#ideologies about the hero system.

[bizlybebo]

i miss xavier jrwi

[faelapis]

sometimes i worry that *i'm* wrong and SU is bad/rushed/blah blah. then i remember whites fragile need to be perfect and ego defense of thinking she's fixing things. i remember how its perfectly mirrored by stevens need to fix others. how its both beautifully symbolic in CYM an made more explicit and heart-rending in future.

yeah that shit rules. white being reformed is great. its the ultimate rebuttal to the ideology that only good/useful/perfect people deserve to live- which is exactly the standard white held herself and everyone else to. it mirrors stevens arc of selfless heroism. it mirrors the toxic, insecure selflessness thats plagued everyone from pearl to jasper to rose about what it means to "deserve" to live it ties into "love like you" of how learning self-love is intertwined with loving others. it ties into how steven can't let go of his hero role until he's confronted by *literally* having his own mind in white's body, hating the idea of being like her yet ironically reacting exactly how she would - "this is someone bad for society, they should be shattered, this is what's best for everyone." trying to hurt her only hurting him. trying to help her helping all of gemkind - from the corrupted gems to dismantling a system that was held up by those exact ideals.

yeah no SU is fantastic. i'm so sad that its reputation is "oh well it wasn't that good, but it had some lgbt+ rep :)" which is just about the most condescending crap ever. i would gladly flip it. i think most cartoons that have come after SU haven't been that interesting, they've just been mostly generic stories with some lgbt+ rep.

[the-one-and-only-elita]

One thing that I absolutely love about TFOne's writing is that it manages to avoid a lot of the heavier criticism I've seen regarding MegOp's hero/villain dynamic over the years (trust me, the mid-2010s TF discourse was crazy)

*Spoilers Below*

First of all, the narrative benefits so much from the main 4 cast members all being a part of the same exploited mining class. So many takes on MegOp have Orion being of a higher status (an archivist, a cop, etc) while Megatron is much lower down on the social latter (a miner, a gladiator, often in the context of being a slave).

I've seen many people be put off by this, because it feels as if Megs is being villianized for being rightfully angry at the system that deeply harmed and exploited him, while Orion/Optimus is praised for taking a more pacifistic stance despite him not suffering as much from or in some ways even benefiting from the system he claims to oppose. I don't find their dynamic to be as simple as that, and I do find these takes to be a bit reductive, but I do very much see where they are coming from.

I am definitely one of those people who's very frustrated with the way pacifism is hailed as the one true path of morality, and the inherent implication that taking any sort of revenge on the people who abused/exploited you makes you just as bad as them. Also, Marvel's particular brand of demonizing any form of radical political action, despite the system clearly being broken and corrupt, but being completely unwilling to offer any other alternatives to meaningfully change things for the better.

When looking at what I described above its pretty easy to see how a lot of versions of MegOp's hero/villain dynamic unfortunately fits into that trope. Bringing it back to TFOne, you can see how Op and Meg coming from the same political/social status subverts this. The existence of Elita and Bee only further illustrates that out of the 4 people of the mining class who were all deceived, exploited, and literally mutilated in the same way it is only D-16 that completely loses himself to his rage, even to the point where he loses compassion for his own companions and disregarding the safety of the other miners (when he decides to "tears everything down" and Elita exclaims he's going to "kill everyone").

What I think I love most about the characterization in TFOne is that Orion is the radical one. Not only that, but he is praised by Elita and by extension the narrative for it. He is constantly challenging authority, and is the first to have the suspicion that their society is structured in an unjust way.

Meanwhile D-16, to be frank, is kind of a bootlicker. He fully believed in the system and that Sentinal Prime, as someone with power, had the right to decided "what was best" for those who are weaker/lesser (I wish I had the specific quote from D-16 to support this, but the movie's still in theaters). It illustrate that D-16 already held certain fascistic ideals, and that he and Orion already have fundamentally opposing moral/political values, it simply hasn't been of any consequence yet. It shows that their eventual falling out was inevitable, even if they had decided to rebuild Cybertron together.

It should also be noted that D-16's feelings of anger and betrayal do not necessarily have anything to do with the unjust system itself, but that said unjust system was predicated on a lie. Hence his fixation on deception in the post-credits scene and him naming his faction the Decepticons. Meanwhile, when Orion learns the truth he's just sort of like "yeah, I always kinda knew something was up" because again, he understood on some level that their system was predicated on injustice.

Even D-16's obsession with Megatronus Prime, while initially an endearing aspect of his character, is also an indicator of the questionably large amount of value he puts on one's strength. It foreshadows the "might makes right" ideology that the decepticons follow, and is a key part of their ideological characterization across continuities.

Instead of the narrative we often see in Transformers media were Optimus is idolized by the narrative for being more moderate and Megatron is villiainized for being radical (or so people often claim), it is instead Optimus who is rewarded and praised by the narrative for being radical, and Megatron who is villainized and punished by the narrative for holding potentially fascistic values.

I do agree with some criticism I've seen that the whole thing with killing Sentinel and D-16's final turn into villainy felt a bit rushed and more than a little cliche, but I also understand it both had a limited runtime and that it is ultimately a family film meant to be accessible to children. More importantly though, I think the movie set the groundwork early on that, no matter how this final act played out, D-16 was always going to turn to darkness, and Orion would not have been able to stop him.

Its perfectly tragic, the way all MegOp should be, while also feeling really well thought out from a thematic standpoint. I love it.

[linkspooky]

Hi!! I'd like to ask you, after all that happened, do you think the new generation of Jujutsu Kaisen had managed to break the generational trauma of their world? Sorry for tautology.

Thank you

So basically, you're asking:

Did Gojo successfully reform the Jujutsu World?

The answer to that question is no - at the start of the series Jujutsu relies on child soldiers to exorcise curses in an endless cycle. At the end of the series the child soldiers are still child soldiering. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the story is pointless or that Jujutsu Kaisen had a negative dystopian ending like My Hero Academia. Gojo's reforms were doomed from the beginning, Gojo never planned on revolutionizing that much about Jujutsu Society because Gojo IS Jujutsu Society.

If you look at the ending one way, Gojo got exactly what he wanted. The elders are dead, the only adults left around are either Gojo's allies like Utahime, Shoko, Ijichi, Takuma Ino and Kusakabe and ones with no particularly loyalty to anyone that can be bought with money like Mei Mei.

Gojo outlined his proposed reforms early on in the manga, and never at any point did he say he was going to tear down the system. Gojo's goal in recruiting children was to raise them up into powerful allies who would eventually replace the people on top.

The only thing Gojo really changed about his plan over the course of Jujutsu Kaisen is that he decided to speed up the process by killing the elders and making a monster of himself, when he realizes that if he's not around the elders might do something like declare all of his allies enemies of the state or put another execution order on Yuji.

Even then it's not to dismantle the system, it's a purely pragmatic decision because after Shibuya the elders all tried to eliminate every single one of the members of Gojo's faction by declaring them outlaws and putting an execution order out on anyone who tried to unseal him from the box. Gojo is slaughtering the elders to prevent that from happening again.

Even then Gojo is not really changing the way that power is distributed in his society, it's still all concentrated at the top. Gojo is not some radical who wants to destroy the system, the most radical thing he does killing the elders he follows up by immediately putting Gakuganji in charge, the old man who tried to use his own students to assassinate another student. He kills all the old men and then replaces them with another old man - guys Gojo is not a down with the system person.

Gojo is the kind of person who would argue that everything wrong with the system is the result of a few bad apples, and if you took those people out then the system would be fixed. That is his plan essentially. Gojo never had the revelation that Geto did, that Jujutsu Society is essentially feeding children into a meat grinder by making child sorcerers exorcise curses again and again in an endless cycle. He never had that moment where he realized that maybe being a child soldier is bad and children shouldn't have to fight in the first palce.

Gojo doesn't understand the hardship of the lifestyle of an average Jujutsu Sorcerer, because he lives for Jujutsu. He's not even remotely disappointed when he found out that Sukuna killed him, because that was how he always expected to die, young and in the middle of battle.

The fact that sorcerers die pointlessly over and over again doesn't affect Gojo the way that it does Geto, because for Gojo that is the life he was born into. That was how he lived, and that's how he expected to die. Gojo fits so well into the world of Jujutsu that he is perfectly content being a cog who exists solely to exorcise curses, and he doesn't understand why someone like Geto would ever become dissatisfied by it or leave.

Gojo is upset when elders abuse the youth, but that's specifically because Gojo does not like how the older generation clings to power instead of handing the reigns to the next generation. Gojo's ideology is notably the opposite of Sukuna's because while Sukuna believes that weak people should know their place and stay underneath him, Gojo wants the students that he's raising to eventually surpass him.

Gojo definitely did want to protect children so they could live out their youth, (mainly because Gojo is projecting onto them his sorrow over having his springtime of youth with Geto ripped away) but Gojo does not understand that it's the entire world of Jujutsu that's a threat to the youth.

He doesn't understand say the way that Nanami does, that the students at Jujutsu High while powerful Jujutsu Sorcerers are ultimately just children, and shouldn't have to be exposed to this violence or given such adult responsibilities at this age.

Gojo understands that when he was younger, he was left behind. Geto could not keep up with the monumental task of being a sorcerer, Geto could not remain a part of the endless cycle of consumption and exorcism anymore so he just left. Gojo not only didn't understand why he left, at the time he didn't have the strength to leave with him or go outside the system the way that Geto did.

Gojo's proposed reforms of society all come from Geto's defection and the moment of revelation he has afterwards. One that he didn't see the problem coming with Geto until it was too late, and two that strength wasn't enough to save Geto. Despite the fact that Gojo was the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer in the world, and despite the fact he could have easily killed Geto and that entire crowd of people Gojo was useless in that moment and there was not a single thing he could do or say to save his friend's soul or make his friend stay.

Considering these two revelations Gojo comes to the conclusion that he can be the strongest person in the world, but he still can't do anything he wants. What he needs are allies. Not only that, he needs to fix his mistake, so the next generation will be strong enough, that they'll all be able to support each other and no one will break like Geto did.

If you understand that from Gojo's point of view Jujutsu Society isn't an inherently bad thing, it was just a few corrupt people making it bad, and the to Gojo the lifestyle of a sorcerer is fun then it makes sense to Gojo the solution is to just raise a stronger generation or sorcerers who will a) replace the corrupt elders and b) be strong enough to support each other so another Geto situation doesn't happen.

From that angle, Gojo actually set out to achieve everything he wanted to achieve. The elders are dead, his allies are in control, and his students are all powerful and work together in ways that Gojo never could because he's always been a one man act.

However, if you look at the world the corrupt system is still pretty much in place. Simple domain no longer sucks the life force out of its users, and the Zen'in are gone, but Yuta apparently becomes head of the Gojo family meaning the clan system is still in place. Children are still being sent out together on missions instead of I don't know... learning math.

The revolution never occurred, because Gojo was never planning a revolution in the first place.

However, after spending this entire post bashing Gojo (he's my favorite character I promise I'm just tsundere) I will point out that he is succesful in one regard, and that Gojo is willing to step down and let someone else take the reigns. What Gojo hated the most was that the elders clung to power, enforcing outdated traditions, instead of letting the younger generation surpass them.

Gojo wants the younger generation to not only surpass him, but to do things in a completely different way than he did. Gojo was able to learn that there are other kinds of strength than just the way that he is strong. Something Sukuna doesn't learn or acknowledge until Yuji ultimately defeats him not through physical strength but the strength of his ideals. Gojo's saving grace is that he realizes that he can be wrong, and he's limited and he thinks the next generation can do far better than he can.

We see that happen onscreen too, Gojo gives his all to fight against Sukuna and beat him and loses. The peak of the sorcery world loses to Sukuna in a contest of strength and fails to save Megumi and his students because strength can only accomplish so much. Gojo is extremely limited in what he can do ultimately, which is why he trusts the unlimited potential of the next generation. Yuji surpasses Gojo, not by unlocking domain expansion, but by showing a different kind of strength.

Yuji's is a strength that allows for weakness to exist. The strength of empathy and cooperation which are traits that Yuji embodies. This is how he does things differently that Gojo.

I think it's telling that Gojo's domain expansion is one that overloads the human brain with information until they practically go braindead, while Yuji's domain expansion transported him and Sukuna to his hometown, and gave him time to speak with Sukuna and plead his case to try to convince Sukuna that he should care about people. Yuji's strength comes from caring for others and it's that strength that makes even the king of curses admit his loss and reconsider the way he lived that life.

So, Jujutsu Kaisen did not really end with the generational trauma broken, or the system reformed, but it did show us at least that the strength of Yuji's compassion is enough to turn a curse into a blessing. As shown when the final panel is Sukuna's finger, once an evil cursed object that attracted other curses, is now a ward that can protect others since the curse has finally been exorcised.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sigal Samuel at Vox:

There’s a dominant narrative in the media about why tech billionaires are sucking up to Donald Trump: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, all of whom have descended on the nation’s capital for the presidential inauguration, either happily support or have largely acquiesced to Trump because they think he’ll offer lower taxes and friendlier regulations. In other words, it’s just about protecting their own selfish business interests. That narrative is not exactly wrong — Trump has in fact promised massive tax cuts for billionaires — but it leaves out the deeper, darker forces at work here. For the tech bros — or as some say, the broligarchs — this is about much more than just maintaining and growing their riches. It’s about ideology. An ideology inspired by science fiction and fantasy. An ideology that says they are supermen, and supermen should not be subject to rules, because they’re doing something incredibly important: remaking the world in their image. It’s this ideology that makes MAGA a godsend for the broligarchs, who include Musk, Zuck, and Bezos as well as the venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. That’s because MAGA is all about granting unchecked power to the powerful. “It’s a sense of complete impunity — including impunity to the laws of nature,” Brooke Harrington, a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College who studies the behavior of the ultra-rich, told me. “They reject constraint in all of its forms.” As Harrington has noted, Trump is the perfect avatar for that worldview. He’s a man who incited an attempted coup, who got convicted on 34 felony counts and still won reelection, who notoriously said in reference to sexual assault, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” So, what is the “anything” that the broligarchs want to do? To understand their vision, we need to realize that their philosophy goes well beyond simple libertarianism. It’s not just that they want a government that won’t tread on them. They want absolutely zero limits on their power. Not those dictated by democratic governments, by financial systems, or by facts. Not even those dictated by death.

The broligarchs’ vision: Science fiction, transhumanism, and immortality

The broligarchs are not a monolith — their politics differ somewhat, and they’ve sometimes been at odds with each other. Remember when Zuck and Musk said they were going to fight each other in a cage match? But here’s something the broligarchs have in common: a passionate love for science fiction and fantasy that has shaped their vision for the future of humanity — and their own roles as its would-be saviors. Zuckerberg’s quest to build the Metaverse, a virtual reality so immersive and compelling that people would want to strap on bulky goggles to interact with each other, is seemingly inspired by the sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. It was actually Stephenson who coined the term “metaverse” in his novel Snow Crash, where characters spend a lot of time interacting in a virtual world of that name. Zuckerberg seems not to have noticed that the book is depicting a dystopia; instead of viewing it as a warning, he’s viewing it as an instruction manual.

Jeff Bezos is inspired by Star Trek, which led him to found a commercial spaceflight venture called Blue Origin, and The High Frontier by physics professor Gerard K. O’Neill, which informs his plan for space colonization (it involves millions of people living in cylindrical tubes). Bezos attended O’Neill’s seminars as an undergraduate at Princeton. Musk, who wants to colonize Mars to “save” humanity from a dying planet, is inspired by one of the masters of American sci-fi, Isaac Asimov. In his Foundation series, Asimov wrote about a hero who must prevent humanity from being thrown into a long dark age after a massive galactic empire collapses. “The lesson I drew from that is you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one,” Musk said. And Andreessen, an early web browser developer who now pushes for aggressive progress in AI with very little regulation, is inspired by superhero stories, writing in his 2023 “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that we should become “technological supermen” whose “Hero’s Journey” involves “conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community.” All of these men see themselves as the heroes or protagonists in their own sci-fi saga. And a key part of being a “technological superman” — or übermensch, as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say — is that you’re above the law. Common-sense morality doesn’t apply to you because you’re a superior being on a superior mission. Thiel, it should be noted, is a big Nietzsche fan, though his is an extremely selective reading of the philosopher’s work.

[...]

The broligarchs — because they are in 21st-century Silicon Valley and not 19th-century Germany — have updated and melded this idea with transhumanism, the idea that we can and should use technology to alter human biology and proactively evolve our species.

Transhumanism spread in the mid-1900s thanks to its main popularizer, Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist and president of the British Eugenics Society. Huxley influenced the contemporary futurist Ray Kurzweil, who predicted that we’re approaching a time when human intelligence can merge with machine intelligence, becoming unbelievably powerful. “The human species, along with the computational technology it created, will be able to solve age-old problems … and will be in a position to change the nature of mortality in a postbiological future,” Kurzweil wrote in 1999. Kurzweil, in turn, has influenced Silicon Valley heavyweights like Musk, whose company Neuralink explicitly aims at merging human and machine intelligence. For many transhumanists, part of what it means to transcend our human condition is transcending death. And so you find that the broligarchs are very interested in longevity research. Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Thiel have all reportedly invested in startups that are trying to make it possible to live forever. That makes perfect sense when you consider that death currently imposes a limit on us all, and the goal of the broligarchs is to have zero limits.

Vox has an insightful article on the disastrous vision that broligarchs like Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg subscribe to.

[maxdibert]

Having a shitty past is no excuse for being a horrible person, and Snape was a horrible person. Snape fans always try to turn him into a tragic hero, but there was nothing heroic about him when he was just an obsessive bigot who followed a group of genocidal maniacs

Well, I think I’ve said this a million times already and explained in exhausting detail why growing up in a particular environment—lacking social, emotional, economic, or essential support—and being subjected to violence during the most crucial years of cognitive development creates the perfect breeding ground for antisocial behavior. It also makes vulnerable or socially excluded youth prime targets for sectarian groups (whether religious, political, or otherwise) that prey on their situation, offering them promises of protection, safe spaces, surrogate parental figures, or social progress. These groups actively seek out kids with emotional voids caused by dysfunctional family dynamics, minimal to no financial resources, and a profound sense that the system has failed them at every turn. They offer these kids an alternative system—one that gives them a roof over their heads, a hot meal, a place to belong, and people who won’t marginalize them like the rest of society has—at the simple price of blindly following the group’s ideology. And they do it. Of course, they do. Because what other choice do they have? This group gave them life, a place in society, and restored their status as human beings.

But since I’ve spoken about this at length before and about how Severus’s life shaped his decisions, I feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record. So, since I’m also reading a legal ruling I need to memorize by Friday, I’m going to indulge myself and dissertate as freely as I please—because hey, if you’re going to throw hate, I’m going to grant myself the privilege of replying however I want.

Here’s a question: why does it even matter? Seriously, what does it matter if he was a shitty person? Do you know that people go to space today thanks to the work of physicists and engineers who were literal SS members? That after WWII, all the top scientists, physicists, chemists, and engineers were granted amnesty and fast-tracked into citizenships so they could work on government projects? That people working within a stone’s throw of concentration camps are the pioneers behind some of the greatest technological advances of the 20th century? And you don’t care that the products you consume are derived from the work of collaborators with mass genocide, but you’re upset that people find a fictional character interesting? I don’t want to sound cynical, but honestly, it’s ridiculous to get so morally high and mighty about a character who doesn’t exist and who followed an extremist cult for, what? 3 or 4 years tops? and then canonically worked actively to take it down. If we put Severus in a real-world, wartime context, the guy would be a literal war hero with medals to his name. No exaggeration. If he survived, he’d be recruited with a fat paycheck to work in internal affairs for some major world power’s secret projects. That’s just how the world works.

And yeah, he was obsessive. But in an era where everyone suffers at least one anxiety episode a month, where the best-case scenario is that your panic attacks don’t spiral into chronic mental health issues—can we really judge him for that? Like, most of the people I see being ultra “snater” are folks who openly declare themselves neurodivergent, and one of the common denominators of all neurodivergence is obsessiveness. All of them. Whether it’s chronic anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder or autism. Every single one has an obsessive component. So it’s kind of ironic—and even hypocritical—for people who are themselves pretty obsessive (because let’s face it, we’re all compulsively doomscrolling here to soothe our anxious compulsions with little dopamine hits) to judge this character’s obsessiveness as a negative trait. Maybe let’s take a good look in the mirror, too.

And let me just say, no court would convict Severus of collaborating with a terrorist group. Not a single one. Impossible. Especially since he literally collaborated against said group, so any judge would happily clear him—not after the war, but the moment he struck his deal with Dumbledore. Severus is what’s known as an informant. He worked from the inside, exposed himself to greater dangers than regular agents. Legally speaking, there have been cases where people guilty of heinous crimes—including crimes against humanity—were let off because they provided critical information. So imagine someone like Severus, who, as far as we know, didn’t even kill anyone during his time in the group, willingly spilling the beans and agreeing to work as a spy. He’d be celebrated as a hero of war. Hell, they’d probably buy him a mansion in Florida if he wanted one. That’s just how our system works, and honestly, this kind of moralist posturing is pretty cringy because you’re talking about a guy who literally saved half of magical society’s asses and without whom the kid destined to save the world would’ve died in his first year at school.

You can dislike him or think he’s a jerk, but he was damn good at his job. And compared to the people he’s often unfairly measured against (Sirius, James, Remus...), he actually did something. They didn’t. Absolutely nothing. Contribution: negative one.

[lawenta-elar]

You know what is wild about the reaction to the Brian Thompson shooting?

It's not that people on both sides of the aisle are generally cheering for it. The CEO was directly responsible for so much death and suffering while technically staying legal and therefore above all consequences that he was a textbook target for vigilante justice.

But you folks have just had an election. Healthcare was one of the topics that did get brought up during both sides' campaigns.

A lot of the people who now celebrate the shooter as a hero and bring up their own horror stories of denied or subpar healthcare voted against the side that would have made the situation at least a little bit better (and in all likelihood a lot better if it won decisively). They voted for the guy who promised to end the one solution that did actually make it better, making people with preexisting conditions covered. Yes, the dreaded Obamacare.

Others who now bay for the blood of more CEOs didn't vote at all because Harris wasn't morally and ideologically pure enough for them.

Don't get me wrong. It's great that both Democrat and Republican voters are finding a common ground. Much overdue conversations about the broken, murderous healthcare system in the U.S. are starting and getting loud, which is great. If a better look at wealth disparity and/or late stage capitalism in general follows, all the better.

But if you cheer over one CEO's death, why the heck wasn't voting towards gradual improvement good enough?

Some of you guys don't want solutions.

You want an action movie.

[effieotto]

You have all the right to dislike a character, but it’s more honorable if you do it by just assuming that you don’t like it because it doesn’t fit into your own preferences, than try using a political argument to justify your hate, when you clearly don’t understand a thing about the system the character is included.

When we are bringing Panem’s political system into discussing as a tool to make a character value critical analysis, it is importantes to have the difference between the Capitol and the District very clear in our minds, knowing that even though they were ruled in different ways, they lived under the same oppressive ideology. Capitol citizens weren’t being starved and whipped, or thrown into arenas once a year, but the power they had over their own lives and freedom was just as limited as any other person in Panem. When Plutarch says that Lou Lou could have been a Capitol children, just as much as a District one, he makes it very clear that, when it comes to non-supportive citizen, their pedigree doesn’t matter anymore. Capitol or District, they were seeing as the same.

With that said, it is implied that, in a system where your only source of information comes from the government who wants to make you believe into a certain propaganda and that punishes you with torture, brain damage or death if you show any signs of disagreement, you don’t have many ways to safely educate yourself against the cultural ideas forced into you since birth. A rebel to flourish randomly inside of the city was a one in a million situation (you either had enough power and money to afford the danger of educating yourself against the system -with books that were mostly lost during the dark days in most families, thus wasn’t assessable for the majority of the population- or you got a sparkle of self conscience, that is absurdly rare and most likely caused by a very specific life experience)…You can’t say that a person is bad or good, based on her lack of reaction in a world that forces her to not react. Not everyone is a hero. Not everyone can afford the selflessness of putting the greater good in front of self protection…and it doesnt make them less human

The Capitol is a complex institution, because as much as they had those who supported Snow to the depths of his existence, and not just approved but financed things like the sexual traffic between victors, the majority of the people were just following the flock and acting as they were raised to…it doesn’t mean that what they were doing was right, but since they were not living under a world where they could do any different without deadly consequences, it is a unavoidable evil and not a consensual choice

You can say you don’t like Effie because she wasn’t empathic with the tributes when she called them savages for eating with their hands right after the reaping. What you can’t say is that she was a bad person in the core because of it, without taking into consideration the system and all the exterior factors that contributed for her to act the way she does,

[needanaccount2readarcaneposts]

every time i read a post about how, "silco kept fighting relentlessly for a free zaun because it's what fELiCiA wOuLd hAvE wAnTed," i add another name to my kill list (in minecraft).

we'll never fucking undo the damage s2 has done to his characterisation.

let people believe in things bigger than themselves without needing some secret twist reason. let people fight for something because they observed an injustice in the world and decided to fucking do something about it, without needing a personal motivation tied to a tragic dead friend/family member/lover/whatever.

it is one thing for s1 to acknowledge that, while silco was always a true believer, his trauma at vander's hands is responsible for informing his view on the need for unflinching ruthlessness; for excising weakness. but s2 is now vander-ifying silco and fandom is eating it right up; making him 'more sympathetic' by suggesting that his determination to keep fighting in the first place was in some way tied to a lost loved one. because in a liberal media framework that serves the interest of capital, it is dangerous to suggest that someone can be motivated by purely ideological reasons and still be sympathetic. can still be right to want what they want, or do what they do.

i'm gonna make Outlaw Kings & Rebellion Chic required reading for everyone, and have included more extracts under the cut, but in summary:

Violence that does not proceed from personal injury requires no such breakdown. This kind of primarily ideological violence can be directed against a perfectly functional system - functional, at least, for the perpetrator - simply because it appears the ‘just’ thing to do. No wonder, then, that in our mass media, the characters practising ideological violence are cast as morally unsound. If normality is not self-evident but a site of contention, then it problematises easy narratives of rebels vs tyrants. And if dispute over the political system is enough to justify force, then that implies violence against the modern Western state, even its violent overthrow, could be justifiable. This is understandably concerning for many writers, who tend to come from backgrounds closer to the Lannisters than the ‘smallfolk’.

If a person can commit violence simply because they believe it’s right, without any hidden ambition, then nothing stops us from acting to change the world.

Separately, there is in screenwriting a kind of uncodified rule: villains act, heroes react. The hero, according to traditional Hollywood structure, can’t fulfil their destiny until an extraordinary event drags them out of the world they know. More often than not, that event begins with the villain. Harry Potter is only the Chosen One because Lord Voldemort killed his parents. Luke Skywalker would have stayed on Tatooine dreaming of adventure, until Darth Vader’s attack on a rebel ship sends a secret message to his farm. Frodo would be safe and happy in Hobbiton if not for Sauron. Heroes rarely set out to change the world. Villains want change, and heroes run to keep up. [...] Many of these characters live with occupation, oppression, and state brutality as part of their daily lives, but they don’t turn to violent resistance until their families are directly threatened or killed. When heroes commit political violence, it must be to avenge a personal injury. This is supposed to be substantively different from political violence committed for ideological reasons, which receives a much less sympathetic treatment. [...] When we see violent characters who kill for primarily political reasons, they are often anti-heroes at best, outright villains at worst. The idea of the full circle revolution - of the secret dictator hiding in the throat of every rebel leader, waiting to leap out and betray the non-ideological hero - is utterly pervasive. It appears in videogames, where good old-fashioned all-American heroes like Jim Raynor of Starcraft or Booker DeWitt of Bioshock Infinite are betrayed by villainous revolutionaries Arcturus Mengsk and Daisy Fitzroy (and after all they’ve done for them!). It is common in films, from supervillains like Magneto and Killmonger, liberationists written as would-be conquerors, to the rebels of The Hunger Games, who vote to continue the games as soon as they’re in power, except with the children of the dethroned elite rather than the children of the poor. The same reversal is mentioned in A Song of Ice and Fire, where rebel slaves, once liberated, enslave their former masters; in the TV version, an evil fundamentalist visits the kind of cruelty on the King’s Landing nobility that they visited on others. In all these examples we see an echo of the primal fear of every oppressive class, the nightmare at the heart of modern white supremacy: what if someone did to us what we’ve done to them? Liberation is re-imagined as the world turned not so much upside-down but mirrored. [...]

Rensin attributes the hatred of the High Sparrow to his hypocrisy, but I don’t think that’s quite right. What is terrible about the High Sparrow is that he has no personal grievance. He didn’t see his father killed by the ‘good guys’, like Killmonger. His family weren’t murdered by his oppressors, like Magneto. By his own account the High Sparrow was a cobbler who became disillusioned, found religion, and now, thanks to the vagaries of a civil war among the elite, finds himself in a position to overturn the social order. The feudal system of Westeros never injured him personally. He simply came to believe it should be torn down, and acted accordingly.

We seem to find this faintly repellent. We are so used to looking for an ulterior motive that, when we can’t find one, we grow uncomfortable. If a good person can commit violence simply because they believe it’s right, without any hidden ambition, then nothing stops us from acting to change the world. [...] Violence that does not proceed from personal injury requires no such breakdown. This kind of primarily ideological violence can be directed against a perfectly functional system - functional, at least, for the perpetrator - simply because it appears the ‘just’ thing to do. No wonder, then, that in our mass media, the characters practising ideological violence are cast as morally unsound. If normality is not self-evident but a site of contention, then it problematises easy narratives of rebels vs tyrants. And if dispute over the political system is enough to justify force, then that implies violence against the modern Western state, even its violent overthrow, could be justifiable. This is understandably concerning for many writers, who tend to come from backgrounds closer to the Lannisters than the ‘smallfolk’.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Whenever I remember that Tenya almost went full vigilante mode for Tensei I want to scream so bad like it's not even funny.

Bnha somersaults its way into saying "maybe heroes are just good citizens with the power to do good things" and "maybe heroism is not in the big notorious acts but in being kind and fair in the day to day details" AND THAT'S ALL TENSEI.

AND THAT'S WHAT MOTIVATES TENYA TO GO FULL BLOODHOUND ON STAIN.

I'm not denying that the world needs the big ass heroism acts like defeating AFO or saving a city or all those flashy notorious feats. All Might is very needed, because there are threats that are too old and developed and have accumulated too much hatred and damage over the years. You cannot always prevent those things from happening and to believe so would be naive, right?

What I'm saying is that those big events are the lowest percentage. They are the consequences of a systematic failure.

Take two of the biggest evil plots in the manga: AFO planning to still OFA and Overhaul with his quirk-erasure bullets. Both plans depended on an abused child being used as objects, Eri because her quirk was the base of the bullet working and Tomura because he was just meant to be AFO's new body in the future. In both cases, AFO and Overhaul were cornered after losing the child they were using for their plots. In fact it was the kids resisting the abuse that contributed the most to their failure: Eri prevented Overhaul from hurting Deku and Tomura prevented AFO from escaping his decaying body.

In that sense, the little unknown pro-heroes taking care of their neighborhood's children do a lot to prevent cases like Tomura or Eri from happening. Hell, AFO and Overhaul were also kids who went the violent route to survive.

Ingenium's silent heroism is probably the best example of what a hero looks like. They don't seek fame or glory. They regard heroism as their duty, their responsibility. No matter how little the act is, it's still important to do it.

At this point, we must admit the Tenya's crisis over what happened to Tensei is not only about their bond as brothers. Yeah, that was Tenya's big bro, but it is no less than when Deku and Bakugo saw All Might fighting AFO for the last time— the last moments of their role models.

The Iida brothers' crisis was deep rooted in the main issues of the story, so I'm still baffled at how people just tend to ignore it.

Before Stain, the "League of Villains" was just a minor threat. Dabi was a nobody with no real crimes to his name. Toga was just a lost little girl trying to survive the streets. Spinner didn't even think about being a villain. Before Stain, things were bad, but no one really thought they could change the status quo, you know?

The USJ incident was not the big deal because 1) how was attacking kids the answer? and 2) going for All Might was expected, since he was almost invincible and the biggest hero in the world and blah blah blah.

When Stain started attacking minor pro-heroes...

Stain was the opposite of Tomura. He admired All Might and saved those kids, but went after the pro-heroes with less powerful quirks. He gave the population a sense of control. It's like he said "hey, you don't have to go after All Might to change the system and why would you? The real problem are the ones on the lowest part of the pro-hero chain".

Suddenly, they could go against pro-heroes and win. Divide and conquer. Suddenly, there was a ladder to climb. Suddenly, you could target not the institutions responsible for the rotten ideology of your society, but the people who enforced the ideology with their daily work.

Stain defended his posture by saying that those people didn't want to be real heroes. They just wanted the money, the fame, they were not really committed to their duty.

And then attacked Tensei, of all people.

If big crimes are built from little crimes that are accumulated over time, what would happen if you decided to eliminate the people taking care of the little crimes?

The crisis of belief in pro-heroes was triggered by Stain. When Stain pointed out at Ingenium (the one in the suit was Tensei) and accused him of false heroism, it's when shit started to go south. He created the idea that pro-heroes should be punished if they don't perform correctly and that they deserve to die if they don't have pure ideas of their job— or whatever.

Tensei being the victim is supposed to show how hypocritical Stain is. Tensei is probably one of the only pro-heroes that never did anything wrong in the manga and one of the best family men to be presented. A man who was loved by everyone for being good in every sense of the word.

Stain projected his own fantasies on Tensei in order to accomplish his witch hunt, not truly caring to figure out who the person was. He just attacked for the sake of attacking, which explains why he was so popular: anyone could do the same and project their issues on him, fighting different battles disguised as just one cause.

When Tenya went after him, it could only make sense. The little of the Iidas is too righteous and noble, quick to judge and act, prone to making mistakes and getting carried away by the looks of it all. So easily his justice turns into revenge and he falls into the trap Stain set. Who knows what a hero student killing Stain would have caused...

At this point it's obvious I'm just ranting for the sake of ranting but 😭😭😭 give the Iidas the respect they deserve please.

[blackstarlineage]

Neglect of Black History and Heritage in Education: A Garveyite Perspective

Introduction: The Erasure of Black Knowledge as a Tool of Oppression

One of the greatest weapons of colonialism and white supremacy has been the deliberate suppression of Black history and heritage in education. Across the world, Black children are taught European history, ideologies, and values while their own ancestral legacies are ignored, distorted, or erased.

From a Garveyite perspective, the neglect of Black history is not just an educational failure—it is a deliberate strategy of mental colonization, designed to:

Prevent Black people from recognizing their historical greatness.

Ensure that Black youth identify with European values rather than their own heritage.

Weaken Pan-African unity by keeping Black people disconnected from their collective past.

If Black people do not reclaim and institutionalize their own history in education, they will continue to be mentally enslaved, unable to define their own future. Without historical consciousness, true liberation is impossible.

1. The Historical Suppression of Black History in Education

A. The Colonial Education System and the Erasure of African Knowledge

European colonizers designed school systems that prioritized European history, philosophy, and culture, while:

Dismissing African civilizations as primitive.

Demonizing African spiritual and governance systems.

Promoting the idea that Africa only gained significance after European contact.

Example: African students under British and French colonial rule were taught more about Shakespeare and Napoleon than about Mansa Musa or Queen Nzinga.

Key Takeaway: Education was one of the first tools of colonial control—ensuring that future generations would see themselves as inferior.

B. The Role of Slavery and Western Academia in Distorting Black History

After the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Black people were systematically:

Kept from learning to read and write.

Taught false narratives about their own past.

Given an education that centered white supremacy, rather than Black empowerment.

Example: American schools taught that enslaved Africans were "uncivilized" and benefited from slavery, reinforcing racist ideologies.

Key Takeaway: An oppressed people who do not know their history will always depend on their oppressors for knowledge.

C. The Ongoing Western Control of Black Historical Narratives

Even today, Black history is filtered through a Eurocentric lens, leading to:

The minimization of Black empires and civilizations in textbooks.

The portrayal of African history as a story of defeat and victimhood, rather than innovation and greatness.

The false belief that Black history begins with slavery.

Example: In many Western schools, Black history is only discussed in the context of slavery and civil rights, ignoring thousands of years of African achievements.

Key Takeaway: If Black people do not control the teaching of their own history, they will always be taught narratives that serve foreign interests.

2. The Consequences of Neglecting Black History in Education

A. Identity Crisis Among Black Youth

Because Black history is neglected, many Black youth:

Struggle with self-worth and racial pride.

See European and Arab cultures as superior.

Lack knowledge of Black heroes, inventors, and historical leaders.

Example: Many Black students grow up knowing more about European monarchs than African kings and queens, leading to psychological inferiority complexes.

Key Takeaway: Without historical identity, Black youth become mentally dependent on foreign cultures.

B. Lack of Black Political and Economic Empowerment

When a people do not know their history, they:

Do not understand how economic exploitation works.

Fail to see patterns of oppression and how to fight them.

Are unable to build independent institutions because they lack knowledge of past Black self-sufficiency.

Example: Many Black communities struggle economically because they have not been taught about historical Black Wall Streets, self-sufficient African empires, or Pan-African economic models.

Key Takeaway: Historical awareness is key to Black economic and political empowerment.

C. Division Among Black People Due to Historical Ignorance

Because many Black people have been mis-educated about their history, they:

Fail to see the connections between Africa, the Caribbean, and Black America.

Adopt European-created tribal and national divisions instead of embracing Pan-African unity.

Dismiss their own historical figures while celebrating European ones.

Example: Many Africans see themselves as separate from Black Americans and Caribbeans, failing to recognize their shared history of struggle and resistance.

Key Takeaway: A people divided by historical ignorance will always be weak.

3. The Garveyite Solution: Reclaiming Black History in Education

A. Establishing Black-Centered Curricula in Schools

Black communities must:

Develop their own history textbooks that highlight Black achievements.

Create schools that teach Black history from an African-centered perspective.

Ensure that Black children are taught about their heritage from an early age.

Example: Independent Pan-African schools, like those inspired by Marcus Garvey’s UNIA educational initiatives, must be expanded globally.

Key Takeaway: Education controlled by Black people is essential for true liberation.

B. Teaching Black History as a Story of Triumph, Not Just Oppression

Black history must include:

The greatness of African empires (Kush, Mali, Ghana, Songhai, Kongo, Great Zimbabwe, etc.).

The contributions of Black inventors, scientists, and revolutionaries.

The impact of Pan-African movements and Black economic independence.

Example: Instead of focusing only on the struggles of slavery, Black students must be taught about the Haitian Revolution, the Ethiopian resistance against Italy, and Black economic success stories.

Key Takeaway: Black history must inspire action and empowerment, not just teach victimhood.

C. Using Media and Technology to Promote Black Historical Awareness

Black filmmakers, writers, and educators must:

Create documentaries, films, and TV shows that highlight Black history accurately.

Develop online platforms and social media campaigns that educate on Black heritage.

Push for Black-controlled publishing houses to distribute Pan-African educational materials.

Example: Instead of relying on Hollywood to tell Black stories, Black creatives must fund and produce their own historical films, like those about Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Kwame Nkrumah.

Key Takeaway: Controlling media and education is key to shaping the future of Black consciousness.

Conclusion: Will Black People Reclaim Their History or Continue Living in Ignorance?

Marcus Garvey said:

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.”

Will Black people continue to learn their history from the same system that enslaved them?

Will we allow our children to grow up without knowledge of their ancestors, or will we take responsibility for their education?

Will we prioritize Black historical institutions, or continue relying on Eurocentric education systems?

The Choice is Ours. The Time is Now.

[katherinakaina]

Want to add to this post by @thanatika who pointed out very carefully how self denial is a huge motif in Daniil's story. He calls it 'the essence of my discovery' even.

First, there's a nuance. 'Self denial' isn't exactly what he says there in Russian. The actual word he uses is 'selflessness' meaning not prioritizing self, sacrificing oneself for the sake of something bigger. A positive word in both Russian and English. That's why he says in that conversation that his and Clara's solutions are very similar since hers also includes humans sacrificing themselves for the sake of polyhedron's existence. (humbles being way closer ideologically to utopians than to termites hot take)

But self denial and selflessness are very similar for Daniil. Being a hero means both following some deep need but also getting your own nature under control every day. Managing anger issues, cooperating with unpleasant people, sacrificing your love life for your work. No self care days, there's death to defeat.

However, there's more than just personal implications. This line of thinking fits into the bigger themes of the games.

In a nutshell, the essence of his discovery is: self - town, denial - shelling.

These metaphors run through the story. Earth and Law are nature and its rules. Town is human civilization built on top of such a treacherous ground. Tower is human ambition for a better society, both rooted in human nature deeper than anything else but also hanging in the skies trying to get away from it. The Plague is all the problems in human society caused by the clash between our petty nature and huge systems we fuck around with.

Daniil's discovery is that evil is a part of human nature (Plague coming from the Earth) and the Problems will keep coming back as long as we keep living in the Town built on Earth, as long as we keep letting our nature influence us.

And while his reasoning is very understandable and relatable to me personally we should read his story as a cautionary tale about dangers of selflessness (going insane) and utopian ending as dangers of... well, revolutions.

Natura non facit saltum. Ita nec lex.

[tobiasdrake]

Also spoilers but I wanted to talk about the ending to Snow White (2025) bluntly.

One of the biggest differences between the 2025 film and the original is that it culminates in an actual confrontation between Snow White and the Evil Queen. In the original, the dwarves go kill the Evil Queen in retribution after Snow goes into her coma, and then some guy shows up like "Wow, hot corpse! Mind if I make out with it?"

Like. No shade to original Snow White. This was literally the first cel animated movie ever made. The writing took a backseat to the sheer sorcery of being able to put hand-drawn moving pictures on a screen like this.

The Prince was supposed to have a larger role in the film but wound up being mostly cut because he was too hard to animate. This is actually something the live-action film rectified, by bringing the sequences he was supposed to have back into the movie.

Snow White walked so that the entire history of traditional 2-D animation could run.

But something I really like in the 2025 film is that final confrontation with the Evil Queen. It's so perfectly crafted as a contest of ideologies in a film that seems tailor-made for this moment in history.

Like. Okay. Lemme walk you through this, play by play.

Standing in front of a mob of people Snow's gathered to resist her, the Evil Queen conjures a rose and waxes poetic about the ephemeral beauty of flowers, then magically disintegrates it into dust to reiterate how fragile it is. This is a metaphor for Snow White and her appeal to the people currently supporting her.

The Evil Queen, by contrast, claims to offer security and prosperity. She conjures a flawless glass dagger to represent herself. Perfectly crafted and honed. A beautiful and lethal weapon.

And then she presses the dagger into Snow's hand and dares Snow White to kill her with it. This is the classic villainous "Embrace the Dark Side and strike me down" card, played here as an ideological contest. The Queen represents a philosophy of Might Makes Right and Fuck You Got Mine.

The metaphor of going "This rose is you, this knife is me, now take this knife and stab me if you dare," is pretty on-the-nose. She is challenging Snow White to take back her kingdom... by embracing the Queen's belief system and becoming the kind of ruler that she is. To cast away the rose and take up the glass knife.

When Snow won't do it, the Queen orders her executed and that's when Snow plays her hand. She brought the "Talking the monster into submission by sheer strength of personality" card to the table.

But what makes it stand out for me is that she doesn't talk the Evil Queen down. The Queen is too cruel and full of herself to care what Snow thinks or has to say.

Instead, she appeals to the Queen's radicalized followers. She reminds them of what their country was like before this regime took power, and what it can be again... but only if they put down their weapons, let go of the Queen's militant belief systems, and come home to the people they've been alienated from by following after her.

Because Snow White is not a person of power. She is no Chosen Hero. She has no sorcerous powers or deadly fighting skills. Her only power is that she's beloved by a community who are willing to prop her up with their collective power.

And when the Queen's followers turn and become Snow's followers, then all the sorcery and Strongwoman Leadership in the world doesn't matter anymore. The collective are stronger.

Symbolized ultimately by the Queen taking her dagger, taking the thing she crafted to represent her, and trying to plunge it into Snow herself... only for one of Snow's followers to shoot it from her hand with a crossbow. And then for that last artistic touch, the dagger, the thing whose beauty and power was supposed to be eternal, wilts and disintegrates into dust just like the rose.

The Queen's ideology crushed into sand by Snow's faith in people to want better lives than what the Queen's regime could provide for them.

This. I cannot reiterate it enough. This is the movie for this moment in history.

[cy-cyborg]

Dealing with Healing and Disability in fantasy: Writing Disability

[ID: An image of the main character from Eragon, a white teenage boy with blond hair in silver armour as he sits, with his hand outstretched. On his hand is a glowing blue mark. He is visibly straining as he attempts to heal a large creature in front of him. /End ID]

I'm a massive fan of the fantasy genre, which is why it's so incredibly frustrating when I see so much resistance to adding disability representation to fantasy works. People's go-to reason for leaving us out is usually something to the effect of "But my setting has magic so disability wouldn't exist, it can just be healed!" so let's talk about magic, specifically healing magic, in these settings, and how you can use it without erasing disability from your story.

Ok, let's start with why you would even want to avoid erasing disability from a setting in the first place. I talked about this in a lot more detail in my post on The Miracle Cure. this line of thinking is another version of this trope, but applied to a whole setting (or at least, to the majority of people in the setting) instead of an individual, so it's going to run into the same issues I discussed there. To summarise the points that are relevant to this particular version of the trope though:

Not every disabled person wants or needs a cure - many of us see our disability as a part of our identity. Do difficulties come with being disabled? absolutely! It's literally part of the definition, but for some people in the disabled community, if you took our disabilities away, we would be entirely different people. While it is far from universal, there is a significant number of us who, if given a magical cure with no strings attached, would not take it. Saying no one in your setting would be disabled because these healing spells exists ignores this part of the community.

It messes with the stakes of your story - Just like how resurrecting characters or showing that this is something that is indeed possible in the setting can leave your audience feeling cheated or like they don't have to worry about a character *actually* ever dying. healing a character's disability, or establishing that disability doesn't exist in your setting because "magic" runs into the same problem. It will leave your readers or viewers feeling like they don't have to worry about your characters getting seriously hurt because it will only be temporary, which means your hero's actions carry significantly less risk, which in turn, lowers the stakes and tension if not handled very, very carefully.

It's an over-used trope - quite plainly and simply, this trope shows up a lot in the fantasy genre, to the point where I'd say it's just overused and kind of boring.

So with the "why should you avoid it" covered, let's look at how you can actually handle the topic.

Limited Access and Expensive Costs

One of the most common ways to deal with healing and disability in a fantasy setting, is to make the healing magic available, but inaccessible to most of the population. The most popular way to do that is by making the services of a magical healer capable of curing a disability really expensive to the point that most people just can't afford it. If this is the approach you're going to use, you also typically have to make that type of magic quite rare. To use D&D terms, if every first level sorcerer, bard, cleric and druid can heal a spinal injury, it's going to result in a lot of people who are able to undercut those massive prices and the expense will drop as demand goes down. If that last sentence didn't give you a hint, this is really popular method in stories that are critiquing capitalistic mindsets and ideologies, and is most commonly used by authors from the USA and other countries with a similar medical system, since it mirrors a lot of the difficulties faced by disabled Americans. If done right, this approach can be very effective, but it does need to be thought through more carefully than I think people tend to do. Mainly because a lot of fantasy stories end with the main character becoming rich and/or powerful, and so these prohibitively expensive cure become attainable by the story's end, which a lot of authors and writer's just never address. Of course, another approach is to make the availability of the magic itself the barrier. Maybe there just aren't that many people around who know the magic required for that kind of healing, so even without a prohibitive price tag, it's just not something that's an option for most people. If we're looking at a D&D-type setting, maybe you need to be an exceptionally high level to cast the more powerful healing spell, or maybe the spell requires some rare or lost material component. I'd personally advise people to be careful using this approach, since it often leads to stories centred around finding a miracle cure, which then just falls back into that trope more often than not.

Just outright state that some characters don't want/need it

Another, admittedly more direct approach, is to make it that these "cures" exist and are easily attainable, but to just make it that your character or others they encounter don't want or need it. This approach works best for characters who are born with their disabilities or who already had them for a long time before a cure was made available to them. Even within those groups though, this method works better with some types of characters than others depending on many other traits (personality, cultural beliefs, etc), and isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution, but to be fair, that's kind of the point. Some people will want a cure for their disabilities, others are content with their body's the way they are. There's a few caveats I have with this kind of approach though:

you want to make sure you, as the author, understand why some people in real life don't want a cure, and not just in a "yeah I know these people exist but I don't really get it" kind of way. I'm not saying you have to have a deep, personal understanding or anything, but some degree of understanding is required unless you want to sound like one of those "inspirational" body positivity posts that used to show up on Instagram back in the day.

Be wary when using cultural beliefs as a reasoning. It can work, but when media uses cultural beliefs as a reason for turning down some kind of cure, it's often intending to critique extreme beliefs about medicine, such as the ones seen in some New Age Spirituality groups and particularly intense Christian churches. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to connect these kinds of beliefs to disabled people just being happy in their bodies. Alternatively, you also need to be mindful of the "stuck in time" trope - a trope about indigenous people who are depicted as primitive or, as the name suggests, stuck in an earlier time, for "spurning the ways of the white man" which usually includes medicine or the setting's equivalent magic. I'm not the best person to advise you on how to avoid this specific trope, but my partner (who's Taino) has informed me of how often it shows up in fantasy specifically and we both thought it was worth including a warning at least so creators who are interested in this method know to do some further research.

Give the "cures" long-lasting side effects

Often in the real world, when a "cure" for a disability does exist, it's not a perfect solution and comes with a lot of side effects. For example, if you loose part of your arm in an accident, but you're able to get to a hospital quickly with said severed arm, it can sometimes be reattached, but doing so comes at a cost. Most people I know who had this done had a lot of issues with nerve damage, reduced strength, reduced fine-motor control and often a great deal of pain with no clear source. Two of the people I know who's limbs were saved ended up having them optionally re-amputated only a few years later. Likewise, I know many people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics via spinal injuries, who were able to regain the use of their arms and/or legs. However, the process was not an easy one, and involved years of intense physiotherapy and strength training. For some of them, they need to continue to do this work permanently just to maintain use of the effected limbs, so much so that it impacts their ability to do things like work a full-time job and engage in their hobbies regularly, and even then, none of them will be able bodied again. Even with all that work, they all still experience reduced strength and reduced control of the limbs. depending on the type, place and severity of the injury, some people are able to get back to "almost able bodied" again - such was the case for my childhood best friend's dad, but they often still have to deal with chronic pain from the injury or chronic fatigue.

Even though we are talking about magic in a fantasy setting, we can still look to real-life examples of "cures" to get ideas. Perhaps the magic used has a similar side effect. Yes, your paraplegic character can be "cured" enough to walk again, but the magic maintaining the spell needs a power source to keep it going, so it draws on the person's innate energy within their body, using the very energy the body needs to function and do things like move their limbs. They are cured, but constantly exhausted unless they're very careful, and if the spell is especially strong, the body might struggle to move at all, resulting in something that looks and functions similar to the nerve damage folks with spinal injuries sometimes deal with that causes that muscle weakness and motor control issues. Your amputee might be able to have their leg regrown, but it will always be slightly off. The regrown leg is weaker and causes them to walk with a limp, maybe even requiring them to use a cane or other mobility aid.

Some characters might decide these trade-offs are worth it, and while this cures their initial disability, it leaves them with another. Others might simply decide the initial disability is less trouble than these side effects, and choose to stay as they are.

Consider if these are actually cures

Speaking of looking to the real world for ideas, you might also want to consider whether these cures are doing what the people peddling them are claiming they do. Let's look at the so-called autism cures that spring up every couple of months as an example.

Without getting into the… hotly debated specifics, there are many therapies that are often labelled as "cures" for autism, but in reality, all they are doing is teaching autistic people how to make their autistic traits less noticeable to others. This is called masking, and it's a skill that often comes at great cost to an autistic person's mental health, especially when it's a behaviour that is forced on them. Many of these therapies give the appearance of being a cure, but the disability is still there, as are the needs and difficulties that come with it, they're just hidden away. From an outside perspective though, it often does look like a success, at least in the short-term. Then there are the entirely fake cures with no basis in reality, the things you'll find from your classic snake-oil salesmen. Even in a fantasy setting where real magic exists, these kinds of scams and misleading treatments can still exist. In fact, I think it would make them even more common than they are in the real world, since there's less suspension of disbelief required for people to fall for them. "What do you mean this miracle tonic is a scam? Phil next door can conjure flames in his hand and make the plants grow with a snap of his fingers, why is it so hard to believe this tonic could regrow my missing limb?"

I think the only example of this approach I've seen, at least recently, is from The Owl House. The magic in this world can do incredible things, but it works in very specific and defined ways. Eda's curse (which can be viewed as an allegory for many disabilities and chronic illnesses) is seemingly an exception to this, and as such, nothing is able to cure it. Treat it, yes, but not cure it. Eda's mother doesn't accept this though, and seeks out a cure anyway and ends up falling for a scam who's "treatments" just make things worse.

In your own stories, you can either have these scams just not work, or kind of work, but in ways that are harmful and just not worth it, like worse versions of the examples in the previous point. Alternatively, like Eda, it's entirely reasonable that a character who's been the target of these scams before might just not want to bother anymore. Eda is a really good example of this approach handled in a way that doesn't make her sad and depressed about it either. She's tried her mum's methods, they didn't work, and now she's found her own way of dealing with it that she's happy with. She only gets upset when her boundaries are ignored by Luz and her mother.

Think about how the healing magic is actually working

If you have a magic system that leans more on the "hard magic" side of things, a great way to get around the issue of healing magic erasing disability is to stop and think about how your healing magic actually works.

My favourite way of doing this is to make healing magic work by accelerating the natural processes of your body. Your body will, given enough time (assuming it remains infection-free) close a slash from a sword and mend a broken bone, but it will never regrow it's own limbs. It will never heal damage to it's own spinal cord. It will never undo whatever causes autism or fix it's own irregularities. Not without help. Likewise, healing magic alone won't do any of these things either, it's just accelerating the existing process and usually, by extension making it safer, since a wound staying open for an hour before you get to a healer is much less likely to get infected than one that slowly and naturally heals over a few weeks. In one of my own works, I take this even further by making it that the healing magic is only accelerating cell growth and repair, but the healer has to direct it. In order to actually heal, the healer needs to know the anatomy of what they're fixing to the finest detail. A spell can reconnect a torn muscle to a bone, but if you don't understand the structures that allow that to happen in the first place, you're likely going to make things worse. For this reason, you won't really see people using this kind of magic to, say, regrow limbs, even though it technically is possible. A limb is a complicated thing. The healer needs to be able to perfectly envision all the bones, the cartilage, the tendons and ligaments, the muscles (including the little ones, like those found in your skin that make your hair stand on end and give you goose bumps), the fat and skin tissues, all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the structures within the bone that create your blood. Everything, and they need to know how it all connects, how it is supposed to move and be able to keep that clearly in their mind simultaneously while casting. Their mental image also has to match with the patient's internal "map" of the body and the lost limb, or they'll continue to experience phantom limb sensation even if the healing is successful. It's technically possible, but the chances they'll mess something up is too high, and so it's just not worth the risk to most people, including my main character.

Put Restrictions on the magic

This is mostly just the same advice as above, but for softer magic systems. put limits and restrictions on your healing magic. These can be innate (so things the magic itself is just incapable of doing) or external (things like laws that put limitations on certain types of magic and spells).

An example of internal restriction can be seen in how some people interpret D&D's higher level healing spells like regenerate (a 7th level spell-something most characters won't have access to for quite some time). The rules as written specify that disabilities like lost limbs can be healed using this spell, but some players take this to mean that if a character was born with the disability in question, say, born without a limb, regenerate would only heal them back to their body's natural state, which for them, is still disabled.

An external restriction would be that your setting has outlawed healing magic, perhaps because healing magic carries a lot of risks for some reason, eithe to the caster or the person being healed, or maybe because the healing magic here works by selectively reviving and altering the function of cells, which makes it a form of necromancy, just on a smaller scale. Of course, you can also use the tried and true, "all magic is outlawed" approach too. In either case, it's something that will prevent some people from being able to access it, despite it being technically possible. Other external restrictions could look like not being illegal, per say, but culturally frowned upon or taboo where your character is from.

But what if I don't want to do any of this?

Well you don't have to. These are just suggestions to get you thinking about how to make a world where healing magic and disability exist, but they aren't the only ways. Just the ones I thought of.

Of course, if you'd still rather make a setting where all disability is cured because magic and you just don't want to think about it any deeper, I can't stop you. I do however, want to ask you to at least consider where you are going to draw the line. Disability, in essence, is what happens when the body stops (or never started) functioning "normally". Sometimes that happens because of an injury, sometimes it's just bad luck, but the boundary between disabled and not disabled is not as solid as I think a lot of people expect it to be, and we as a society have a lot of weird ideas about what is and isn't a disability that just, quite plainly and simply, aren't consistent. You have to remember, a magic system won't pick and choose the way we humans do, it will apply universally, regardless of our societal hang-ups about disability.

What do I mean about this?

Well, consider for a moment, what causes aging? it's the result of our body not being able to repair itself as effectively as it used to. It's the body not being able to perform that function "normally". So in a setting where all disability is cured, there would be no aging. No elderly people. No death from old age. If you erase disability, you also erase natural processes like aging. magic won't pick and choose like that, not if you want it to be consistent.

Ok, ok, maybe that's too much of a stretch, so instead, let's look at our stereotypical buff hero covered in scars because he's a badass warrior. but in a world where you can heal anything, why would anything scar? Even if it did, could another healing spell not correct that too? Scars are part of the body's natural healing process, but if no natural healing occurred, why would a scar form? Scars are also considered disabling in and of themselves too, especially large ones, since they aren't as flexible or durable as normal skin and can even restrict growth and movement.

Even common things like needing glasses are, using this definition of disability at least, a disability. glasses are a socially accepted disability aid used to correct your eyes when they do not function "normally".

Now to be fair, in reality, there are several definitions of disability, most of which include something about the impact of society. For example, in Australia (according to the Disability Royal Commission), we define disability as "An evolving concept that results from the interaction between a person with impairment(s) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." - or in laymen's terms, the interaction between a person's impairment and societal barriers like people not making things accessible or holding misinformed beliefs about your impairment (e.g. people in wheelchairs are weaker than people who walk). Under a definition like this, things like scars and needing glasses aren't necessarily disabilities (most of the time) but that's because of how our modern society sees them. The problem with using a definition like this though to guide what your magic system will get rid of, is that something like a magic system won't differentiate between an "impairment" that has social impacts that and one that doesn't. It will still probably get rid of anything that is technically an example of your body functioning imperfectly, which all three of these things are. The society in your setting might apply these criteria indirectly, but really, why would they? Very few people like the side effects of aging on the body (and most people typically don't want to die), the issues that come with scars or glasses are annoying (speaking as someone with both) and I can see a lot of people getting rid of them when possible too. If they don't then it's just using the "not everyone wants it approach" I mentioned earlier. If there's some law or some kind of external pressure to push people away from fixing these more normalised issues, then it's using the "restrictions" method I mentioned earlier too.

Once again, you can do whatever you like with your fantasy setting, but it's something I think that would be worth thinking about at least.

[callmrmorrow]

let’s talk about… POOOOOWERPLEX

(spoilers for invincible s3ep6 below, discussion of guilt/grief and death, all invincible-standard topics)

this motherfucker is a point of contention for the whole invincible fandom. do we love him, do we hate him? is he righteous or is he a hypocrite? at what point does the victim become the perpetrator, and is said point when he charbroils his loving wife and child while trying to kill his mortal enemy? is it even all his fault, or is his wife an instigating jane clone from breaking bad who egged him on? and most importantly… how the fuck did the GDA not clock that their new lab worker had loved ones lost in the chicago disaster? give him a psych eval or two, cecil!

also, if he’s so powerplex, how come i can understand him?

okay, all jokes aside, i think powerplex, or scott duvall, if you’re a friend, is a fascinating character. at the beginning of the episode, his formal debut for the show, he’s hanging out with his sister and her niece, gretchen and jessica respectively (another breaking bad nod). we see that his powers are based on transforming impact into electricity, but only in really small bursts. this brings up a fun idea in the invincible world, of natural-born supers who aren’t strong enough to make it big. does the GDA have a file on these guys, or do they spawn in at unpredictable rates within the human gene pool?

it’s super clear that jesse — sorry, scott — loves his family, and it becomes even more clear when they fucking die right in front of him. his entire revenge arc is based on pure misinterpretation and a salt shake of idiocy, because he assumed that invincible holding the severed arm of his (adopted?) sister meant he had torn it from her shoulder socket. easy to misconstrue in the haze of destruction, but really, you can’t tell me that working at the GDA for 1-2 years wouldn’t make you privy to how the fight really went down. short of invincible’s secret identity, of course. fallacy in the writing, and it really would’ve been better if his wife, becky, worked at the GDA instead and got the supplies for him.

also, his wife was 100% egging him on. couldn’t tell you why, maybe she has a power (com)plex herself. she seemed to have her fair share of hate for invincible and the hero system in general. one of the themes of the episode is indeed power, and how it translates into whether or not you deserve to live. the viltrumites are founded on this ideology, mark’s ability to survive is based on his power, but… what if you’re just a normal guy like scott duvall?

“why do you get to live when so many others died? what makes YOU so special?”

this puts me in the mind of deadpool and wolverine’s honda odyssey scene — not the sex allegory — but the part where wolverine is chewing out deadpool and about halfway through his spittle-flush monologue, you can tell he’s talking more about himself than the man he’s castigating. part of scott’s issue is MAJOR survival’s guilt: he only survived because he went to get a coffee. the people he loved, who took care of him all his life, the kid who adored him and whom he really seemed to treat like his own daughter, died and he lived.

half of the issue isn’t even invincible. it’s powerplex himself. this guy probably wishes he died with them. chances are his rage was redirected towards invincible when its initial source was genuine grief and potentially self-hatred. he threw the entire rest of his life into killing invincible, to the point where he arguably faced a mental sunk cost fallacy. i’m sure he did learn that invincible was a victim, but at that point, he’d already poured so much into this that he couldn’t just give up there and then. also if omni-man, the real perpetrator, was gone, then this was the next best thing. his power emulates his own mentality — a very popular thing in this show. his power translates physical impacts — pain — into power, and his story is about how violently and wholly that pain explodes out. even after he burns his wife and child to a crisp, which is arguably the point where he should’ve been like “fuck, stop fighting, it’s so over and this time it’s my fault,” he drives that shock (pun here) outward towards mark again.

aside: why is mark getting packed the fuck up by powerplex? you could ascribe it to his own guilt and perhaps a desire to pay a physical reparation for what he did to scott’s family, and all the other’s families. or you could chalk it up to plot relevancy, where it literally has to happen in order for becky and little baby boy whose name i forgot to die.

and when mark is speaking to scott in prison, he totally fumbles the “let me comfort you, bro” ball. but it is not [title card]’s fault! powerplex’s complex stops him from taking blame for his own actions regarding his wife and son, so he’s only going to be more furious with mark. he pins blame on an external source, and i’m sure this was a learned habit, probably from his wife (i do hate blaming the woman but she did really show some markers of an instigator here. wish that wasn’t the case but it is). i like that the invincible show/comics address the sheer destruction that follows these powerful, high-octane fights, because the s1 finale really was just omni-man showing mark how insignificant we humans are.

“he can’t keep getting away with this!!”

tldr: no, you’re gonna go back and read that.

[maxdibert]

Why do you critizice Dumbledore for being a neglectful teacher but you don't critizice these things in Snape/or don't hold him to the same standards? Both of these men were dealing with their own shit which prevented them from being perfect or good teachers (Dumbledore had a whole war going and political image to keep and Snape was dealing with shit ton of guilt and a responsibility as a spy) so why do you dislike Dumbledore for this reason? Especially in the case of Tom Riddle.

For several reasons:

First, because his ethical and moral system is absolutely incompatible with mine. I don’t believe in giving everything for a greater good, much less in sacrificing people for some bigger plan. I couldn’t care less if the world goes to hell as long as I can spend the rest of my days with my loved ones. I don’t care if everything falls apart, as long as my people are safe. In an apocalypse, I would save my people. In a war, I’d grab my people and get them to safety, and the rest can fend for themselves. I don’t believe in the greater good because it’s a very relative concept, and to me, it seems like a cheap excuse to ease your conscience while doing horrible things to achieve a goal. It’s a hypocritical and cynical way to justify questionable actions.

Second, this leads me to the fact that Dumbledore seems, in fact, like a cynic and a hypocrite. He acts as if he cares about people, but in reality, he only cares about his own plans, and if someone doesn’t fit into them, they can go to hell—he won’t lift a finger. He gives others ethical lessons when he has zero morals to do so. You can’t act all noble with Draco Malfoy in the sixth book, trying to stop him from doing something crazy, when you’ve ignored him for six years. You can’t pretend to be Harry’s friend when you’ve known from the start that if necessary, you’d sacrifice him. You can’t tell a 21-year-old Snape he’s worthless when you were the one who completely ignored the bullying he suffered and even silenced him when he was nearly killed. Are you surprised Riddle had an antisocial personality? You knew he did, and you did nothing, only to feign surprise later. What the hell, Dumbledore—you’re an individualist with hero delusions. Accept it—that’s not even my problem. My problem is that you believe you possess the truth and moral superiority when you clearly don’t. Snape might be many things, but he never pretends to be good, never gives moralizing speeches, never acts like a hero, and never hides his awful character. Severus is honest, and that’s why people don’t like him—but I’d rather have someone terribly unpleasant but honest than someone equally unpleasant pretending to be a good person.

Third, this brings me to his negligence as the direct authority responsible for all those children. He was the headmaster, responsible for ensuring the teaching staff was competent, for preventing abuse, for taking care of the kids. He hired teachers who were utterly unfit for the students (because everyone talks about Snape, but Hagrid playing with highly dangerous creatures around children? Lupin not taking his potion? Gilderoy Lockhart? Quirrell? Hello??). He ignored the abuse happening right under his nose, failed to intervene despite knowing that future dark wizards were being groomed, didn’t address serious acts of violence, and chose to marginalize an entire house in favor of another, knowing full well that house was ideologically critical and that excluding them could reinforce those beliefs. I’m sorry, but most Death Eaters were recruited as teenagers—if he had done his job as an educator, many of those recruits could’ve been avoided. His job was to be responsible for the children, guide them on the right path, and provide the necessary resources and tools. He didn’t care at all. Slytherin? Well, figure it out on your own. That’s how he operated, fully aware of the danger. I’m sorry, but he can go to hell. There’s nothing I hate more than an irresponsible person posing as a beacon of morality.