#but that only does so much when you literally don't have access to educational resources outside of maybe the internet

[bambiraptorx]

Yo I finally got around to finishing this beast of a post

So, a couple notes on this: Draxum doesn't start out by immediately training the turtles to use their mystic powers for fighting. It would be like trying to teach someone to drive a racecar at 200mph before they can tell the brake and gas pedals apart: in other words, immensely counterproductive. Yes, his eventual goal is to create soldiers, but he's willing to take his time getting there.

Draxum and Donnie:

Obviously these two connected the fastest right away, partly because Draxum is genuinely interested in Donnie's tech and because he has a lot more of the technical knowledge required to understand how Donnie explains his tech (at least relative to the other turtles). However, while Donnie uses tech for basically everything, Draxum is completely steeped in magic, meaning the two of them are basically coming from two different schools of thought for how they process the world. While Draxum might be able to use this as point of reference to understand how Donnie sees his tech, it's still not a one for one comparison, meaning Draxum may struggle to explain mystic powers in a way that would get Donnie to accept them (especially as the growth of his brothers' powers threatens his self-esteem).

Still, given that Draxum's goal is to create functional soldiers, he may not actually care that much about awaking Donnie's mystic powers. After all, he's got a perfectly capable fighter already (as evidenced by Donnie's fight against him in the first episode, when they were basically on even footing), and that's really what Draxum wants to get out of training the turtles. He doesn't need to spend time developing Donnie's powers when Donnie's tech is already incredibly powerful.

However, Donnie is still actively interested in learning about mystic powers, if only so he can figure out more about how Draxum's mystic oath works (because at this point in the story, Donnie still doesn't quite trust Draxum not to have workarounds for what he promised. Sure, he's a great listener, but that doesn't mean Donnie trusts him with his family's well-being). So Draxum pretty much ends up with a student that he can teach theory to, but not actual practice. Which is pretty limiting.

Draxum and Raph:

Draxum is actually going to struggle quite a bit with figuring out how to teach Raph for several reasons. First of all, Raph is an incredibly quick learner when it comes to mystic powers (one of the perks of being a genetically engineered super soldier, and something Draxum did NOT plan for). Draxum basically has to create an entirely new system of teaching on the fly, and ends up skipping over a lot of the basics.

Another factor is that Raph's mystic powers are just very different from Draxum's, meaning they don't have a lot of common ground to begin with. Also, the way that Raph has learned about his powers up to this point (namely, screwing around and/or life-threatening situations) is very different both from how Draxum usually teaches and how he learned himself. It's kind of like a classically trained musician trying to teach someone how to play jazz: there's a few basics in common, sure, but overall it's not going to be very effective.

The big breakthrough in Raph's training is when he finds out about the audio enchantments that Draxum puts on basically all his books that functionally gives them a read-aloud function. It's pretty much the first time that Raph sees mystic powers as something he could use in his day-to-day life, besides just something he uses in combat.

(As a side note, both Raph and Draxum are dyslexic, which is why Draxum has said audio enchantments on all of his books. Also, a lot of the spells and whatnot Draxum uses in daily life are more or less accommodations? He just doesn't necessarily think of them that way, but I won't get into that with this post.)

At that point, Draxum starts teaching Raph more of the spells and enchantments he uses in daily life. However, this does have the side effect of slowing down Raph's progress somewhat, as the mechanics for tangible spells are very different for those of mystic constructs. The bump in the learning curve doesn't concern Draxum much, as it means that he can teach much more effectively, but it does concern Raph a fair bit.

(Part Two because this got long)

one of these days i'm gonna infodump massively about Draxum's teaching style and how it's going to interact with the learning styles of the individual turtles. one of these days

[dailymothanon]

A sketch of Gov in the new episode 🐶! I always kinda imagined Gov to look pretty much how he is portrayed in the episodes tbh so I never bother to make him that much of a separate design 🤔 BUT also this is an excuse to educate y'all on federal land. It will be under the cut for those who wanna learn.

What does Federal Land mean for a state?

Well, this is something I think a lot of folks in here (the fandom) needs to know, because I just see people jump to conclude Gov is horrible towards Nevada. That is not the case.

This is just the basics, but federal land literally just conserves, manages, and protects natural resources and wildlife. For example, national parks are federal lands. You'd notice this because of how western states tend to have more wildlife than the east. And how federal land is mostly administered by agencies such as the BLM, FWS, NPS, and USFS, which all are catered towards handling wildlife and resources.

Federal land also tends to consist of land that states cannot easily manage or utilize, which for Nevada it's pretty easy to notice, as most of Nevada is semi-arid and desert, meanwhile land more available to use, like by rivers and other water sources are not usually federal land.

Historically, up until 1976, you could easily just claim a homestead of hundreds of acres! The Federal Government just ended up taking what nobody else really wanted because they couldn't live there anyways. It's why Nevada has so much Fed Land, and now that land is managed by agencies; and in Nevada's case, most of it is under the Bureau of Land Management. This is why Nevada's population only resides in no more than 20% of the land. Because they bought it as they could use it and live in it, even then they don't use much of the full 20% that is accessible to them.

And it's not as if federal land is completely off-hands, people hunt, hike, camp and fish in federal land all the time! Take Alaska for example, who's 60%+ federal land, in terms of Alaska's size that's a LOT of land, yet Alaska is one of or the best state when it comes to fishing and hunting either way, and Alaska's natural beauty remains largely untouched and unbothered (at least directly).

There is also the fact that if a crime is committed on federal land, it instantly becomes punishable to a higher degree than it would on state grounds, as it becomes of federal interest.

So no, Nevada being 80% federal land isn't bad for him. It's just Gov taking up and protecting what Nevada can't really utilize or manage easily.

[agirlwithglam]

Hi!! I hope I'm not disturbing you but I wanted to ask how do I work hard. Because when I was younger I got really good marks without trying and now the subjects are hard and social media is distracting but I can't seem to delete it. This is also why my grades are even low then before and I'm really afraid to disappoint my parents (being the eldest daughter doesn't help). So can you please just give me some pointers on how can I actually study and not just cry because I don't know how to. Have a great day!! <3

literally omg. is this past me asking me a question?? like actually u have no idea how much i relate and understand this. the "gifted child" who always got good grades without needing to study now finds things more difficult. i know many people have said this, but i actually have been through this not too long ago. i hope these tips help <3

how to work hard + actually study (realistic)

forget hard work. at least do the work! (its so funny because i literally had a post about this all ready in my drafts about to get posted, so i'll keep this short and link the post.) stop focussing on doing hard work like studying 24/7. just put in the basic necessities you need to get a better grade. hard work post link

use the disappointment and embarrassment as fuel. (basically find a very strong why) (mini story-ish thing coming up, skip to the blue text for the actual advice) i still remember the day i got such a bad score on my math and science test, i was FURIOUS at myself and i cried about it! telling it to my parents was one of the hardest things i had to do and feeling their disappointment was even worse. but that became my turning point. i was so ashamed of myself and i resented me so much that i basically just told myself "i dont freaking care what you feel *with distaste*. you brought this on yourself you failure" (a bit very harsh, yes i know) but the way i studied that week- i studied more than i every had before! also doing this doesnt really lower my self esteem a whole lot, but if it does with you, please be gentle with yourself. : so what i'm trying to say it; use that feeling of shame and disapointment as a fuel, a motivation. The big “why”.

ALTER EGOOOSSSS. this helps SOOOO MUCH its so underrated. embody the energy of your fav people who are the academic inspiration you wanna be! example: rory gilmore, paris geller, elle woods, blair waldorf, etc etc! not only is this so helpful but it also makes it so much more fun and easier!!

parent yourself. i used to tell myself to do stuff like "go study now!" or "get up lazy-butt" but in my mind. but what if you tried to say those stuff out loud to yourself? it just creates a whole new level of real. So start telling yourself to do stuff out loud.

honestly just start. stop letting yourself think about how "uncomfortable" and how "annoying" it will be. All you need to know is that you need to get it done. Right? Ok. So now what’s the next smallest step you can take to getting to do the unwanted task? It may be taking out your material, opening your book, etc.

( !! tough love, but very important rant coming up)

You privileged brat. Your parents gave up EVERYTHING so you could have the education that you are having. They worked so so hard for YOU. So YOU can have the life you want. And all for what? Just for you to throw it all away and say “oh im lazy”. HELL NAH.

And also, do you realise how fortunate you are to be even living in such a time/ era where you have access to basically EVERYTHING? You’re stuck on something? You could easily search it up!! And whats more is that you can further learn. You can search up and find out more about the thing that you’re studying, become the smartest person in your class, get so ahead in life. I hope you realise that if you do use all the resources and materials and help that’s been given to you, just imagine how far you could go! Further than Albert Einstine, Elon Musk, etc. you may be like “what! No that’s gonna be too hard!” But did they have the tools that you have right at your hand? No! They made it all the way with just simple stuff and having to work super hard. But you live in a time where you can do TWICE as much without working as hard!!

And one more thing, QUIT WHINING. “Oh school is so hard!” “Oh school is so boring!” Like whattt???? You are so FORTUNATE and LUCKY to be even getting access to such education! MILLIONS of kids out there would kill to be able to learn what you are so easily dismissing right now. So TAKE ADVANTAGE OF WHAT YOU HAVE. Put your ALL, your very BEST into studying and getting good grades because THAT is whats gonna take you so SO far in life.

Thank you very much, *mic drop*. (i still ly pookie)

dealing with social media:

put the screen time widget on your phone home screen. i did this, and i became so embarrassed by the amount of screen time i had in one day (*cough* 12 hours *cough*) that i made certain to stop using it as much.

screen time limits. this may or may not help you, bc i know that when i knew the screen time password, it didn't do a lot of help but when someone else did (like parents or someone you trust), then it definitely worked. this is probably only best if you're a child around under 14 ish bc thats around the age when most parents put screen time limits + after that age you're gonna be a lot more independent.

more *extremely* helpful resourses:

tips to decrease your phone screen time by @imbusystudying

how to reduce your screen time in the digital age? (an article)

studying tips from a straight-A student by @universalitgirlsblog2

how to study like paris geller by @4theitgirls

more blogs i recomend:

@elonomhblog @mindfulstudyquest @study-diaries @thatbitchery

xoxo, vanilla

[classicslesbianopinions]

Does one need to be smart to read classic literature by writers such as Homer or Virgil? I follow various people studying the classics because it's fascinating but half the time I don't understand what they are saying. Whenever I try to read any of the epic poems, for example, it just makes me feel very unintelligent because I have a vey hard time understanding what I'm reading.

i don't think you have to be smart-- you just have to be patient.

i'm about to do a wall of text, so here's the tl;dr: it's very common to feel unintelligent, but it makes sense to struggle when reading something so old, and you should not be afraid to use outside resources to help you understand the context of what you're reading. also, it might help if you start with shorter or abridged works.

"classics" is a really broad field, and even a highly educated classicist will have areas they don't know as much about. like, i also don't understand what other classics bloggers are saying a lot of the time. most of the people i follow have dedicated a lot of time to their specific interests, and if my own interests don't overlap, i'm not going to understand everything they say. but it's very easy to feel like you aren't as smart as others because you haven't read the same stuff or because you struggle to keep up. i feel this way often, even after years of study.

the other thing is that if you're studying classics in college/university, the standards are absurdly high. you're expected to learn both latin and greek, and you're expected to read a lot on top of that. it's very hard to keep up with, and there's often a sense that you are the only one struggling to keep up (even though that's not true). it's also hard to enter into if you haven't already learned some latin or greek, which are not often taught in public schools (in the us at least). so the field is genuinely difficult to enter into, especially if you are not wealthy, white, able-bodied, neurotypical, etc.

to the specific point of trying to read epic poetry-- it makes sense that you would have a hard time understanding. it is hard to understand! and there's a lot of context that you might be missing: it's a work from another time and place, and some of it might be completely unfamiliar to you. that's okay. it is unfamiliar to everyone, no matter how smart they seem. go slowly, and don't be afraid to use summaries and study guides to figure out what's going on. like, literally just read the sparknotes if that helps. (you can probably google "[title] sparknotes" or "[title] study guide" or "[title] summary" and find stuff that will help you understand. i also will sometimes just go to the wikipedia page for a work if i need to know or remember what happened in it. and you can google specific references, too, or lines. if you have a question about something, chances are someone has had the same question at some point in the last ~3000 years.) you might also try reading abridged versions of the texts to get an idea for what's going on, and then when you go back and read the actual text it will be easier to understand.

you might also benefit from starting with some shorter works. the iliad and the odyssey are really interesting, but they're also long and can be hard to get into. personally, i recommend plays, mostly because they tend to be short, and i find them more accessible. sometimes you can even find performances online, which can also help a lot with understanding. i also would recommend hesiod's theogony as an intro to epic; it's much, much shorter than the iliad or the odyssey, and it covers a lot of basic myth. ("theogony" literally means "god origin"-- it gives you the godly family tree.)

translation also makes a huge difference. if you're struggling to read something, you might want a different translation. there are a lot of translations free online, but they tend to be pretty old. if you have access to a library, see what they have to offer; if you want advice on specific translations, you can send another ask and we'll answer and/or publish it and get followers to recommend their favorites.

also, if you post a question to tumblr and tag it #tagamemnon, there's a really good chance people on here will help you answer it. a lot of us really love helping other people understand the stuff we're interested in! it's really fun to share information. (if you're wondering, "#tagamemnon" is a pun on agamemnon, a character from the iliad-- it's the tag classics tumblr uses because #classics has a bunch of other stuff in it.) or if you have a question about something someone posts, you absolutely can go into their ask box and ask for clarification. most people really really want to talk about their interests and are happy to give a basic explanation.

most importantly, though, don't let yourself be intimidated. i have been studying classics for years and i still feel not good enough or not intelligent a lot of the time-- the field has a long history of gatekeeping and elitism, and it's really hard to break out of that. but it's okay and normal to need outside resources to understand a text, or to need to read an abridged version before you read the original. there is no shame in not knowing stuff! and it's okay if it's hard to learn.

anyway i hope this helps. i promise you are not alone in feeling unintelligent. but if you're interested in classics i absolutely believe you can find ways to understand the texts you want to read. good luck! <3 our ask box is always open if you have questions or want to start a conversation about what you're reading-- we can't answer everything but we can publish the ask and see if followers can answer it. and of course if anyone reading this has any input or advice for anon, please reply or reblog!

[evanox]

THEH RELEASED A TEASWR FOR THE NEW PJO SERIES!!!! IM THROWING UPPPO I LOVE ITTTTT

alright I’m calm now (lie)

So when you first sent this many months ago, I didn't know there was a trailer so I only found out through your ask. I was so, so incredibly excited when I watched it I didn't know how to put that excitement into words and thus couldn't get to your ask right away. Then I kept forgetting, and then forgetfulness turned into embarrassment because how could I answer this ask after leaving it for so long? In light of Rick Riordan's recent statement on the Palestinian genocide, however, I think there's no better time to get back to this ask than now. Do forgive me for using your dust-laden ask as a chance to vent out my frustration.

PJO was a huge part of my childhood; it was my introduction to fandom life as I set up my tumblr back in 2015 and followed any cool PJO blog I could find while also making my own shitposts. All of my first online friends were people I found through PJO, some of whom I'm still friends with to this day. Even as I started losing interest and distanced myself from the fandom, I still found myself seeking out PJO/PJO-inspired rp blogs to join because that's how much I loved the world of demigods.

So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that there's a more faithful adaptation of the series, one that Riordan himself approved of (unlike the-movie-that-shall-not-be-named). You can also imagine how Rick has very much fallen from my eyes, as has anyone who still puts him up on a pedestal and chooses to support him, after his statement.

When you don't know enough about something, the reasonable thing to do is A. educate yourself before speaking out on it, or B. literally just shut up. I find it very ironic how Rick made sure to establish at the very start of his statement that he's just too busy for social media, so busy he does not "read posts, reply to posts, or share [his] thoughts about world events," but I guess he still finds himself qualified to step up and preach about what's happening in Palestine. Palestinian journalists have lost their lives documenting Israel's atrocities (before and after October 7); families can no longer grieve in peace because they have to hold up their dead children before cameras in hopes that people will think we deserve basic human rights; after everything everyone has done to amplify their voices, I do not know he could come up with a take this bad. Maybe if Rick took a nice proper scroll through social media before taking on the moral high ground, he'd be singing a different tune.

He claims that fanmail was his window to both sides of the conflict but it's hard to believe he's been receiving mail from many Palestinian and Israeli children in the past 18 years when his contact information from as far back as 2011 mentions that his writing schedule had gotten too intense to keep up with fanmail, and his most recent contact information page says he's straight up not accepting fanmail anymore, physical or otherwise (I assume that was back in 2019-2020 since he mentioned remote work and safety measure related to the pandemic, but I could be wrong). Call me cynical but it's hard to take seriously his implication that children of both sides have come to him about losing family members to violence and waking up to the sound of gunshots and bombs when I've had to watch Israeli settlers take to tiktok along with their kids to make a mockery out of Palestinian suffering and flex having the basic resources Palestinians have no access to, while every video update filmed by Palestinians is backed by the sound of military surveillance drones hovering over their heads night and day. Israeli settlers get to make cutesy tiktoks about looking for gluten-free flour while Palestinian kids are digging for their toys under the rubble of their homes and gathering in hundreds and thousands to beg for a few spoonfuls of soup. The only bread they could bake is from the fire fed by debris from the wreckage of their homes. Yeah, both sides sure are suffering the same hell :((

"If there are two sides to this issue, those sides are not Palestinian/Israeli or Muslim/Jewish. The two sides are humanitarian and dehumanizing." Actually, there are two sides to this and they're "genocidal illegal ethnostate" and "native people who were minding their business in their own land, welcomed survivors of the Holocaust with open arms, only to find themselves getting pushed out of their homes for the coming century." Not choosing a side (or preaching about how you're on the side of humanitarianism) puts you on the side of oppressor, period.

"It is easy to point to atrocities committed by our enemies, while justifying or minimizing the atrocities committed by ourselves or our allies." Boy you're outta your mind if you think anything committed by Palestinian resistance is in any way, shape, or form equitable to Israel's crimes in the past 75 years. It's hilarious how he can admit that what Israel is committing is genocide but goes on to say that Israel deserves "security and support," but I guess Hamas isn't deserving of the same sentiment when it retaliates to 75 years of terrorism and ethnic cleansing. The best Palestinians deserve is "international aid," not like the very Israel you support has been blocking off any aid people have been trying to get into Palestine.

"If violence could end violence, if we could put an end to 'those other people' once and for all, human history would read very differently than it does," has the same energy as going bUt mArTiN LuThEr KiNg Jr BeLiEvEd iN nOnViOLeNcE while actively ignoring that he did end up getting assassinated at the end of the day, and also the fact that his message of nonviolence has gotten distorted over the years to villainize those who resist in a way that disturbs white peace a lil too much.

Never mind the fact that peaceful resistance has never paid off against Israel. Never mind the fact that Israel has been using "Hamas hides behind civilians!!!" excuse to blow up hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and homes when in reality they don't know jackshit about where Hamas is, and every claim at knowing the location of their bases turned out to be a ridiculously stupid lie. Never mind the fact that Israel has admitted to killing its own people because "they kinda looked like Palestinian civilians ig lol" and they're just too trigger-happy. Does that sound like a "country" that gives a horse's ass about peace to you?

And just like that, he goes back to promoting his book and talking about his trip in the same blog post, like talking about Palestine/Israel is a chore he checks off his list to make sure we all know what a good guy he is.

So yeah, I am sad that I won't be able to enjoy a show I was so looking forward to (and it does look really good), but I am a Muslim Palestinian before I am a fan, and we're all human at the end of the day. You have to be a special kind of ignorant (or racist, or straight-up heartless) to see what we've already seen and still preach about "peace (and a two-state solution teehee)<33" being the only acceptable solution.

Maybe it's because I don't have as many PJO mutuals as I did back in late 2010s, but I haven't really seen many people speak out about this on tumblr which is why I think it's still worth talking about even when this isn't the type of post I'd normally write. Please boycott the show (or like do me a favor and block me/don't put that shit on my dash if we're mutuals). I've always admired Riordan as a kid so the least he could do is pull his head out of the ground and take a proper good look at what's actually happening in the world.

[missmayhemvr]

Look capitalism will only allow innovation when they have no choice, it would rather do whatever is a "safe" bet until it cannot due to any number of reasons. The reason I say allow is because it quite literally works to prevent innovation and invention at every turn just on its natural rules. Only the wealthy have the resources to make stuff but they don't do that all they do is try to maximize profits, creativity is driven out of the capitalist class more than anything. People like us here can be as smart as we want, creative as we want, but the system will stifle that through many methods such as poverty lack of access to education etc etc. But even when you do make something capitalist will buy it out from under you to claim for themselves(Elon Musk, Edison, gates), buy our them company you had to create to make the thing possible(meta with oculus) or just fucking bury you and it until it becomes useful to them and then oh look we have just the thing (most all of modern medicine, and much of general engineering and so much more). Capitalism will produce a COD 59 with zombies and this this you can play all the older cod games on one disc, faaaar before big money puts one red cent into anything really new, you see it all over media, tech, medicine, even freaking cars. It only does something "different" when it's forced to.

fucking constant reboot remake reboot remake reboot remake reboot remake!!!!!!!!!! the tv has only been around for like a century you literally cannot be out of ideas already

[say-duhnelle]

Gonna sound like a white republican dad here for a second but there really does seem to be this mindset among large swathes of internet (esp. Tumblr/Twitter) leftism that in their ideal communist future, keeping society functional is going to be Someone Else's Problem and the only contributions they will be responsible for are helping consume its bounty and maybe growing a little weed in their closet - the Henny Penny's friends mentality. Like... sure there's probably a fair amount of jobs in the current structure of society which are a bit redundant, and exist more because we have weird hangups about just giving people money/resources to survive, than because they actually contribute to anything. But 1) I think it's a much lower proportion than a lot of people are implying and 2) a sane restructuring of society would regroup us so a lot of this excess now works in fields with chronic shortages like medicine and education, yes? Not necessarily those exact people, but a shift in where the manpower is concentrated.

Unless we are on the brink of some really insane breakthrough, in your post-revolution utopia folks are still going to need to eat, sleep somewhere safe, and stay clothed, healthy, and sanitary, and I sure as shit hope we still have education, technology, transportation, entertainment and access to some of the finer things in life because if not, then... what was the fucking point of it all? (You want your movement to make things better for the have-nots, not worse for literally everyone because you have that much spite for the ruling class, right?) And whether you like it or not,

all of those things require distinct, concentrated effort to create and maintain and

due to economies of scale, that effort is generally vastly lessened when we (by whatever means or incentives) split the population into groups which specialize in each one, a concept known currently as "having a job".

I'm by no means saying that the current way of doing things in the US is the ideal model of a society, but I think the people who are unironically basically saying "my role in the commune would be to fuck your mom" and call the rest of us bootlickers for actually taking the job we currently do seriously either have a dangerously limited perspective, or don't realize that what they actually want is not communism that is equal, but instead an opportunity to be the oppressor for a change. Call it infighting, but I don't want people with such a skewed take on reality leading any revolution that affects my life, because that's how you wind up with a new regime that's worse than the old one and has several entire agencies devoted to researching and developing new human rights violations it could commit against dissenters.

A variation I've seen is this idea that the less savory, yet essential, tasks could be rotated through the populace so that everyone only has to contribute a few days a year. As if sanitation, construction, and agriculture aren't sciences that require training and education to do properly, that most normal people would not retain if they did not use it on a regular basis. As if healthcare and education don't function better when patients or students have rapport with their providers and the providers have continuous knowledge of each individual's case and how it's progressing. As if every single one of these areas would not see trouble with the bullheaded folks we all know are out there who would just outright refuse when their turn comes up, or deliberately do a bad job (think potential jurors in the selection room, the one example of this sort of system which we currently have in American society, and how they often answer the lawyers' questions - and that's just the pre-interview, not actually doing the job!).

Controversial statement perhaps, but I don't think the base model of "we're going to assign everyone a main Task to get really good at as their contribution to society. Some Tasks are really shitty or difficult, but need a lot of people in order to do them at the scale society needs, so we're going to provide a greater reward for doing them as an incentive to get more people to take those Tasks on" is fundamentally wrong; I think it's in the application that we've perverted it - namely, that it's often not the worst/most difficult Tasks actually getting the best rewards, that the ratio of extra reward is too high for some, and that the concept of a stock market exists.

Idk. Some Nobel laureate economist or darling of Marxist philosophy out there probably already came up with a dozen reasons why everything I've said here is full of bull - this is just the way I see things right now.

[whetstonefires]

Hey so random ask but, I see a lot of people calling Tim drake sexist, I personally don't think he is but what are your thoughts on that.

Oof. Okay.

Technically I can’t just say he’s not, because as the product of a sexist society he, like any other dude and to a lesser extent any person, has got some passive sexist attitudes baked in there.

It tends to surface in things like, when he went on that first big solo adventure when the Robin comic launched, that started in Paris? And he wound up hunting King Snake with Lady Shiva and this one rogue federal agent, a black man, and he got very decisive. Shiva says something cutting about white men, and she has a point, in that if either of his adult companions of the moment were also white men Tim would probably have been somewhat more conscious of the fact that he was thirteen.

That unconscious prioritization that DC’s sexist narrative tends to favor? That is sexism, and also racism, and it’s valuable to draw attention to it, though not, I feel, to blame it all on Tim because quite often he hasn’t actually done anything, the universe around him has just colluded to make him look good.

(Of course this doesn’t happen much anymore, but back when he was the Main Character it did. Comics is a sexist community in a sexist culture, so of course Tim got some of that muck on him.)

But most of the accusations you see going around are about tearing him down on Steph’s behalf, and that’s...murkier.

Because honestly Tim is less sexist than most of the men in his profession. Significantly less so than Bruce or Dick. I literally cannot imagine Tim talking about a loved one the way Dick used to talk about Kori, or a new acquaintance the way Dick did a lot of the one-episode women from his ‘90s Nightwing solo series. He wasn’t bad to them exactly, he was honestly very normal and probably above average, but the incredible, controlling arrogance and casual sexualization is still hard to get through, sometimes. Almost more so for how much more it comes out when he’s talking behind their backs. And Bruce...well, Bruce and gender is an entire deal I’m not going to try to unpack here.

And I cannot see Tim ever using ‘girl’ as an insult, the way Damian does.

Tim’s interactions with the ladies on Young Justice, for example, tended to be a lot less emphatically gendered than Dick’s interactions with the ladies of the Teen Titans, or even Bruce’s in the Justice League, though there are fewer women there and less casual interaction.

And to a considerable extent this was because the passage of ten years had modernized writing norms, and to a considerable extent this was because his demographic was younger than the Titans and therefore less sexualization was expected of the writers. Young Justice built on some stuff Marvel had been doing with young teams and broke some ground that Marvel has built on even further lately. (Seriously what is with Marvel’s young team books lately they’re incredible.) But there was also that Tim as an individual cares less about gender than most of his family.

(In some ways Jason may care even less, but he also leans really hard into performative masculinity and thought flirting was a reasonable way to interact with older women as a teenager, and he’s been being written by Scott Lobdell for ten years even if I have a hard time thinking of that as canon, so his data is mixed.)

Or take the case of this young freedom fighter (/terrorist) who happens to wear Robin colors, who Tim meets at one point in Europe. Dava. The story creates situations where Tim gets a weird mind-altering stimulant transferred orally to him by Dava, and then from him to Shiva when he’s giving her CPR, and Tim rather notably doesn’t have a single narration box or speech bubble that treats these as ‘kisses’ that he has somehow benefited from obtaining.

Later he crawl-drags Dava’s knocked-out-by-Shiva body out of the middle of the bloodbath Shiva is now staging, because he’s in no state to do anything to stop it, which he hates, and while this is certainly the comic arranging things to put Dava in a damsel status relative to Tim, Tim does not at any point frame it that way.

He is really good about not disrespecting Dava, honestly. It’s an interesting storyline partly for that reason, though it’s not the only time it comes up.

Tim was constantly meeting Troubled Young Women who could kick his ass and whom he respected considerably in most senses, but whom he was able to convince that their particular approach to violence was somehow flawed and needed to be re-thought. Thereby allowing there to be Strong Female Characters but keep the balance of the world in order and not worry the readership, by placing the male lead in a subtle power position even if he had gotten his ass kicked.

It was like. An entire genre. Tied to the way Shiva kept popping in as Incredibly Terrifying Supporting Cast.

This was a major way DC was using female characters in and immediately after the 90s and tbh in some ways it was more progressive than what they tend to do now, even as certain parts of the framing set my teeth on edge.

(Compare ‘Tim on drugs manages to hit Shiva hard enough to take her down because she didn’t expect lethal force from him so he has to do CPR’ to the more recent Red Robin story where we spend a couple of pages with him laying out to her face how she came to town to fulfill a contract on him but he brilliantly out-thought her and she ate the drugged chocolates he sent her so He Wins. Bleh.)

Steph stands out for hanging around instead of being a one-off appearance, and for not really rethinking her life in response to Tim much at all, while also not being a villain.

The crux of the issue is, Tim slid into talking down to Steph on a semi-regular basis, especially when trying to get her to stop vigilante-ing, which he’s getting backlash for some twenty-odd years later, mostly by people blaming him for her narrative deprioritization because it’s more satisfying than blaming DC.

And a major form this takes is declaring him generally sexist.

And the thing is, I’m sure his unconscious view of himself as more competent to make judgment calls because Main Character Demographic did play into the way he approached those conversations! I have never met a dude with any self-confidence whatsoever for whom that wasn’t a factor. Sexism, like racism, is the air we breathe, you have to actively extricate yourself from it and even then it will crop up at odd moments.

Classism played into it, too--especially once he knew she was a C-list villain’s daughter; there was that sense that often crops up in Batman properties that not only does greater access to resources make it safer and less self-destructive for the moneyed class to go vigilante-ing, noblesse oblige means it’s also somehow more just. The old ‘the outsider has a more objective approach’ canard. This was even more subtextual than the gender stuff, but I’m sure it was there.

Intellectual elitism is sort of a subset of both that and gender issues--Tim knows he’s smart, it’s the core of his pride, and Steph is not as smart in the same ways and has not had the same educational opportunites, and there are definitely moments of high-handedness tied to this.

And then there was the territorial aspect; it was official Bat policy to discourage all other Gotham vigilantes, usually in a much more absolute and commanding way than Tim ever tried, not to take them in and train them.

That might have been an option for Bruce if he’d wanted to, but it wasn’t really on the table for Tim unless he wanted to stage an intense campaign to totally disrupt his own life in order to bring this person who introduced herself by hitting him in the face with a brick after he mistook her for a villain into private Bat training and spaces. They’d known each other for a while and been having this argument in various forms most of that time, before they ever dated.

Please also remember that the last time Tim wanted to take a troubled blond under his and Bruce’s wings and show them the ropes and make sure they could do this safely as part of a personal healing process that would help everyone, that person took less than a week after starting to show signs of instability to have a complete psychotic break, beat him into the ground, build a brick wall in the Batcave to keep him out, lock down the computers, and start killing criminals with the knife-hands he added to the Batsuit, while failing to prioritize civilian safety.

This was not that long before Steph’s debut. If I were Tim I would not trust myself to sponsor further new team members either!

All of these things besides the Azrael trauma are directly from Bruce, who is often way more emphatic and more of an ass about them. Robin was mirroring Batman (consider the way he talks to Selina sometimes egad, sometimes it only doesn’t look awful because she’s playing along) and following Bat-policy; it is totally nonsensical to hold Tim accountable for this and not Bruce.

It’s also important to note that Tim wasn’t significantly less condescending to Anarky or the General, who were white guys around his age with roughly his class background whom he was trying to talk out of villainy, and honestly Lonnie’s motives were baller. (The original Anarky was a hacktivist based on a design somebody drew up for the third Robin, but Tim got made instead.) Tim’s entire character design back to his first appearance holds that when he’s trying to talk someone into something he tends to fall into a lecturing approach.

This can be very annoying! The first time he did it to Nightwing he got grabbed and shaken and snarled at. And of course it’s worse when he’s talking down a demographic slope, rather than up one.

I am very aware of how fucking annoying it is when guys do this, even if it is their normal mode of interaction. I have come very near to punching faces over it, when it’s really bad.

Tim doesn’t usually approach that line, but the problem is his writers didn’t seem to know the line was there, so if you’re reading some of his interactions with Steph from the perspective of having that chip on your shoulder already, especially if you’re not immersed in the narrative’s assumption that he is The Main Character, especially now that language norms have shifted slightly so wording that was considered neutral in the 90s is now obnoxious, it can ironically make a deeper impression than the much more blatant and decided sexism going on all around him.

So that’s my take on the situation. Tim has some mild passive gender prejudice which he has never taken enough notice of to seriously compensate for, made more visible by being in a deeply sexist world and by being kind of an annoying person sometimes, and this has been blown wildly out of proportion by people who feel that he and Steph are in competition to be The One Who Was Not An Asshole in that relationship.

This is not a winnable competition. They were both assholes sometimes, and even if you could prove Tim was a terrible boyfriend/person it wouldn’t validate all of Steph’s behavior--she was often forced to behave very badly or stupidly, because back then one of her major narrative functions was as a stick for the writers to hit Tim with.

And the thing is. If you’re going to exculpate Steph of awful behavior because it was ‘just’ the writers being sexist, let alone let Dick off the hook on similar grounds, I think it’s really unfair and messed up to then turn around and hold Tim-the-individual accountable for sexism that mostly wasn’t even situated in him so much as baked into the narrative, though to his benefit.

Like. When sexism (or other -ism) benefits people in real life it can be useful to draw their attention to their systemic advantages if they seem not to get it, but drawing Tim’s attention to his narrative prioritization would be extraordinarily meta (lol somebody write that fic). And in neither situation is it productive or fair (though I do know it is so so tempting) to treat the very existence of someone’s privilege as an offense they have personally committed.

They literally cannot help that. That’s how systemic works.

[thedeadflag]

Hey, as an ace-hetero person; fuck you. You have no right, no damn right to tell me where I belong. I don't think you understand how isolating it feels to be ace-hetero, and that's not to discount the struggles of those on the LGBTQ spectrum because there's no denying they deal with a hell of a lot, but that does not mean we don't deal with shit too. Being ace-hetero, I've always felt indescribably different from everyone I know.

My hetero friends wouldn't understand and my LGBTQ friends don't want me. It's like being inches away from two sides of a cliff but you can't reach either. And to have people like you, arrogant assholes who overestimate the extent of their knowledge, constantly discredit who I am hurts more than you could imagine.

The LGBTQA+ community isn't for you to decide who belongs and no, accepting ace people wouldn't take away from other issues, because being ace is not an issue and, although i can only speak from my own experience, most ace people just want to be accepted, and when people like you decide we can't be, it fucking sucks.

I’m gonna be nice and not air out your username, since your first message was on anon and the rest weren’t, and you might have genuinely misunderstood my stance on this. I’m also sorry you haven’t had good experiences in getting support.

I’m not sure how you got that I don’t accept or support ace folks, though. I absolutely do, I just use an understanding of power to establish my priorities when it comes to LGBT+ spaces, who is welcomed into them, whose voices should matter, who resources should be directed towards and made more accessible, etc. and that necessarily excludes cishet aro/ace folks because when I have to choose between their inclusion and the more marginalized people their inclusion would exclude, I’m going to stand with the latter. I’m going to support people who need those spaces and resources because they literally do not have anywhere else, whereas people with more power can find some semblance of what they seek elsewhere.

Here’s a bit of what I’ve said in the past

I’m saying that aro/ace folks are, and have always been, part of the community. Anyone who is out of their teens and has been active in meatspace LGBT+ spaces will be able to tell you that.

But my stance is that certain groups of people within the community who wield violent, oppressive power, regardless of their membership, should be removed from spaces and resources whenever possible.

This includes TERFs, white supremacists, cishet folks, among others, but the aforementioned three are pretty easy examples of groups that historically wield violent oppressive power to and within our community.

It’s not that they aren’t LGBT+, necessarily, it’s that they cannot be trusted as a group to not reproduce violence against the most marginalized of us, and we cannot weigh ideals and utopian goals of what we’d wish the community to be like, over the material realities of what the community currently is.

That, IMO, would be like SWERFs who want to abolish sex work and don’t care about the material impact their policies have on real living sex workers right now. Maybe in a fantasy world, a world without sex work could be better, but right now, there are people who need our help, and harm prevention needs to be the top priority. Allowing harmful groups to remain in our spaces, and in control of our resources, will only end up excluding those community members who need support, spaces, and resources the most. Like, any space that is welcoming to TERFs is automatically trans-exclusive, for example. That’s just a fact. Any space with white supremacist leadership would be poc-exclusive. Just a fact.Due to violent groups’ presence and power in the community, they wouldn’t be safe in those spaces and in accessing those resources and for many of them, there is literally nowhere else. Not potentially some places where they can manage to cobble some degree support or resources, even if it’s sometimes not ideal or sometimes isn’t quite enough, like cishet folks can, but literally none.

So, for your example, cishet aro/ace folks are indeed inherently LGBT+. But as a category, they wield too much violent power and oppression to outweigh any gains that could be made of allowing them to remain active in those spaces. Education is not a viable strategy to fixing that(it hasn’t worked for PoC, it hasn’t worked for disabled members, it hasn’t worked for trans members, it hasn’t worked for intersex members, etc.), but working to help develop resources outside of the community that might serve them better is viable and has been effective.

For instance, a lot of sexual support services have gotten material from within the aro/ace community as well as from within the broader LGBT+ community to help expand their services like sex ed, their hotlines, etc. to cover a more diverse population. I fully 100% support this endeavour, and I’m happy to know that gains are being made on aro/ace information and outreach and support in that sector in north america. That way, cis het aro/ace folks could get support, spaces, and resources they need without exerting violent, oppressive power against anyone. It’s a win-win. Just like LGBT+ TERFs being able to contact The Trevor Project is a win-win because that allows them to receive aid without running the risk of encountering anyone they oppress or spreading their oppressive bullshit in our communities.

Worst case scenario when some individual cishet aro/ace folks absolutely, for whatever reason, literally cannot get any aid elsewhere…yeah, cut them some slack. But they should never occupy positions of power. They should not be able to vote on resource allocation. They should never lead educational workshops. I’ve seen too many people wielding violent, oppressive power sneak into those positions of power/authority, and use their influence to shift voting towards outcomes reflective of their oppressive views/perspectives, or disregard certain forms of harassment inside the community, or promote certain harmful views in community events, or facilitate the social ostracism of unwanted outspoken marginalized people who are rocking the boat too much (often trans folks, poc, disabled folks, etc.), so IMO, it’s too dangerous to let them take root like that. They have too much oppressive power to be trusted to take up permanent space. It really isn’t much to ask that they be aware of how dangerous and distressing their presence can be to more vulnerable folks.

I say this as someone who has spent over half my life in and around these spaces, and having overwhelmingly heard similar stories elsewhere. Power is real, it functions in predictable patterns, and it needs to be accounted for when discussing how to run and facilitate our spaces and resources. Spaces and resources where violently oppressive groups are allowed access and to set down roots? Those end up growing toxic and exclusive against those who need help the most. Maybe one day things will be different, but right now? We can’t afford to let violently oppressive people remain in our communities.

I love aro/ace folks. I do. But power is something that has to be acknowledged, especially when it is directly tied to violence against community members. And those who wield violent power and oppress should not be welcome, and should be exiled by any means necessary, regardless of their identity or position

Ultimately, what it comes down to is whether I choose other trans women, or cishet aro/ace folks, and I will always, always chose trans women. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes, so be it I don’t mind. I know I’m not a bad person, and I’m doing what’s right for people like me. I don’t have the luxury of not being realistic about the generally predictable power dynamics in the LGBT+ community. 

My activism is all about harm reduction. Reducing harm is pivotal, and that means finding ways to make communities safer and resources more accessible to everyone, and that includes helping folks understand where they can appropriately take up space.

My top priority when it comes to organizing, shaping, and navigating our communities is to make community more accessible for trans women of all stripes because we’re a demographic with appallingly low community support and accessibility to resources, and that has to change. Trans women need to feel safe.

When communities bring in people with more oppressive, harmful perspectives, it passively and/or actively pushes more marginalized members out. I cannot abide that, and while I will do what I can to help aro/ace folks of all stripes, I cannot pretend that the inclusion is cishet aro/ace folks is not a zero sum issue because it absolutely is, whether people want to accept that or not. It’s a silent choice people are faced with...you can hate me for answering vocally but that doesn’t change that I had to choose, and I choose my people.

I will not be ashamed or feel guilty about prioritizing trans women when no one other than trans women will. I’m not arrogant for doing so or pushing for certain people to not take up space in our communities as a means to keep those spaces safer and more accessible to those who need it more. Because frankly, the most marginalized in the communities do need those spaces the most, and need to be prioritized. Ideally, everyone would have their needs met and would be safe and supported, but that’s not reality. That’s not how it goes down, not locally, and not online, so I need to be realistic. I need to prioritize.

My prioritizes don’t include cishet aro/ace folks when it comes to maintaining and operating in LGBT+ spaces. I trust the aro/ace community and general sexual support services to understandably pick up that slack, which they generally do well with. I want everyone to get the support and resources they need, but when the inclusion of one group virtually always raises obstacles for members of my group to access those spaces, the support they need, and the resources they need, I need to have their backs in that. Maybe that’s ‘ruthless calculus’ as Garrus Vakarian would call it, but like I said, no one else is looking out for trans women except trans women, so I don’t have the luxury of caring about anyone else when my people are put at risk of complete isolation (which can often lead to death for us). 

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Things I am/have been in my lifetime: farmer (flowers, herbs, succulents, vegetables fruit trees), livestock keeper (bird flocks, horses, sheep, cows, goats), therapist (licensed and certified), emergency response medic (first aid, minor trauma, overdose rescue), and herbalist (cough and fever, minor wound repair, minor burn treatment)

Things I also do in my freetime for fun: dick around on tumblr

Like. I get that this is the posting website. And it *is* wise to remember that those who do mutual aid are usually not explicitly posting about it (this has more to do with how often we get arrested for feeding homeless people, organizing bail funds, or providing medical aid to protestors than it does anything else), but people who post online are still people. They still have lives, careers, and skillsets that you may never know about.

Parasocial relationships aren't just for big name youtubers and social media influencers. Every single one of my followers who interacts with my posts and thinks that means they know me is also participating in a parasocial relationship. That's not inherently a bad thing! But don't let the belief that you know a person based on what they post dictate how you view the world or what another human being is or is not capable of.

Mutual aid is explicitly NOT charity. That is. Well it's definitionally the point. There are a lot of charities in the world that do good (or bad!) work too! Don't get me wrong, charity absolutely exists and is far more common and easy to maintain than mutual aid.

But mutual aid is a very specific type of program that does exist and can be highly effective for specific roles and needs in society.

I've seen this post going around a while now with various petty objections and it's just so evident to me that they're coming from people who have never actually interacted with mutual aid in any capacity outside of the conceptual. That's fine, you don't have to. But like. Maybe don't pretend to be an expert in something you've literally only read about. Armchair experts aren't helpful, and in a world rife with misinformation and propaganda, you really aren't helping anyone by pretending that your feelings of resentment towards ideas you barely understand are useful in this discussion.

I feel like I'm being harsh here and I don't love that, but I'm so tired. Truly, it is exhausting to spend so much of one's time building up systems of survival, dedicating so much time and energy to the well being of one's community, keeping my words careful, thoughtful, kind, sanitized at all times for the optimized psycho-educational effect against propaganda and miseducation, only to slam my head against the same bullshit debunked claims over and over again from people who think they're so much better than us because they would never deign to do the work we do, and instead know everything they need to know from sitting behind a computer screen. It's hard to stay graceful when that happens, truly it is.

I have empathy for you that your view of mutual aid has been so tainted. I expect it means you have been cut off from accessing resources and support you could benefit from, and for that I'm truly sorry. You deserve to have been supported, rather than denied. But my god. Have the decency not to universalize your fucking misery.

Mutual aid is not a new concept. It has been the way of hundreds of communities for thousands of years in uncountable forms, and it will literally ALWAYS have some sort of place in any society. I guarantee that you have experienced mutual aid, even if it wasn't called that.

Mutual aid is strongest the more people get involved. Because it's....you know. Mutual. If you are convinced that your local mutual aid programs are worthless, maybe you could actually show the fuck up and see what they need, how they function, and what benefits you would receive from connecting to them. I would bet dollars to donuts you find out real fast they're functioning more effectively than you ever realized.

Not to electionpost but I think the fact that we're seriously debating whether or not the president can pardon himself is evidence that we're fucked on a deeper level than a future risk of something bad happening

[hunterinabrowncoat]

Hi! I'm sorry to bother you, but I saw you reblogged a post about the general election and I was wondering why you thought May funding more grammar schools was a bad thing? I've heard a lot from both sides of the argument, but i don't have much experience with the state sector (I've spent my life at private schools) and I just wanted to ask your opinion. Thanks!

Hi anon! You’re no bother at all, don’t be afraid to ask questions.

I mean really it’s quite a complex topic, cos you gotta look at every aspect of British secondary education and class divides, but here goes...

So I didn’t go to public school for most of my life either. I was educated until I was 16 and finished my GCSEs at a small, independent faith school. The fees weren’t expensive, they were based on income, and I didn’t get a fantastic education, nor was anything about that school to be described as “posh” or “rich”. But it was a private school nonetheless.

There were lots of things that were terrible about this school, but on the whole I’m incredibly grateful for my education. I was educated in a very relaxed environment, in classes no larger than 15 at most (usually around 5-10 students), by teachers who knew me personally and honestly, actually cared about my well being.

I know for a fact I would not be able to say the same thing had gone to a comp school. Not least because, no matter how lucky I got with regards to having caring teachers, or stellar teaching, the law simply wouldn’t allow for most of the things I loved about my education. State school class sizes regularly push 30, sometimes even 35. Because of large numbers, state school classes are split up into sets, with the brightest, highest achieving kids in set 1, and the lowest achieving in set 3 (some schools have set 4 I think? depending on how many kids they have, but I’m not 100% sure. It doesn’t really matter either way...). It can get pretty demoralizing for kids who don’t respond well to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach the system provides.

A brief history of grammar schools goes something like this:

They’ve existed since the 1600s, but they really became what they are today during the 1940s when education beyond the age of 14 became free. There were two types of schools for secondary education (age 11-16/High School) which consisted of grammar schools and secondary modern schools.

Grammar schools focused on academic subjects, with the intention that pupils would go on to University, whereas secondary modern schools focused on getting children prepared for the workforce in trade. Here, the 11+ was introduced. The 11+ is an exam sat by pupils when they’re 11 years old, which determines if they’re intelligent enough to be educated at a grammar school.

In the 60s, the Labour Party was adamant that this system just furthered class divisions, so began phasing out grammar schools, and introducing Comprehensive Schools, which educate everyone at secondary school age. Aaand voila! That’s pretty much the education system we have for secondary school now. Everybody has a local comp. ...but they’re usually pretty undesirable places.

So... grammar schools, class, and the 11+

As well as being privately educated, I also happen to have grown up one street away from one of only a handful remaining grammar schools in the UK, where my brother went to sixth-form (16-18yrs education, which at the time wasn’t compulsory), so I was blissfully unaware until a few years ago that they’re almost extinct in the UK.

And I mean I joked about it a lot as a teen, but the class difference has always been painstakingly obvious. Between the hours of 8-9am and 3-4pm our street would always fill up with really nice, expensive cars, because parents would park in our street to go pick up their kids from school. You could always tell which cars belonged to residents, and which belonged to parents, because nobody who lives on our street could afford a BMW. More to the point, nobody who could afford a BMW would live on our street!

And you only have to look next-door to see how class plays a part in making it into a grammar school. Right next to the grammar school is a prep school. A primary school literally designed to prepare children for entry into the grammar school. Who do you think gets accepted into that primary school? I can tell you it ain’t working class kids!

So the children who end up going to grammar schools are by no means more intelligent than those who go to comp. They’re just privileged enough to have had a very good (often private) education that helps them to pass the 11+. What usually happens is that parents pay private tutors to come prepare their kid for the exam from an early age, so that they’re far more likely to pass than a kid who’s come from comp education without tutoring, despite not necessarily being any more intelligent.

So in conclusion...?

Essentially, grammar schools are a remnant of an old education system that in theory separated the higher and lower achieving students, but in practice all it really does is allow children from more privileged background access to even more privilege through a better education.

I mean essentially what it boils down to with education, is that same thing that everything comes down to under capitalism:

Whatever the state provides - hell, whatever anyone provides - if you pay lots of money, you can get a better version.

Bought an event ticket? If you pay lots more money, you can skip all of the queues, get front row seats, and spend quality time with the celebs. Need a medical procedure? If you pay lots more money, you can skip all the waiting lists and go to private hospital to get it done immediately, by people who have the time to actually deliver quality patient care. Want an education? If you pay lots more money, you can get one-on-one quality tutoring or teaching from the most highly educated people around, and guarantee that you’ll get into University.

Rich people always get better things, and everybody else is always left with the “standard” which in the case of state-funded things are underfunded, understaffed, underqualified or sub-par. Rich people get better; not because they’re more deserving, or more intelligent, or more qualified. They’ve just been able to pay for more access to better resources that enable them to climb higher.

Political party stances

So currently there is a ban on grammar schools, meaning that no more grammar schools can be opened or set up. What Theresa May wants to do is repeal that ban, and fund 70,000 new places in 140 new schools with £320million, and she’s stipulated that those schools will be free to be selective. ie. they’ll be publicly funding the opening of new grammar schools.

Personally, I don’t care for grammar schools, for all of the reasons listed above. However, I’m not going to be campaigning for their imminent closure anytime soon. They’re a symptom of a system of elitism under capitalism that I don’t support, and honestly I’ve got bigger concerns about education, and about capitalism and elitism on my mind, to be honest.

However, I am adamantly opposed to May’s proposal, which would use public money to fund the set up of yet more grammar schools.

We know the system doesn’t work. All of the evidence points to the fact that they don’t do much for working class kids. They continue to serve an elitist system whereby people with more money get better education.

More money > better education > top university > better paying jobs > more money.

The government should be funding comprehensive schools better, so that the education which everyone has access to is a better quality education. That’s not going to happen unless teachers are paid better, the education and training of teachers is funded better, the class sizes are smaller, and the system shifts to make room for children who don’t fit this ridiculous ‘one size fits all’ approach we currently have.

Furthermore, I can’t say that I trust the education system to the Tory party’s hands at all (although admittedly there isn’t really anything I can think of to be honest that I would trust them with!). Their track record with education is honestly appalling - just look at the absolute joke that was Michael Gove as Education Secretary, and then Nicky Morgan. Neither of them have ever had any experience in education aside from being a child in school, and neither of them have ever listened to what teachers have had to say about the effects of legislation. They’re slashing funding for the arts, placing priority on STEM subjects over everything else, increasing the stress on teachers through horrendous amounts of paperwork required, increasing the class sizes, and increasing the number of tests that children take, even at primary age and foundation phase.

Schools in impoverished areas always receive less funding, thus are unable to provide a better quality education due simply to a lack of resources. And thanks to our ridiculous league table system, all of the emphasis in schools is put on churning out as many GCSEs grade C and above as is humanly possible, rather than actually providing a holistic and quality education. So schools are often forced into demoralizing cycles where they don’t produce enough A*-C GCSE results, receive less funding, have less means to provide a good education, get less A*-C redults etc. etc.

Funding more grammar schools isn’t going to change that. It’s only going to widen the gap between working class kids and middle and upper class kids, who have parents with enough money to afford better opportunities for them.

TLDR;

Grammar schools in theory help kids from low-income backgrounds get better educations, but in practice they really don’t. Public funding should focus on making state education better, through more funding and better legislation, rather than pumping money into an elitist system that only serves to continue the trend of rich kids being high achievers, and poor kids being low achievers, because they’re not given the same opportunities. The Tories also have terrible policy on education generally, but this is a new low.

[erinravenseeker]

Super good essay, as someone who (1) read Homestuck (2) got super into DreamSMP for a year or two around the same time as your flatmate, and (3) also was super into The Yogscast's Shadow of Israphel way back when (omg what a blast from the past thank you for reminding me of it) this whole deconstruction & comparison appeals to me.

Definitely recommend people read it, please excuse me dumping my own opinions under the cut.

You're absolutely right when you say "The trick is only revealed to [...] someone for whom there is no other option but to ascend or die." But I think you miss discussing another huge aspect of it here.

PKCiv (PkCiv? PKCIV? do we have a common capitalisation yet?) pretty explicitly parallels real world concerns (in particular the death of the American Dream) by presenting itself as a meritocracy, and then demonstrating how the ruling classes set up (literal) impossible jumps to prevent upward social mobility. So when you say "So as it turns out, it is possible to win by following the rules of the system as it exists.", I think PKCiv is telling you that that's actually incorrect.

Evbo does gain upward social mobility through his own merit, once he knows HOW to do it, that's true. But every time, before he can, he has to be GIVEN the knowledge or opportunity BY someone who is or was already part of that higher social status.

The first ascension would have been literally physically impossible without the barrier block. The second, the narrative tells us he only makes due to having been given the Totem and the hint beforehand. He doesn't even put in that much effort to hunt down this information, because he doesn't know it exists in the first place - he has to encounter the right people simply by chance, and be GIFTED knowledge and items.

He only wins because other people gift him access to resources, which then let him tap into his full potential. If the system were fair, he would be able to make it up on his own merit, and by the system's rules, but it isn't. Kind of like how those in poverty are only able to invest in better education and/or careers when they aren't constantly fighting for their life. And so often there's knowledge or opportunities that you don't even know you should be searching for unless you have access to connections and nepotism.

Evbo's ideal "fixed" world at the end of PKCiv 1 just removes all the impossible barriers preventing the meritocracy from actually functioning like one, and takes away the punishment of death for failing to meet some arbitrary minimum standard (universal basic income anyone?). The series isn't trying to argue that meritocracy is the best system (it's just the system that the character buys into, and the start of PKCiv 2 actually subtly critiques it, but doesn't really go anywhere with the idea), it's just highlighting the lie that Rich People America particularly likes to present itself as a meritocracy when it isn't one.

Obviously nobody can really say just how much of this political commentary was intentional (at least some of it, at most Not Quite All Of It) or how much just happened to resonate thematically.

Anyway ALL THAT ASIDE – super good essay, I appreciate how you explain how it manages to be so consumable and engaging. I especially enjoyed your discussion of genre and how the story is entirely rules-based, and the relation to LitRPG/sysfic/xianxia.

And you also bring up a great point that I hadn't realised about the whole trick jumping thing, which is how so few people have ever seen or done a 360 because nobody does parkour for fun. In this world, parkour is purely about survival. "I think this speaks to Evbo’s ambition not just to survive in Parkour Civilization, but to live in Parkour Civilization" you're absolutely spot on. In Parkour Civilisation, nobody does parkour just because, because all parkour carries the risk of death, and it's better to just play it safe. In Parkour Civilisation, no-one chooses to jump for the beef.

Letterboxd deleted my review of Minecraft but I survive in PARKOUR CIVILIZATION [FULL MOVIE], so I've taken revenge by writing a 7,500 word essay on the topic. I will not be silenced.

Do a SICK PARKOUR JUMP onto that link above to read about how Parkour Civilization relates to LitRPG, MS Paint Adventures, and Neon Genesis Evangelion probably.

[mirrorada]

This is for @j-brav0 not cheese

If you're so against as you're calling it "murder" when it comes to a foetus are you for education, preventatives and facilites to help prevent unwanted pregnancies?

Because much of the prolife base screams evil, murder, baby killer on one hand while denouncing/demonizing reliable and unlimited access to birth control measures (all of them, not just female based ones), proper/through education in the form of sex Ed in schools (that teaches more than abstinence only), education from doctors primarily for people who did not have access in school, but ultimately for anyone, facility for lower income/poor that provides both male & female sexual health care at a bare minimum (generalized health Care is optimal but a whole other argument), prevention of harassment outside of these facility so that people can go and get the help and resources they need before this "necessary evil", because let's be honest, if you're going to a planned Parenthood or similar facility to get your birth control you're far more likely to do so if you aren't being screamed at by lunatics who think you're there to "murder"

Are you against criminalization of miscarriage, which again, like much of the base you align your self with, wants us uterus halving folk punished for something our body naturally does in cases where it can't support a full term pregnancy or that foetus was not viable in the first place.

And before you try to say " oh you've never had a child, you don't know what it's like"

I have a 3.5 year old. I misscaried before having her, at 6 weeks.

I went through a miserable pregnancy with severe weight loss and long term issues from the birth it's self. I'm physically unable to give birth naturally which resulted in a C-section, any further pregnancy are a gamble with my own life.

My husband and I are also conflicting blood types, something that at one point was tested for before people could be married because it can cause issues, serious ones, for the resulting child without preventatives. While RH conflicts aren't usually an issue for the first pregnancy, subsequent ones, if not given one of the two RH blockers can result in your body literally attacking the feotus like it was a foriegn invader.

My husband and I are doing everything we can to prevent another pregnancy outside of outright abstinence or of me having a hysterectomy- which I've actually asked for and be refused, because it's been so stigmatized and demonized for young women to not breed hoards of children that most doctors, even left swinging ones will out right refuse to do a hysterectomy unless deemed "medically necessary" aka, cancer.

In the slim, slightly possible chance I get pregnant again, it will not be brought to term. With our conflicting Rh factors, my pre-existing issues that result in both pregnancy and birth complications and the fact that we just flat out do not want another child, an early stage abortion is our only logical option in the event I become pregnant again.

And you can take that right away over my dead body.

As a pro-lifer, do you just desperately want children to be born to people that don’t want them?

I just want children to not to be killed. That’s all. I would greatly prefer it if every child was born into a loving wanting family. That’d be flipping amazing. But I don’t want murder to be as much of an accepted and normalized choice than what it is right now. I’ve thought this through. In the world we live in, there is no getting rid of abortion, not 100% anyway. But we can definitely lessen the demand, much more than we already have. I’m fine with abortions as a necessary evil, when a woman is raped, when her pregnancy might kill her, if her child has already passed, I believe to have an abortion would be fine in those circumstances. Not for any reason you want, or no reason at all, at any stage in development your child is in. That’s fucking insane.