#lack of research or racist?

[irithnova]

I wish I wasn't shown this because it's even more fucking annoying than her first response

Meeru is absolutely backtracking and no I don't believe she's trying to be self critical for a second.

I quite literally explained to Meeru in my first response to her that Panda's behaviour is genuinely abusive and dangerous (for example, causing someone to relapse in their eating disorder). I even provided Meeru with a WHOLE LIST of the things Panda did which includes blatant racism, suicide baiting, victim blaming, and inappropriate behavior infront of and towards minors.

I then went on a provided Meeru with FOUR screenshots of Panda's behavior, one of the screenshots showing her saying that she wants Manchurians to be genocided. I then pointed out that Meeru's interest in Siberians and Northern Asians is purely orientalist because she has built her blog off of the back of Northern Asian and Siberian cultures, but when being told that her friend Panda is racist against Northern Asians and was even provided a screenshot as evidence for this, she STILL went on to call it "boring cancel culture".

In the first response I also said how MULTIPLE people tried to talk to Panda privately, and she did not listen. Her behaviour is not only dangerous but we have found out that Panda has been trying to control the narrative about what happened to people throughout the fandom and telling them absolute lies about what happened, concealing the extent of her abuse and bad behaviour and outright orchestrating a hate campaign against @/miyuecakes by not only spreading lies about her with 0 evidence throughout the fandom, but by sending her posse to harass her on tumblr.

How did Meeru respond upon being given a list of the things Panda did with four screenshots of ACTUAL evidence?

"Don't blame me for not reading all 80 pages!"

"My family is struggling!"

"I care about Siberians!"

"Why did this come out around Christmas!"

She's now backtracking saying that I can't blame her for not reading all 80 pages when

1) No one fucking forced her to release that post before reading the whole document and it's quite stupid of her to release that post despite apparently not reading it

2) Even if she didn't read the whole document? I provided her with screenshots of Panda's behavior and a list of the things she's done to hurt people.

Despite this, Meeru STILL called it purely cancel culture and dismissed the evidence I gave her!

Stop backtracking!

This post is backtracking central. Oh. So NOW you agree that Panda's behavior was harmful even though I literally told you what she did and gave you evidence in my response to you?

"Why are things being handled in public" bestie I don't think I need to keep explaining to you that multiple people have tried to talk to Panda about her dangerous behavior privately but she didn't listen. She shows 0 desire to change and IMMEDIATELY went to make other friends to lie to about the whole ordeal after she left. This post is a WARNING to people to avoid her.

When I said you were orientalist , I said it was because you were given literal evidence of Panda being racist to Northern Asians , yet you decided to carry on with the narrative that this is cancel culture and that we're overreacting. I didn't say jackshit about Putin girly. If you treat racism against Northern Asians like it's just a newspaper article for you to reblog rather than an actual material reality, and dismiss racism against a Northern Asian just because your friend did it, your so called interest in their cultures means nothing!

Meeru is now blaming ME for why she couldn't read the whole document because she was too busy "defending herself" against my "insults"😂 You lie almost as often Panda does. Again, no one forced you to post that post before finishing the whole document! Don't speak on shit you don't know about !

I have the right to insult someone who stands by an abuser and shits on the victims for speaking out! Thanks !

[thenixkat]

i did not expect the mangaka of Dorohedoro to bring out a Black brute caricature#in one of the last arcs of the manga to show how much stronger/more skilled Nikaido got #or that one devil who's a reccorring character who looks like a whole ass kkk member #and literally zero nonblack fans mentioned it

[cassandralexxx]

yknow what shout out to a friend of mine

a few years ago he (was joking but still) implied the my cultural food is just comprised of rice and beans when that is wholly inaccurate with there only being one main bean dish that isn’t even as popular as like the majority of foods. (Like it felts kinda racist with the whole Latin America country eats beans thing)

BUT yesterday he was having a convo with some people and apparently he defended my family’s country bc the dumbasses he was talking to thought the entire country was jungle. Like my family’s country is in the top 20 of biggest countries in the world why would it be all jungle. The ecosystems are vast and varied and like the capital where most people live is like in the desert NOT the jungle 😭

idk I’m counting that as growth bc like I appreciate him not shitting on my country and instead asking me for photos to show another side of things.

[lilliangst]

biblically accurate, semi-realistic candace or kandake, who was a nubian queen

image renders:

Incoming yap about the current genshin problem:

As a Chinese person swarmed by western media, Liyue means so, so much to me. Seeing the culture that I've been taught to be ashamed of all my life being represented so accurately and positively makes me incredibly happy. It was the first time I saw the famous landscapes that I've visited in person and recreated a fantasy game. Seeing characters wear clothes with similar designs to what I’ve worn and eating similar foods to what I’ve eaten, is indescribable. The euphoria I felt when I first climbed atop of Qingyun Peak and heard the music is something I wish I could experience again.

That being said, Sumeru was a mess, and Natlan is just depressing. What I would give to have people from SEA/SWANA, Latin America, Africa, and Indigenous groups etc. to feel the same way I did when strolling through Liyue.

HYV’s colorism isn’t just stifling their character designs; by whitewashing real-life people, real cultures and even their deities, they are inadvertently whitewashing history. They are taking from actual ethnic groups: learning their history and struggles, then retelling these narratives after replacing their people with bleached protagonists in orientalist clothing.

All this because of what? Out of touch beauty standards? The possibility of lower sales? Dehya is extremely loved in China and her fans donated thousands to a children’s charity in her name. Other Chinese companies like Lilith Games and Bluepoch don’t have this problem. Dislyte is able to consistently pump out gorgeous character designs with varying skin tones and Reverse:1999 makes accurate designs and does in-depth research into the cultures of their characters.

It’s a basic lack of respect.

I've heard that Iranian players were extremely happy and touched by their representation, and that's amazing. And most European, Chinese, and Japanese players are fine with theirs. I just wish this extended to the representation of people with skin tones that are darker.

HYV has shown that they are capable of making characters with darker skin tones and interesting designs, but they will only do that for npcs and enemies. Orientalism, culture mash-ups and inaccuracies across regions is unfortunately common in the game, but the problem with the unchanging pale color of playable characters reflects an obvious and sinister bigotry. I do personally believe that a lot of this has to do with the meddling of higher-ups; many playable characters look like they’ve been white-washed at the end of the process, and just from an art/design standpoint, they fit darker skin-tones much, much better.

It is impossible for Genshin to be a fully “fictional fantasy game” because they chose to bear the responsibility of incorporating real life cultures into their world-building. The criticisms about Sumeru and Natlan are what they brought upon themselves. If you don’t want to represent properly, don’t do it at all. You cannot take everything from a culture and leave their people out of it. They deserve the same respect and research as the region representing your own nation.

For the people who have seen themselves represented in media over and over again, or for those who do not care about being represented at all: even if YOU don't care, others do, and they have a damn good reason for it. This is a big deal, it isn’t too much to ask for, and I will be blocking racists. Peace.

[bluegiragi]

I hate to ask this cause it feels stupid but I dont wanna do a bunch of research on whatever the recent cod mw fandom discourse is,

but I saw the reblog of someone accusing you of supporting people who write sexualized pedophilia and that really is personally my only """"moral"""" with nsfw shit, (I'm a patreon subscriber and ig I just wanna know where my money's going) is THAT true?

i used to follow an artist who, 5-6 months ago made racist art featuring gaz and soap in a slave context, which I didn't like, retweet or interact with in any way. they also made under-age art of ghost soap, which I also didn't interact with . people on twitter called me out yesterday, for retweeting (months before this incident) other art they'd made as evidence I stood by/encouraged/was an avid fan of all these tropes. The art I retweeted wasn't either of these previous examples of art, but one where ghost and soap were sleeping in a bed together, as adults, peacefully. I can't emphasise enough that I have not interacted with this artist at all, for over six months. The callout in question has framed me as a close friend of theirs when, in truth, our total timeline of interactions could probably be counted on one hand, and I haven't interacted with her in so long that I genuinely forgot I was still following her.

The crux of all is this is that I did not unfollow + block this artist earlier on when the racist art was posted months ago, and then I retweeted a fic tagged with "non-con" (ghost gets soap off in a context where he can't really properly consent, they're in front of a crowd of strangers and they have to fuck, but both parties are into each other) written by a friend as I wanted to support their writing.

The pedophile claims are because I retweeted a fandom bingo post that defended loli-con without reading all the squares properly, and then immediately un-retweeted it when I properly read it. All in all, the post was on my account for maybe a few minutes.

The zoophile claims are because people say i support someone who wrote zoophilic fic and called people slurs, and I genuinely don't know who they're talking about there.

The anti-asian racism claims come from the original accusers in the callout thread thinking that I made Horangi's eyes in the monster!AU sensitive as a way of making fun of Asian eyes. The real reason is because he's a cat hybrid in that AU and cats are sensitive to light.

I tried addressing all this in a casual way earlier on in a misguided attempt to sort things out more 'civilly', and responded to an ask talking about my "support" for the artist who drew the slave Gaz art by saying the fanart in question was tone deaf and in poor taste. It wasn't enough for some people, so I'm happy to say it clearly- yes, it was racist, and the reason why I didn't want to be more aggressive is because I didn't want to extend all this mess by throwing this artist directly to the wolves - I genuinely believed them at the time when they said that wasn't that their intention, and think they should've deleted the post at the time, but not unfollowing was a decision that I made. I know now upon reflection that it was naive of me, unwarranted and frankly irresponsible to take a stranger at face value and believe they had good intentions, when the act of not deleting the post in question was evidence of a lack in remorse. In the moment, I'd thought back to my own personal experience with a friend of mine who used an asian slur in my company, who later sincerely apologised and legitimately cleaned up his act after I gave him a second chance. It informed my choice to not unfollow at the time, but there's a difference between someone you know irl for months and a stranger on the internet you've interacted with a few times. I shouldn't have coddled them in my response, and I'm sorry for not treating it with the severity it deserved. It was callous, and stupid, and indicative of internal biases that I ever thought it was a light enough offence to "see through", and I deeply deeply apologise. I promise from the bottom of my heart to do better.

That's everything so far. I didn't unfollow an artist when I absolutely should've, which i'll always strongly regret. I also retweeted a properly-tagged fic on my clearly 18+ nsfw account. I've undone both of those actions now. I hope this can be the end of it.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Aren't a lot of people of color uncomfortable with white people having OCs of color? Or is the problem not giving more visibility to OCs of fans of color?

Well, I would highly suggest finding and making community with fans of color to see these things in action. But the issue is not that they have OCs of color. The discomfort includes when white creators:

Poorly create characters of color, usually including overt racism due to lack of research or empathy (from poorly drawn skin and hair, to stereotypes, to blatant tokenism)

Poorly create those characters and then getting defensive when fans of color- especially the ones being depicted- point out the racism in their work.

Poorly create those characters not even for those who are being represented, but for the applause and approval of other white fans (this includes when they apologize for racism... And it isn't actually directed to or accepted by said fans of color. But that doesn't matter, bc that's not who they did it for to begin with.)

Tokenizes those OCs/characters of color while mistreating fans of color- so, if your "favorite character" is Black, but I either 1) never see you interact with or support anyone Black in the fan base or 2) I only ever see you argue with the Black fans (or your politics are sus, tbh), odds are, you're just tokenizing that Black character. Because you don't actually like or respect Black people, just the puppet Black character that you can control. A "good Black", if you will.

Speak over fans of color on their own experiences, and don't make space for fans of color and their own OCs (which is what you said), while simultaneously claiming ignorance to said issues (how are you 'not racist' but you don t even know what that looks like? You 'cant spot' fandom racism, so how do you know when you're not doing it?)

If you're not willing to put in the effort to depict us correctly or respectfully, don't do it at all. We're not points for your "diversity clout" or to assuage your feelings of unaddressed racism. But many white creators of OCs of Color, or even fan characters, are not considerate of or concerned by these things. It's something I hope I address enough here to bring awareness to those reading.

[follow-up-news]

More than 70 years after doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge, a lawyer for her descendants said they have reached a settlement with a biotechnology company they sued in 2021, accusing its leaders of reaping billions of dollars from a racist medical system. Tissue taken from the Black woman’s tumor before she died of cervical cancer became the first human cells to be successfully cloned. Reproduced infinitely ever since, HeLa cells have become a cornerstone of modern medicine, enabling countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even Covid-19 vaccines. Despite that incalculable impact, the Lacks family had never been compensated. Doctors harvested Lacks’ cells in 1951, long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for her family argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known. Attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Lacks family, announced the settlement late Monday. He said the terms of the agreement are confidential. “The parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of Court and will have no further comment about the settlement,” Crump said in a statement.

[vaspider]

TERFs stop appropriating the writing of a trans person challenge: IMPOSSIBLE.

Reminder, y'all, Leslie Feinberg (z''l) was a trans person. The first sentence on the "self" page of hir website begins:

Leslie Feinberg, who identified as an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist...

If you are anti-trans, and you find yourself with Feinberg's words resonating with you, maybe this is a chance for you to think about that. You don't get to take hir words out of context and continue pissing on the trans people who have outlived hir.

Stone Butch Blues emphasizes class solidarity & zie/she was an outspoken opponent of anti-trans propaganda within the queer and lesbian communities. Moreover, in hir own words:

Discrimination against hir as a transgender person made it impossible for hir to get steady work. Zie/she earned hir living for most of hir life through a series of low-wage temp jobs, including working in a PVC pipe factory and a book bindery, cleaning out ship cargo holds and washing dishes, serving as an ASL interpreter, and doing medical data inputting.

...

She/zie attributed hir catastrophic health crisis to “bigotry, prejudice and lack of science”—active prejudice toward hir transgender identity that made access to health care exceedingly difficult, and lack of science due to limits placed by mainstream medical authorities on information, treatment, and research about Lyme and its co-infections.

You and people like you, people pushing the bullshit you are pushing, are part of why zie/she is "of blessed memory" and not here still doing the work zie/she loved so much.

Fuck.

[arakkne]

Gender apartheid: oppression of women should be made a crime against humanity – feminist academic explains why

Published July 15th, 2014, written by Penelope Andrews

"Crimes against humanity are occurring with impunity around the globe; from Myanmar to Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere. And yet, unlike international treaties for the crimes of genocide, torture, apartheid and forced disappearances, there isn’t a treaty specific to crimes against humanity.

That lack is now being remedied.

The International Law Commission, a UN expert body, has submitted draft articles for a treaty to the UN’s Sixth Committee. This is the main forum for considering legal questions in the UN General Assembly. The intention is to give countries more legal tools to hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity. It is expected that the treaty process will conclude in October 2024.

The new treaty may include special protection for women.

We believe good journalism is good for democracy and necessary for it.

A group of women activists is lobbying the committee to consider including in the treaty a new definition aimed at protecting women against all forms of oppression. They are advocating for a definition of this discrimination as “gender apartheid”. The idea is that it would track the definition of racial apartheid by replacing the word “race” with “gender”.

Apartheid (Afrikaans for “apartness”) policies were codified in South Africa between 1948 and 1954. The ideology divided South Africans on the basis of race in all spheres of life.

The lobbyists argue that the international community responded comprehensively to racial apartheid after the Apartheid Convention made it a crime in 1973. This forced the South African apartheid state to be held accountable for the crime. It also imposed an obligation on UN member states to eradicate the institutionalised systematic oppression and domination of black South Africans.

Read more: Ordinary white South Africans and apartheid – bound to a racist system they helped prop up

As an academic who has researched and written extensively on racial and gender equality, I fully support broadening the definition of the crime of apartheid to include gender. I believe this is necessary given the persistence and ubiquity of structural discrimination and violence against women in the world.

I first made a case for this in my 2012 book From Cape Town to Kabul: Rethinking Strategies for Pursuing Women’s Human Rights. I argued that when one reads the Apartheid Convention closely, and substitutes “gender” for “race”, the situation of Afghan women, in particular, is identical to the plight of black South Africans under apartheid.

I argued that thinking about constructing a genuine alternative to the realities of women’s lives in Afghanistan was to consider the way the international community confronted the eradication of apartheid in South Africa. It would enable a structured global approach responsive to the institutionalised systems of domination and oppression of women, girls and the LGBTQI+ community.

Codifying “gender apartheid” could go much further than protecting Afghan women and girls.

Great progress has been made in the pursuit of gender equality and in stemming gender-based violence. I believe that codifying gender apartheid under international law is an essential component of that continued progress.

It could offer significant relief to many victims and survivors who otherwise would not be entitled to adequate recourse from the international community and from states. It could also lead to a more effective and concerted international response to gender-based oppression.

Fighting gender apartheid

The crime of gender apartheid stands out as unique and pernicious in intent and consequence. It is what legal scholar Patricia Williams has referred to as “spirit murder”. That is a system of dehumanisation, erasure, oppression, domination and persecution.

Read more: Students on the frontline: South Africa and the US share a history of protest against white supremacy

The Taliban’s ever deepening and institutionalised oppression of Afghan women and girls is the most vivid illustration of the case.

Multiple UN experts, member states and Afghan women’s rights defenders have warned of the deteriorating situation of women and girls in Afghanistan. The concerns became more pronounced after the UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed on 12 January 2023 warned the international community that in Afghanistan,

unprecedented, systemic attacks on women’s and girls’ rights and the flouting of international obligations are creating gender-based apartheid.

A sign in Johannesburg in 1948 saying 'non-European' people are not allowed to use a lift reserved for Europeans (whites).

Apartheid signage in Johannesburg in March 1948. AFP via Getty Images

In September 2023, UN Women executive director Sima Bahous called on member states to support an intergovernmental process to codify gender apartheid under international law. She said that

the tools the international community has at its disposal were not created to respond to mass, state-sponsored gender oppression. This systematic and planned assault on women’s rights is foundational to the Taliban’s vision of state and society and it must be named, defined, and proscribed in our global norms, so that we can respond appropriately.

Why the argument holds water

One question that needs answering is whether apartheid can be separated from its association with South Africa. Can we think of apartheid as a crime against humanity that can be removed from its racial context?

The evidence from Afghanistan, for example, suggests the answer is a resounding “yes”.

There is a precedent for this. The crime of genocide originated as a term to describe the crimes in Nazi-occupied Europe in the second world war. It was then applied to genocides that occurred elsewhere in the world, like Rwanda, Cambodia and Sudan. In the same way apartheid ought not to be confined to its racial origins.

Read more: South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is the country's proudest foreign policy moment in three decades

International opponents of racial apartheid played a significant role in bolstering South African anti-apartheid activists. In the same way the backing of the global community is crucial to advancing gender justice and women’s human rights. It is particularly necessary to support frontline defenders of women’s human rights who challenge gender apartheid at great risk to themselves.

As the government of Malta noted in its 2023 written comments on the Draft Crimes Against Humanity Convention:

[t]he codification of the crime of gender apartheid will enable victims and survivors – present and future – to hold perpetrators to account for the totality of crimes committed by systematized oppression which the crime of gender persecution alone cannot and does not capture.

This view ought to be widely endorsed by the international community."

[ironunderstands]

2.1 was so good holy shit (spoilers, obviously)

GOD THEY ATE AND IM SPECIFICALLY GONNA TALK ABOUT HOW WELL THEY WROTE RATIO IN THIS BECAUSE IM FOAMING AT THE GODDAMN MOUTH IT CHANGES HOW YOU VIEW EVERYTHING BUT IN A GOOD WAY.

so, let’s start from the beginning in 2.0 I want to walk you through my experience of it

ratio mean to aventurine, everyone gets mad. I feel weird about it, pre-2.1 I come to the conclusion that he got used as a plot device in that scene, since being racist contradicts his core motivations and the dialogue is awkward and has no real reason behind it, I chalk it up to bad writing but ultimately forgive it because 2.1 seems centered around Aventurine so they need setup for that

2.1 drops, my bsf plays the update throughout the night and we are losing our shit. He gets to the part where Ratio “betrays” Aventurine. I fucking lose it, I try to reconcile this with my preconceived notions of ratio, they don’t match up at all, his behavior that whole time doesn’t in the slightest. I am confused, I wonder if I have been wrong about him this whole time, if his whole speech on the Space Station and his character quests were some kind of fluke. I mean it could be in character? Knowledge of how a stellaron works could save millions if not billions of lives, invaluable information which Ratio would have trouble turning down because of its value. It still feels deeply wrong, Ratio isnt a backstabber, and he wouldn’t so easily bargain with Sunday over information he has no confirmation of (and could likely obtain in some other way).

The story continues, me and Haseeb (aforementioned best friend) are still pissed, I’m losing it because my favorite character just did something so unforgivable and out of character and I feel like a complete and utter idiot for interpreting a character to be a good person when they so clearly weren’t. Well, I (luckily) was so so so so so so so wrong about that, as it was all a setup, a plan devised by Aventurine to distract Sunday and forward their goals. I’ve never been happier, and suddenly every weird behavior, every “this doesn’t make sense” goes from “bad writing” to perhaps one of my favorite retroactive twists in fiction.

Ratio belittling Aventurine for his background doesn’t make any sense, I mean we literally saw the guy give a whole ass speech about how he believes all people deserve access to knowledge and that everyone is capable of being creative and having intellect, but that they just have to try for it, and if they are incapable of it, he DOCTOR Ratio is there to lend a helping hand. To cure the galaxy of stupidity, something which he views as not the lack of knowledge but rather the misuse and misinterpretation of it, how he depises the Genius Society because they mostly do not try and use their intellect from the betterment of other, and actively guide/encourage other scientists (and in Hertas case the researchers at the space station) to view knowledge as some sort of prize or commodity rather than tool. This notion is what causes Screwellum to acknowledge that Ratio is more like a medical doctor than a scholar. And this notion is something Sunday Isn’t Aware Of.

Sunday doesn’t know who Ratio really is, he may have heard of his various exploits, but Ratio has a reputation for arrogance, bluntness and insensitivity, something which Ratio plays up to the nines. The 2.0 scene with Aventurine goes from seemingly massively OOC for Ratio to him actively playing up his negative reputation to play into Sundays perceptions of the pair for their plan. Ratio->

a) makes it seem like Aventurine fucked up and he’s mad at him for losing the cornerstones, something which Sunday would see and go “hmm they don’t like each other

b) this “oh I can drive a wedge between them” notion gets worse (although in their case better) when Ratio brings up Aventurine’s (not entirely accurate) background. Sunday now thinks he has leverage over Aventurine and even more of a chance of getting Ratio to betray him. Ratio also makes it seem like he just learned this information by stating he “did his homework” and this supposed unfamiliarity with one another would give Sunday more confidence to try and drive a wedge between them

c) this makes it seem like the IPC are unaware of the Families constant surveillance, as it looks like they are having an important conversation in a private room, which would make Sunday think they are unaware of his eyes and ears everywhere

Now let me qualify this notion with more evidence because you could still try and argue that the deal Ratio and Aventurine struck was post 2.0 argument

Topaz (my glorious Queen). At the end of the 1.4 (or was it 1.5?) Belabog quest she has a conversation with Aventurine in which he requests for her help in Penacony, and we do not get a confirmation on if she said yes or not. Until 2.1, in which the the Topaz (and Jade) stone in in Aventurines possession, meaning she took him up on that offer prior to 2.0 because how else would he bring multiple cornerstones there, which we know there are many because Ratio says he lost the cornerstones, not just his own. Topaz would not give this item up easily or on a whim in between 2.0 and 2.1, meaning she would have to be let in on his plan prior, meaning the plan was formed prior. Since Ratio was also assigned to this mission keeping him in the dark would make negative sense and actively undermine their collaboration, something which he brings up in their fake argument

2. The Final Victory Lightcone. I originally thought this scene to be after their argument for complicated reasons, the most important of which being the minor snippet of conversation we see between Ratio and Aventurine during the first time we meet Acheron. Aventurine mentions 3 chips, Ratio doubts him, and the lightcone description starts with Aventurine questioning his doubt and firing three shots, a perfect correlation that made me place the order of events in that way. However, we get to see the snippet of conversation between Aventurine and Ratio in game, right before they meet Sunday, not prior to the lightcone events. However, they are still clearly connected for aforementioned reasons, just in a different manner, let me explain. Now we know the three chips reference not bullets but the three cornerstones, and Ratio openly expresses his doubt because the family is always watching (something which I will get into) and because a part of him does doubt this plan will go well. However, Aventurine prior reminds him of the events of the lightcone with the three chips. My interpretation is that Aventurine took that gamble in the lightcone to convince Ratio to go along with his crazy plan since if he can win a game of Russian Roulette with an unwavering smile on his face he an insane gamble means nothing to him (ratio doesn’t buy it because it’s ratio but the sheer audacity or you could say the “charming audacity” makes him go along with it). In my opinion this scene only makes sense pre-penacony, due to the timeline of events, which is why I believe it the reason for the events in it has to be Aventurine trying to convince Ratio to join in.

3) The family is always watching. During the 2.1 story quest it gets brought up several times in many different ways that it seems like the family has eyes on everything and everyone. Sunday’s fuckass bird is everywhere, and the man himself (minus being a goddamn biblically accurate angel) is covered in eye shaped shit and possesses close ties with the Harmony, which lends itself well to a character that knows things considering the Aeon itself is a conglomeration of many different perspectives. He fucking perception checks Aventurine, when the crew goes to look for info on firefly they learn the dream pools monitor people’s vitals and everything, even producing a dialogue option where the trailblazer states they feel like their every move is being watched. Topaz gets stalked by bloodhound members upon arrival, I could go on. TLDR Sunday knows almost everything that’s going on in Penacony, this is what leads him to believe the traitor is within the family, and his access to knowledge is something the IPC 100% knows about. I mean they have been presumably attempting to try and get it back for a while, and they would reasonably extensively try and learn everything about it. The Family notoriously hates negotiating with them so the IPC either learning and/or coming to the conclusion that the Family is watching their every move isn’t a ridiculous notion. If this conversation was genuine, if Ratio truly wanted to discuss this matter with Aventurine, why would he do it in a likely wiretapped, not very soundproof room where any passerby could hear Ratio loudly exclaim that Aventurine lost the very important cornerstones and that he is also one of the most despised groups in the galaxy because that would really do numbers for both their reputations. If you think about it, this not being staged is an incredibly stupid blunder on Ratio’s end (minus the deliberate OOCness) because of all the places Ratio could set up a very important meeting he does it in one of the worst places ever.

4) The dialogue in the scene. It’s awkward, it’s so awkward and the whole “also my family died I didn’t get an education” seemed so tacked on the first time I watched it. Knowing now, it seemed so tacked on because it was, Aventurine had to shove the info in there somewhere and their incredible conversational skills decided that was the best part in there. Ratio fucking leaving before Aventurine is even done talking goes from a “huh weird” to a “wow he is really playing up this arrogant scholar role”. And if Ratio is playing the arrogant scholar, Aventurine is playing the dumb, helpless, blonde to a T. Losing the cornerstones and acting nonchalant about it, letting Ratio insult him so callously and letting the insults slide, talking absolute nonsense at the end about random things that don’t matter, sadly lamenting into the distance that he’s alone again. Bro is playing it up and I live for it. They also and play up these personas in their little adventure prior to meeting Sunday, Aventurine asks stupid questions like wondering about the species of the bird that make up the statues and talking about how he wants to play in the sandpit and even insulting Sunday a bit, behavior that would make Sunday think him unprepared and unserious rather than cold and calculating. If Aventurine does that well, Ratio plays up his arrogant, uncaring scholar persona to the nines. He insults any and every decision or thing Aventurine does, loudly sighing of how happy he is to finally have some peace and quiet when Aventurine leaves his sight for 0.00008 milleseconds, pointing out his sarcasm, beefing with a random Pepeshi bodyguard no reason, pointing out his sarcasm, just the exaggerated way he talks in general, and suggesting he admit Aventurine into the Genius Society (even Ratio wouldn’t stoop so low as to suggest Aventurine was worthy of that).

Moreover, this is really, really tragic because I do think there are several moments of genuine banter and fun the two share “Ratio, you’re huge!” was not added to the script to enhance the plot guys. And obviously Aventurine knows most of Ratios behavior is acting, however he has such severe trust issues, and Ratio is so damn straightforward and blunt that he worries the man was serious about some of it which just breaks my heart. Soft Ratio please add it give me one conversation, the note at the end of 2.1 doesn’t count it’s too short.

Ultimately, knowing what I know now I can’t help but view the 2.0 conversation with Aventurine as being anything but staged, it simply makes no sense otherwise, and it happily obsolescent Ratio of his sins. This was a bit incoherent I honestly just wanted to rant (if you couldn’t tell haha) but I hope you enjoyed it regardless. I need sincere Ratio more then I need oxygen and I’m not afraid to say it.

[lurkiestvoid]

You're being targeted by disinformation networks that are vastly more effective than you realize. And they're making you more hateful and depressed.

(This essay was originally by u/walkandtalkk and posted to r/GenZ on Reddit two months ago, and I've crossposted here on Tumblr for convenience because it's relevant and well-written.)

TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online. But you almost certainly don't how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you -- individually-- angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks' goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners -- especially young ones -- to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.

And you probably don't realize how well it's working on you.

This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it's much scarier than you think.

How Russian networks fuel racial and gender wars to make Americans fight one another

In September 2018, a video went viral after being posted by In the Now, a social media news channel. It featured a feminist activist pouring bleach on a male subway passenger for manspreading. It got instant attention, with millions of views and wide social media outrage. Reddit users wrote that it had turned them against feminism.

There was one problem: The video was staged. And In the Now, which publicized it, is a subsidiary of RT, formerly Russia Today, the Kremlin TV channel aimed at foreign, English-speaking audiences.

As an MIT study found in 2019, Russia's online influence networks reached 140 million Americans every month -- the majority of U.S. social media users.

Russia began using troll farms a decade ago to incite gender and racial divisions in the United States

In 2013, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidante of Vladimir Putin, founded the Internet Research Agency (the IRA) in St. Petersburg. It was the Russian government's first coordinated facility to disrupt U.S. society and politics through social media.

Here's what Prigozhin had to say about the IRA's efforts to disrupt the 2022 election:

"Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once."

In 2014, the IRA and other Russian networks began establishing fake U.S. activist groups on social media. By 2015, hundreds of English-speaking young Russians worked at the IRA. Their assignment was to use those false social-media accounts, especially on Facebook and Twitter -- but also on Reddit, Tumblr, 9gag, and other platforms -- to aggressively spread conspiracy theories and mocking, ad hominem arguments that incite American users.

In 2017, U.S. intelligence found that Blacktivist, a Facebook and Twitter group with more followers than the official Black Lives Matter movement, was operated by Russia. Blacktivist regularly attacked America as racist and urged black users to rejected major candidates. On November 2, 2016, just before the 2016 election, Blacktivist's Twitter urged Black Americans: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."

Russia plays both sides -- on gender, race, and religion

The brilliance of the Russian influence campaign is that it convinces Americans to attack each other, worsening both misandry and misogyny, mutual racial hatred, and extreme antisemitism and Islamophobia. In short, it's not just an effort to boost the right wing; it's an effort to radicalize everybody.

Russia uses its trolling networks to aggressively attack men. According to MIT, in 2019, the most popular Black-oriented Facebook page was the charmingly named "My Baby Daddy Aint Shit." It regularly posts memes attacking Black men and government welfare workers. It serves two purposes: Make poor black women hate men, and goad black men into flame wars.

MIT found that My Baby Daddy is run by a large troll network in Eastern Europe likely financed by Russia.

But Russian influence networks are also also aggressively misogynistic and aggressively anti-LGBT.

On January 23, 2017, just after the first Women's March, the New York Times found that the Internet Research Agency began a coordinated attack on the movement. Per the Times:

More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.

They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners.

But the Russian PR teams realized that one attack worked better than the rest: They accused its co-founder, Arab American Linda Sarsour, of being an antisemite. Over the next 18 months, at least 152 Russian accounts regularly attacked Sarsour. That may not seem like many accounts, but it worked: They drove the Women's March movement into disarray and eventually crippled the organization.

Russia doesn't need a million accounts, or even that many likes or upvotes. It just needs to get enough attention that actual Western users begin amplifying its content.

A former federal prosecutor who investigated the Russian disinformation effort summarized it like this:

It wasn’t exclusively about Trump and Clinton anymore. It was deeper and more sinister and more diffuse in its focus on exploiting divisions within society on any number of different levels.

As the New York Times reported in 2022,

There was a routine: Arriving for a shift, [Russian disinformation] workers would scan news outlets on the ideological fringes, far left and far right, mining for extreme content that they could publish and amplify on the platforms, feeding extreme views into mainstream conversations.

China is joining in with AI

[A couple months ago], the New York Times reported on a new disinformation campaign. "Spamouflage" is an effort by China to divide Americans by combining AI with real images of the United States to exacerbate political and social tensions in the U.S. The goal appears to be to cause Americans to lose hope, by promoting exaggerated stories with fabricated photos about homeless violence and the risk of civil war.

As Ladislav Bittman, a former Czechoslovakian secret police operative, explained about Soviet disinformation, the strategy is not to invent something totally fake. Rather, it is to act like an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patient’s vulnerabilities and exploits them, “prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.”

The influence networks are vastly more effective than platforms admit

Russia now runs its most sophisticated online influence efforts through a network called Fabrika. Fabrika's operators have bragged that social media platforms catch only 1% of their fake accounts across YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Telegram, and other platforms.

But how effective are these efforts? By 2020, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were run by Eastern European troll farms tied to the Kremlin. And Russia doesn't just target angry Boomers on Facebook. Russian trolls are enormously active on Twitter. And, even, on Reddit.

It's not just false facts

The term "disinformation" undersells the problem. Because much of Russia's social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that's how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it's not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. ... According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.

What this means for you

You are being targeted by a sophisticated PR campaign meant to make you more resentful, bitter, and depressed. It's not just disinformation; it's also real-life human writers and advanced bot networks working hard to shift the conversation to the most negative and divisive topics and opinions.

It's why some topics seem to go from non-issues to constant controversy and discussion, with no clear reason, across social media platforms. And a lot of those trolls are actual, "professional" writers whose job is to sound real.

So what can you do? To quote WarGames: The only winning move is not to play. The reality is that you cannot distinguish disinformation accounts from real social media users. Unless you know whom you're talking to, there is a genuine chance that the post, tweet, or comment you are reading is an attempt to manipulate you -- politically or emotionally.

Here are some thoughts:

Don't accept facts from social media accounts you don't know. Russian, Chinese, and other manipulation efforts are not uniform. Some will make deranged claims, but others will tell half-truths. Or they'll spin facts about a complicated subject, be it the war in Ukraine or loneliness in young men, to give you a warped view of reality and spread division in the West.

Resist groupthink. A key element of manipulate networks is volume. People are naturally inclined to believe statements that have broad support. When a post gets 5,000 upvotes, it's easy to think the crowd is right. But "the crowd" could be fake accounts, and even if they're not, the brilliance of government manipulation campaigns is that they say things people are already predisposed to think. They'll tell conservative audiences something misleading about a Democrat, or make up a lie about Republicans that catches fire on a liberal server or subreddit.

Don't let social media warp your view of society. This is harder than it seems, but you need to accept that the facts -- and the opinions -- you see across social media are not reliable. If you want the news, do what everyone online says not to: look at serious, mainstream media. It is not always right. Sometimes, it screws up. But social media narratives are heavily manipulated by networks whose job is to ensure you are deceived, angry, and divided.

Edited for typos and clarity. (Tumblr-edited for formatting and to note a sourced article is now older than mentioned in the original post. -LV)

P.S. Apparently, this post was removed several hours ago due to a flood of reports. Thank you to the r/GenZ moderators for re-approving it.

Second edit:

This post is not meant to suggest that r/GenZ is uniquely or especially vulnerable, or to suggest that a lot of challenges people discuss here are not real. It's entirely the opposite: Growing loneliness, political polarization, and increasing social division along gender lines is real. The problem is that disinformation and influence networks expertly, and effectively, hijack those conversations and use those real, serious issues to poison the conversation. This post is not about left or right: Everyone is targeted.

(Further Tumblr notes: since this was posted, there have been several more articles detailing recent discoveries of active disinformation/influence and hacking campaigns by Russia and their allies against several countries and their respective elections, and barely touches on the numerous Tumblr blogs discovered to be troll farms/bad faith actors from pre-2016 through today. This is an ongoing and very real problem, and it's nowhere near over.

A quote from NPR article linked above from 2018 that you might find familiar today: "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off without voting AT ALL," a post from the account said.")

[caputvulpinum]

Hey! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem like you actually know things about wend*gos and I genuinely want to have a better understanding.

Based on my limited understanding, the association with deer and wend*gos is more of a pop culture thing and the original concept of wend*gos arent like that at all. They're regular humans who got cursed for being cannibals, right?

Dont get me wrong, youre completely right in saying that people need to stop associating deer imagery with cannibalism as pop culture doesnt erase appropriation, but am I at least right on the history?

No pressure to answer if you dont want to, thanks for taking time to read this regardless.

Alright, it's been a while since I've spoken about the winter hunger so it's time for the perennial disclaimer: I am not Anishinaabe, and I cannot be considered a true authority on their practices and beliefs. Native America is, after all, not a monolith, and I can only speak for what I know through research and seeking to learn about this topic in order to be more respectful of them and advocate for that respect due to my audience's size.

With that said: You're correct. There is absolutely no deer imagery aligned with the Anishinaabe culture's portrayals and understanding of the being in question. I'm not 100% sure on its origins, but I'd be willing to bet that much of the inspiration would come from the Witcher 3's depictions of leshy--they click all of the buttons through visual language, and I can see why people would see that sort of iconography and begin applying it disrespectfully. Like I keep saying--fucked up deers are cool and spooky as hell! It's not a shock that through law-of-large-numbers and a history of oppression and thievery that the horror genre can often be anti-indigenous bc of that!

For clarification of the most commonly understood appearance of the winter hunger--and this is not so that you can more accurately use it, it is so you can more accurately defend against racist and inaccurate depictions--it takes the shape of humans. Often of people you know. There are sometimes qualifiers like frostbite or lack of feet but at the very root of it, it is supposed to look like a human being.

Further disclaimer: What I'm about to say may be an entirely wrong interpretation of the winter hunger, but it is rooted in my culture's understanding of a very similar evil being which exists in Dine and other desert-dwelling native tribes such as mine. It's further rooted in my specific understanding of religion through anthropological lenses, since that's why I love studying religion so much--because it doesn't exist in a vacuum it is defined by our understanding of our surroundings.

Picture it this way: Both the Anishinaabe and my own people are in some way considered extremophilic cultures. We both live in an environment which reliably becomes lethally dangerous to exist within if you aren't prepared, willing to sacrifice your own comfort for the survival of everyone, and combines a level of isolation during those extreme climates with a need to be able to trust those around you implicitly because you all want to survive. Deserts, be they snow or sand, are difficult places to live within. There are enough resources to go around, but it's not exactly uncommon for there to be enough to go around and that's all. You're surviving because you and everyone around you are putting the survival of everyone over individualist comforts.

The winter hunger and the desert swallowing you whole are always taught as something which looks like a human. Which sounds like a human. Which can trick others into thinking it is human. Beings which have the shape of a person, but have no humanity--they lost it or they never had it. And both of them are things which gain power over you when spoken of and thought of--they're a type of memetophage. They feed on people who know about them, so you're forced to balance "aware that this danger exists" with "need to know what the danger is". They often will try and trick you into evil deeds or danger yourself by wearing the face and voice of family and loved ones. People you know well to let your guard down.

Now remember that you are a culture which needs to prepare itself for extreme climate survival. Everyone has to rely on everyone else. But sometimes people aren't going to like the people they're surviving with. People will resent other people for whatever reasons they choose, justified or not. Living so close together and in such tight quarters can be stressful and bring out the absolute worst in us.

Imagine, for a moment, going out into a snowstorm or the bitter desert night, looking for food for everyone else, sent with someone you hate. It's a harsh life. Even at your safest you are at risk of death for whatever reason--getting lost, being attacked by an animal, taking a bad fall. It happens. It's a fact of life. It's horribly tragic but it's acknowledged as inevitable.

Imagine the knowledge of how dangerous what you two are doing worming its way into your head during this time. If you were willing to hate this person enough to kill them...it wouldn't be hard to convince everyone it was just an accident. Just something which happens. Kill a stag, then kill them and jam the stag's antlers through the wound. Or just disable them somehow and leave them to freeze in the snowdrifts and say they got lost. Or push them down a ravine. There are so many possibilities and all of them exonerate you of any complicity, because yeah, you didn't like them...

...but you trust each other to survive. You trust that you're all willing to give up things to make sure everyone is able to survive and get through these things. You trust that when you are in danger, you don't need to worry about it coming from someone you know. And so why would anyone suspect you? And maybe you convince yourself that what you did was good, actually. One less mouth to feed. More food for everyone. Or it's just easier for you--someone who you hated so much, and now you never need to worry about them again.

Imagine the way that knowledge that you've done it once would show up again and again. Anyone and everyone is now in danger because you've become aware of the benefits of being greedy. Of choosing to hurt and kill other people to further your own goals and desires. Of deciding that the sacrosanct ties of the whole community's survival is not a priority over your own violent impulses. The knowledge of what you can do to other people is, itself, a danger. You put the idea of it, the possibility, in someone's head, and there is every chance that it could start dwelling in there and taking root, changing them from a good person, someone you know, a member of the community, into an evil, selfish monster which has lost its humanity and merely wears that person's face. Uses its voice to lie to you. Wants you all to have your guards down around it. Something waiting to strike where it can.

Now remember that we turn rainbows into the bridges of gods because we needed to create a reason for them. That's the history of magic: we don't know how to explain something, or we don't know how to process it, or we do and need to obfuscate that knowledge through a layer of fiction to cope with it. We don't invent the divine for no reason, on instinct, without thinking. We do it because there is something that creating it offers us as a species and culture that would otherwise be lacked. So think: Why would tribal cultures who need everyone to be willing to set aside personal wants and grievances to ensure that everyone survives through harsh climates need to have something like the winter hunger or the desert swallowing you whole? What benefit does it offer the community? What is the purpose of sharing knowledge about this monster? Where would it fit into that culture's way of life and philosophies?

The answer becomes self-evident soon enough. We all know what it looks like when one person decides they can sacrifice other humans for their own personal greed. We call them oligarchs.

[mysterycitrus]

I keep hearing people say to ignore Devin Grayson’s Nightwing but I also see people reference it. I feel like I’m getting mixed signals. Should I avoid it or read it? Are there specific issue I should avoid or read? is the avoiding advice only for people who are new to the comics? Or should I really just avoid the whole thing?

short answer — u do not have to read devin graysons nightwing run. i wouldn’t recommend it to new readers, and there isn’t anything significantly important that happens so like. it’s an easy pass. i do encourage people to at least read what she wrote about, though, because devin accidentally kickstarted the next twenty or so years of bad writing in nightwing books.

the long answer — devin grayson was a writer for nightwing volume 2 from like….. issue #70ish to #115ish. she did a lot of weird things during her run — her takes on dick’s relationships with bruce and slade and helena come to mind — but the most popular talking points wrt her writing are issue 93 and maaaaybe the renegade arc but that is literally the tip of shit mountain.

it’s funny u say that people are telling u not to read it cause based on my experience in fandom it is very, very clear that very few people have read any of the run at all, or even #93 and it’s preceding issues. which is fine, because it’s bad. but it’s important to understand why it’s bad, and how it’s affected dicks characterisation in both canon and fanon.

nightwing #93 is the issue people say to avoid because it features dick’s assault at the hands of a former ally that devin refused to acknowledge was rape until like… 2014. it’s bad. the build up to this point — haleys is set on fire, dicks apartment is destroyed killing everyone inside, dick watches this ally kill a man on his behalf while he is helpless to stop her — is rarely discussed in the context of the scene. it’s a lot, but because people haven’t read it they misunderstand the dynamics that devin had created.

the worst parts about nightwing in the present — his lack of conviction and competence, his sexualisation and dehumanisation, the fundamental lack of empathy for his retconned bg as a poc — all started with devin. literal ground zero. i cannot emphasise how her i incapability to understand that she’d written an assault arc with her self insert as the instigator has played into dick’s status as a character in the 2020s. many people accidentally engage with the same tired, racist tropes that devin herself contributed to, because people simply do not know (or care to know) what she’d written. think about much fanon content revolves around dick being an accessory to his own assault, or being literally unable to advocate for himself, or relying on jason fucking todd to kill his rapist. it’s like im rereading nightwing vol 2 all over again, and that’s not a good thing.

however what people also tend to forget about is the racism. devin grayson introduced dick having rromani heritage into canon, sure, but she did it because she thought it was sexy. we see this with her writing for roy’s navajo heritage too — a lack of research and care, though dick’s was clearly egregiously fetishistic. she retconned the character that assaulted dick into a latina character, and retconned her into being an aggressively sexual and violent person that was at significant odds with her og characterisation. that seems to be a trend with nightwing writers — wolfman did the exact same thing like fifteen years earlier with about the same degree of nuance and empathy.

ig my answer is that nightwing vol 2 is very much a pick and choose run, make ur own adventure type experience. bizarrely, u can get better nightwing characterisation in the titans 1999 run, or batman plus arsenal, which were both also written by devin (heartbreaking, the worst person u kno just made a good point). id be wary of people telling u to avoid it entirely, because i think ignoring its existence just exacerbates the problems devin created. just be discerning, ig. but also read nightwing vol 2 #118-#124 (just after devin leaves) because it is gd hilarious

[doberbutts]

@quark-nova it's already a really long post because I blabbered on for a hot minute but I did want to keep talking so I seperated your tags out I hope that's ok

I have actually seen people do this about trans fems too and honestly I think it is exactly what you're saying- that people lack the idea of intersectionality and instead want to view oppression as additive or subtractive. I see people doing this the most when they are trying to frame something as progressive, when instead it is filled with a lot of bigoted language.

Like the example given of Blue Eye Samurai and a group of people claiming it's a racist and sexist problem of white trans mascs, ignoring the trans mascs of color (and even asian and *Japanese* trans mascs in their notes disagreeing with them), while the posts are filled with genuinely fairly TERF-y language. They say "no no I can't be a TERF I love and support my trans brothers and also I support trans fem Mizu headcanons" while also saying "trans men are stealing women's resources and making everything about them". They just tack "white" onto the second statement so you don't think too hard about the transphobia of that sentence.

I find this most transparent when someone asks for an explination of how a trans masc seeing themselves in Mizu is racist, because instead of an explination it's "oh my god white people always ask people of color to do the work instead of researching it themselves, why do you always want us to explain ourselves why can't you just listen to me". I understand where the frustration comes from because I've been on the receiving end of stupidass white people who refuse to actually absorb anything they've been told about racism, but also... don't start a discussion about race if you aren't willing to, you know, discuss. Because then it just becomes obvious that you're using it as weapon and shield and you're not actually interested in anything except an echo chamber that agrees with you and accepts anything you say.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i think it is very telling that the best documented case of women buying sex from men are white western women going on vacation in west african countries such as gambia to prey on impoverished and usually younger black men. it highlights that prostitution - any prostitution - is an exertion of power from a more privileged group against a less privileged group. that prostitution is a system that profits from and reinforces oppression and inequality. here, the axis of oppression is not sex, but race. its a symptom of neocolonialism, like most sex tourism.

nonetheless i always have to laugh when the articles, documentaries and research desperately try to act like female and male sex buyers are exactly the same - usually the argument hinges on the fact that the motivation is the same, companionship and sexual gratification. but male sex buyers are motivated by so much more: fetish, sadism, violence, domination. this does not tend to be the case with women. also, unwanted penetration is a different level of violence, having something inserted in you. female sex buyers dont request painful acts such as deepthroat or anal. there are no brothels full with men, the men dont have pimps, and usually in the case of female sex tourists, the arrangement is loose: companionship and sex with no fixed payment but pleasantries, gifts and such. additionally, women dont tend to be able to physically overpower men, or get off on enacting violence like hitting and choking. men who prostitute themselves for women are also less stigmatised than those who do so for men, or prostituted women. and more men sell themselves to other men than to women. and: women who buy sex tend to be single, while the relationship status of a man is no indicator of likelihood to buy sex.

female sex buyers highlight that besides sex, economic class and race determine who is prostituted and who buys sex. that prostitution is an issue of intersectional inequality. and that misogyny is still the key motor of prostitution: male sex buyers are any age, any class, any race, because any man can be a misogynist. but women only become sex buyers under specific conditions; for example motivated by racist fetishisation. another key factor here is gender. buying sex is considered masculine, but women buying sex break with gender norms. consider also the orgasm gap: most women are not satisfied by their male sexual partners. hypothetically it would make more sense for women to be the majority of sex buyers to enforce sexual satisfaction they lack in consensual sexual relationships. yet privileged women who lack sexual satisfaction are more likely to prostitute or otherwise objectify themselves than buying sex.

any form of female-on-male prostitution has its male-on-female (and sometimes male-on-male) equivalent that is more violent and more common. meanwhile many forms of prostitution dont have a female-on-male version, for example prostitution in brothels. men prostituting themselves for women are at a lot less risk for physical violence and abuse or being trafficked. there is even a phenomenon of heterosexual men having to prostitute themselves for men because there is just not enough demand from women. and female-on-female prostitition is almost unheard of, if anything this occurs in a male-female-female constellation. there are no gangbang parties with one or two men and groups of women.

people are so obsessed with pretending like women as consumers in the sex industry - whether that be as sex buyers, porn watchers or stripshow enjoyers - are just the same as men when there are clear differences. gender relations are always relevant in a patriarchal system and reversed roles dont produce the same outcomes.

[maythestormsnevertakefromme]

you said you were an ex pagan and im curious, why did you stop? have you changed religions, or are you an atheist? im sorry if this is disrespectful or an invasion of privacy, i’m just genuinely curious ! feel free not to answer !!

The floor of the temple I grew up going to was really cold and hurt my knees.

I grew up pagan, my whole family were pagan, everyone I knew was pagan, yet I felt like an outsider my whole life. People didn’t like questions, a lot of the time people would fall back on “this is the religion of your ancestors” if I was pestering religious leaders too much.

Paganism draws a lot of white supremacists, a lot more then people think, and I was 15 trying to research Tamfana I had to do background checks on the authors of articles and books just to be sure they weren’t open violent racists.

People around me growing up often viewed psychosis as a prophetic sign, if there was any proper census or documentation of my community I’m sure we would have a much larger suicide rate compared to other religious groups due to the lack of mental health awareness and care.

I was also taught about Nidhogg and Náströnd as a young child, for a decent portion of my life I was a huge liar (stemming from untreated mental health issues) and I worried that would count as oath breaking and that I would end up in Náströnd and my corpse would be eaten by Nidhogg. Also something else that can send you to Náströnd is adultery which is something FRIGHTENINGLY common in neopagan communities. I was terrified that all these people I love and had grown up with were going to be sent to a part of hel covered in rivers of venom. I hated being in fear all the time.

I’m not exactly a man or a woman and alot of pagans have this weird obsession with divine feminine or divine masculine so I would awkwardly hang around community events directed at young women to “enhance divine goddess/feminine energy” and I hated it.

People were always fighting, nobody could agree on anything and it was maddening. People’s random ass UPGs were taken as gospel and often people rejected good research in exchange for just spirituality.

Also classism.

A lot of the time people around me would basically glorify Slavic pagans as “the resistance” when in reality they were just Christian hating racists & bigots.

Paganism is not very progressive outside of the internet. And on the internet a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge their non progressive irl counterpart which basically cancels out any leftist or progressive points they may have.