traveling. Ever since graduating, she had been determined to organize a trip to an old temple. Since transporting fare was expensive, she decided to use a bicycle to cycle there not caring about the disadvantages. Her stubborn attitude was always her shortcoming. Once she made up her mind to do something, no one could persuade her to change her mind. Finally, we gave in as usual though we preferred to take a train. After we prepared everything, including the schedule, reliable weather forecast and the insurance, we began our trip. Our journey was along a river flowing from a high altitude. Our pace was slow because the river frequently had many sharp bends through deep valleys, where the water seemed to boil. Just as I recorded in my journal, it was really a hard journey. But we also enjoyed great views. One night, I put my head on my pillow--a parcel of wool coats, and lay beneath the stars. When the flame in front of our cave went out at midnight, I found the sky so beautiful!

A Horrible Earthquake Dirty water rose in wells and canals before the earthquake. But no one judged that an earthquake was coming. Suddenly, everything shook. It seemed as if the world was at an end. Millions of brick houses and a number of dams were destroyed. Railway tracks became useless bars. Pipes in mines burst and let out smelly steam. Huge cracks trapped cyclists everywhere. The next day, this event was the headline or main title of all newspapers. With the reporters giving an outline of the disaster, the whole nation was shocked by the damage and the victim’s extreme suffering. People were moved when they read that the survivors comforted each other by saying “Congratulations! You survived!”. So they not only expressed their sympathy sincerely, but also organized together to help the victims right away. The injured were rescued and the dead were buried. The frightened survivors were dug out from under the ruins and were offered shelter, fresh water and electricity. Thanks to people’s help, the loss was minimized.

The Great President As the founder of the republic, the president had many good qualities. Before coming to power, he was a generous lawyer. He was willing to selflessly help everyone who turned to him. He accepted no fee to offer legal guidance and opinions to those who were out of work or uneducated. Later, believing all mankind to be equal, he devoted himself to stopping the unfair anti-black laws. He set up the Black Youth League and was voted to be the leader. However, though he kept peaceful principles without violence and terror, his mean enemies still blew up his house and attacked his relatives, and he himself couldn’t escape being sentenced to 30 years in prison. Not fearing of the prison guards’ cruelty, he kept active and begged no mercy from them. As a matter of fact, he was always hopeful and never lost heart during the stage even though he was in trouble. Finally, people rewarded him with the leader’s position and a gold blanket.

[head-post]

True purpose of LGBTQ agenda

Male and female social roles are getting blended increasingly, with the LGBTQ movement, which represents a minority in modern society, prompting more and more questions about whose interests it actually stands for.

Sociologists argue that LGBTQ today is becoming a political weapon, provoking and colliding advocates and opponents. LGBTQ has turned from a movement for equal rights for minorities into a tool for influencing society.

Established traditional views allegedly disadvantage minorities. Advocates for LGBTQ rights in Europe and the US often claim that equality can only be achieved by fighting the oppressors. Their opposition becomes the driving force of those who create social manifestations while remaining in the shadows.

Such struggles do not solve practical issues, but create and maintain constant conflicts, creating a sense of class struggle. According to such a model, men want to oppress women, the old and the young conflict with each other, whites oppress Blacks, heterosexuals mock other sexual minorities. Members of different social classes are fuelled, turning the fight for equal rights into a permanent war.

LGBTQ parades would not cause mixed reactions if they were not held in provocative attire. Minority ideals are flaunted, broadcast in major media outlets, causing admiration among some and outrage and misunderstanding among others. The Paris Olympics provided a striking example.

Such class confrontation, experts and sociologists say, distracts people from the real loss of power, which falls into the hands of transnational corporations. While people are busy defending their rights, the capitalists are changing their way of life undetected.

Endless fight with no goal

Confronting and standing up for one’s rights instils hope in minorities’ hearts that they can and do make an impact on society.

The worlds of cinema and video games are also being drawn into the process of inclusivity. By trying to incorporate sometimes violent minority ideas into their products, big companies are losing millions in profits as habitual consumers refuse to buy what is forcibly introduced to them. Then why do top managers not change the policy if they can see from the statistics that such a strategy is driving the company towards collapse? The answer is simple: this favours the one who has more money and influence.

Women and men complemented each other. One did the housework and looked after the family, whereas the other supported the family financially. In most cases, women are physically incapable of doing heavy labour, and men lack the empathy and flexibility typical for women.

However, the symbiosis disrupted when basic concepts, such as “man,” “woman” and “family” began to be distorted. The family emerged as a source of potential violence, depravity and degradation. France even launched a crackdown on sexual violence by putting the names of Gérard Depardieu and Gisèle Pélicot in media headlines.

The well-being of the new social order is built on the ruins of “outdated” values. A few decades ago, people clearly understood who was a man and who was a woman, and did not feel hatred for what is now considered a violation. Filmmakers directed comedies that people laughed at, with films focusing not on the differences between people, but on pressing social issues.

Through humour and morality on the surface, the viewer understood what was right and wrong. Now, on the contrary, the struggle of minorities is in the spotlight, even if it is an aggressive, violent defence of illegal views, whereas true values and humanity are sidelined. People have always objected to aggression, but it has never had a gendered, masculine attachment.

Globalisation

The growing level of migration is of concern mainly for countries in Europe experiencing economic turmoil. However, in the face of a demographic crisis, the influx of people capable of providing a country with labour is perceived as something negative. By combating migration and closing borders, globalists supposedly seek to reduce the total world population.

European and other developed countries are under particular economic and demographic attack. World leaders seek to create a society that will not ask questions and will support the ruling elite. And migrants fleeing wars and disasters in search of a better life will do anything not to return home. Any government does not like opposition, and thinking people always realise when they are being deceived. Migrants don’t.

Weak man, strong woman

Globalists have completely destroyed the image of men by identifying them with negativity in science, culture and society. Men are seen as potential rapists, aggressors and ignorant spongers. Women, on the other hand, are presented as strong, powerful individuals. This picture is broadcast into people’s minds, reflected in the hiring preferences of large companies. A white, heterosexual male will almost certainly not get an interview at a large company if a member of an “oppressed” minority group is competing with him, even if he or she does not have the necessary skills for the position applied for.

Power and influence are imposed on women. However, in this case, they will see changed men around them, weak and indecisive, with whom they would hardly want to create a family.

Meanwhile, the general degradation and humiliation of men is also seen as a campaign against women. Today, an exemplary woman enjoys a high salary, drives a car, and travels the world. A woman who has not achieved such success would feel like a failure, her self-esteem would collapse, making her a victim of social illusions.

Society needs women and men who are strong in their own way. They should not fight each other for imposed values, but together create a strong family and promote a positive way of life. On the biological level the role of man and woman is summarised in love and breeding, and in a creation or a reasonable cell of society on the social level.

Constantly fighting minorities and oppressed men and women will not make their children happy. They focus on destruction rather than creation. As a consequence, the country is plunged into demographic, financial and social crises.

People make money and gain power in order to provide their heirs with a trouble-free future. And in a society immersed in constant internal struggle, there will be no stability and conditions for the growth of future generations.

Albert Martin for Head-Post.com

Send your author content for publication in the INSIGHT section to headpost.social@gmail.com.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I've been sitting on this post since I saw it on my feed because something is being demonstrated here about one of the biggest misunderstandings people often have about intersectionality as a framework of approach. I have absolutely no idea if I can articulate my thoughts in a way that can be heard, but I think I need to try.

I'm feeling a resonance to growing up hearing white people breaking down their ethnic background into rigid fractions purely based on which relative last lived in the old world. We've all seen the math. 20% Irish, 50% English, ⅛ Cherokee on my mother's father's side.

Except that they got to that math by subtracting their "ethnic eccentricities" from a default White American Experience. In this framework, one imagines A Person as being the same as the hegemonic default, with each "marginalized intersection of identity" acting as a sifting filter that removes your access to certain Personhood Privileges. At one end of the experience is the Unfiltered Person, wholly privileged and never at a disadvantage. At the other, the Most Oppressed Class in America, with their scant smattering of remaining humanity at the bottom of a tall tower of sifting trays. To be marginalized in some way is to be Without Privilege, as if privilege and oppression are mutually exclusive states of existence. A black man is no longer fully a man because he is black, and therefore while "he still has male peivilege" the assumption is that some of these privileges aren't accessible to him. That one can confidently say "these are the male privileges a black man doesn't have, but always remember that he's still more privileged abd therefore less disadvantaged than any woman."

This obviously makes (white) people squirmy because they recognize they're treading into territory of "white women are more oppressed than black men" which is an argument with immediate and obvious counter (see above). But trying to walk this tightrope allows them to leave the underlying framework of hierarchy within systemic oppression while laying claim to "intersectional" politick.

Perhaps the black man isn't MORE privileged than a white woman, but at least **equally so on a different axis**. Perhaps he can both oppress and be oppressed because his manhood is inherently dominating, but his blackness is inherently deemed subservient?

Except that black men aren't (only) harmed by systemic oppression in the direction of timidity/subservience. Their perceived "hyper-aggression" is itself a form of embodied violence against them.

So perhaps it's not about positioning, it's about the manner of violence! Surely we could claim that black WOMEN are the ones who experience sexualized/gendered racial violence, while black men only experience *racial* violence!

Except that's not true either. Racial violence against black men has ALWAYS been gendered, and OFTEN been sexualized. Black men and boys being treated as inherent sexual predators ISN'T because they are men. It's because they are black men. For decades, we have understood that positioning men from racial minority groups as inherently hyper-masculine and as default potential sexual predators has been used as described above to enact gendered violence (e.g. revenge killings related to the "ruin" of a family woman). But we have also understood for just as long that it is also used to deny the higher rates of sexual abuse these racialized men and boys endure (see the positioning of racialized "othered" men and boys who are raped using phalluses and phallic like objects by members of the dominant racial group, often REGARDLESS of the gender of the perpatrator).

But to acknowledge that black men experience gendered and sexualized racial violence, is to acknowledge that men of ALL groups may experience gendered and sexualized violence related to their marginalized identities. A concept easily confirmed simply by looking at the ways that trans men and gay/bi men experience gendered and sexualized queerphobic violence. Acknowledging these things means accepted that gendered violence is not the domain of women or other gender minorities, but rather **the impact** a person's gender has on how the violence they experience when they are exposed to systemic violence for ANY REASON.

I think this is the piece people struggle with. They imagine "axes" of oppression being different algorithms charted on a graph where each person inhabits the whole of the algorithm, and is simply experiencing separate but interacting relationships to systemic violence.

Instead I would recommend people imagine a spiderweb. Every web is unique in how it is woven around its spider. The different "threads" of self that make up the whole of "me" are not separate from each other but actively comingling, connecting and reconnecting, and entirely one comprehensive self that is far more than the sum if each thread combined. The web includes all the components of self at once, not distinct but in tandem with each other. A black man is no more "only black" than he can ever be "only a man". A man of mixed race is each of his races and is SOMETHING ELSE ALTOGETHER- the **synthesis* of each of his races. That's what it MEANS for race to be a social construct. For gender to be a social construct. A man who is mixed black, white, and latino for example is never just black, never just white, never just latino. He is all of those things together and he is also NONE of those things, because he is HIM and race isn't actually something you can quantify.

We CHOOSE to construct meanings, and as long as we accept the premise that the meaning of each component of self is in any way separable from the others, we are truly failing to deconstruct the supremacy underlying those meanings. We NEED to understand that "privilege" is not a state of being. It is a permission slip from authority. The ENTIRE POINT is that as long as authority gets to decide whether or not you get to access your rights, then NO ONE HAS RIGHTS, because authority is far less worried about having an internally consistent logic between their prescribed (the values we SAY we have) and described (the values we are OBSERVED to have) values, and far more worried about wielding power to enforce their described values. They WILL happily revoke the permission slip to people who "aren't oppressed" for the simple reason that they ARE otherwise a threat to the dominant order (see the white preachers lynched alongside black civil rights protestors as "race traitors").

We need to be able to understand that intersectionality isn't about dividing people down into fractions of self. It is about recognizing the way every facet of self interacts and expands upon each other and themselves. If we can't get there? If we can't ACTUALLY let go of the hierarchies used to enforce the oppression? All the "good talking points" in the world mean literally fuck all.

So here is my problem with the "by virtue of being a man, you have to make your peace with the fact that some people will be uncomfortable with you, and thus you have to make yourself a safe person"

I've heard the same thing about being black. A lot of people have taken my very presence as hostility. I have had people escalate situations just because I am present as a black person in front of them. Before, and after transition.

You know what the problem with bending over backwards to make other people comfortable with your presence even though you haven't actually done anything to them besides breathe the same air?

It's never enough. You can be One Of The Good Ones for ages and at some point you will fail your Good One inspection and people will turn on you at the drop of a hat. People who you thought you had a good rapport with. People you thought were your friends.

I have *experienced* this, both online and in person.

The onus is on everyone to be safe people to be around. Singling someone out and blaming them for daring to share a demographic with someone else who has caused harm isn't cute when people do it to me because I'm black, and it's also not cute when they do it because I'm a man.

People are uncomfortable about my blackness all the time. I didn't magically stop experiencing racism when I started taking testosterone. So it's absolutely wild to me that people think "well, you know, with what you look like, some people won't want you around" is going to fly when I was explicitly taught *not* to tolerate that shit by every single one of my black relatives.

Someone doesn't like that I'm occupying a space? Well I'm not hurting them, so that's a them problem and not a me problem. That's how I've learned how to exist as black in white-majority spaces. Why do you think you can change the demographic and get me to agree with you?

[karimagarwal]

The Ethics of AI: Preventing Biases and Discrimination

AI is reshaping every industry and impacting people’s lives in ways we’ve never seen before. However, as more and more industries adopt this technology, the need to incorporate AI ethics becomes increasingly important. Without ethical guardrails, these tools could reproduce real-world biases and discrimination, exacerbating existing imbalances across socioeconomic class, race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and more. AI ethics are a set of moral principles and guidelines that ensure that the advantages and disadvantages of AI tools are considered and employed responsibly.

Incorporating ethical considerations into the design phase of AI development is the best way to prevent these types of biases from occurring in the first place. This includes ensuring that the data used to train an algorithm is completely transparent, allowing any problematic attributes to be removed. It also requires transparency throughout the model’s lifecycle, so that it can be corrected if necessary. It’s also essential to include a human component in the design process. Creating a human “ethics officer” who can review decisions and identify potential risks can help to avoid these types of issues before they occur.

One of the biggest challenges with applying AI to the healthcare industry is the need for medical professionals to make sure that any decision they make is based on valid, reliable data. This is an especially complex issue because of the sensitive nature of patient information and the wide range of potential biases that may exist in the data. AI tools that are based on this information can produce inaccurate or even harmful results, putting patients at risk.

Another area of concern is the use of AI in clinical trials and in the treatment of patients. The reliance on these systems can lead to biases in diagnosis, treatment, and other critical decisions that can have a significant impact on the health of patients. AI is often prone to bias because tech ogle of the way it’s trained and the assumptions it makes about what is important in a person’s life. These assumptions can be influenced by biases in the training data or by factors that aren’t fully understood, such as how social media posts and other online activity affect an individual’s personality traits.

An example of this type of bias occurred in 2022, when the Lensa AI app generated cool-looking portraits of users. This caused controversy because it wasn’t clear whether the app was paying artists who created the original digital images that were being used to train the AI model. This was a clear violation of ethical standards and illustrates the need to apply AI ethics at every stage in the development and use of AI.

There are several key areas where AI is being applied to medicine and healthcare, including technology news drug discovery, diagnostics, and treatment. These applications pose major ethical challenges that must be addressed in order to create beneficial machines. The most significant challenge is the need to develop an ethical framework that can be applied consistently to these systems to help ensure that they are free from bias and are safe for all patients.

[grantgoddard]

Around the British Rail network in eight hundred minutes : 1976 : Durham University challenge

 “Which bus goes to the University, please?” I asked. The man replied helpfully, but I could not understand a word he had said. He spoke English, though not an English I had heard before. I was confused by all the bus stops, having just exited Lancaster railway station. At which one did I need to wait? There was no bus map. There were no obvious students to ask. I had never been north of Luton until then. I had never watched ‘Coronation Street’. I was a southerner who barely understood a word that was being said to me there, hundreds of miles from home.

I had left the house that morning at the crack of dawn to make a day trip to check out Lancaster University. It was one of five universities I had selected on my UCCA form, all of which had offered me a place, conditional upon A-level results, without requesting an interview. However, if I was going to spend three years far away from home, I wanted to go see each one to help me choose. I had never visited a university before. Aside from my teachers, I had never met anyone who had attended university. That year, I hoped to be one of the 6% of school leavers who would go on to university, a proportion that had multiplied from 2% the year I had been born.

My state school had provided no useful advice how to choose a university or course. Our designated ‘careers counsellor’ was actually a moonlighting English teacher who would merely direct us to a row of dogeared university prospectuses on his office shelf. Some were out-of-date, many were missing. We were offered no ‘careers’ seminars. Surrey County Council had compelled each sixth-former to complete a multiple-choice questionnaire and then informed us for which career��we were supposedly suited. Further studies were never suggested. You were on your own when it came to an academic future.

I understood that my choice of university could be a life-changing decision, one that required me to review the maximum amount of available information. If neither my family nor my school could provide useful advice, I would research all the options myself. I wrote a letter to every UK university outside London (where I realised accommodation was unaffordable), requesting their current prospectus and details of their economics courses. I chose that subject simply because it had provided my best academic results at school. I had known for a decade that I desired a career in ‘radio’, though university courses in media or broadcasting did not exist. If I had known then that Britain’s first ‘media studies’ degree had been launched at the Polytechnic of Central London (later renamed the University of Westminster) in 1975, I might have rethought my plans.

Seven years earlier, at my council estate junior school, I had been one of three children out of my class of thirty (10%) to have passed the ’11-Plus’ examination, necessary to progress to ‘grammar school’. However, at that time, around 20% of UK pupils attended these ‘selective’ secondary schools, the difference attributable to the substantial numbers of privately educated children who were crammed intensively at fee-paying ‘preparatory schools’ to pass the exam and who then dominated grammar schools’ intakes. From my ‘year’ of sixty students at Strode’s School, only around ten of us progressed to university, an indication that the ’11-Plus’ was less a successful method of identifying Britain’s brightest children, and more a route for middle-class parents to secure their offsprings an elitist secondary education paid for by the state. Has this situation since improved? In 2008, the Sutton Trust reported that grammar schools were enrolling “…half as many academically able children from disadvantaged backgrounds as they could do”.

I was fortunate that Surrey County Council would pay my train fares for visits to five universities, whether an interview was required or not. I had to determine when each institution offered ‘open days’, book my place, arrange train tickets and inform the school of my impending absence. It required considerable organisation, particularly as these visits necessitated train connections in London. These were days when I would not return home until almost midnight and would have to go to school the following day. I had never travelled so many miles on public transport or seen so much of England from a train window.

I must have been the only student at my school to own a copy at home of almost every UK university’s current prospectus. My request for economics course information proved less successful. Many sent me nothing, the remainder provided a single sheet outlining a course that merely encompassed all aspects of the subject. I read absolutely everything I was sent and concluded that every university claimed to be absolutely perfect and their courses the best. I had merely filled my bedroom bookshelf with marketing propaganda. Instead, I decided to select four universities that already operated student radio stations as this was my long-term career objective … plus Durham.

Although Durham University had no radio station, I learned it was apparently thought of highly. If I were rejected by Cambridge, I considered it might be a reputational substitute. Due to the 300-mile distance, my trip to Durham required an overnight stay in Collingwood College which was offered free to those attending ‘open days’. After a long train journey followed by an uphill walk, I was given an undergraduate bedroom within the college and met several other visitors who were there for the same reason. We took the university’s guided tours together the next day and ate as a group in the college’s dining room, offering us a first taste of undergraduate life.

The following morning, we packed our bags and met together for the thirty-minute walk to Durham railway station on the opposite side of town to catch our trains back to ‘the south’. However, we found the platforms deserted and, eventually locating a member of staff, we were told that a strike had started that morning and there were no trains departing in any direction. Returning to the college with our tails between our legs, we explained our problem and it kindly offered to extend its hospitality until we could depart. Each of us changed our banknotes into piles of ten-pence coins and queued at the college’s one public phone in the basement to contact our parents and schools to explain that we did not yet know when we could return. A quick visit had unexpectedly transformed into something longer.

I took the opportunity to wander around Durham’s compact town centre and explore more places, particularly the ‘Musicore’ record shop. The university library and the cathedral were both impressive, as was the brutalist concrete student union building ‘Dunelm House’ and adjoining ‘Kingsgate Bridge’ constructed by architect Ove Arup in 1963. The other universities I had visited were campus-based, requiring a bus journey to the nearest town. I quite liked Durham’s integration into the city and the ability to walk from one end to the other without need of transport.

The next morning, before breakfast in the college dining room, I phoned Durham railway station, to be informed that no trains would be running for the second consecutive day. This was the only method to obtain information in those days. I met the others and we phoned our families with our disappointing update. We spent most of that day sat together in the Junior Common Room chatting, sharing our university visit experiences and our hopes for the future. For me, it was particularly interesting to meet young people for the first time who shared my situation.

I made another call to the railway station the next morning, anticipating more bad news, but was told a single train was expected that day. It would be heading north, the opposite direction to what we required. I asked if there was any alternative route to London and it was explained that, although the east coast route was still on strike, we could try travelling via the west coast on the opposite side of the country. When was this one train expected? In an hour, I was told. Action stations!

I located my fellow visitors and, without taking breakfast, we all signed out of college and rushed off to the station. There was no information available there about the time of the train, on which platform it would arrive or where it would be heading. While we waited, we examined a British Rail route map in the ticket office which showed a cross-country route from east to west coast that started in Newcastle, the next major stop north of Durham. We were the only people awaiting a train and did wonder whether we had been sent on a wild goose chase, only to have to return to the college for yet another night.

Then the day’s promised one train appeared and pulled into the station. Unsurprisingly, it was almost empty. Who would have known it would be running in the midst of a crippling strike? We boarded and waved farewell to Durham, not knowing if any of us would ever return. Within a quarter-hour, we alighted in Newcastle. It was the first of many times that day that we were required to explain to confused railway staff that, although our tickets to London were dated days earlier, the unanticipated strike had forced us to take the only train available … in the opposite direction.

Next, to cross England to the west coast, we discovered we had to take a less regular, slower train that would depart in an hour. The wait gave us an opportunity to walk out of Newcastle railway station, buy some breakfast and wander around the city. Compared to Durham, it appeared a huge, busy scruffy city centre with huge Victorian stores and old-fashioned shopping arcades. Even the clothes people wore seemed dated and dowdy, particularly seeing many men wearing flat caps. It was an industrial city where time seemed to have stood still fifty years earlier.

Our ninety-minute journey in a local train from Newcastle to Carlisle took us across the bleak terrain of the North Pennine hills, stopping only at tiny towns with strange, unfamiliar names like Prudhoe, Corbridge, Hexham and Haltwhistle. Once again, we were required to explain to the train’s on-board ticket inspector why we were travelling in the wrong direction with out-of-date tickets. He knew about the strike and laughed heartily at our story, wishing us well on our journey home. It began to feel like a kind of ‘expedition’ where, at every step, it proved necessary to explain why our little group of seventeen-year-olds were taking a route no sane person would choose to follow.

The train terminated at Carlisle, a two-thousand-year-old city on the border between England and Scotland, fifty-five miles west and north of Durham. It was midday by now and, from there, we could now take a west coast 'Intercity' train southbound. We did not venture outside the station as this would have entailed having to explain our tickets once more and we feared not being allowed entry back into the station. This region was unaffected by the strike and trains seemed thankfully to be running as scheduled.

Our four-hour journey to London was comfortable until a ticket inspector arrived. We explained our story but he seemed unaware of the rail strike on the east coast and disbelieved our narrative. Initially, he demanded we pay for new tickets. We refused because we each held a valid, paid-for British Rail ticket that we had been prevented from using by the strike. The argument continued and he demanded we write down our names and addresses in order that the police could be contacted so that we would be fined for travelling without valid tickets. He was a ridiculous ‘jobsworthy’ who showed no sympathy for our plight. His attitude ruined the longest, most gruelling part of that day’s journey.

Reaching London’s Euston station, our small group split up to head different directions home. It was a sad parting of ways as we had no idea if we would ever see each other again or even which university each of us might attend (no social media or mobile phones then!). The last few days had required us to bond in the face of adversity, forcing us to make a round-Britain trip we had never imagined. It would be quite a story to tell our classmates.

I crossed London by Tube, caught a train from Waterloo station to Camberley and then a bus, reaching home more than twelve hours after having left Collingwood College in Durham. My school might not have been happy about my extended absence but, later that year, those awaydays would play a major role in my decision to study in Durham. I felt as if I was already sufficiently familiar with the college and the town as a result of that elongated visit. I imagined that my fellow Durham students would be similar to those with whom I had travelled the length and breadth of England.

Did I receive correspondence from British Rail or the police as a result of the unfriendly ticket inspector we had encountered? Thankfully, no. Did I ever see my newfound friends again? Sadly, no.

[chinesetutor]

How Can You Find a Best Chinese Tutor?

The major means of communication between some families has turn into English and these days, there are many kids that prefer to pick up an English comic or novel to read rather than a written book in their own language or mother tongue.

The Chinese language has a reputation for being extremely difficult to learn. To begin, the writing system presents challenges to those accustomed to the Latin alphabet. The tone system of the language also makes it difficult to use in conversation. One word can have multiple meanings depending on how it is spoken, so it is essential that children be able to memorize thousands of characters in order to become proficient readers and writers.

Most Singaporean parents decide to enroll their children in Chinese classes after realizing how detrimental it would be if they did not start teaching their children the language when they were young.

How difficult is it to locate an appropriate tutor?

Will my child's needs be met by the Chinese Tutor? Will the instructor have enough patience for the students? Is the instructor a specialist in the field?

How much fun will the classes be?

When can I expect to see improvements in my child's condition?

It is understandable that parents may be unsure how to proceed in finding the best possible instructor for their child.

You might evaluate your child's progress and then select a tutor accordingly. Your child requires a qualified teacher that knows how to deal with students who have a long road ahead of them if they are lacking in both verbal communication and writing.

To connect with their pupils and make their classes more pleasant, tutors should be current on current events, pop culture, music, and film.

Add An Accent

One disadvantage of speaking with a regional accent is the difficulty in being understood by others. If teachers typically speak with an accent, it will seep into their teaching, perhaps unintentionally. This could be a problem because beginners in Chinese Tuition Singapore need to be able to grasp the teacher's directions and the material being taught.

A qualified instructor can show pupils how to tell the differences between each sound and will work with them until they reach proficiency. The best way to ensure that a young Chinese student never feels uneasy or unprepared during a lesson is to use a variety of teaching methods, including games, songs, & interactive exercises.

As the adage goes, "A specialist was once a beginner." A good teacher would encourage their students to be open and brave enough to not be afraid to make errors.

There is absolutely no cause for alarm! Chinese Tuition organizations and online resources can help you find a qualified tutor who can help your child achieve academic success and get an "A" grade. As a parent, all you have to do is make the time to figure out what your child needs help with and then find a tutor who can give it to them.