#i'm SURE this discourse already exists somewhere

[captainjonnitkessler]

My greatest fear in life is that the "non-Christians should never celebrate or even acknowledge Christmas as a cultural event because that's normalizing Christian hegemony and is therefore actively harmful" people are going to realize that Halloween is also a secularized Christian holiday and start discourse about how non-Christians shouldn't celebrate it and Christians who do should keep it out of the public sphere lest it further harm non-Christians by its very existence.

APOLLO DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU EVEN LOOK AT THIS POST I'M TAKING THAT DODGEBALL AND SHOVING IT SOMEWHERE UNPLEASANT

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Can someone please tell me when Dracule Mihawk became an anime sex symbol? Because excuse me, that is my dorky goth dad who doesn't know how to use an air fryer. So when did he become a big titty Goth Daddy?

To start with, I don't even think he bangs. Well, he and Shanks may have had a thing when they were in their 20s. But everyone makes mistakes in their twenties, and that is part of the reason why Shanks drives him crazy. He's the biggest fuckboy to ever whore about the grand line. You're telling me Shanks doesn't have at least a dozen illegitimate kids sprinkled throughout the grand line. I'm shocked Beckman hasn't put that boy on a leash yet, at least to mitigate some of the drunken shenanigans. Poor Beck, that man needs a vacation and a raise. But back on topic, Mihawk’s too mature for that stupidity, so Shanks drives him absolutely crazy now because he hasn't grown up past his fuckboy stage. So I'm pretty sure he's like Zoro. As in, his sexuality is swords, and he falls somewhere on the ace spectrum.

But if he did bang. His lazy ass doesn't have a top/Dom bone in his body. He's a complete pillow princess. Remember, he sails the ocean while napping, and if anything dares disturb his beauty sleep. They shall face his wrath. He will wipe them out of existence and feel completely justified in doing so. And you're telling me that doesn't sound like something your lazy coworker would do if they had the option. So, I don't think he will be your daddy-dom. So I hope you have dreams of doming him. I think he'd like it. Again, I don't think he has the top / Dom bone in his entire body, a complete and utter pillow princess. So spoil that man rotten or take him down a peg or two. He does have an ego. But he's worked so hard to get to where he's at now, so that ego is deserved. It's not cocky if you can back it up

So, be respectful. That is my reluctant goth dad of two. He may not know how to use an air fryer or a TV. But he's a world-renowned expert in his very niche field of expertise. Don't judge

And what is this about his slutty sleeves? Am I missing something?

Defend Your Blurbo #19

Please remember this post is about curiosity and genuine fandom discourse. Be kind with your answers because this is not a debate essay, this is a discussion between fans.

Meet Dracule Mihawk, The World's Greatest Swordsman from One Piece. He did kinda adopt Zoro and Perona, but only after they broke into his house and refused to leave. So, a reluctant father makes sense. If you don't know who Zoro and Perona are, a GIF of them is below

To answer the question, about the slutty sleeves it comes from the live action specifically this one moment I'll find the GIF

If you look, the sleeves are not sewn on. They're laced on. One, it's extremely practical because of freedom of movement. Two, it's historically accurate, and three, it shows just a little extra bit of skin, and the people went nuts. That should also answer your question of why Mihawk is suddenly considered so hot now. The live-action did him a solid, and the actor nailed the performance.

So, One Piece Fandom, I'm already scared for my inbox just based on the content of this one. Get ready and Defend Your Blorbo

[hydrasaura]

I've seen a lot of new Voltron discourse pop up again (and now I know why) and I was just thinking that I am truly impressed with how I managed to isolate Hira from this show for so long, as to not constantly remember about the way my other faves ended up in the last seasons.

This show left such a stain of disappointment that I never even re-watched it again, despite having it saved somewhere. The only episode I would occasionally gloss over was the Hira one just to take screenshots of her, and every time I watch it I am more and more enraged by the disgusting way in which they treated Allura. I wrote this in a yt comment recently, but imagine you wake up from a coma to find out you and your uncle figure are the only people of your race left and then find out that one guy on your team is half the race that destroyed your own people. I remember so many fans hating Allura and treating her as some racist for having mixed feelings abt Keith and I found that so damn insane. But THEN the SHOW decides to punish her itself by having her meet other Alteans for the first time since she woken up, just for them to be evil. I also remember how fans were calling Allura naive for blissfully trusting everything Hira spoke instead of trusting Keith, her own teammate. And sure, I get that they were trying to show that you shouldn't judge anyone by their race, not all Galrans are bad and there are evil Alteans too but this allegory doesn't work in the context were everything in Allura's life was literally taken away by Galrans. It kinda felt like telling a black person who has been persecuted all their life by white people that not all whites are bad. Even if she is well-intended, the trauma of losing everything to them would be enough to make her wary of them and it would probably be needed a lot of work for her to trust them again. So the way they literally punish her for having these emotions feels utterly disgusting to me especially since she didn't do anything extreme like to suggest throwing Keith out of the team. The producers constantly made her suffer and threw her around like a rag doll, they taken away everything from her until she was so miserable that it basically felt like she committed s*icide rather than heroically sacrifice herself in the end.

What I'm trying to say is that, I only rewatched 1 episode out of this show and hyper-analyzing it made me realize how it was already destroying the characters I loved, so I can't imagine the mental torment it would be to re-watch the entire show. Especially since I really feel like almost no character had a satisfying development and ending to their arcs. + the rage I'd feel of watching again those 2 child abusers being redeemed and siting side by side with Allura and Lotor at the end

So in hindsight, I can't feel sad or angry for them removing the show from their platform. It's the most elegant thing to do, to forget this mess ever existed. So sorry for the people who put their heart and soul into it as the show had amazing art, music and voice acting. I can only hope that those people have found better environments to work in, especially after all the unjustified hate they received from the fans back in the day.

[ckret2]

I’m curious what do you think books were like in Bills dimension? I can’t really think of how they’d be made without being weirdly long, or huge.

Also speaking of humans identifying as alien shape genders if someone were to identify as a square would they try to make their silhouette, or general appearance as square as possible like how Bill is? Do you think a shape can identify as a irregular shape? I know this isn���t important to the story I just like thinking about

I think the books were weirdly long and huge lmao. They look superficially similar to quipu, in that the covers/pages, by necessity, look like rows of strings hanging off the spine of the book; except of course instead of being made of "string" they're made out of two dimensional paper and they don't have to be tied in knots, they can have text printed on both sides of the page.

I only put "text" (red and black ink) on the cover and the first page because I didn't wanna keep drawing it on all of them lmao. And obviously the pages wouldn't be spaced apart on the spine like that, they'd be packed as tightly as normal book pages are, but spacing them out made them easier to draw.

I also think scrolls might be common; assuming they use the front and back, I don't know whether a scroll or a book would be more pragmatic & take up less space.

Now, "what would humans who identify as shapes do" is a question about humans, and you and I are already humans, and there already exist humans with gender identities based on concepts, ideas, and species outside of humanity. How do people with xenogenders usually express their gender identities? We don't need to reinvent the wheel, here.

(To be clear: this is all hypothetical. I'm not actually gonna be writing any characters who decide they're a gender from Bill's planet. The closest is gonna be Mabel going "Hey Bill! 🛑 What 🔶 shape ⚠️ would 🟩 I 🔵 be 💜 ?" for fun so she can doodle them going on imaginary adventures.)

Sure, a shape can identify as irregular. Why not? What's stopping them? Asking "can a shape identify as ———" is like asking "can a human identify as ———." There might be Discourse™ around it. There might be people somewhere arguing about whether a gender identity is "allowed," or "real," or "ethical," or "inappropriate," etc. But nothing can reach inside of somebody's brain and prevent them from thinking "you know what? I think maybe my gender is ———." So yes, they can identify as it.

[definitely-a-cryptid]

A random discourse on rear projected faces

Rear projected faces are all over the disney parks. There's Elsa and Anna at Epcot, Buzz Lightyear and the seven dwarves in Magic Kingdom, and all of the characters on Mickey's Runaway Railway in Hollywood Studios, and just A LOT.

Now if you're like me and took the time to read several really long research papers from Disney research teams, you already know that Disney actually thought rear projection illumination was a good idea. And it is! Firstly the idea to put a projector behind the animatronics face is a stroke of genius. I can still remember seeing Buzz for the first time when I was eight. I was looking all over the place for a projector. I thought there must be a projector above him somewhere. In retrospect an external projector would not work great even if the animatronic had very limited movements. Anyway. The benefit of projected faces is you can achieve a lot of expression not currently achievable with robotics. (Though it gets better every day) Disney uses a multi-camera and projector system. The projection is diffused and uses a subsurface scattering compensation scheme (they utilize a material that light can enter and potentially come out at different places). This means the same animation should be viewed from different angles like viewing an actual face.

Even though the technology and research papers all point towards rear projection being a great idea, they haven't really gained a fan base. Lots of folks outright hate them. (including me!!!) Do I know anything about engineering and robotics? Absolutely not. However I have opinions and nothing to back them with. My personal feelings about why rear projected faces get so much hate is that first, the faces are completely smooth. More successful projected faces, like the dwarves on Seven Dwarves Mine Train, still have a physical nose. Meanwhile Elsa and Anna are just pure uncanny valley vibes and as you move around them you just see a perfectly smooth side profile like one of the mannequin heads at target. Just. Bleh. Gross. No like. AND THE ANIMATIONS AREN'T GOOD??? I'm sure there's a reason why, but for an animated face based off of an animated film, created by the exact same company, none of the projected faces look like the characters they're supposed to portray. My guess is that in order to make the face viewable from all angles they have to sacrifice quality. It is mildly entertaining that it looks like the princesses don't know how to match their foundation because the projection and the animatronics "skin" don't match though.

Anyway PROJECTED FACES ARE A LAZY COP-OUT. there. Got it out of my system. I can be more understanding over existing animatronics utilizing projectors, but from now on I'll be very annoyed/frustrated/murderous if anymore come out. Disney has proven they can make amazing animatronic faces that are expressive without it. Anyway I cried happy tears when the first peeks of the animatronics for Tiana's Bayou Adventure came out. That's all. No actual information of value. If you read this far yay I love you have a heart <3

[vyachki]

Jk rowling was not "cancelled on the spot" shes been spouting crap for years that pisses people off and naturally collected a large amount of haters. Her amateur writing and many strange plots in her books have been heavily scrutinized by critics. Extreme stereotyping, racism, homophobia, writing weird shit about children on twitter, the whole thing with the elves who loved being slaves is weird as fuck, aids metaphors etc. Everyone knows she's annoying. She's hated by transphobes ands trans people alike. Young people hate her and old people hate her. Harry potter fans hate her. Even many of the movie cast hate her. She's a bigot. She doesn't care about people like you. why are u falling over yourself to defend her honestly its so pathetic and we can see right through you. I'm sure you never really gave a crap about the books or who wrote them until you became a radical bitch. You just love her because she hates trans as much as you. That's all you have in common. Shes not a feminist, shes not fighting for anyones rights, she doesnt spread any important information or have any educated opinions. Her new books and movies suck. All she does is sit writing drivel and spreading hate which sounds a lot like you. No wonder you admire her so much. Honestly i bet if Kim Yo Jong or someone came out as a terf and a radical feminist u would all start fanning over her and convert to her ideologies bc u have no back bone or brain and the only thing u care about is worshipping ur chronically online terf cult, making up shit and hating trans people who have nothing to do with you. News flash! Your radical feminism isn't any more radical than what normal ass women have been talking about for generations. All the issues are already included in normal feminism, it's just the same except: you ignore big issues (especially those involving minorities and women of colour), act horrible and rude to everyone, isolate yourself and most of all, devote your existence to being transphobic. It's like a cry for help or something. You're ruining your life by being a bitch. and noone is going to feel sorry for you. Mental illness innit. 🤣 - Sincerely a happily married cis white woman. Get a life.

Oh my god this is so funny, did you copy and paste this from somewhere or did you really type all of this out for me?? I am blushing🤭

People will always have a lot to say about JKR and that's okay, she's a famous female author who owns a billion dollar franchise—people are going to talk shit on her name and some of it may be true, and some of it may not. With the way now that people deliberately skew what other people say (e.g. "JKR wants trans people deaaaaad!!!"), take a lot of shit you see from non-sources with a grain of a salt.

Regardless of the discourse & semantics you want to engage in, biological sex will still be real, women will still face sex-based oppression, and same-sex attracted people are still being erased in favour of "queer" activism. It is not hate to call that out. But it is very condescending to say all this to a detransitioned trans woman / homosexual man since I am still dysphoric, but I am not a victim nor will act like one because of it.

I made this blog to support detransitioners & same-sex attracted people, and to call out lies I was told by the trans cult during & after my transition. I really don't need "happily married cis white women" lecturing me about gender ideology that you never lived. Thanks though!

Sincerely, a "radical b*tch"

[greenandhazy]

Out of the general belief that fandom discourse shouldn't play out in AO3 comments, I'm not starting a fight, but I did just see the stupidest list of Guy/Thomas red flags I've seen yet and I have to vent about it. Because in addition to the usual "he'll be a servant" point (which was rephrased three times and listed as separate points), other red flags apparently include:

Thomas would be paid to sleep with him

WHENCE are you getting this idea, my good sir? Was it from the scene where Guy told Thomas that their relationship could be whatever Thomas wanted? and just out of curiosity, have you ever met a couple where one person was a stay at home spouse, and did you tell them that their relationship was #problematic because the working partner was paying the other person to sleep with them? or did you recognize that relationships are complex and often involve some sort of power imbalance and that healthy relationships can still exist within that dynamic, and often involve attempts to mitigate the actual impact of income disparities?

Guy is older, at least 50

okay first of all cool it with the "at least"--Dominic West was 51 at the time of filming, and we don't even know if Guy is supposed to be his age. (RJC was 44 at the time of filming and most people agree Thomas is younger than that.) and secondly, Thomas is at MINIMUM 32. like, absolute minimum, like I'm basing that on the fact that he was able to join the military in 1914. but that would make him 16 at first appearance, so... he's not 32. the suggested year that seems to come up the most for Thomas is about 1890, making him 22 at the start of the series and 38 by the end of the movie.

if you think a 38-year-old is inherently too young to be in a relationship with a 50-year-old, you're just a dumbass. like I'm sorry. the man is a fully grown adult. and not to be blunt, but if Guy had deliberately wanted to take advantage of a much-younger man, he didn't need to find an almost-40-year-old Englishman for that. There were (are tbh) PLENTY of attractive 20somethings leaving their family and going for Hollywood who would jump at a relationship, even an unhealthy one, that would get them closer to stardom.

Guy used a moment someone was vulnerable to take them away from everyone they know and like

Guy used a moment someone was vulnerable... hm. hm. just checking, do we even once see any suggestion that Thomas has told Guy about Richard? do we have any reason to believe he would have, prior to their conversation in Thomas's office? how can Guy evilly, manipulatively use Thomas's vulnerability against him when he has no knowledge of it? are we not allowed to hit on people who might possibly in the recent past have suffered a possible breakup? honestly the worst we can say is that he noticed Thomas seemed generally unhappy at Downton, and "hey you don't seem to like it here, would you maybe like it somewhere else?" isn't manipulative.

I also think it's dumb to paint anything as ~Thomas's vulnerable moment~ or whatever when it's been a month at LEAST since he's received Richard's letter. like yeah, if Guy had barged in the same day Thomas received it and demanded an immediate answer, that's a vulnerable moment for Thomas. but a month is enough time to-- if not "get over" the end of a relationship (if that's what the letter even was, which we don't know for sure), at least to come to terms with the fact that it has ended. Guy makes the offer, tells Thomas to let him know when he's decided, and then leaves. Thomas had time to thinnk it over. He already had the Downton job, he knows all the pros and cons, he can weigh his own options, and if he turned down Guy's offer, there would be zero repurcussions for him.

in conclusion: if you don't like the implications of Thomas working for his lover, if they're not your cup of tea, that's fair, I'm not going to convince you otherwise. but don't be a fcking dumbass about it.

[thorraborinn]

Just out of artistic curiosity- in terms of traditional depictions, would you say it’s more likely that the brisingamen was closer to a closed-front necklace or an open-front torc?

Given my background, my first move is to always look toward the word itself -- if men means one thing specifically, then we know it's that. Unfortunately, so as far as I can tell, the word men ('necklace,' basically, but with this bit of ambiguity apparently) doesn't really differentiate between different types of neck jewelry.

I can show support that it was not one of the strings of beads and pendants that women would wear suspended from the front of their dresses attaching at brooches -- one of those is called a sǫrvi, and Snorri actually gives us that definition confirming it was current in his time: En fyrir því er kona kennd til gimsteina eða glersteina, at þat var í forneskju kvinnabúnaðr, er kallat var steinasörvi, er þær höfðu á hálsi sér. 'And for this reason is a woman referred to in reference to gemstones and glass beads, that there was in old times a woman's accessory, which was called a stone-sǫrvi, which they had on their necks.'

It is very possible I'm missing something here, since this is a semantic context I'm not really used to, but usually when the word men is used in Old Norse, there aren't any context clues that tells us what the men in question looks like. There is one instance where the men has a tygill, a tie, like something to tie it onto the person's neck, so it's definitely inclusive of something that goes all the way around, but that wasn't really in question anyway, and this particular men is on an idol of the Finnic Jumala (Jómali in the Old Icelandic) so it might not be the best example to extrapolate from. There's a men in Vápnfirðinga saga that seems to be somewhat more solid (the footnote calls it a hálshringur, a collar, but in-text it is just called men), but this also seems to go all the way around and have a way to tighten it.

I can't find a separate word for a torc, and even in Modern Icelandic I can't find a way to say torc without describing a type of men (or other word for neck jewelry).

When we look to archaeology we see that there's a bunch of stuff that fits sort of this somewhere-in-the-middle description, stuff that's pretty solid but does wrap all the way around like this rather torc-like neck-ring from the Hiddensee hoard:

Or these, from the Høn hoard. I'm not sure, since I can't see it especially clearly in the picture, and I'm not an expert on this stuff, but it looks to me like the back parts of these could constitute a tygill like the men had that was fastened to Jumala in the aforementioned saga description:

And going back a bit to the Migration Age (when we might imagine that stories about Brísingamen already existed and were being shaped into how they would later be told) we find incredible stuff like this:

Here's a gullgubbe with a necklace, looks like it's maybe got some big chunky stones on it...

...or perhaps they're not stones at all, but seeds. Be sure to check out this discourse about drift seeds and Brísingamen (also known as 'sea-kidney'). The papers referenced are here (Meaney, paywalled but you can get it on sci-hub) and here (Tolley -- this is giving me an error trying to load, but it downloads and opens fine).

Finally, either the single most important piece of evidence, or not at all, or somewhere in the middle (lol) is this:

This is a silver pendant found in a grave in Aska, Sweden. It's usually accepted as a depiction of Freyja. Personally, I like to exercise a little caution when identifying figures that get found with little secondary context so I'm gonna stop short of saying that it is Freyja. But there's also no real reason to reject that hypothesis, either. The figure here definitely seems to be wearing something around her neck with a prominent big round thing in front (seed? jewel?). It's not exactly the clearest depiction, but it might be an actual depiction of Brísingamen (which means the person who owned it wore a necklace on their necklace).

Anyway if the sea-kidney stuff is true, then it seems reasonable to me that there could be a tradition of describing Brísingamen in terms of that, making it a sort of special case in comparison to other jewelry and fashion. If it's not relevant here, then I guess the average Scandinavian would just picture whatever the coolest neck jewelry they could come up with would be, and that may well be one of those sorta-solid neck pieces that still attach in the back. Gonna tag @thorsvinur for backup here, he knows much more about what people actually wore and thought was cool in the Viking age.

[lawluenvy]

anyways there are two types of kaeluc shippers:

1. the problematic ones, obviously, who ship it because they like incest and do in fact consider them brothers but hide behind the idea that they aren't related by blood to deflect criticism

2. the ones that don't consider them brothers, and view them more as close childhood friends. kaeya was "adopted" rather late to be truly considered a "brother" in the blood sense, related or not. family? yeah of course. he was taken in by diluc's dad as if he was a son- but friends are just chosen family, aren't they?

honestly, a lot of the discourse about this reminds me of sheith. i was a mega sheith shipper and we would get so much hate from immature tweens and teens who make everything unnecessarily sexual and problematic because they're on the internet unsupervised and exposing themselves to questionable content from questionable sources before they've developed the ability to understand these terms themselves, and so they latch on to whatever idea they see first and if it's a hateful one, then that'll be it until they grow up and start building a sense for these concepts themselves with a cummulative, better informed definition. this happens at different ages for everyone, but one thing for sure is that people on the internet are really stupid sometimes. people like things to be black and white, because they think it's easier, and they're scared of being wrong, so they impose strict worldviews on everything, disregarding every other person's experiences to put theirs on top. but that's not how the universe works. people see and experience things differently from one another, so you could be equally wrong as you are right about something somewhere.

looking into kaeluc more, i recognized some of the sheith shipper struggles in the kaeluc shipper struggles, and realized i was judging kaeluc shippers unfairly. i hated the idea of kaeluc right off the bat even before looking into it cuz i heard "brother" and envisioned a situation where kaeya was adopted as a baby and thus would truly have been raised alongside diluc as a brother, never having known different. i doubt i'm the only one who thought that.

but it turns out that's not what happened.

kaeya was already his own person by the time he was taken in, and had memories of another father and another family. no matter how close he may have grown to crepus and diluc, he has clear, indisputable memories of other family before them. yes, crepus became his "adoptive" father. but that doesn't mean he ever truly viewed diluc as a brother in a familial way, and vise versa. they were "sworn brothers," whatever the hell that meant to them. it could be; hell yeah you are my brother and i am reluctantly related to you the way i would be a blood brother, or; i feel very close to you, we've shared many experiences together and you've seen sides of me that typically only family would see.

it is well within the realm of possibility, and not even weird, that kaeya and diluc could have had romantic feelings for each other at some point. it would be no different than crushing on the boy next door. just because they eat dinner together and sleep in the same house doesn't mean they're automatically related. residential and family law would get super weird if shared tenanacy meant you became immediate family.

my first crush was at the age of like 4 years old and i still remember it well. it was silly, but it was innocent. kids love each other all the time, and no, it isn't weird to talk about or acknowledge that. you can't just throw around loaded terms like "pedo" every time someone discusses children. respect them the way you do other human beings and recognize that kids have feelings. and they're allowed to have feelings. it's not weird, it's just fact. it's our job as adults to help kids with their feelings and to understand them- and we can't do that if we pretend they don't exist in the first place.

and as far as kaeluc goes, they were like 11 /12! we don't know the exact age but this is the estimation since kaeya was old enough to accept a secret and serious mission.

do you remember being that age? it was fucking wild. i was hormonal as fuck. i developed crushes on anyone who treated me like a person for one brief second cuz most other people were mean, and bullies. i had a new crush everyday and honestly that was so valid. it's not like i was harassing people, i just let other the presence of nice and cute people make parts of my day a better time.

proximity and a smile is all it takes at that age. any age, really.

so basically, shipping kaeluc doesn't automatically make you an immoral person, because, as is fact, they aren't brothers by blood, opening up the concept of their brotherhood to interpretation. they were already growing individuals at the time they met and lived together.

so yeah, some kaeluc shippers are fucked up and gross but others really aren't at all. some just genuinely respect their relationship, and see two men that have a beautiful bond.

i didn't think of it that way until i came across this kaeluc fanart that just really stuck with me. it wasn't sexual at all. just tender, and sweet. the artist really captured this idea of two men that care a lot about each other despite their complicated history. it didn't feel like i was looking at something that should be wrong. it looked like a worried partner kissing the other goodbye before a dangerous mission. it looked just like any other romantic relationship where someone is at risk of dying everyday they go to work.

so i gave them a chance, and looked more into it.

and now, i've really warmed up to the kaeluc ship if i take the perspective i did with sheith: they aren't at all related, they're friends who happened to grow up together and could be seen or described as brothers but really it's up for debate because no one version currently has any more validity than the other.

it's all pedantics, and we could argue this forever cuz unfortunately, we don't really have a way of determining to what degree they are "brothers" since they don't call each other that anymore, and there has been conflict surrounding the translation of the term that has been used in the first place.

the only way we'd know is by talking to them. but they're fictional characters.

and we're allowed to headcanon things about fictional characters.

you could be right or wrong and we might never know for sure. it's not like i can sit kaeya down and be like "how do you really feel about diluc?" or do the same with diluc.

one thing for sure is that they do care about each other, all the fighting aside.

and that's sweet, and it shouldn't be punishable by death to see that caring as romantic because it very well could be.

we really don't know

if any more clarity comes out i'll be paying attention to it but as of now, i no longer have any qualms with kaeluc as a ship in its own right

reallllllly excited for the diluc event tho!!! i just adore his new skin!!!!

[thoth-the-thoughtful]

I don't fully disagree at all with what the op said. but I'm not sure the precident for indigeneity part rings true to me @tutti-durruti . I am a black American so I may be biased. I'll start with that.

My issue is, the precedent for indigenous struggles all over the world but especially in the west, is already fucked.

The status of Jews, (European/Arab/Black or otherwise) as indigenous to Israel has never and will never affect indigenous struggles for other groups of ppl. Israel as it currently exists is a colonial project spearheaded by the same colonial powers that have caused all of the greatest indigenous struggles of the past 500 years.

If setting a standard for the restoring of indigenous rights and land were an honest priority for the west, then most Western superpowers wouldn't have the time to support Israel or even be a part of this coversation.

And while no, I don't believe that some conquering empire can strip one of their indigeneity, human migration, forced or otherwise, is a real thing and it changes ppl. It changes them culturally genetically, linguistically. All of these things changed for many Jews in Europe during their exodus. I do believe that 2000 years away from your indigenous homeland might strip you of your indigeneity. Of course it could.

I recognize not all of these points apply to all Jews. Some jews are arab, some are black, some have lived in the holy land forever, some do not support Israel.

But I do think my former points apply to enough ppl that they aren't ridiculous to consider.

Because if you can leave a place and be gone for two millenia, come back speaking a different language and needing sunscreen to be outside but still be considered Indigineous to that place because you have a religion, an ancestor and some shared language in common; then what does indigenous really mean?

Based on that logic, my black ass indigenous to England because I have an English last name and speak their language? I also have a yt English ancestor somewhere in my genes. If that's not good enough, does it strengthen my claim if I convert to Anglican Christianity?

Be real. No one would ever take that seriously.

Thats why there are still Indian reservations, still black ppl enslaved in the US and Africa, still Urguyrs in concentration camps. Because no one takes our indigenous rights seriously. Only colonial rights are respected in the modern world. Zionists are colonists because they employ colonial tactics. Period. Indigeneity is irrleevant.

And the discourse around Jewish Indigineity to Isareal won't change anything for other indigenous groups nomatter which way the wind blows. The nations that support Isreal stand to gain too much from oppressing the rest of us.

Gentile leftists, this is a PSA, and I am begging you to listen. Sharing claims that Jews aren’t indigenous to the land of Israel, that Jews don’t come from the Middle East, and/or that the Zionist movement wasn’t created in response to centuries of antisemitism & genocide is fringe revisionist history with a long antisemitic history. These aren’t anti-imperialist or anti-colonial stances. They are just antisemitic conspiracy theories.

And on the flip side, acknowledging the simple fact that Jews are indigenous to the region currently occupied by Israel & Palestine does not imply any opinion about the modern states of Israel & Palestine, their governments, or the conflict in the region. This post is not voicing support for Zionism or the state of Israel. This is literally just historical fact: both Jews and Palestinians are indigenous to the region where modern day Israel & Palestine are.

If you make this about the politics or conflicts of the modern states of Israel or Palestine—if you comment or send me asks to that effect—you will be blocked.

[a-crimson-lion]

That new analysis is great, and I haven't even read that chapter! Personally, while I still dislike Bakugo, the things I'm hearing about 284 actually sound good to me--I feel like not only are his stans being annoying about it though, but those who dislike him *might* be being a little hard on him? Not YOU, of course Crimson, you did a great job keeping your analysis balanced, but I've been seeing people still hoping he dies and that doesn't feel right to me (1/2)

(2/2) Like it's not perfect, but he's getting there, y'know? If it's true, and he really is starting to see that he was an ass, I'm willing to finally give him a chance. I agree though that he also has to finally acknowledge the impact this had on Deku.

The State of the Fandom: Katsuki Bakugo

‘Kay, gotta keep this short so I don’t write another 4K essay out of nowhere. (Foreshadowing)

So first off, if you have no idea what @cjcroen1393 is talking about, check out the analysis here.

Second off, if you still haven’t read Chapter 284, check out the official VIZ translation here. New chapters are only free for the first three weeks after their debut, so make like an Ochako and get them savings!

Alright, now back to the subject at hand...

First off, while I appreciate the flattery, if I’m being completely honest, I’m still sort of skeptical because we just got Chapter 284, y’know? I wanna hold my breath, but I’ve already been through Bakugo’s Start Line, the Final Exams, and the Remedial Course Arc, three concrete moments that should have showcased Katsuki’s development and either came with conflicting results or were later debunked (Katsuki sticking to his original bull-headed strategy, Katsuki only working with Izuku as a last resort after stating he’d rather lose earlier, Katsuki saying not to look down on others and then looking down on the rest of UA due to a problem he inadvertently contributed to). But yeah, I’ll stick around and see what happens.

Honestly, I feel like 284 has a lot of opinions focused around Katsuki when you’re looking at him specifically. And no, I’m not talking about a direct AntiBaku vs BakuStan thing, that’s not what this is about. I can’t speak for all AntiBakus, obviously, but from the discourse I’ve seen, we’re all currently split into one of three categories:

Cautiously optimistic, willing to see how things play out.

Perpetually exhausted, nothing Katsuki says or does will make him worthy of atonement or redemption.

Kill him with fire, burn him at the steak, he’s worn out his usefulness.

I’m stuck between the first two categories, and the only reason I’m not in the third category (aside from Katsuki’s basic human right to live) is this:

A dead person can’t change. A dead person can’t suffer. Take that as you will.

And that’s not even discussing how the entire fandom is looking at things. Again, from what I’ve seen, the opinions split into three or four categories:

Look how far he’s come! (←The majority of fandom.)

Look how far he has to go… (←I am here. And maybe some AntiBakus.)

He AlWaYs CaReD!1! (←Cease your existence.)

I want to believe, but the narrative has taught me otherwise. (←The majority of AntiBakus.)

[‘Kay, this is where I’m cutting it off. Click “Read More” if you’re still awake.]

I’ve already said my piece on why the “HAC” take fills me with righteous fury, but let me see if I can explain it better with an analogy:

Let’s pretend for the moment that you’re a gold miner. Obviously, you’re looking for gold.

Your boss has you sent down into the mines to head into one of the more… frustrating caverns. Figuring you have nothing better to do, you get to work.

As you get into picking away at the rock in the search for gold, it takes you hours. And eventually, you stop striking bits and pieces and find a solid chunk of gold ore.

Now, your response can vary based on which of the categories you’re in.

If you’re in the “He’s come so far” camp, you are very excited to find this piece of gold.

If you’re with me in the “He’s still got a ways to go” camp, you remember that this chunk of gold ore doesn’t meet the quota. You still gotta dig.

And if you’re in the “HAC” camp, it’s essentially the same as walking back to the cavern entrance, digging down, and finding the quota of all the gold you need.

Sure, it seems like a good deal for most people, but you just wasted a long time getting to one good chunk when you could have dug down from the start. So what was the point of digging your own tunnel to begin with? That’s several hours, or even days of your life, you’re never getting back, because the cavern decided to be cheeky.

(Also, if you were in the "I don't wanna get my hopes up" camp, you've been digging through a pyrite vein and are skeptical.)

I hope that makes sense.

If it doesn’t, essentially the “HAC” line of thought feels cheap because it makes it seem like Katsuki was being needlessly extra from the start. If he always cared, why does he have to suicide bait? (Yeah I know y’all hear that too much but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened.) If he always cared, why does he have to even risk almost killing Izuku in the Battle Trial? If he always cared, why does he almost consider losing in the Final Exams? It just opens up a lot of holes.

I’m not gonna tell you to not be a fan of Katsuki or to not like him, because that isn’t realistic. Hell, if I shouldn’t have to justify why I don’t like him, you guys certainly don’t have to justify the opposite. But there has to be a sort of awareness that comes with either territory.

Because whether you like it or not, Katsuki HATED Izuku from Ch. 1 to getting kidnapped.

He saw Izuku as an OBSTACLE from Deku vs Kacchan 2 all the way to the OFA meeting in Ch. 257.

...and right now, Katsuki is finally, FINALLY recognizing Izuku as a person. A person who is in real f***ing danger and can’t bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. The extent remains to be seen, but what Hori has set up so far is really promising.

But that’s the thing: we’re still in the setup phase. I talked about this before in my last post, but right now we’re only in the third phase of Katsuki’s attitude. The “What The F*** Is Your Existence” phase lasted 116 chapters. The “I Can’t Let You Get Ahead Of Me” phase lasted 141 chapters. And the current phase, the “Why Don’t You Care About Yourself” phase, has only been going on for 27 or so chapters. And Katsuki only recently acknowledged that he bullied Izuku in a flashback somewhere in that time frame.

And the thing is, this doesn’t absolve Katsuki of anything. I still firmly believe Katsuki was being legitimate when he was talking about hunting down Tomura and using Izuku as bait, because that competitive side of him is DYING, not DEAD. And Katsuki still has yet to address the issue in his relationship with Izuku beyond internal and external monologues to people who are decidedly not Izuku, though there’s a high chance of that changing in Chapter 285. And the thing is, all Katsuki recognized is that Izuku’s inherent selflessness made him uneasy, and that was the main reason he bullied him. He still has yet to realize that he is a direct contributor to Izuku’s selflessness being warped into hardcore martyrdom. In his acts of beating Izuku, he lessened his self-worth and thus, made him believe his life was worth giving up. We still got stepping stones to cross, and while Katsuki’s making progress, he’s not across the creek yet.

...and while I’ve personally given up all hope of viewing Katsuki’s redemption in a satisfying light, I am hoping that Hori gets it right for the rest of you.

Thanks for reading.

-Crimson Lion (22 September 2020)

[sburbian-sage]

I technically don't know what this anon is needling me about but I'm going to take an educated guess and say they're talking about this.

If you're normal don't click on this by the way.

Man, there really isn't an answer here. Follow your fucking heart. You could say "the Harkness Test solves most of this already" and say that it's whatever. Some people draw a line in the sand and say you're weird for going after Consorts but Carapacians are mostly normal. Some people cite that high Reputations create a power dynamic that's too unwholesome (as you point out, but I think the "reverence" is mostly a first impression and if you actually talk to people they just kind of treat you like a guy). And all of this is putting aside the fact that none of these bitches have any genitals! Consorts don't know what sex is and I'm pretty sure the eggs they hatch out of just "happen". Carapacians are born in ectolabs and also barely know what sex is insofar as they care more about "romance" and nobody will ever actually initiate said romances with you (and a fair amount auto-rebuke any of your advances because it's indecent/they're too old for you/they're trying to kill you). And the nitty-gritty of how they reproduce is all an academic issue ANYWAY because when the Lands or Dream Moons pop into existence, 95-98% of the population also pops into existence as an adult. You're just humping a pillow, but with more moral complexity.

The only option most people seem to agree on is that it's okay to do it with your coplayers, and that does sidestep most issues with relation to power dynamics or ambiguous sentience (and equipment). But even then there's still drama and trepidation here because the game keeps physically resetting you into a teenager every time you enter a new Session, so every single person involved is unironically the "secretly 100 years old but looks younger because they're actually an alien god" thing. Is it immoral to have sex with Ms. Paint? Is it possible for any sex to be moral whatsoever? I got so annoyed at how tedious and nonsensical this whole discourse was that I strove to purposefully forget my age-in-years, and succeeded, so I'd have an excuse to never have to engage with it ever again. Once you've completed three Sessions your "mental age" becomes "traumatized veteran", and I'd say that anything you do becomes kosher at that point. Keep it safe, as sane as it is possible to be, and consensual, and you can do whatever you want forever.

TL;DR please masturbate before posting. The splooge will flood out of your brain to somewhere else and you'll be able to think for five seconds, thus saving me the headache of having to explain the ethics of having sex.

NSFW question here, sorry, feel free to ignore, but I dunno where else to ask, I feel like it's rare to find folks who know their shit about this game and also have anon asks turned on...

So... is it like, ethical to fuck the game constructs? Like carapacians and consorts?

I feel like the sorta pre-programmed reverance they have for players makes the consent screwy. Plus they're pretty dumb right, especially consorts, but where's the line? Like, they can *talk*, and they have relationships with *each other* so surely it's wrong for us humans to come in and declare that their entire race is too stupid to be able to meaningfully consent, right...? But I still feel like a creep for even considering it...

We have this thread every week, comrade.

[thosearentcrimes]

Why isn't there more competition for the position of Universal Arbiter of Charity Correctness? Well, for starters, most organizations or movements strongly opinionated enough to want one basically run their own isolated charity space for the most part so they do have the correctness-checkers they're just less visible.

The Catholic Church also makes various decisions on priorities for its charitable arms, and which sub-organizations it tries to direct donations to. Of course, the purpose of Catholic charity is not to help people, it's to maintain their political-spiritual control over somewhere between 1/5 and 1/10 of the world based on how you count it, but that doesn't matter, the question was why aren't there competitors for the charity-judging space and quite simply there are.

Quite frankly, this sort of investigation and ranking and approval process comes across as necessarily a doctrinaire and wasteful bureaucratic environment. Like, in the wider charity discourse people discuss the amount of money wasted on overhead (mostly sinecures and perks and outright embezzlement for failsons and faildaughters), and I'm sure the EA community believed they could avoid being yet another level of wasteful bureaucratic overhead full of sinecures for insiders, and Givewell itself seems reasonably lean, but the EA space more generally seems rather less so. So I think there are perfectly valid reasons to believe that many of the problems with EA are not really fixable.

The short version for why there aren't EA competitors is simply there's not enough unsatisfied demand, the pool we're selecting from for a potential competitor is people or groups that have:

A specific interest in personal charitable donations as a major vehicle for improving the world

A moral system compatible with rank-ordering charitable organizations (as transgenderer notes)

Faith in the ability of a centralized arbitration bureaucracy to rank correctly

A major problem with the methodology applied by Givewell and other existing EA organizations (the only issue the question asker seems capable of imagining)

The kind of concentrated and intellectually unified wealth and influence required to sustain an entire arbitration bureaucracy

Miss out on any of the planks, and you'll spend your time on something else, dismiss the concept entirely, make your own less sophisticated but more trustworthy decisions, just join EA, or drift around the edges of the EA space vacillating between entryism and hostility. I believe that last option is what Leverage has been doing lately?

If there were a competing EA, I would probably expect it to be an explicitly America First neoreactionary-ish splitter movement turned off by the internationalism/globalism of stuff like Givewell. I believe the main reason this hasn't already happened is that most reactionaries who aren't already organized by their religion just don't really see the point of helping people so those who do have to drift around EA instead, but that could change for any number of reasons.

i think it's kind of odd that there's *lots* of critique of EA, but no, like, competitors to EA? like EA critiques tend to think "the REAL effective altruism is doing <my preferred thing>" but like. what, forever, in all circumstances? you don't need to at all take on the project of trying to check that that thing is actually best? i'm not just going to give up on the idea "try to carefully decide what's best to do", why are no other brands competing for that memespace?

i think a some people object to comparing non-scam charities on like, sort of an abstract level. like the idea that spending money charitably in a way that does more good is better than spending money charitably in a way that does good, but less, is sort of where the disagreement originates?