#i personally think it would be anthropology or philosophy

[alchimistetyche]

A friend and I were talking about it and we couldn't decide so obviously the next best thing was to leave it up to the spn website. Personally I think he would be some type of humanities major but this is early seasons Cas so maybe he'd try to go to med school and angeliclly cheat his way through or something.

I'm getting all the discs. of majors from google so yeah

Anthropology: study humanity, and they examine how linguistics, culture, biology and history shape human diversity

Philosophy: study of fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and value

(BROAD) Religious Studies: an interdisciplinary field of study that examines religious and secular worldviews, rituals, ethics, and philosophies

History: (I can't find many good ones that aren't ai generated boooo) critically examining the connections between the past, present, and future, usually has a specific time period in mind/that is an interest

Pre-med: a program that ensures students take all the required classes needed to apply for medical school

If you had a specifc focus in mind for any of these or something else that would fit him feel free to comment or put it in the tags.

If pre-med wins I'll make another poll to determine what his medical discipline would be because I'm way too invested in this now lol.

[unwillingtoreachout]

What are you guys' headcanons for what the foxes' majors would be? (as in alternative majors that you think they would take, not their canon ones)

[neptunes-sol-angel]

Ah 👅🤭 Pick the picture(s) that you're drawn to the most, then scroll for its corresponding message on how YOU 🫵🏾 can achieve a Hot Girl Summer this year.

Paid Readings | Botanica | Tip Jar

Pile One 🔥

I have the feeling that you’re coming out of this stage of ruminating over the things that don’t make you feel the best. Even if it’s not a strong sign yet, what’s working for you behind the scenes is that the universe is basically telling you “it’s okay to stop crying for now because it’s time to enjoy yourself”. Your hot girl summer is about doing things in moderation. Knowing when it’s time to save, and also when it’s time to spend. Knowing when you need alone time to sit with your feelings, and when it’s time to give that a rest. The word “hibernation” is significant, which makes sense because there are a lot of themes revolving around what you consider home. Maybe you guys are changing your residency or are feeling stuck energy in your house. Even if you can’t do your entire house, find one room that you can renovate to your liking and comfort. Finding inspiration for how to decorate this spot for you on pinterest could be extremely helpful. Making a consistent effort to read more books is something that would benefit you, if you don’t know where to start, read about Feng Shui or look up credible articles about it. Choose the genre that interests you the most, but what I see for people in this pile is that foreign philosophies and anthropology would fuel some life into you. Some of you could feel more fulfillment in being a homebody this summer, so it’s important to make your home as comfortable as possible. For others, where you stay just isn’t capable of being what you need it to be, so this summer will be about finding what feels like home to you by going out to find a place to frequent. To be specific, there could be a shopping center that’s recreational, and is a safe haven for creatives, small business owners, and plenty of spots to host different events that give you the opportunity to meet people and start genuine connections with. To make this a hot girl summer, you have to put yourself out there when it comes to dedicating commitment to yourself. In the past you could have envied others on social media who always seemed to make the most out of their life, but you must understand that you can do that too, but it requires you to search and take action. Look up festivals that could be happening in your city, learn how to crochet, go to that karaoke session at that indie coffee shop, learn how to bake or cook, or turn your room into a movie theater by going on a marathon of watching new movies and TV shows. Work with your imagination to propel you forward. Spiritually, it would be a good investment for some people in this pile to start setting up their altar, start with a color that you feel vibrates your soul at the moment then think about the things that symbolically represent figures in your spiritual team. Keep in mind that your altar doesn’t have to be a castle, your guides appreciate your intention the most. Create a private space for mood boards specifically related to how you want your home to be, make it personal, descriptive, and intentional as possible with the pictures you use and watch how it will manifest one by one like a bingo card.

Pile Two 🔥

Your hot girl summer is about rebellion. Do things outside of the norm of what you usually do. I’m hearing “control it!” lol, you guys are getting a boost in your sensuality, realizing how potent your sexual energy is, but learning what’s the best way to embody it and what pleasures you the most, but always make sure that you are protected. Taking tantric, pole, or even samba dancing classes or could be invigorating for you, but also having the confidence to wear the clothes you’ve been envisioning yourself in, which doesn’t have to mean showing more skin, but anything that relates to freedom and not feeling insecure about your body. Stretching your body, swaying your body, exercising your body, and nourishing it with foods that are both healthy oriented and guilty meals that you’re craving. Avoid things and people that hold you back. If you’re around fickle people who constantly talk about things they want to do with you until it’s actually time to start initiating plans to hang out, don’t let them slow you down and doing things by yourself, because you more than likely will enjoy it more without their presence while also meeting new people who are more reliable and match your enthusiasm. Form healthy relationships with substances and never feel like you need alcohol or drugs to have fun or to make yourself more appealing. Traveling to caribbean islands or even meeting caribbean folk will be positively life changing for you. Sun bathing and resting outside or taking daily walks will energize you especially on your days where you are in need to get out of a sluggish mood. Give yourself permission to be spontaneous, but always remember that spontaneity doesn’t mean to put your life in danger. Time may feel surreal for you, so if you procrastinate on things like buying that ticket to that music festival, picking up that seasonal job, or deciding to take summer courses for your education or to help amplify your talents, take that chance because it will save you from that eerie fear of missing out and it will be worth it. I get the feeling that you don’t take enough pictures of yourself or you could feel taking videos or pictures make an experience more lackluster, but the key for really everything that you plan to do this summer, is to not indulge. Take pictures of yourself because you have a gorgeous face that deserves to be captured, and take pictures to encapsulate memories so that you can positively reminisce on how you conquered this summer. Spiritually, take a visit to a new metaphysical shop. Learn how you can utilize herbs into your diet or for your wellbeing, or even to aid in any conjuring that you feel called to do. Group work is important, if you can, try going on a spiritual retreat. For more attainable options, participating in group sound baths or beach yoga sessions will suffice too.

Pile Three 🔥

It looks like you guys are trying to be off the grid. Like NO Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Tiktok presence and you know what, I respect it. Having a Hot Girl Summer is about what you unapologetically make it and the best way for you to express yourself and show up for yourself. I’m already seeing your exhaustion with certain connections that are both in your present and in the past and I completely understand why you’re just not feeling people right now and you don’t have to be in everyone’s face to be seen and perceived. What you can do to make this experience more livelier for you will probably ignite an adrenaline rush in you. I keep getting this visual of people dressing up in superhero costumes or wearing a mask, like a Batman helmet for instance. I know that’s random, but that’s the energy that I get from you guys and I dig it. I can see you guys benefiting from wiping out all of your social media accounts, but still unintentionally getting attention for it? However, at the same time, your identity could be concealed for your privacy, probably thanks to your social media accounts. I’m seeing this ebb and flow of being far away from people like temporarily staying in secluded rural or forest area to do hiking, mountain climbing, and something with a lot of swimming, maybe even scuba diving for a month, then one month you’re out going to crazy parties or events where no one knows exactly who you are but are fascinated with the vibe that you portray. Maybe you actually do wear masks (or sunglasses!) There's also something about the night life being significant for you too, like you’re more nocturnal, this could also mean that you need to be careful with your sleeping patterns and try your best to be consistent with how much sleep you’re getting and the quality of it. This independence is going to attract a lot of admiration from strangers and even people that you know personally. It seems like your Hot Girl Summer is about respecting your phases in how much you want to partake in the social scene and how much you withdraw to invest into your self-concept and shadow work about themes that play out in both your good and bad relationships. This pile is also for my content creators, it’s really time to get into your bag and work on your craft with more effort and regularity. Writing is significant as well as returning back to what your mission is. There is something that you want to convey out for whoever who needs it, this could be personal, self-help tips for others, awareness about environmental issues, or just finally writing and publishing that book. Keep going with it because this summer is your time to shine and get recognized for your efforts. Spiritually, meditation is going to be your best friend, you need a lot of quiet time for your mental health and also some space to release some stress.

[a-very-tired-jew]

I was just reminded that the art collective Forensic Architecture exists and once again I’m disgusted.

For those of you who don’t know, it’s a collective of various artists who play at forensic science, conduct “forensic investigations”, and then make art exhibits of their “results”. Their reports and exhibits will make statements such as “the evidence shows that X is linked to Y” but the statistical output that they share will show something like a 5% confidence in the match.

That's right. They make art exhibits of their "investigations".

You want to talk about fandomizing tragedy? Making “forensic investigations” into art exhibits is the bougiest version I can think of, and it's only to serve an echelon of people who enjoy that kind of stuff. If any of the people in this art collective had a background in forensic science they would have taken ethics courses that would tell them how horrid putting on an art exhibit like this actually is. You don't honor the victims by putting on an art show for the rich and powerful to gasp and faint over so that you can fundraise for your next show.

Their founder has even stated that they’re not in forensics but “counter-forensics” and "counter-investigation". They eschew the practices and norms of the scientific community for telling their own version of investigative “truth”. They’ve even gone so far as to quote post-truth philosophies in their work and the controversial Nietzsche quote about there being no facts, only interpretations. Both are dangerous philosophies to hold in forensic science as it presents the evidence as subjective rather than objective. This is why they're an art collective and not a forensic science research group as they purport, they're rejecting objective scientific outcome for subjective interpretation.

You can go to the group's website and they have profiles on all of their team members. Almost every person is labeled as a "researcher", but once you click on their profile it quickly tells you that they're an artist, designer, activist, or some combination of the three. No mention of any scientific background whatsoever. That indicates their ability to actual conduct forensic science research is not great as they don't have any training or education on the methods involved. In fact, their entire program and personnel are out of an arts college with no science programs or faculty outside of anthropology.

That's weird, right?

A group that supposedly made a new discipline of forensic science, according to them, has no members with actual backgrounds in forensic science or scientific disciplines relating to it?

None of the team member profiles detail any scientific background that would be relevant to forensics outside of a few people with engineering and computer science degrees. Neither of the aforementioned disciplines typically train you in forensic practices anyway unless you take certain courses. Because these profiles are public you can go and checked LinkedIn profiles and find the CVs for each member as well. Guess what? No forensic science or relevant scientific backgrounds listed there as well.

But for some reason this art collective has received funding from governments and NGOs for "creating" a new discipline of forensic science. They're a "trusted" source for forensic investigations. That's worrying. That's terrifying.

I'm a forensic scientist and to make an objective field based upon methodology and empirically supported practice into one that is subjective and throws out the empirical aspects is terrifying. Everyone should have klaxons going off in their head whenever they see Forensic Architecture's name appear in a publication. I've reviewed a few of their "investigations" and they are rife with bad practice, manipulation, and misinformation. In fact, it appears that they present their work in art exhibits more than they testify to it in court due to their methods being questionable and their intent being not to help the investigation but to be a "counter-investigation" that can be judged by the court of public opinion. What do I mean by this? In many of their investigations the collective does not actively have personnel at the scene. Meaning they are not getting first hand physical evidence and measurements. Now, it's not always possible to be there personally and as such you rely upon crime scene techs, investigators, and other personnel to collect this stuff. Typically if you're a consultant or outside firm you are getting the evidence after it has been collected for analysis. You want the physical evidence in your hands as much as possible so that you can analyze it properly. Sometimes you have to request going to the scene yourself to get the measurements and evidence you need. The worst type of evidence to receive is honestly digital images of the scene as you are now having to analyze something a general investigator, who likely does not have specialized training, took a picture of.

In situations where you cannot have the physical evidence for analysis and you are left with only photographs then a forensic expert should be tempering their responses and conclusions. You cannot confidently come to conclusions based simply on looking at photos. This is something that is hammered home repeatedly in forensic programs and professionals.

In the case of warzone crime scene analysis, as FA typically does, they are, typically, not collecting evidence first hand from the scene, nor are they receiving evidence secondarily from actual trained investigators (when they are there first hand they also rely excessively upon expensive technology instead of best practices). They rely upon third party photos and satellite imagery to do their analysis.

Time and time again, forensic experts who rely solely upon digital photos and media to make their analysis get ripped apart by a good lawyer. Being confident in conclusions based upon photographs is the easiest way to lose your credibility. But again, the art collective playing forensic scientist primarily puts their work in art exhibits where they are not scrutinized by experts. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen them present at one of our professional conferences nationally or internationally (I would love to be a fly on the wall when that happens).

And finally, if this was an actual credible scientific group that produced credible investigations and had created a brand new field with methodology that stood to scrutiny there would be publications in the forensic journals detailing this. Especially from the "creator" of the field Eyal Weizman.

Guess what there isn't?

But in the end all they’re actually doing is crime scene reconstruction from people who want to cosplay as forensic scientists.

(for more reading on the group see this article that highlights issues with FA from another perspective https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/forensic-architecture-fake-news-1234661013/)

[3lliesan]

A different type of genius.

I'm not good at trying to describe scenes with complex language to make not it seem "simple" by most people, but, if I learned anything from reading multiple works and trying to understand characters, is to write about "feelings" and "perspective."

It's kind like anthropology in a way, since I do the same thing to actual people sometimes. How I want to study what kind of thought process these 'characters' have even in the mundane moments, how they perceive things, what kind of philosophy they follow through actions, what makes these things so interesting.

That's why "insane maniacs," "masked characters," or any complex character, interests me.

Especially geniuses. (Or just extremely smart people pls don't come at me for trying to sound cool 😭)

Whenever I try to mimic their train of thought based on what I know, technically, I can think the same way as them for a short period of time.

However, for a 'smart person', you can't just waltz around pretending to be smart as if you were aware of everything before everyone else. The goal is not to pretend, but to think the same way an extremely intellectual person does, even for a few seconds.

They think in a way not a lot of people do, have different habits, different ways of approaching their own interests, notice things that most people don't. Not to mention that there are different types of intelligence aside from just IQ or being very informed.

You have to be specific about it. Simplify it in a way so that it doesn't seem as unreachable as it should be, ask yourself questions that you hadn't asked before, think about the smaller things that you might've missed or the bigger picture.

Think about absurdity and make it a friend to learn more about, and what you can do to gauge what kind of reaction you want from it.

I can see this as an interesting idea for Yuu! Since they can understand people in a different way most people do, easily see through facades, decipher hidden intentions, help their friends because they can just understand.

Maybe better than anyone else could.

I can also see how interesting it'd be for times when Yuu puts the... mindset analyzation to the test.

Like when they were playing detective in chapter 2. Piecing all of the clues together before Leona's plot was revealed, noticing the prince's behaviour and a gut feeling about the incidents. It can also be how they noticed a certain snake's or the four diamonds's facades within the first few minutes of their first interactions.

All of this would lead others to think that their friend, Yuu, is another terrifying force to be reckoned with when it comes to a battle of minds...

Until exam results come in as barely passing.

But maybe that's just me. :P

[weirdmageddon]

ive finaly managed to lay it out my major interests. i dont know what took me so long to be able to do that. i posted it to bluesky but i’ll do it here too. i need a new pinned post anyway.

22 neurodivergent ass autistic goth nerd and other-proclaimed “wizard”

things i’m interested in:

science: ALL natural science, esp. neuroscience, neuropsychology, psychology (the mind), biology, anatomy & physiology, ecosystems

other realms: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, human ethology, personality differences

natural noumena: patterns in nature, emergence, self-organization / spontaneous order, chaos theory and fractals

tropes / archetypes

analytical psychology / jungian analysis (not in association to jordan peterson, whom i think is a chode. this is significant to me, because i feel like i share the phenomenological reality with jung that formed the basis of his ideas. many of these forces i’ve noticed on my own, separate from him, before i knew him. so seeing his ideas i was like “oh he put it into words. glad to know someone else has a keen sense for these phenomena”)

socionics model A

other typological systems: enneagram, mbti (not 16personalities), etc. (quizzes are lazy minded, reading the theoretical foundations helps it feel much more significant)

eclectic alternative music subcultures + history: esp. 70s-80s, experimental, psychedelic rock, punk, new wave, post-punk, goth rock, industrial

the venture bros. (bonus points if you understand most of the references because this show is like my personal catnip)

jhonen vasquez: jthm, squee, i feel sick, invader zim (decade+ old fan)

david lynch: twin peaks, eraserhead, blue velvet, mulholland drive, etc

jon bois: pretty good, 17776/20020, chart party, team history documentaries, etc

blaseball

vinesauce

pokemon: in general, but esp. game mechanics

gravity falls (decade old fan)

homestuck (decade old fan)

mother series

star trek* (*slowly immersing myself)

lots of more stuff i probably missed

typology type profile: LII-Ne IN(T) INFJ 5w4 so/sp 514 |R|COAI

random things i want to say:

given enough time i think i could probably explain anything

i live in a very isolated pocket of my own taste in art/music where im not really aware of what everyone else is listening to because it just…doesnt really cross my mind ever? i found out brian eno said something similar, “If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.” i told my friend the other day i feel like i understand my self through music and art, because of the accumulation of my taste i can actually experience my unconscious preference and know what i feel my own experiences reflected in

im best at self-reflection and observations of own my own mental processes

if i were forced to kin a homestuck character it would be aradia megido. we’re very close in spirit

i have similar mannerisms to dipper pines. first time i saw a cartoon character and felt represented

another brian eno quote i strongly relate to: “Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it.”

[onefey]

purely based on the various creature motifs on his clothing/armor and the fact that the one boss we see him summon personally is a giant skeleton, i think zant is very interested in zoology and anthropology. and i think he probably had several published theories (prior to the whole coup thing) on the natural effects of the twilight realm on its native fauna, and how the twili would further evolve based on it. and he kind of saw the whole "shadow beast" evolution as the endgame in a like "well the realm is trying to do this to us anyway so is it even correct of us to try and prevent it" kind of way. what i'm saying is that zant's philosophy is basically someone saying "if carcinisation is going to happen naturally anyway then let's all just become crabs NOW and get it over with"

[loemius]

hi! just wanna say that your blog looks super interesting and i'm glad i came across it 😊 i'm wondering if you have any advice for someone new getting into hellenic polytheism. i have been really delving into my views on spirituality and religion for the first time in my life over the past year. i've been venerating Hekate a lot because of the deep calling i feel towards her. i've been thinking more and more about properly worshipping the other gods in the pantheon as well. i've always been very interested in all the mythology too. it feels right to start on so many levels but i am also so nervous at the same time :')

khaire!! thank you very much for your ask!! i'm very touched that you enjoy my blog so much and would ask for my advice. i'd love to give you some, with the caveat that i am absolutely not an expert or an authority and still have a lot to learn myself. i'm literally just a guy who loves the theoi a lot and does my best to worship them and honor them. this got very long so im gonna put this under a cut

first, i would encourage you to work past your nervousness. remember that historically speaking, children worshipped the theoi! there's plenty of evidence of this, from the rituals that youths would do as they became adults (such as cutting a lock of hair and offering it to the river [see iliad book 23 and pausanias 2.32.1 for primary sources on this, as a starting point]) or epithets like kourotropos (roughly translated to 'child nurturer', many theoi have this epithet, including hekate!). don't be scared of them. the theoi are gracious and good, and imo, they're very understanding. when i first started out, i prayed and basically said 'i'm new to this, i want to jump in and do my best, but i'm still learning. please be gentle and understanding to me as i embark on this path, and please guide me to worship you as you see fit.' i think being upfront about it really helps. i see a lot of people say that they want to worship but don't feel like they've done enough research or aren't ready for whatever reason. but you also have to start somewhere, and experience is a valuable tool on this path. it enriches your research to be doing it with a purpose, imo. you have to start somewhere yknow? as long as you're respectful, the theoi will be understanding, imo. i would highly, HIGHLY suggest you spend a lot of time researching. theoi.com is an invaluable resource. i also suggest perseus.edu, which is a digital library that has a wide collection of primary sources, including the epics and plays. i personally suggest the homeric hymns as a starting point, as most of them are rather short and approachable and make fantastic prayers to read aloud. i also suggest reading the epics and plays if you're able. secondary sources are also good. greek religion by walter burkert is a good source. i also suggest understanding greek religion by jennifer larson. people have a lot of divisive opinions on this one, but i think household worship by labrys can be a helpful source for what to do when it actually comes to doing your own worship and rituals. i also like hellenion as a source. use your discretion and critical thinking with all these sources. no one source is perfect. compare and contrast, look for biases, cross check. also, get interdisciplinary with it! look into theology, archeology, anthropology, philosophy, classics. don't be afraid to look in multiple places for information to piece it all together.

another suggestion i have is to spend some time immersing yourself in greek culture, both ancient and modern. religion and culture are deeply intertwined, and understanding the specific ways in which greeks view things will help you greatly. and look outside of greece too! ancient greece had a lot of contact with other areas of the world like italy, the middle east, and egypt, even india, and this absolutely influenced the religion and culture. be respectful to mediterranean people, and listen and elevate their voices. i very much like the blogs @/gemsofgreece and @/alatismeni-theitsa. you're not just learning about a religion, but an entire culture that still exists in the world today. here's my general worship advice: cleansing is important, but it doesn't have to be anything more than washing your hands before an offering or ritual. if you have a space for the theoi, try to keep it clean. offerings can be as simple or grand as you like. i find a lot of beauty in the simple things. a glass of water or sharing a meal goes a LONG way. clean, fresh water was a very coveted thing in the ancient world, so sharing a glass of water is honestly one of my favorite offerings. you can share your meal by praying over it and inviting the theoi to eat the steam/smells of the meal, or you could set aside a little plate for them if you wanted to (NOTE: traditionally, it is considered taboo to share offerings with kthonic deities. they were traditionally buried, and libations were poured onto the ground. in the modern day, i think setting things aside to be appropriately disposed of later or pouring things down the drain can be an acceptable substitute. its fine to share with ouranic deities!). really, just find little ways to involve them in your day to day life. pray. pray a lot, about anything, big or small. express gratitude to the theoi for the things you appreciate in your life, and share your struggles with them. it doesn't have to be formal (but it should be respectful). nurture your connections with the theoi and allow them to nurture you right back. do not feel obligated to share every part of your practice, especially online. keeping things to yourself or a close group of trusted friends can really be beneficial to you. truthfully i only post like .5% of my practice on this website. inherently, polytheistic practice in the modern day is a very personal practice. what might be a sign to you might not be to others. imo, the theoi reach out to us in ways that make sense to us, with the context and knowledge we have available, and that means its not always going to make sense to others. your practice should be for you and nobody else.

when it comes down to it, i suppose my advice is simple. research and just reach out. realize you're going to make mistakes sometimes (i have!) but as long as you have good intentions and respect the theoi, you'll be just fine. mistakes are a part of growing. don't beat yourself up over them -- use them as an opportunity to learn. we're only human, and the gods know this. your practice is going to change as you develop relationships with the theoi and learn more about them. things you might have resonated with at one point might not hit the same later on down the road, and thats okay! embrace that as a feature of polytheism, not a flaw. i realize i've given a lot of advice and this can be rather overwhelming. i've given you multiple places to start researching, and i absolutely was overwhelmed (and still am sometimes) with just how much information is out there. that is a blessing in hellenic polytheism. not every polytheistic religion has that wealth of information available, so take advantage of it, but do it in a way that's approachable for you. since you're interested in hekate, i would highly suggest you start with looking into deipnon . tldr its a monthly holiday on the new moon that honors hekate and her role in leading spirits, as well as purification for a new month. cleaning and purification of your home, food offerings, and charity acts are all great ways to honor this holiday. from there, you can easily incorporate noumenia and agaithos daimon (holidays to celebrate the beginning of a new month, usually devoted to zeus and other household gods such as apollon). ive really went off on a tangent here, so i'll cut myself off here. thank you again for asking a fantastic question, and i hope my answer can be of assistance to you and anyone else who might be in your position. may the gods bless you and look after you, and guide you with a kind hand as you embark on this journey. and have a great day and a fantastic meal friend <3

[lov3-from-loserlane]

desperately need to know what the thought process behind Kiyo's design is, he feels more like Hollywood's idea of an archaeologist than he does an anthropologist and i'm super curious what led you to it

Yeah no problem! And I see what you mean, but it’s important to know that anthropologists also do outdoor fieldwork, something I’d expect Korekiyo would be doing a ton of as the “ultimate” anthropologist. Both for work and his own enjoyment, based on what he’s said in game. Which is part of where the inspiration came from. Archaeology and Anthropology cover a lot of the same bases actually, but archaeology focuses more on the past and what is, whereas anthropology is more about the interpretation and includes more of the present.

But admittedly, yeah his design is inspired by popular interpretations of archaeologists, adventurers, or any other kind of outdoor researcher. Specifically, what a person doing this type of work would’ve worn in the 1910’s-20’s. I take a lot of historical references for my clothing designs, but haven’t taken much from this era before. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity! I also incorporated some African textiles in his scarf and socks. The lining of his shorts and his pockets are just colored to match. I feel like he’d want to incorporate some cultural “appreciation” in his look, it’s a little tongue in cheek to “that type of guy” if you know what I mean.

His hair and sunglasses though are very late 60’s-70’s inspired. This was another big change I wanted to make to his design and to his character. I felt in the original, they were trying to go for a “well this guy is SO weird and scary that he couldn’t ACTUALLY be bad. Thatd be too obvious! …unless 😼” thing, which didn’t really work for me. So I wanted him to come off equal parts trustworthy and competent as he is weird and creepy. And at first, his “creepiness” would be easily explained away by him subtly accusing people who question his antics of being “culturally unaware.” So yeah, I thought giving him that 60’s-70’s, hippie, culturally aware, intellectual look would really sell that. He’d be looked to as one of the smartest, most rational people in the group. Even if the stuff he was saying sounded like pure fantasy, I think people would still believe him. Plus I’m sure Kiyo would be crazy for hallucinogens LOL which would fit the times. His “everything in life is beautiful and worth experiencing, even the ugly parts,” philosophy I can also see fitting in well with the era. That look I feel like also gave him just slight serial killer vibes. And, yknow, he is one. So I think it works.

Here are some of my specific references:

[roguesynapses]

Hi!

I am a Marxist-Leninist, but lately I have been thinking about getting closer to anarchists. First and foremost because my local communist organisation behaved absolutely inhumane lately (anarchists are also not perfect but not that bad, or at least they seem so), but I also admit that anarchist criticism of ML asks questions that I also wonder about.

So like, can you share some readings on anarchist theory and practice for someone with ML background?

If you have enough spoons to waste on me, here is what made me associate with ML:

(Break is weird because I do it to separate main part from addition)

Mostly just the fact that out of people around me they were making the most sense when discussing current affairs and history, but also like most of the available alternatives range from liberals who literally admire Hobbes as great hero to open fascist (both Hitler and Mussolini types, I live in such a diverse society), so it's not hard. Also like the only revolutions that lasted more than a couple of years were ML in nature, but also all of those states while achieving things eventually decayed and gave birth to elites of their own, so like, there is something wrong with the scheme. Also as I said I care a lot about history as a foundation of my beliefs, and Marxists make the most sense out of it, but also even more advanced versions than Engels have plenty of what I assume to be blind spots. It's mostly some distant stuff like how feudalism is in no way successor to Ancient world and not as universal as it "should" be, but any failure to explain something in the past makes someone's prediction of future questionable.

I can recommend a few introductory books, though they are not by all means the be all-end all of anarchist thought. Anarchism is a widely spread ideology, and especially at its intersection of socialism, and opinions differ from theorist to theorist, even if basic principles are mostly agreed upon. Keep that in mind as you explore further.

Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos is probably the most popular introductory work, and explains the basic principles quite nicely, although in my opinion it does contain some inaccuracies, policies I don't support and glosses over some points which should be explored more.

An Anarchist FAQ is not so much a coherent theoretical work, but is rather an exploration and rebuttal of frequently asked questions from a social anarchist perspective. It's by no means perfect, and does not claim to be so. Personally, it's a little mutualistic for my tastes, but there's good stuff in there.

Anarchy by Errico Malatesta is far closer to a classic piece of theory, if a short one, expressing the positions of a committed Anarcho Communist and one of the most prominent theorists of modern Anarchism. Although Malatesta is against syndicalism more than I would be, it's still a great introductory work.

Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman is seen as a pivotal work by many in explaining the philosophy of anarchism, as well as offering a contemporary view of anarchist theory at the previous apex of the movement at the turn of the 20th century.

As for history, many social anarchist at least largely agree with the Social view of history Marx postulated in broad terms, though there is heavy debate and disagreement on the finer points. Digressing from that, Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is probably the widest distributed work of the intersection of anthropology, history, and anarchism, even if it uses outdated terms and phrases. Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber and Against The Grain by James C Scott both explore the early history of states, with the former going more into economic value theories and the latter going more into the history and causes of the state itself. Scott's other works critiquing the state (Seeing Like a State and Two Cheers for Anarchism) are also quite good, which is impressive considering he does not call himself an anarchist.

If you'd like to discuss one on one, you can message me here or on my discord, I'll be happy to discuss. Happy reading, friend.

[florshedworf]

okay uhhh i legitimately could not sleep until i got this down so i suppose im posting her publicly.

pondering on what the next episode would be about led to the idea of lila hiring a babysitter. concepts ensued and have led us here so far

(more concepts and info under cut)

aubrey!!!

concept info

i wanted to play around with the babysitter immune to the Horrors trope (think edna or erma’s babysitter)

i also played around around her being a witch for a bit? still thinking about that

age n occupation

she’s a college student, pretty fresh out of highschool (max a year or so out)

she’s studying a major in criminology and a minor in philosophy, which other various interests in anthropology and ecology

she currently lives in an apartment with her girlfriend and little brother

she works at boys n grills

she started doing gigs as a babysitter as she needed more cash to pay school fees (i.e. books n electronics n stuff). and also boys and grills wasn’t having much business after yknow. the whole human meat thing

personality

as shown in the sketches above she’s entirely an overpreparer. earlier concepts had her wearing a fanny pack with a fucking crossbow.

she’s also very silly!!! she loves to watch bad horror movies to laugh at them, and loves true crime videos, especially when they’re bad. so she can laugh at them.

[specialagentartemis]

Grade a fanfic trope meme - soulmates because I feel like I know what the answer will be, but hard mode, is there any variation or twist on this trope that would make you grade it higher

For the fanfic trope ask game

[F] Hated these for a long time. I only ever saw one type: you have one, fated soulmate, and it is a romantic partner, and even when I liked the ship in question it sucked the fun out of everything. Both because of the idea that amatonormativity is a divine law of the universe which is an inherently horror concept to me played off as nice and cute, and that it was a contrived shortcut to get over the whole "actually building a relationship" part. Boo. Also, under the surface and never addressed, All Soulmate AUs Are Inherently Dubcon. You Do Not Get A Choice.

However,

[C] I turn out to be able to quite like variants where 1) you can and usually do have multiple soulmates, 2) it reflects all sorts of different important relationships in your life, not just One Romantic One, and crucially 3) the soulmate soulmarks are more reactive rather than predictive. React to the person you have become and the person they have become, meshing. Soulmates as compatibilistic time travel. Your soul recognizing itself across time and leaving a tangible mark on your body. We played with that in Wolf 359 a little, and in Murderbot fandom bringing the strong a-spec and self-determination themes of the series into it, in ways that make me go, I can see something interesting and compelling in this. I actually have half a fanfiction sitting in WIP drafts that was a conscious effort to grapple with my ambivalence with the trope, find a way to make it feel like something amorally natural rather than insidiously horrifying. (Part of it is having a character who hates the whole idea and rejects them rather than thinking soulmates are of course the Best Thing Ever! And another who comes from a culture who tattoo over soulmarks the moment they appear - each tattoo representing someone in your life who is/is going to be very important to you, but you don't feel deterministically compelled to Make It Happen.)

So deep down the twist to make me grade it higher is anthropological worldbuilding and Ted Chiang's time travel philosophy lol. Okay, if that's true, how does it affect the world and society? Who cares about shipping I'm here for WORLDBUILDING and METAPHYSICS

[kaycode1999]

hi! could i please get male match-up for Transformers Prime and My Hero Academia?

pronouns, sexuality, etc:

female, she/her, hererosexual

also i don't think i have a type

personality:

i’m kind-hearted, compassionate and caring, but also elegant and ladylike. i'm calm, delicate and sweet, i treat everyone politely and with respect. i'm cheerful, optimistic, friendly and bright. i'm very caring and loving, especially when it comes to family. i'm energetic, bubbly and happy-go-lucky, but i can be very mature when the time comes. i have also very strong sense of duty. i don't take any nonsense and i'm not afraid to stand up to anyone who gets on my bad side. i'm very ambitious, enthusiastic and i like making friends. i find satisfaction in life's simplest gifts. i love adventures, exploring and enjoying the nature. i have morbid, dark and sharp sense of humor. i can be stubborn and overwork myself a lot. i love children. i always related to disney’s miss bianca, maid marian and duchess.

my aesthetic:

elegant gothic lolita, i'm all about puffy frilly dresses with bows and lace

likes:

plants, animals, philosophy, thanatology, the supernatural & paranormal, anything macabre, morbid, disturbing, & creepy, horror media, literature, serial killers, insects & bugs, witchcraft, classical music & goth music, classical & gothic literature, history, forensics, criminology, anthropology, psychology, mythology, books

thank you so much! have a wonderful day/night ♡

TFP MHA

I match you with I match you with

Bumblebee Taishiro Toyomitsu/Fatgum

These two have fairly similar personalities so I’m just going to combine them

Both of them are a lot like you in that they are caring, compassionate, etc.

There are certain things where opposites attract is true but in this case being so similar is the reason you get along so well. You share the same world view and ideals

They both also stand up to those that cross them, and lets be honest that person would deserve it because they are both so sweet and practically angels😂. However, on you they find it very attractive and get this sense of pride. *think this scene from Trolls where Branch sees Poppy choking Creek*

The whole opposites attract thing I mentioned? I think the case with your sense of humor fits perfectly in that. That is to say they don't necessarily have the same sense of humor, but they very much appreciate it on you and will even send you jokes they hear or come across online that they think you will find funny

I think both of them to some extent understand overworking yourself, and everyone can be stubborn at times. All both of them want is for you to take care of yourself to the best of your ability, and when or if you can't they'll do it for you (this is a partnership after all)

Liking being around kids is a non-negotiable as both of them have several kids in their lives that mean a lot to them (Bee has Raf, Miko, and Jack- and Fatgum has Amajiki, Kirishima, and a few more if I'm not mistaken but I can not remember their names) so its great that you do

Basically, they just adore you more than anything and love spending time with you no matter what

*FYI I had a really hard time going between Hawks and Fatgum for the MHA one, but Fatgum just felt more right*

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Worldbuilding: Systems...So you want to invent a prejudicial and discriminatory system... or change the ones you know

This section will heavily lean into philosophy and sociology. I have to caveat this part heavily that though I majored in anthropology concentrated in systems, the theoretical framework for how it would work with say a newly minted prejudice isn’t well put together in either anthropology, sociology or philosophy. Rather, I put these things together as a theoretical model based on overlap I’ve seen with my specific intersections. I am also far, far more familiar with getting hated for random things I can’t control than I am for having a privilege. Despite this, I did my best to collate things together to give you things to think about and think through for the thing you want to create.

I have leaned a bit into psychology and social psychology as well. However, I’m not using debunked theories, but I will mark them in case you want to examine them anyway. This probably should go after the whole art-clothing-religion posts, since systems of discrimination often weaponize, burn or otherwise try to degrade on those very visible bases (also food. Food is an easy passport, thus also easier to attack). But I thought I would put the theory out there given the recent hateful rhetoric so people could deconstruct it.

BTW, Hate isn’t fun to read, but I think it makes you appreciate love more. A lot of the activists I’ve read have treaties on hate, but then turn around and talk even more fiercely what it means to love. And I think you’ll understand that.

As I’ve said many times, “Hate is not creative, love is. This is because you must honestly and truly face each person that you choose to love and see them for who they truly are, but hate erases their faces.”

Vocabulary

Attained- You earned it during your lifetime. I know people are going to say that it’s clear cut, but sometimes it isn’t and then it gets tricky.

Ascribed- In sociology this means it was given to you, but you didn’t get to choose it and you didn’t do anything to earn it.

prejudice- “requires having learned a negative stereotype in the form of concepts, beliefs, and emotions“ https://academic.oup.com/book/6982/chapter-abstract/151285773?redirectedFrom=fulltext

This is generally internalized, i.e. for the in-group.

Comes in many forms.

discrimination passive versus active.- Discrimination are actions that lead to hate towards another group.

It is possible to discriminate against a group without having the prejudice to do so due to peer pressure, not wanting to out yourself, or not wanting to face discrimination.

It’s also to be discriminatory by not taking an action to intervene--which makes the whole thing messy.

You can also be actively discriminatory and have prejudicial beliefs.

System- System (for this post) is mostly referring to prejudice and societal rules and expectations towards certain people by class, race, ethnicity, religion, ability, sexuality, sexual orientation, etc.

intersectionalites- This is where more than one identity is within the person. So Queer and PoC. This is not the same thing as the additive model where it asks you to do one at a time. Instead it says in the experiences of the person, these things cannot be separated individually, but must be studied together.

equality

equity

The popular image to distinguish them. (Not my image)

marked v. unmarked.

So something like Woman teacher is marked. Gay football coach is marked. Unmarked would be something like Doctor or lawyer. The problem often is that marginalize groups are marked. And even within marginalized groups, the “majority” group goes unmarked, while the majority group goes marked. It’s one of those things useful for storytelling about prejudice.

So for example, for a while there were aces that said that sex repulsed, no sexual attraction ever were the “default” but the “marked” group was “Gray aces” and “Demi Aces (somehow forgetting all of the other aces, but whatever).

Anyway, this creates a false “default” group, though later on the sexrepulsed aces no sexual attraction ever group relabeled to “Black Stripe Aces” which means both groups are now marked. (Demis are under gray aces as a subset.)

This can also be subtle as well, when groups try to say “I’m more oppressed more than you” though the original person who termed “oppression olympics” solidly argued against it and said that cooperation should be needed.

It’s also worth it to know microaggressions, though the word might have warped meaning since I last used it. It often is paired with implicit belief systems.

BTW, there is hot debate on if after you set up a system if people within the system no matter where they are are automatically complicit in it, which I’ve covered a whole ton. Sometimes it’s really difficult or impossible not to feed or perpetuate a system, even when you’re trying to change it. And it gets trickier with intersectional needs, etc which I already covered.

Why are humans prone to prejudice?

If culture is defined, as we did earlier on an impossible ideal no one can achieve, then prejudice, theoretically makes this ideal amplified, more impossible and worse.

Humans are prone to want meaning and pattern to everything so it can be organized, but the world is chaos. And chaos is hard to accept to our primate ape brains.

Humans want to think they are doing good when they are doing bad.

Not all cultures, but a lot of European cultures think of things in binary. Good vs. Evil. Rather than shades of good an shades of bad, and where are we with that?

Humans don’t think about impact, intention, and have trouble separating it. If the intention is good, then how can the impact be bad? If the intention was bad, but the impact was good, then is the person still evil? Ah, philosophy loves, loves these questions.

Also, most religions point out that empathy takes time, effort, attention which most people don’t want to spend. And by most religions, I am pointing ot Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Shinto, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Mugyo to a degree, Taoism, etc. One of the huge core philosophical problems that religion tries to often tackle is how do you get people to share when they have too much. Thus people are more prone to judging over sharing in an effort to be selfish and say their own desires are greater than anothers to prove they deserve to own things. STUFF, which often gets a specific name in many religions. But maybe this exact struggle that religions keep asking us to not judge others, golden rule, shows an exact human struggle with accepting the other and seeing systems of oppression around you and being willing to take action to stop them.

How to create a Prejudice

- Privileged group suppresses and dominates over something they want.

- Feel guilty about it and then justify it.

Try to retcon it in 2 steps:

- A. Retcon it to the privileged group such that the justifications become “facts”

- B. Retcon it to the suppressed group. In technical speak create internalized prejudice.

Total erasure so it is not taught, thought about or spoken about so the original suppression history is lost to the group because the system was “always this way”, “It’s natural” and “It never changed” so that the people who are being suppressed stay suppressed. Privileged group wins.

It’s important to know that the justification system doesn’t have to ever match the reason initially why those people were oppressed. If it was for money, wealth, power, then the framing system doesn’t have to be about money, wealth or power. It could be, because they look weird, have the wrong _religion, ethnicity, etc_. The justifications the group comes up with is always on differences they perceived about the other group, but usually the reasons why it started aren’t related. They need a mechanism to feel superior.

For example, the framing that poor people are lazy comes from a misreading of the Bible, which was used to justify the workhouses from the regency period to about the mid 20th century. Because the real reason for the disparity wasn’t really about poor people being lazy or that they didn’t work hard enough, but that over time rich people accumulated a large amount of wealth, sometimes with swindling without any checks on their activities. They might have said things like God gave me this wealth and power, and then the connections other people had to them reinforced that over time. But it feels better to say poor people are lazy, rather than to face poor might be working three to four jobs to try to get ahead and may not have access to things like housing, food, medical care, and so on the rich took away from them through generational wealth. It’s much easier to think that you and your own earned it through legitimate means than to think you earned that wealth through say the government giving you handouts and redlining so Blacks were kicked out of their neighborhoods so you could get benefit--we earned this through hard work through getting education, not because we helped to suppress other people. Owning the bad one has done, and ones predecessors has done is hard.

This is why Ben Affleck is known for being liberal, but having issues with confronting his slave owning ancestor.  https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/25/417455657/after-ben-affleck-scandal-pbs-postpones-finding-your-roots

It’s easier to deal with how one thinks they are good and their own before them were good, and the benefits one has in their current time to be morally correct. It’s much, much harder to acknowledge that one is bad or could be bad.

To make it work:

- you need an impossible ideal for people to achieve and rank people closer to that ideal

- If you recruit more people into thinking that they can be the ideal, the more that the system will codify and be harder to overthrow. 

- Fear and loss of control are used as methods to divide and conquer mainly to reinforce the system and force the privileged group to keep to the system.

- Doing a series of divides and conquers every time a civil rights issue comes up, so people fight for your table scraps is the best strategy.

- Make it so people focus on the wrong issue and take umbrage every time the core issue is addressed. For example, Asian rights--that’s OK, though still take exception to that. But whiteness? Oh, you have a fight on your hands, because that’s the power basis. You hate white people now, rather than the basis on which the racism system actually operates.

- If you take away basic resources and rights, like right to food, water, shelter from the less privileged group, this shows the threat of what happens if the privileged group is “with them”.

- Pit different oppressed groups against each other or say one group has more when they do not. There are a lot of examples of this. Gays against Blacks. Blacks against Gays. Asians against Blacks. Blacks against Asians. White Immigrants against PoC immigrants and then use that leverage to get what the privileged group wants and 

- Make sure to ignore intersectionality. What do you mean there is a Gay Black Asian and White Immigrant? “One. at. a. time. people.” “Don’t be confusing.” “You must hate yourself.” That sort of rhetoric.

Then you need a justification for why these people can’t achieve that ideal, then put in roadblocks to make sure they can’t possibly achieve that ideal. If you do it over at least two generations, one can say it was natural and supposed to be this way. The more generations without people fighting back or making it impossible for them to fight back, the better because the real history as it gets erased will be forgotten.

Prejudice and the abuse wheel

BTW, if this vaguely looks like the abuse wheel, welp, as I’ve said many times, Hate is not creative. Love is creative.

How does privilege work. Warning PDF:  https://socwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/fact_3-2010-oppression.pdf

- Fragility is created by the rigidity that the system demands by creating an impossible ideal. The more impossible the ideal, the more likely if people are told, they can achieve it too, they can cooperate.

General Characteristics about privilege:

- Privilege allows one to ignore the problem

- One can quit at any time one wants.

- One can choose not to engage 

- The benefits are invisible built over generations, not ones own lifetime such that they become ascribed status. However, the person is more likely to focus on their achieved status.

- privilege works so that one doesn’t have to see the wrong.

- privilege is endemic in the system, but talking about the system is not allowed or seen.

- the systems has to lie to both the marginalized and privileged

- justifications

- a scant 100 years is enough to establish a system

- privilege is more likely to love the idea of individualism over collectivism—greater good

- Privilege will label social justice, progress towards equity and awareness as “angry” and label it with “negative” emotions.

- privilege may shift by location

- Privilege will often stick itself into places it doesn’t belong with behavior like ‘splaining, invading minority places, or fail to recognize statistics/real numbers why their feelings comes before fact.

- fragility

- talking violence to real people is less desirable

- controlling media is a huge part of the system.

- Denial of participation

- Minimizing

- Xblind- didn’t happen, can’t see, it but know how I love those people.

- bootstrap argument

• “Stop being so sensitive! I didn’t mean it.” Speaking in a derogatory manner about a person or group of people based on social group memberships can, cumulatively, have a devastating impact (Sue, 2010). Disconnecting our own language or action is another form of resistance because it minimizes the indiscretion and sends the message that anyone who challenges the language or behavior is simply being overly sensitive. https://studylib.net/doc/8345440/oppression-without-bigots---sociologists-for-women-in-soc...

• “I am just one person, I can’t change anything!” Seeing oneself as incapable of creating change is a means of excusing oneself from accepting any responsibility. Individuals often conceive of social inequalities as too large to tackle, and thus rationalize their lack of action. 

- privilege separates privileged from the marginalized group such that it becomes harder to communicate.

- Tone policing.

Active Hater:

- Control is the point because change is scary.

- Most of the time the main device is fear mongering about the other.

- It’s explicit, in your face, and might even come down to genocide.

- Often addicted to conflict and pressed into constant anxiety. It’s not healthy.

- Often hate people, but have never worked to understand or met them.

Passive Privileged person

Permanent bystander I don’t hate that group of people, but you know, I don’t want to really interact with them, have them in my house, or really be around them that often because, really, I need something that feels “normal”. I’ll stand up against explicit hate because I’m not a bad person, but you know that needling that person did, was it really prejudice? When that person cut that socially disadvantaged person off at every turn, not sure if it really was privilege. I kinda know it’s wrong, but I’m not going to speak up and speak out. When that person said, “This is America!” and my PoC friend told me that, maybe the person was having a bad day I’ll explain to them, because you know, it’s not good to rock the issues too much.

The “Be nice” person. Be nice in only this situation to the least number of people without thinking about long term consequences of that person’s ignorance. Someone might think it’s funny to call me a “G--k” if the person is a bystander and says to me, be nice to them and don’t challenge them or be angry, who does that help the most in that situation? The unwitting person that doesn’t know it’s a slur and might use it to someone else, me, or only a Bandaid in the situation. Thus niceness doesn’t help end the prejudice. Often this camp of people also say, “Why are you so angry” and ask why it’s justified and ask you to justify it to them or say that words don’t hurt or matter, only actions do, as if words were not actions and words have not gotten civil leaders killed. Master of telling you how to act and feel so they don’t have to be uncomfortable types. But you see, it’s not discriminatory to act this way, they say. Sometimes the kindest thing to do is point out that the word is a slur and take it slowly so the person knows this is true.

Ignorant Ally: Wants to do good, but ignorant on the issues. An ignorant ally, BTW, is very useless. Sometimes ignorant allies can do more to hurt a cause than help it. In this way they still are passive.

Whack-a-mole: Activated, but want to tackle one person at a time, too timid to think about laws, and then finds out there is a deluge coming in their direction. Another mole comes up, but they aren’t moving forward, and don’t want to really spend time on the larger causes. This is more closer to the self-satisfied schadenfreude addict than doing anything effective.

Schadenfreude addict- In it to feel superior to other people, but if you ask them if they are really thinking about changing the cause, and working to listen to people’s concerns, the answer is no. They aren’t whacking moles one by one, but they are looking for a quick fix so it’s about THEM not the cause. When they meet resistance, they lose sight of the goal in front of them. Honestly, these, especially when the person is privileged and don’t belong to the group they are defending are the worst to deal with. Bystanders can be activated. Allies can be educated, Whack-a-mole types can be redirected to larger causes, these types of addicts really don’t care about the cause, the minority group or the people in front of them. They only care about themselves and their next fix. Often these people will hurt your cause rather than help it by doing more damage by thinking they are doing good when they really don’t care beyond feeling morally superior. Because their goal is antagonism, it often alienates people who could have been converted and creates more division than unity.

Active Privileged Positive Person

There are far more activists with better theories than me in this field in variety of places. The anti-woke crowd usually hates them.

I would try for people like Martin Luther King Jr (not the I have a Dream speech, though it’s you’re going to read that, read the ENTIRE thing and reflect on why he didn’t call it the “March on Washington” like a lot of white people these days call it).

I’d also look at bell hooks

Audre Lorde

The Free Breakfast movement (which was Black, Latine, and Asian) It’s partnership and allyship and how much positive it can do over time.

If you want to get into the really confusing gritty stuff they don’t usually show in things like Marvel Comics, United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind--gives you a headache swimming through it, but worth looking at. I should note that most actions where one group tries to sell out another group never work out in history and often both groups are set back when they cut out intersectionality and refuse to focus on the main issue. As I said for racism, the focus should be on whiteness. (Which is not the same thing as hating white people.)

As a weird side step, though if you analyze it correctly, you’ll think about it, The Hatfields v. McCoys. I know people won’t think it’s social justice related, but it shows how quickly lies, fear and hate can circulate, so if you analyze the situation and really think on it, you should be able to come up with interesting takes.

I’d also read NK Jemisin, Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou on what it was like to break into the writing industry and the activism they did. They often talk about how to write to your own group also what makes an ally an ally.

Allyship is always precarious for the in-group. They have nothing to lose and also nothing to really gain from the insider’s perspective. No matter how many daughters, sons, children, nieces, nephews, spouses, etc that were of that label, it doesn’t mean they will be reliable.

On the flipside, it’s often difficult to be an ally, because you have to learn about positives and negatives of your own history and what people like you did in similar situations. Plus you have to reflect on a lot of shitty things all of the time that are absolutely draining, so quitting looks easier than persisting.

I get that people on the internet think allyship is yelling at people and then trying to win the argument against them, but honestly that doesn’t usually work and I made a treaties about that already. (Philosophy of Social Activism or something like that since I couldn’t find any documents about how hard it actually is to climb through it.)

So for this, I defer to much better writers than I am about what it actually means.

Ways to oppress people:

Nature v. Nurture Argument Wherein you argue it's nurture or nature to make the argument that whatever the person is experiencing/experienced is wrong.

Groups Observed Examples: LGBTQIA community, Adoption community, Mental Health community, Foster care community, body image. (Previously the left handed people of the 1950's and earlier.) Also, some disabilities.

Polarization Wherein the person outside of the experience argues that the group is either all evil or all good. (i.e. hate or philia)

Groups Observed Examples: Fetishizing of women in PoC groups is philia. Noble Savage is a philia. "Blacks are all criminals" is hate.

Sweeping generalizations about the group rather than examining the individuals. All _X_ are X. All groups I know of go through this. They have to fight for the right to individuality and range within their community. Often when doing so, people on the outside argue that they are "impossible" to deal with and that the individualism within the group is proof of the reason they can polarize them. Also assumption that one person's opinion is all of the group's opinion. Also often used as a reason to use a "divide and conquer" approach to civil rights.

Economic interest A lot of prejudice starts with pure economic interest.

Groups Observed Examples:  Gay people and lesbian people are told in some states/countries that they can be fired for their sexual orientation and no other reason. PoCs have also suffered greatly due to economic interest (GB is NOT exempt. I have sources for that). Socio-economic classes also fall into this. And so on. Some religious groups as well, such as Jews, recently Muslims, etc.

Invasion of personal boundaries because of X without permission. "Where are you really from?" "What do you have?" "Well are you on welfare?" Or asking personal questions in general to prove a political point, etc. (It's no longer about the person in front of you.)

Groups Observed Examples: People with disabilities, Adoption and Foster Care, PoCs, LGBTQIA (from what I heard)

"Closet" idea. This is where one has to reveal themselves as being part of the minority power group. Sometimes other people "out" you without permission. Groups Observed Examples:  LGBTQIA tends to share this across the board. Some Adoption legs also have this feature attached. Mental Health also has this feature. *Some* segments of PoC also have this (i.e. the controversial trying to pass). LGBTQIA tends to go through this issue more. (As a converse, some people think they can "sense" it and just know by looking).

Projection/Transference "You should be grateful."/ "Get over it." Wherein the Majority power group tells the minority power group that whatever they benefitted from them is their problem. OR feel like the position of the minority power group is such that they can project their hate and desires onto them. (For example: "When I touched her butt, she was asking for it wearing that short skirt.")

Groups Observed Examples: All groups I've run into complain about this issue.

Assumption that the only thing they talk about 24-7 is their affiliation with Minority Power group OR only Majority power group. Women talk only about feminism, or only talk about men. LGB talk only about sexual orientation and the heteronormative group, etc.

Groups Observed Examples: All. I have yet to run into a group that hasn't had this problem on television or media.

Infantilization Classic examples are "Women can't rescue themselves." "White people need to rescue the native population from themselves." "Adopted people are forever children." And drawings of actually putting people in baby clothes in order to demean their group. (And if you doubt that happened... uhhh... it really is disturbing). This can simply be done by tone and lecturing someone on what it means to be a part of their group because the dominant group thinks they know better and thus, the lecturing in a slow voice is like schooling a misbehaving child. 

Groups Observed Examples: Women, PoCs, Adopted People (though I've heard of Relinquishing parents getting this crap too), People with Disabilities (Physical or mental), LGBTQIA, and senior citizens. (Good to put into media as a way to suppress and demoralize a population.)

Savior Complex/"You should be grateful." The majority group feels obligated to "save" the minority group from mostly themselves, so then the minority group has to be grateful by working harder for the majority group.

Groups Observed Examples:  LGBTQIA, Adoption, PoC, Women

Minority power groups are compared to or are "food" *trigger warning* "fruity" for homosexual, particularly gay. (Notice the gender relations overlap) Women, in general being compared to food. "Her skin was like honey." "Her skin was like cream." (Contrast point, men are usually cutlery.) PoCs on food comparisons. N.K. Jemisin pointed this out, but the majority of the skin comparisons for African descent tends to be slave items. "Almond" eyes for Asian. (And really excuse this) *strong trigger warning* (Not way to censor it...: sorry.) coconut, Twinkie, etc for half or passing. Mental Health: "nutty" When did other humans become digestable? There is so much psychology to unpack in this one. (Freud's oral phase, anyone?)

Minority groups compared to animals. I think this one is obvious. This is more likely to come up in writing and not so much in every day life anymore, but it does come up. I'll leave you to think of them on your own.

Groups Observed Examples: biracial... (I've heard one for black and white). From here, you get basic behaviors to ignore there is a problem... but I think we know them all. It's a basic "No See Monkey, No Hear Monkey and I didn't speak it Monkey. It was Monkey's grandfather who gave that privilege. So Monkey doesn't have to do anything to challenge that privilege. Besides Monkey's best friend is X and *they* never told me about the embarrassing prejudice they got even though I never asked more than one person or about their experience, so it doesn't exist." Yes, I know they are really apes...

“They are Invaders”

Basic fear mongering and paranoia.

Groups observed: Gay people. Immigrants/Xenophobia. PoC, trans. LGBTQIA in general. Neurodiversity “I mean there are so many Autistic people right now--they had to be 'created’“ type of lines.

One. At. a. Time.

You are lying. You can’t be this combination.

“What do you mean legal immigrants can be PoC.” *cough* Haitian Immigrants seeking Asylum who are not from mental institutions which were pretty much shut down though not completely during Reagan’s era.

“You can only be biracial PoC and white." Forget Blasian.

“You can’t be Korean and a Jew because adoptees don’t exist and Jews don’t adopt. Only Christians can adopt.” (I’ve gotten this one, despite the head rabbi in NYC of a pop synagogue is Korean Jew)

“You can’t be trans woman and identify as gay.”

“You can’t be nonbinary and label your sexual orientation as ___.”

Pansexual and Bisexual. Do I have to explain it to the point that this group came up with Schrodinger’s cat?

“What do you mean you can have more than one disability and be gay.”

“Stop saying you’re disabled and asexual, that’s harmful to the disability community.”

Groups Observed: All of the ones I can think of. Are there any exceptions?

Policing Language of the Oppressed Group.

“You can’t use CRT and Woke anymore, PoCs, it’s hateful to white people.”

“You can’t use Karen to call out white women, because it’s hateful to all women.”

“Queer was ONLY an oppressive word” and wasn’t used in the 19th century by in-groups of Queer people to label themselves, and later claimed in the 1980′s mostly by PoC activists and advocated for by people like by Audre Lorde.

“Gender critical,” originally was a branch of Critical theory, thus using it to hate on trans is also anti-women, since the people the came up with Gender Critical theory are mostly women, not trans people. BTW, a large chunk of the women I mention in this post also contributed to it. Kimberlé Crenshaw heavily contributed to it (She came up with Intersectional theory, and she’s really good to read to try to navigate Misogynoir on Anita Hill’s case) So as an auxilary, it’s also racist.

Groups observed: ALL of them. You can’t use that word anymore because you are being hateful, so the issue becomes about rhetoric, pedenatic and you never have to discuss the core issue. Racism (a system of hatred based on melanin and physical features which ranked people by the amount of melanin they have as better or worse.) Sexism, etc. This often comes with a huge side of ‘splaining as well.

If the privileged group wins, BTW, then the oppressed group runs out of language to talk about the problems against their group and couple that with massive retcons, and this sets back the group spectacularly in one fell swoop--sometimes you don’t need the other stuff. If you can control on those two fronts alone, you can win in less than a generation. (I know this as an adoptee. It’s really amazing how much adoptees don’t know anything about adoption history and since we didn’t get to fight to shape the language around adoption, the popular rhetoric is fought against us on the street and we have no defenses to fight back because finding the history is pulling teeth ‘cause it’s buried under the other pile of history that’s often purposefully forgotten. Being an adoptee is getting shocks every time you run into another doc that talks about it usually with some other social justice issue.)

Ways power corrupts absolutely

Most of the time, let’s be honest, the majority of hatred directed towards others is about property or just pure and utter disgust at finding something is different. Power only amplifies what is inherently a part of the person.

Why is it so difficult to overturn a started system, but it is faster to set up one?

Setting up division is faster because hate is as stated, much easier to reach for and do than empathy. Quick judgements take no time at all to sit and understand the person across from you. You can be lazy point to a person, and voila. It takes time to codify it, but once it is codified, the lies are circulating and it’s difficult to overturn when you’re denied your own history.

Extended analogy time.

Say a bunch of kids were kidnapped as babies from their neighbor’s house. The neighbor could not get their children back from the kidnappers. The children as then told that those weird people over there want to kill them and they shouldn’t believe them.

There is nothing to contradict that for those children that this isn’t true and in fact if the whole society shouts at them this is very normal, how are they supposed to believe their biological parents that they love them and only want them to be home with them? If you multiply this over time, such that these children have children of their own, they would legitimately believe their kidnappers. and generations after would believe the kidnappers.

Overturning this information would be hard. But say they are also told for various reasons and their children are also that DNA tests will kill them. Or they are denied information about DNA and are told they will be called evil for doing so, overturning that whole belief system without any alternative narrative is difficult. Even if they did the DNA tests, they might have doubts and think they might say... “go to hell” for doing so or DNA tests introduce harmful chemicals, etc. Degrees of the belief would persist because they were robbed of the original story and their history.

Say they were able to finally get the DNA test... well, now they don’t know the original history, because that was their great grandmother’s family and that history is lost. So maybe those cousins in the family would call that branch of the family names once they found out that these descendants had been kidnapped. There is no history to tell them they were great people at all. Maybe their great grandfather was a banker. They can’t find it out—the records are too old, the town willfully helped and burned them, so the stories about their ancestors being say... homeless ruffians that stole things might still plague them. How can they overturn this?

This is why it’s entirely possible to subjugate a population. Humans cling to history, time, movement, but also don’t want to think of themselves as the aggressors.

Did Feminism fail Men?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOhs9jxe4lM

This is probably worth watching to think on if Privilege have negative effects on the privileged group as well. This isn’t to say the privileged group is “more oppressed” than the people they oppress, but to think and examine if the separation created really was helpful to the society and the lack of integration between the groups, or the built up animosity might also create issues people don’t think about. (Fragility, for example is one--not being able or not knowing how to talk to people of that group after the brainwashing job the system did, etc or really being afraid of that group when they could have been sharing a beer with you.).

[vasilinaorlova]

In this video, recorded three weeks ago (before the start of my practicum, which already began), I am talking about differences between coaching and counseling--admittedly, this is not a lecture or a laid-out number of differences but an attempt to distinguish between the two in a messy situation where disciplinarily, counseling and coaching are not institutionalized to the degree when distinctions become clear for everyone. There is a lot of suspicion and uneasiness about coaching in the counseling circles and maybe vice versa, and some of the differences are: coaching is not currently a licensed profession, it does not require a formal preparation or a formal completion of a degree as of 2024 (I am sure that will change in the future), and therefore coaching could be an umbrella term for a lot of shady practices in which people are harmed. The second difference is not institutional but pertains to the essence of what is done in counseling versus coaching: at least the type of counseling I am [being] initiated into does provide a clinical mental health diagnosis on the basis of recognized, identified, and formulated symptoms, whereas coaching does not engage with this layer of conceptualization of the client at all. That the coaching does not engage in conceptualizing the client in terms of mental health care however does not mean that the client would not have the symptoms of mental health issues--if the client does, and, as a coach trained in mental health counseling, the coach has the ability to recognize the disorder, the coach is obviously under obligation to direct the client to a mental health care professional licensed in the area.

I am going on a number of tangents in the video, which is why I like recording videos so much--talking is not writing. In particular, I am recollecting our anthropology seminars about affect and infrastructure led by the inimitable Kathleen Stewart--to me, these seminars were group counseling more than anything else. It is sometimes challenging to demarcate the clear borders between the types of engagement with people. Disciplinarily, some boundaries are fuzzy, but I believe in the ability of humanity to get very clear on the distinction between counseling and coaching eventually. When I talk about the market request, what I am saying is that not only do the clients who seek coaching understand that they are not seeking counseling, but also there is a type of engagement between people that is categorically different from counseling. I think another area of distinction is that counseling is following the feelings, whereas coaching is looking into life goals. The goals in counseling are clinical (for example, improve behavior by improving cognition), and the goals in coaching are externalized into the outside world. The distinction between counseling and coaching that counseling is focusing on the past and coaching is focusing on the future, that is currently popular to a degree it could be called a convention, I am skeptical about because counseling can focus on the future too--there is even something called "future-oriented" or "future-directed" therapy, founded by Jennice Vilhauer, which is in a lot of ways based, in my view, on cognitive-behavior therapy. But then there is also something called "behavioral coaching" as well.

My personal dream is to make more use of philosophy in the contemporary practices of becoming better / more well, something that I love to call becoming "happier and freer." The entirety of the language surrounding counseling, therapy, psychotherapy is medical. The language of counseling today is the language of care, healing, wounds, traumas. These words are metaphors, and, as such, they are imprecise. Maybe philosophy, if there was more space for it, could have made a difference and made the language of "helping professions" drier and less about "help," or "providing care," or "healing from the wounds," and more about analyzing the human existence from the point of view of what is necessary to achieve happiness and become freer, for an individual being and for society in general. Currently, I am trying to reserve this drier language for my (very limited in terms of how much time I can realistically devote to it) coaching practice.

Thank you for paying attention to my reflections. I hope you are doing great and are in the world of wonder and possibilities. I put together a new website: https://vasilina-orlova.clientsecure.me/ -- feel free to get in touch.

P.S. I have not even touched on the differences between counseling and therapy. This border is a bit less contested area because counseling is already somewhat established, after decades of its own struggle (which continues): it has Master's programs, competing accrediting institutions, professional associations, etc., etc. However, counseling's own disciplinary battles rage! (It's mainly counseling versus social work).

[deerydear]

I saw a strikingly-beautiful woman shopping at the thrift store...

I wish I had struck up a conversation... but I don't like to interrupt other people when they're shopping. It's like a private activity. People should be able to go in public without being pestered... that's my philosophy. but it can also be a road to loneliness. I keep thinking about the news I've heard from Japanese people, saying a lot of people have similar problems. They fear that it would be rude to assume "casualness" with another person - don't want to bother people.

In a lot of my life, I have felt like an astronaut traversing through an alien culture, respectfully. It feels like there is trouble with feeling myself as "just another person, like other people" ... but I understand it.

Detaching is useful, because if someone treats you with cruelty, you can view it with an anthropological lense - What in your culture causes you to think like this? How does this influence you?

and I start to view my thought process as more-objective and others' as more-subjective ....

but that "other person" feeling is condusive to relationships, because it fosters a sense of empathy - "people probably feel like I feel, and they want some of the basic respect that I want", but it can also leave you open... so it seems better to be able to turn it on and off.

This discussion is bringing back childhood memories where I would debate with myself on this very subject... to figure out the best path forward. Then, in my early adolescent years, a lot of really fucked up and hurtful circumstances started to snowball, and I feel like I stuck myself in the "off' position.

So, in replacement of sensible empathy, I stuck to lists of "etiquette" - and I liked it better because I didn't have to feel.

Because if I felt anything, I would have been inclined to seek comfort. The people who were foundational to my life at the time had a habit of dismissing me, making fun of me, or getting angry at me for things that I knew were unfair. Other animals have a sense of fair-and-unfairness. Of course a child may have it, too. I feel like it's really unfair that children aren't allowed to choose who they want to live with - so people have to just start figuring shit out when they hit a certain age, completely cold-water. 18 years of a life wasted because you got stuck with a real asshole, when you wanted you spend those years productively studying... Why waste part of your own lifespan for someone else? Stupid.

(yeah, I'd be open for discussion, because I can already think of several potential risks, but I maintain that I would have been happier if I could have just asked one of my friends' moms if I could live with them. without "legal guardians" having the ultimate veto power. but either end of the equation can be abused.)

Honestly, sometimes I used to find it really funny to just stare at someone like a robot until they got upset. I don't mean random strangers - but people I knew... It can be viewed as funny how emotionlessness upsets a person who expects it. They realise they can't manipulate you - they can't make you feel what they want you to feel. They're like children who are so used to "pressing a button; candy comes down the chute", but there is no candy. but it also really puts off some people whose company I enjoy - so I figure out how to refamiliarise myself with human sensations of community, love, and friendship.