#labels serve a purpose

[kalm1aa]

can we NOT misuse labels for punching down. or even punching up sometimes. please. i'm beginning to feel like whatever community building uniting goals we were (hopefully) trying to achieve are getting shot in the leg by people who use (optionally — hyperspecific) labels to further isolate some social groups and ¿degrade? them? cause they just don't like them personally? bro that's the same discrimination we were trying to deconstruct by coming up with them. you're just doing the same stuff THEY were doing while justifying it by seeing yourself as an exception cause you're a minority. some news for you: you're still not immune to causing harm or being ableist or sexist or racist or whatever-ist and -phobic by weaponizing the tools you were given to protect yourself and feel accepted and safe and normal

[lapdogchase]

gender microlabels are really cool to me bc a lot of the time they're like, metaphors almost, for how someone experiences their gender. like constellunyx, which is a gender connected to the moon, stars, & the connection between the moon & stars. or mechuatic, which is a gender related to mechanical sharks or fish. or lunaboy and solgirl, which are a gender related to the moon + femininity while being a boy, & the sun + masculinity while being a girl, respectively. or genderfunky, which is when ur gender is funky and goofy, and has a really fun flag. like i genuinely think it's so cool!! i love it & i wish microlabels weren't so looked down on both within and outside of the queer community bc it rules!!!

[angel-archivist]

It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.

The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.

The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.

The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.

The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?

[pricechecktranslations]

Same anon from the OSS post. Not sure if it's a foil or more of a stretch, but Eve and Meta feels like one. With Meta learning to love her children and her days causing chaos while in Apocalypse behind her, while Eve slowly went from loving those same children to wanting to cause chaos instead. Both also ended up massacring a town (Nemu and Toragay respectively), with the aid of their Inheritor abilities used on others.

I don't think they're foils to each other in the series overall but I do think mothy was setting them up that way in the OSS novel proper. Having them interact during Eve's chapter, with Eve decidedly beginning the story as a hero and Meta as a villain, only for their respective positions to sort of swap by the end. The way their personalities clash with each other, and the opposite nature of their romantic relationships (Eve's single-minded devotion to Adam that is ultimately toxic versus Meta's open relationship with Pale that winds up being genuinely loving). And so on.

I don't think them massacring towns really counts towards it, though. The methods they use are vastly different (Eve doesn't use her inheritor ability to kill anyone, she poisons them), Toragay actually has a sizable number of survivors, and frankly it's quite common in the series for villains to engage in mass massacre. Irina is stated to do it regularly, for example. Conchita and her father collectively pretty much wiped out the territory they governed. Riliane killed far more than just a single town. Etc.

The thing about foils is that they aren't just a thing you label characters as if enough of their traits are similar/inversions of each other, it's usually something that the author is doing deliberately (like Irina and Elluka in almost all of their appearances together). I think it's more likely a character is being written as a foil to another if the majority of the "foil-like" traits are in the same shared story rather than in another novel that was released several years later/earlier.

[newathens]

would you say im being too much of a hater if i said i don’t think the label of YA should exist anymore..

[soygii]

What's the difference between slut and a wife? The first is a public property; the second, a private property.

[cowboycharmac]

okie i felt bad i havent finished a project in a while so heres a edit i hope u like it :) ummm song is peach by kevin abstract and this video along with all my other edits is also on my youtube channel. obviously minors do not interact but i tagged it using the mature label so they wont even see it so umm whatever i guess ^_^

[none-tadashi-left-hiro]

Is my toxic trait psychoanalyzing other people and thinking I’m the exception because I’m actually soooo observant and aware of the signs

[glitchclub]

"gen z vs milennials!!!!!" all of you are fucking clowns

[uncertainty5]

if the bi lesbian, trans men can be lesbians, non men loving non men discourse has taught me anything its that we all need to throw away labels. At this point they do nothing. If you tell me ur gay this tells me nothing. Doesnt tell me ur gender identity, doesnt tell me what kind of attraction u feel, doesn’t tell me who ur attracted to and who u make exceptions for. I could identify as bi but some people have a thousand different interpretations of wtf that means. So im not gonna use bi anyone. I use labels to let people know if an easy way what my identity is but u cant do that anymore. So fuck it get rid of the labels and tell people straight up what ur attraction is. Hello Im a person attracted to mostly men but sometimes women. People talk about the “gender fuckery” of the 80s and then u learn there were even less labels. Like we invent labels to describe our identities but then like…suddenly they dont matter? Everyone is valid or whatever but all ur left with are these empty hollow words that act more as decoration than like actual identities. And u cant tell people how to identify so like fuck it why even have them?

[jesusinstilettos]

I’m about to save you thousands of dollars in therapy by teaching you what I learned paying thousands of dollars for therapy:

It may sound woo woo but it’s an important skill capitalism and hyper individualism have robbed us of as human beings.

Learn to process your emotions. It will improve your mental health and quality of life. Emotions serve a biological purpose, they aren’t just things that happen for no reason.

1. Pause and notice you’re having a big feeling or reaching for a distraction to maybe avoid a feeling. Notice what triggered the feeling or need for a distraction without judgement. Just note that it’s there. Don’t label it as good or bad.

2. Find it in your body. Where do you feel it? Your chest? Your head? Your stomach? Does it feel like a weight everywhere? Does it feel like you’re vibrating? Does it feel like you’re numb all over?

3. Name the feeling. Look up an emotion chart if you need to. Find the feeling that resonates the most with what you’re feeling. Is it disappointment? Heartbreak? Anxiety? Anger? Humiliation?

4. Validate the feeling. Sometimes feelings misfire or are disproportionately big, but they’re still valid. You don’t have to justify what you’re feeling, it’s just valid. Tell yourself “yeah it makes sense that you feel that right now.” Or something as simple as “I hear you.” For example: If I get really big feelings of humiliation when I lose at a game of chess, the feeling may not be necessary, but it is valid and makes sense if I grew up with parents who berated me every time I did something wrong. So I could say “Yeah I understand why we are feeling that way given how we were treated growing up. That’s valid.”

5. Do something with your body that’s not a mental distraction from the feeling. Something where you can still think. Go on a walk. Do something with your hands like art or crochet or baking. Journal. Clean a room. Figure out what works best for you.

6. Repeat, it takes practice but is a skill you can learn :)

[melonisopod]

I think a big underlying factor of the backlash against her is the idea of having to confront your possessions and grapple with whether you actually want them. Do you just have stuff because buying/owning things is a pasttime or does the thing you own actually add joy to your life?

And some people mock the whole “sparks joy” thing regarding necessary stuff like a kitchen appliance or a hairbrush, but even if those things don’t trigger a dopamine effect they still make your life happier because they serve a specific purpose. And again, you’re confronted with what the things you own actually do for you - do they make your life happier? That sort of thing bothers consumerist culture where things like fast fashion and shopping are considered pasttimes in themselves without regard for the actual things you have.

[birlwrites]

okay that post that went around recently about starting with 100-word chapters to write the entire novel at once was ONTO SOMETHING. i tried a similar thing (at least i think it was similar - i didn't aim for 100-word chapters but rather for very brief overviews of every scene in each chapter, going more in-depth where the vibes called for it, but being sure to hit Every Scene) and not only did i get something down for every single chapter in my novel in one afternoon, i added THOUSANDS of words to my overall word count without even really noticing i was doing it

plus, it means that i've already done all the pacing work, so now i can go through and just focus on prose without worrying about how each scene is going to fit into the overall story, AND because i've put in something for every chapter, i'm pretty much never confronted with the terror of a blank page

this might actually change how i write, since i'm very much a plantser and have been wondering how i can trick myself into doing more detailed outlines without feeling like i'm taking all the joy of discovery out of writing the story. the sheer mood boost ALONE from having completed what i'm calling my 'pacing draft' and having the first draft out of the way is making me so much more optimistic about the act of writing itself

[lavender-lady-777]

"The Bride" not having a name outside of her relation to a man she wants nothing to do with. Her body being constantly objectified and sexualized before she was even conceived. Her face, her torso, even each of her individual, rotting limbs being carefully selected to fit the sexual preferences of an absolute stranger. Her skull being beaten in and manhandled during a man's jealous outburst, her head rolling to the ground like an inanimate object. The story of Marilyn Monroe's body. The way women cannot rest even in death.

The constant expectation of who The Bride will be before she even is. The way patriarchal societies buy pink onesies and Barbie cribs and headbands with bows before a baby is even born. The stain of forever being "just" a woman. The way this mirrors Eric's flowers, the way he love-bombs her and lays ownership to her before she's even developed consciousness.

The way Eric insists that his bride doesn't need to develop basic language skills or even a rudimentary understanding of the world around her, because her education doesn't directly benefit him. The way he was created to usher in a new era of scientific discovery for mankind, while she was created only to please him. The Biblical story of Eve being carved from Adam's rib. The way organized religion trains women to believe that their only use lies in being obedient and subservient to the men around them.

The Bride being continuously punished for her sexual awakening, for any exercise of her own autonomy or free will. The way the only “love” she has ever known was brutally murdered because she refused to cater to the expectations of the men around her, because she denied the title that was thrust upon her at birth. The way that men have always done this to women— labeling us as "jezebels" or "harlots" or "whores" or "bitches" or "sluts" for refusing to fall into a role we never consented to performing.

And, of course, the fact that Eric continues to feel entitled to her body even after she tells him no in every conceivable way. "Why won't she let me touch her?!" The parallels between his behavior and that of so many incels who believe that women exist solely to serve their purposes. "She is to love me!" The way that, after losing her, he spends his time partying on yachts with models and playgirls, because that's all women are to him... just pretty objects. The way he bastardizes the word "love" because he's never taken the time to know or love her, not really.

The inherent trauma of her birth and nature— the way the horrorshow of her creation reflects the unspoken horror of every woman's creation. "She is but a cluster of fear and not knowing."

Ohhhhh Mary Shelley I fear you would love this show...

[bronzepatriarchy]

Chapter 3's ending has been fixed :D

I'll probably work on the start of chapter 4 tomorrow but I forgot where I plotted the damn thing >-<

[headspace-hotel]

I've been reading some more of the works of eugenicists while thinking about the state of education about this ideology. Yes, "Eugenics" is a dirty word nowadays; in my opinion, it's not nearly dirty enough.

Here's a fact to make your head spin: Eugenics wasn't about killing people. Yes, it ended up killing people, and if you examine the way eugenics has influenced the world, you realize it still does kill people, but the architects of eugenics weren't leading with, "My fellow countrymen, we should On Purpose Kill People."

The reason that's important is, people keep coming up with ideas labeled (by their critics) "uncomfortably similar to eugenics"--- ideas for a compassionate, scientifically-grounded way of improving humanity by understanding the heredity of good and bad traits and influencing the fertility rates of people with different genetic traits.

There is already a word for this kind of idea. That word is: eugenics. It is silly to set yourself apart from eugenicists by explicitly repudiating killing people or forcibly sterilizing them, when many founding eugenicists also explicitly repudiated killing people or forcibly sterilizing them.

Here is an Internet Archive link to "Heredity in relation to eugenics," a work by Charles Benedict Davenport, an early eugenicist. Please read at least the first four pages.

I'm afraid that his brief introduction to eugenics could sound, to the layperson, surprisingly less scary and disgusting than expected. Mister Davenport's word choices may provide a "red flag" to the reader: he refers to human babies as a "valuable crop," to marriage between people as "mating." The disquiet these word choices cause is because they dehumanize the subjects. Humans, from Davenport's perspective, are essentially the same as agricultural plants or animals, which in turn are assets, sources of economic gain---they are things.

Davenport articulates the contribution of a human being to the United States: "...forming a united, altruistic, God-serving, law-abiding, effective and productive nation." However, relatively few people are "fully effective" at this purpose, because a proportion of society is "non-productive"---either criminals or disabled, or among the people required to care for and control criminals and the disabled.

After you read the introduction of Davenport's book, read his wikipedia page. He was a Nazi. He was a Nazi until the day he died. He was rabidly and repugnantly racist, so much so that his later scientific works fudged together garbage conclusions that contradicted his actual data in order to prop up his racist beliefs. He lobbied Congress to restrict immigration into the USA, out of the belief that the immigrants would poison the blood of our country with inferior genetics.

Overwhelmingly, eugenicists were concerned with disability. They believed that disability would normally be eliminated by natural selection, and that caring for the disabled and allowing them to grow up and to have children would cause a steady increase in the proportion of society made up of disabled people---who were, as Davenport puts it, a "burden" on society.

Eugenicists were also concerned with race. They wanted to gather data that demonstrated what they already believed: that race was a biological reality, a reality that could only appear unclear or malleable because of harmful, aberrant, unnatural scenarios, namely miscegenation or race mixing. Basically, race was both a natural reality, and in need of enforcement.

But eugenicist ideology was not just about the inferiority of disabled people or people of color. Eugenicists thought of their ideas as a science and thought of themselves as scientists, and they broadly addressed virtually everything we would now consider a matter of "public health." Eugenicist writings almost universally address crime, and often don't recognize a clear distinction between crime and mental disability, or between either of those things and poverty. Criminals, disabled people and poor people were basically the same; they had something wrong with their genes that made them that way.

"Sexual deviance" is generally included in this, and Davenport explicitly references this in his introduction, where he says that "normal" people are not likely to have the kind of sex that leads to the transmission of STIs.

For many proponents (including Davenport), the key dogma of eugenics was that genes predetermined everything about a person. Tuberculosis was a huge problem at the time, and eugenicists were insisting that, although the disease was known to be bacterial, susceptibility to the disease was genetic, and therefore people who became sick with tuberculosis were genetically defective. Likewise if a child developed epilepsy after a head injury, the injury did not cause the epilepsy but instead revealed an inherent genetic weakness that was already there. This implied that spending resources on healing or rehabilitating anybody was a waste of time.

If you read more of Davenport's book, you will see that he makes some WILD statements---he asserts that artistic talent is a Mendelian trait controlled by a single gene, basically that you are either born an artist or you aren't. This seems absolutely absurd but, there is a good amount of popular belief in inherent aptitudes for art or music or math or what have you.

Eugenics isn't just about named prejudices like racism or ableism, it is even bigger than that, it is a set of beliefs encompassing how the potential and value of human beings is determined and how society should care for its members as a result of that.