#like I agree the us education system has many an issue

[harbingerofwhump]

Because learning English phonetics... teaches you how to pronounce French names?

learning that apparently several hundred people have been pronouncing 'miette' as 'mighty' has actively worsened my day

[gemmahale]

Okay, I'm home, I've been on the road for the better part of 4 hours today due to a miscommunication and a cancelled event, and I've had this rant brewing.

Being Anti-Military and Pro-Veteran are stances that can mutually exist.

Games like CoD and whatever other FPS/Military Simulation game is out there is propaganda. It’s meant to make you want to sign up or support military action.

The military (I’m speaking specifically to the US, as I am most familiar with them by proxy) uses some incredibly underhanded techniques to ensure they have the warm bodies soldiers they need to keep the system working as intended.

This includes but is not limited to: promises of paying for education, aspirations of “seeing the world”, provision of job security, access to healthcare, a stable job and housing, etc. They use things like “patriotism” and “glory” and “security” to lure people in.

And then, when that person is wholly and completely reliant on the military - for a paycheck, housing, healthcare, you name it - they spit them back out into the world with a "thanks a lot and good fucking luck."

Into a world where:

Financial support for care has been axed and axed and axed again under "budget cuts"

Care is secured with red tape so thick you can tightrope walk across it

Care is denied for things the military caused (by saying "it didn't happen while you were serving".) *Yes, that's a direct quote from a doctor to one of Kallen's peers. When assessing a life-altering injury sustained while they were in country overseas, it was deemed as "non-service related injury”.

In comparison to civilians:

Veterans are ~40% more likely to be homeless.

Veterans are ~80% more likely to suffer from untreated mental and physical health issues - PTSD, hearing loss, nerve damage, etc.

Veterans are ~60% more likely to turn to addictive substances - alcohol, drugs, etc.

Veterans are ~70% more likely to commit suicide.

This isn’t limited to combat vets. Logistics specialists, administrative specialists, IT specialists all get screwed when they leave.

Ask just about any veteran that has served, they are incredibly likely to be staunchly anti-military.

The military causes a tremendous amount of damage to every person involved, even if they aren't aware of it at the time.

It’s a cult, it’s an abusive relationship, it’s predatory. Treat it as such.

Support veterans, advocate for their care. They made choices you may not agree with, but they made them because of what they thought the military was offering to them. Many thought they were doing the right thing for their country - that was the lie they were fed from 9/11 on (in the US). Then they were chewed up, spit out, and left for dead by the same people that made all those promises to them.

Here are some US-based, apolitical Veteran Support groups (many have International chapters/members):

22 Until None - 501-C3 that provides support to veterans by veterans. There are local chapters on Facebook that are all active and are listed on the website

Disabled American Veteran - Veteran help association; involved in legislation and local assistance, connections to VA advocates to help navigate the VA

Wounded Warrior Project - 501-C3 charity supporting disabled veterans.

Note: I am absolutely not doing the "not all servicemembers" thing here. I'm saying "veterans are living with their choices, and still deserve access to care."

[venvellan]

da2's arishok is a good villain. if you have a fundamental understanding of the qun and listen to his thought process, the things he does makes sense. he uses the qun to justify slaughtering kirkwall's people, which is utterly inexcusable and what makes him a villain, but his character is complex enough to make dealing with him that much more thought provoking. he sends agents to kill petrice because she was killing his people, he doesn't give up the elves because they committed their lives to the qun, no matter how recently they converted, and he refuses to leave without the tome (and isabela) because his idea of justice hasn't been done. his logic makes sense, generally, though it is wrong on more than one occasion. he isn't moral, but he is methodical.

i feel this way about solas, too. i like da2's arishok for the same reasons that initially draw people to solas, i think. when we meet them, i find them interesting and educational to talk to, someone worthy of respect, and someone very honorable in their own way. similarly, many of my issues with solas compare with flaws in the qun/the arishok.

solas asserts that all of his beliefs are correct, and we're never allowed to challenge him on any of it. if he has high enough approval, he'll approach you to go, "yknow, i thought you were all [insert prejudice or stereotype] but YOU showed me that some of you guys are actually okay," which is NOT what it looks like for someone's beliefs to be challenged.

brief aside, i want to be fair in that we don't get this opportunity with many of the companions, and it's not even an inquisition specific issue. the dialogue format is agree, joke, be mean, and it's flawed, but it works in the majority of interactions. we don't really get to engage in nuanced discussions with characters, but there are positives and negatives to the system overall. it is possible to challenge and shape a character within this dialogue system (i.e., garrus vakarian) but in dragon age that really only comes in the form of harden/unharden. it was a little more doable with origins' system, but it really hasn't been a huge part of any dragon age game. most characters' beliefs remain largely unchanged by you regardless of how you play.

solas also possesses a strong sense of duty and purpose, though what duty he has, what his true goals are, he keeps hidden as long as he can. the most damning comparison though, to me, is how willing he is to destroy the world and bring back "his people," while the qunari fight to conquer the world and homogenize society into "their people."

in any case, with both him and the arishok, you can see the wheels turning in their heads. you can see why they do what they do, even if it's wholly immoral. it makes their threat a lot more personal, a lot scarier, psychologically, that a "normal" person, who doesn't want to cause suffering, can hold such specific beliefs and such strong conviction that knowing that they'll hurt people doesn't give them any pause. the root of their motivation is understandable. solas wants to right his wrongs, at his core. the arishok implicitly believes that the qun is safer, better for its people than life outside the qun. we can see that they're taking it too far, but they don't care. it makes them good villains.

"i am not corypheus, i take no joy in this." sure, which is a very similar sentiment, emotionally, to the qunari sense of duty. you can say you don't enjoy it all you want, you're still committing genocide. you can hate the qunari all you want, but you fight with their ferocity, their unshakeable faith in their own cause. their need to "do what's right," no matter who's caught in the wake.

i understand why people like solas, i go back and forth on it myself, but i don't think he's all that different from the arishok in method and motivation. they're each thrust into a world so different from what they believe is "right" that they demand it change around them. if we had to kill the old arishok, then if solas refuses to give up, he will have to die. he doesn't get to do genocide just because he's romanceable. he's a good character, he's a good villain, but he's not a good guy, and unless he stops before he does any real harm (which he will not do), he should share the arishok's fate.

[daddyduncan69]

One of my recent posts got a few comments about media literacy being dead and Neil being an unreliable narrator so I want to clear some things up.

Firstly, media literacy isn't dead becuase it cannot die. Also, I am not a big fan of fear mongering. Humans have always sought to understand and communicate with each other about the things we create. It is a skill that can be taught and should be practiced. There is no one right way to do it. And, while I think the education system fails so many of us (something something to make us easier to control something something), I also think that there are tons of resources to help us learn without the need for an official "teacher". So, instead of pessimistically saying is it "dead" (especially on someone's textual analysis post, like... are you saying I prove it's dead becuase I don't have media literacy? are you agreeing with me and therefore proving yourself wrong? do I not count for some reason? i don't think I get it), engage in discourse about media that you love. And I mean actual discourse, not just fighting on social media about whether or not everyone should "like" your favorite character. Ask yourself "what is the effect of this rhetorical device in the text?" "is the text trying to make me like or not like this character? is it working, why or why not," (do not ask "why did the author do this?" because that is not relevant nor are you a mind reader). Take free online Literature classes from colleges that help you learn how to analyze. Invite others to do it with you. Join or start a book club. Engage in various types of media, not just YA, fantasy, fiction, etc. Consider kindly rebutting or offering a counter point to other people's interpretations, bringing actual textual evidence to back up your points. Use Google Scholar to access free scholarly articles to see academic prospectives on various medias that are not just from social media or blogs. Your local library may even have subscriptions to paid sights like JSTOR or collections of essays that would let you access articles that are otherwise behind a paywall. All of these things can help improve your own media literacy and, in turn, will help improve the media literacy of the people around you.

Secondly, the point of my other post was NOT that Neil is an unreliable narrator. I've seen a lot of people make this claim so I wanted to chime in. Unreliable narrators are marked by a few characteristics, some of which are exaggeration, detachment from reality, naivety, and deception of the reader. I don't believe Neil falls into any of these categories. I would be open to arguments that claim he does, but it would be hard to sway me because I can't find any textual evidence to support it. This is an important distinction to me because the larger claim I make in that post is that ALL narration, 1st person, 3rd person, omniscient, limited, etc is biased- all of it. It is CRUCIAL as readers to identify a narrators biases and consider the text through that lens. If you aren't practicing doing that (or only doing it when the narrator is "unreliable") you can easily fall into the trap of saying "well Neil says Kevin is a coward so he is", which is obviously an issue in the grand scheme of textual analysis. However, you can also easily fall into the trap of saying "Neil is an unreliable narrator because he is wrong about things/lies to people/has trauma so you can't trust him". I believe that Neil tells us as the reader the truth in his narration almost 100% of the time, Neil just lies to the other characters 24/7. So, as readers we should take what he says in his internal monologue at face value but question the motives behind his dialogue with other characters.

Anyway, that was a long winded, probably boring monologue about critical textual analysis. I devote maybe 16 out of my 18 waking hours to thinking about this, so thanks for hanging in there to read it all. I just care so deeply that we as a culture continue to grow these skills without shaming those who haven't had the same opportunities to learn how to do it or making the act of learning how to feel hopeless or doomed.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Samantha Fields

When Charlie McCone got COVID in March 2020 in San Francisco, he was 30, otherwise healthy and fit, not considered high-risk. His doctors told him he’d get better in a couple of weeks. He didn’t.

Eventually, weeks into being sick and with no real answers from his doctors, he turned to that place many of us turn to for medical information: the internet.

“I found a Facebook group with thousands of other people asking what’s going on, and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” he said, “‘This is happening to so many other people.’”

It was already becoming clear then, in spring of 2020, that COVID could cause serious, lasting issues, including debilitating fatigue and brain fog, among many other symptoms. Because there was so much attention on COVID at the time, McCone said, “there was a lot of hope about the response to long COVID, I think, the first two years.”

Then in late 2020, Congress allocated over $1 billion to the National Institutes of Health for long COVID research. “There was this feeling that we’re going to have answers here in a few years,” he said.

But now it is a few years later, and that feeling has changed.

McCone is still sick. He’s not working anymore and can’t walk much more than a block. Roughly 20 million people in the U.S. are now estimated to have long COVID, maybe more. And that initial $1.15 billion NIH got for the RECOVER program — which stands for Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery — has yielded few answers and zero approved treatments so far.

“There’s been a lot of disappointment in terms of the program moving slowly and also focusing a lot on the kind of observational side of things,” said Betsy Ladyzhets, co-founder and managing editor of the Sick Times, a nonprofit news site focused on long COVID.

Most of the research money has gone into trying to learn more about what long COVID is — into clinical research, data collection and analysis and studies of electronic health records.

“Rather than what many people in the patient community and also the research community really want, which is focus on treatments, clinical trials,” Ladyzhets said.

There’s good reason for the focus on observational research, according to Dr. Serena Spudich, a neurologist and researcher at Yale who’s working with the RECOVER program.

“There has to be a very, very strong urgency for finding treatments,” she said. “And at the same time, we will only find treatments if we understand the condition properly.”

And understand what’s causing the many different kinds of symptoms people are having.

“Because long COVID is not one condition, it’s a very heterogeneous condition,” Spudich said. “And it’s very, very possible, I would even say likely, that different forms of long COVID — for example, the more neurologic forms versus something like severe shortness of breath or problems with the heart rate — those may actually be due to different types of biologic mechanisms that need different treatments.”

Outside researchers agree that these kinds of observational studies and data collection are critical, but some feel the NIH didn’t need to spend nearly $1 billion on them.

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center and chief of the Research and Education Service at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, said his team and others did similar research earlier in the pandemic, “for peanuts, a few hundred thousand dollars that generated evidence much more robustly, faster, years ahead of RECOVER, for a small, small, small, small fraction of the funds.”

At this point, more than four years in, “NIH should be laser-focused, laser-focused on finding treatment for long COVID,” he said.

That will be a bigger focus going forward. NIH got another $515 million this year for RECOVER and plans to put much of it toward clinical trials.

This fall, it held a kickoff meeting for the next phase of the RECOVER program, called RECOVER-TLC, which stands for Treating Long COVID. Now, Joseph Breen at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH said it’s in the process of soliciting ideas for drugs and other treatments to trial.

“We have every intention of getting started as soon as possible,” he said. “In reality, we’re probably into next year.”

David Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York, has been doing long COVID research since 2020. He said how the clinical trials are designed will be critical.

“What we need to be doing is rapidly testing as many drug targets as possible, rather than taking big swings,” he said. Meaning that instead of putting all the funding into a few big, expensive trials of a couple of drugs, RECOVER could do a bunch of smaller trials.

“For a couple million dollars apiece, they could be testing 100 drugs. And they could be logging the responses of those 100 drugs, and they could be moving into more sophisticated clinical trial strategies,” Putrino said. “That is where I think we should be applying the money.”

Many long COVID patients and advocates are cautiously optimistic about this next phase of research. Charlie McCone, who has become something of an expert in his own illness and now volunteers with the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, was at the kickoff meeting and left feeling a little more hopeful.

“The NIH can do this right, they have to do this right,” he said. “And they need to do it fast, which we know is possible.”

But no matter what comes of this current slate of funding, he said more is going to be needed. “No disease is solved with a one-time investment. And so, just because this first billion dollars didn’t produce much does not mean the next billion and the next billion won’t.”

Some legislators are already pushing for additional funding. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, along with several Democratic senators, introduced the Long COVID Research Moonshot Act in the Senate, and a companion bill has been introduced in the House. The Moonshot Act would provide $1 billion a year for 10 years for long COVID research. It has yet to be brought to the floor for a vote.

[sophieinwonderland]

Hi! Voices & Gemstones here, I saw your reboot of my post about the phrase the future is plural and I wanted to ask something. I would send my ask off anon but it's my main blog and I'm a little ehhh about using it lol but I come in good faith

Im a trauma based system, trying to navigate syscourse and I agree the human brain can split with no trauma, I just... Struggle with the idea someone could purposely give themselves alters in the same way we've known systems to function.

Do self created systems have amnesia & memory issues too? What about issues with control of the body & fights for front? Foreign thoughts and emotions? If it's a self created system why would you create these problems? It doesn't seem possible or reasonable to us, but we can't not ask.

If life stress is what compelled someone to start a self made system then... Doesn't that count as some form of traumagenic?

And like we said way forever ago on our blog, we don't care what source you claim as long as it helps your function in life, we just

We want to understand different sources of plurality better, and you seem very passionate about education, so we wanted to ask. Thank you for your time

- Gemstone System

Thanks for the questions! 😁

Do self created systems have amnesia & memory issues too?

Nope! I mean, not generally! There's like, one guide that purports to be able to induce amnesia between headmates, but the process requires months of mental conditioning and I don't know of anyone who has actually gone through it.

I have noticed we have sort of speed bumps when trying to access someone else's memories, and our own memories often pop up in our head more easily than memories from other headmates do. But I wouldn't call that amnesia.

What about issues with control of the body & fights for front?

Sometimes.

It depends on the system though, and it's not something that I feel happens too often.

For us... by the time I was created, my host was already a mature adult. (I think with a lot of systems who are plural in childhood, the lack of maturity probably contributes to internal conflict and sets up adversarial relationships.) If I wanted to front, we could talk things out. Most of the time, he'd let me if I asked, but If he didn't want me fronting right then, we could work out a compromise so I could front later instead. It doesn't always work out perfectly. But 99% of the time, negotiation works.

Things were a bit harder in the very beginning, but we got better with thime.

Foreign thoughts and emotions?

Like, passive influence where we feel the emotions of other headmates? Yeah, we get that.

If it's a self created system why would you create these problems?

Most tulpas are created for companionship, with loneliness being a major reason cited in studies of tulpamancers.

Something that's important to understand about tulpamancers is that most don't make tulpas for the switching part. I think originally, in the very very early days long before I got here, the tulpamancy community didn't even know switching was possible, and it was something they discovered later.

How a lot of tulpas start out is purely in the inner world or imposed externally. And learning to switch often takes effort and practice. Maybe that's another reason you won't see many fights over front in the tulpa community, because switching is often an act of love, where the host is willing to dedicate their time to it just to allow their tulpas to be happy and interact with the world. It's not generally something that we'd be fighting over.

If life stress is what compelled someone to start a self made system then... Doesn't that count as some form of traumagenic?

I don't think so. At least not in the same way.

The typical traumagenic systems is a system who experiences trauma as a child. They separate this trauma and their brain tries to distance them from it. As they undergo repeated trauma, they have to return to that traumatized state and the dissociation becomes ingrained into them as a trauma response, often resulting in the presence of triggered switching once the traumatized state develops into its own entity that holds those trauma memories. At the same time, in avoiding trauma, they distance themselves from the traumatized part, creating these memory barriers.

While one could argue that loneliness is traumatic and therefore headmates created due to loneliness are traumagenic, the tulpa isn't holding traumatic memories of loneliness. They're just created to provide companionship.

Hope that helped clarify things a bit!

Have a nice day! 😁

[thearoacespark]

voting (a balanced take? hopefully)

disclaimer: I don’t usually do this. I’m still very young and learning about the world and this is all pretty surface level observation— but I wanted to try and say something anyways—it’s likely imperfect and there is probably nuance I’ve missed. Also, this is mostly geared towards my fellow USAmericans.

I have been guilty of sharing sentiment with “vote blue no matter who, VOTE VOTE” posts, and being gripped with a sense of fear and urgency like no other. I understand. Project 2025, the ideals of Trump’s platform (lots of the immigration ideas eerily close to Proposition 187…) are very scary.

But let’s slow down. Others have said if we’re voting out of fear and as if we have no other choice, then it’s no better than having no choice as all. I have to agree.

In my opinion, while emotion does push people to act and is a good motivator, I feel much better choosing on my own rather than being pressured or guilted by others.

After all, no one can truly force another to do something they don’t want to—but we can discuss, debate, and change minds.

Instead of saying it’s impossible, let’s consider a third party candidate, specifically one that is explicitly pro-Palestine. In my opinion, it’s tough, especially for these reasons:

- No matter how you look at it four months is a short period of time. We might have less than four months, some ballots are printed and solidified early, according to AOC’s Instagram Live Talk. (link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9l41vgOAGj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)

- Many people have not heard of these third party candidates— I had not been familiar with Jill Stein or Claudia de la Cruz before today. Do many people know of the members of Congress who have already called for ceasefire? (https://workingfamilies.org/ceasefire-tracker/) Tumblr endorsements help and I appreciate the information on other platforms regardless, but what about people who are mostly offline?

- There’d need to be a robust and wide-spreading social media, news, TV and more campaign to get enough people informed in such a short time, much less get them on board and overcome the substantial opposition already faced by the pro-Palestine movement in general. Campaign managers need to be paid salaries. Transportation, advertising, food, gas… it costs a lot of money. A lot of people are already struggling financially and donating what they can— and donations to Gaza E-SIMs and evacuation funds help people right now. (By the way, plugging Operation Olive Branch: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch)

- Even if they do get elected, it can’t be just the president— they will face extreme pushback, likely from all sides, and they need House and Congress and Court members on their side to make not only foreign policy shifts but also other systemic changes to society that are dearly needed.

For now, I’m voting blue because I think it’s our best shot at something better… but if someone has a detailed plan on how to turn a third-party candidate from improbable to possible that addresses these issues in concrete ways, then maybe the conversation can change. The time crunch, however, is extremely tough.

What now?

- Vote. Even if nothing about this post changes your opinion on the presidential election, I’d encourage you to vote, just for voter turnout and to exercise that political power! There are still nonpresedential and local elections that will directly impact your community. (https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration)

- Continue to advocate for causes you believe in and educate others, and learn about issues outside just the US.

- Being confident in the best action to take and trying to convince others to vote blue shouldn’t mean dismissing criticism of our current institutions and the current Democratic candidate, or attacking people who bring up these criticisms (of course, check for sources and records first!) These conversations should be ongoing.

- Try to fact-check everything you hear and dispel misinformation as much as possible!

- Continue to consider pushing alternative voting methods such as Ranked Choice Voting—I haven’t read into it enough to say more concrete details, but something has got to change 😭

- Share resources whenever you can, and take care of yourself and others :)

[hadesoftheladies]

i've been on radblr for a while, and maybe it's because of the specific users i follow being woc or disabled, but recently i've been seeing more ableist and racist radblr users crawl from whatever hole they've been molting in

in light of a recent conversation thread between @menalez and two whitefems, i've come to see the issue other radblr users have been talking about

radblr lacks a culture of intersectionality. there are many white/straight/abled women here who think solidarity means we only cater to their liberation, and they can ditch us whenever they please. it is one-sided support, and isn't solidarity at all. they are used to being centered, used to seeing themselves as default woman, used to seeing themselves as the standard of feminism and womanhood. their problems as more deserving.

i'm not going to use this post to diagnose radblr, but to say why these women are insanely stupid

racist and imperial radfems have been bold in their assertion that their empires are somehow benevolent, neutral, helpful to outsiders. they have endorsed their militaries, asserted that they are genetically and intellectually superior, and that they're oh so tired of stupid, backward women from stupid, backward countries whining about how colonization improved their society. (and some western black users have agreed).

and it's so STUPID because . . . how do you not see you're approving of the structure of your own oppression while complaining about the injustice of it?

you can acknowledge that men have misattributed women's achievements to men, that they have destroyed, twisted, and erased their history. you can acknowledge that the reason there weren't as many women geniuses as men was because of the brutal subjugation and social, economic barriers women faced, or some just had their ideas stolen and died unnamed and unattached to their invention. you understand how women's language, spaces, and philosophy have been hijacked by the male perspective in everything, from religion, to education, to literature. in marxist or materialist analysis, you understand that economy creates culture.

but you can't understand any of that when it comes to majority world countries? you mysteriously lose your capacity to analyze culture when you're at the top? your countries are rich because they're just so gosh darn good at being rich, aren't they? stolen wealth and labor doesn't give you a head start at all! and if money is power, and you have the money, you can get away with stealing even more, but that only applies to men, see? not our nice, lovely, governments! colonization and war aren't actually that bad or brutal and don't have any lasting negative effects! neocolonial systems don't exist! it's not like our beloved empires have anything to do with killing the cultures of billions because they can, they have, and it is in their best political and economic interest to. black people never did anything significant! this is a fact, and has nothing to do with deliberate propaganda from imperial countries! imperialist propaganda, ha! imagine that? african and asian people can't be smarter than white people, because . . . . genetics! whitefems on radblr care so much about science when it comes to transwomen, but their brains turn to mush when it comes to thinking whiteness somehow genetically increases intelligence. biology, everybody!

it's honestly funny. like you're trading one regime for another, congrats! you're anti-revolution! you can get off our backs and stop using our plight as examples of your oppression.

and to the british storm trooper that claimed her intelligence was genetic--if you truly believe that, you've got two options:

consider that this statement is unscientific, racist, and false, or

take an ancestry DNA test and find out if you're adopted :)

[brother-one]

[Twitter repost]

Just because something was the last straw for me today...

On Kainé's intersexuality:

A (long) post, from an intersex person to you 💛💜💛

First of all! Why am I making this post?

I hope it doesn't seem out of nowhere, but let's start bit by bit.

I am making it not because I'm mad at anyone, but because I genuinely want you all to learn about who Kaine as a person, how she can be interpreted, and most details that can be taken and associated to her intersexuality, from an intersex perspective. There's A LOT of things I want to address in this thread, not necessarily all of them negative, but I do think the NieR fandom as a whole needs to get educated on intersexuality.

I can't speak over every single intersex person, but I can give my insight on this.

Now, the first thing I want to address:

1- Kainé, intersexuality AND transness.

Why is this first? Well, because there's a really big issue hiding in plain sight here: Intersexism, and therefore intersex erasure.

First on this, a detail that a lot of you know about, and yet it's not even close to EVERYONE knowing it: The use of the word "hermaphrodite" for an intersex person. Even if it's widely accepted by people as a whole, it is a slur against intersex people and even if some DO reclaim it, its casual use is not correct whenever you employ it to refer to an intersex individual, be it fictional or not. Not only is it considered insensitive, but it's also heavily inaccurate whenever used to describe an intersex individual, even if it may be in fact accurate for, in this case, Kainé.

It is a word a lot of us are uncomfortable with, and seeing a character who is one of the very rare cases of representation being associated with it doesn't really make it better. Especially since being intersex isn't just about the genital differences, but hormonal differences and such. Anything that doesn't conform to the SEX binary is considered intersex, usually also known as hyperandrogenism. I've seen people frequently agreeing that even PCOS can be considered an intersex condition, so there's also that.

Next, is the reduction of Kainé to either a transgender woman, or a transfem individual.

While these headcanons are completely okay and I personally have never minded them, there is an issue hiding here too.

It seems that people either don't care enough about intersex issues to do proper research, or they're blissfully ignorant about general facts on intersexuality.

Some of these facts are:

- Intersexuality isn't a "third sex" or an in between.

- Intersexuality does not NECESSARILY have to do anything with one's gender identity.

- It is completely, and I repeat, COMPLETELY okay to just call someone "intersex".

- Not every intersex person is transgender. Cisgender intersex people exist.

- Even if trans people and intersex people may relate to the other in certain aspects, they're nowhere close to being the same, or to share the exact same experiences.

- Every intersex person experiences gender and life differently.

- There are many, and I say, MANY different intersex conditions.

- Intersexuality is way more frequent than you may think.

And many other facts, really, but they would pretty much need another entire, separate thread to be listed.

Now, where's the issue I want to approach here?

Explained simply to non-intersex people:

Turning a headcanon like trans Kainé into something so widespread not only gives a totally different idea of what her character is from the start, but also gives a place for intersexism to rise. It is a way to force us intersex people into conforming within a system, a binary that EXCLUDES US and always has from the start. Because yes, the current ideas of identity are wrongly still binary.

I thought Kainé was trans from the start. I thought it was extremely cool to have such representation, being also a fellow trans person myself. Then I discovered she's intersex.

Then, everything felt unfair.

To have such an idea of something, then discovering the reality is very different to that idea didn’t feel right. Not because transness is bad because, again, I am trans myself, but because that just feels like everyone is forcing her into transness, when it doesn't have to be like that.

Intersexuality and transness can coexist without problem, the problem only manifests itself when you do not give those two the opportunity to even try and coexist. It is already hard by itself to embrace your body as an intersex person, and personally topping that with transness only makes it more of a struggle. And yet, in the end, everyone's experiences, feelings and identity will always be different to one another. Intersex people can decide to stay as the gender they were assigned (keyword here being assigned) at birth, they can decide to transition (or maybe they could've transitioned way before discovering the fact they're intersex), and they can also decide to just be intergender.

Our experiences and relationship with our body, and the way we perceive ourselves may be similar to the one of, say, a perisex transgender individual, but there will always be a gap between both.

To finish up with the first point, the general objective with this:

I want you all to understand that, while trans people need representation, it's not okay to erase intersexuality or to try and make us fit into your concept of identity. Intersex people are already stigmatized enough, and the last thing we need is erasure. Our voices as a whole are already heavily ignored, so the least we can ask from you is to not erase us. You can keep your headcanons (I encourage so!), but PLEASE don't forget about Kainé's intersexuality. Intersex representation is extremely important and needed, even if the character’s intersexuality may not be handled in the best way sometimes.

In summary:

That is pretty much it for the first point. Now, on to the second:

2- Kainé and body dysphoria.

Here comes a very important part, too.

Some parts of her character and dialogue can be interpreted as dysphoria, and also as a way of showing rejection towards another aspect of her body, since it’s possessed by a shade.

A very important dialogue in the first fight against Hook that I originally interpreted as body dysphoria is:

“She gave me the strength to deal with this goddamn mutant body! Do you know how long I’ve been like this? How much I loathe myself?”

This dialogue has been in my mind ever since I first played. And I still strongly believe it can be interpreted as dysphoria, I just acquired a different perspective on it after finishing NIER and doing a dive into what she is, as a character. While I don’t believe I have the deepest understanding of her, I think I have the main aspects of her character clear.

No one in the world could understand her.

Yet another thing on her I believe is important, is this:

“A heart and body in constant conflict.

Now, and even if she may or may not have dysphoria, here’s something that I think should be spoken of way more often - the fact that dysphoria doesn’t make you transgender. Even if it may be considered necessary in order to get certain medical treatments in the case of trans people, having dysphoria doesn’t make you trans, and not having dysphoria doesn’t make you not trans, either.

And loneliness was eating her alive.”

Because while it may not be part of, say, a main storyline game, if we talk about NieR (it comes from SINoALICE!), it does give us a really interesting sight into her. Even if it may probably refer to her struggle as being possessed, it sounds very familiar to the experience I know as dysphoria.

Kainé’s hatred for her body exists in a way where many reasons for it overlap. I think it could be narrowed down and represented like this:

I think it’s very important to note that Kainé, as a gestalt, wasn’t intersex. Somewhere in the process there was an error that made Kainé, as a replicant, intersex. Which doesn’t sound very good, if you think about it, but it gives you room to think about Kainé a bit differently.

Which takes us to my third (and probably last) point:

3- Kainé and identity.

Carrying on from a detail in the last point, we can see a clear, yet maybe not intentional mistake in her writing. The error of her becoming intersex.

While it can be read as intersexism, it is also rather understandable - mistakes and errors happen, especially if we talk about literally separating soul from body, and considering the fact that there were more defects in the transformation process too. Another very important fact that comes into picture is the different ‘generations’ of replicants, and the way that there have been multiple Kainés over time. So probably, since the system was already long-running by that point, that could be the reason for it.

Still, if we’re taking it the intersexism way - we have to understand that it is not and it will NEVER be caused by some kind of “error” or mistake, even if people have chosen to see it that way for a long time now. It is not an inconvenience nor is it something not meant to happen. It IS meant to happen, and there is much evidence that sex is variant - could go from slight differences, to more “noticeable” ones. Not just in humans, but in animals too.

People want to change something that just happens, that always has. In here, I beg you to take into account the fact that intersex CHILDREN are forced to go through surgeries to make them fit into the sex binary. Children are bullied, hated and seen as freaks just because they were born different. 

Sounds terrible, yes ? Well, thanks to this, many intersex people often feel more comfortable identifying as their own gender - intergender. Others stay cis, and others feel more identified with the term transgender.

Kainé is a hard to figure out case, since she had been and identified as a woman from the start, as much as she had been dehumanized or degraded by others. Because they didn’t even call her a man, for they didn’t think she was deserving of that. She wasn’t deserving of a gender - she was a freak, and that was all of it. Though it is a struggle that a lot of trans people go through too, for intersex people it often comes from society as a whole.

The rejection intersex people go through is there from birth, and the eagerness from others (who don’t even have the right) to change it is too. And as much as it follows us through life, as similar as it may be to trans struggles, it is not and it will never be the same.

For that, trans and intersex people have to stand together, but sometimes that feels like too much to ask of the community.

Because intersex people, much like ace or aro people, are often ignored in queer spaces (or not considered at all, for that matter). It is harsh.

But then there are the intersex trans people, who use both terms. The cis intersex people, the intergender people, the intersex people who chose not to bother with gender…

So that is, too, one reason why lots of intersex individuals choose to not call themselves trans, as much as they may identify with the term. Or the complete opposite, choosing to present themselves as transgender, as to not have to bear with the load that is being intersex sometimes.

After some time of knowing her, I think canon Kainé fits into the cis intersex category by a lot - considering she has always identified and KNOWN she is a woman. But of course, that is canon.

You are free not to, I can’t stop you. But I think that, if you’re perisex and trans, it shows the way you are with the people who have stood with you since always. To not recognize our existence is to not recognize a part of what brought all of us trans people to where we are.

My headcanon? Trans, intersex woman. Not hard or complicated, is it ?

And that is the way it should be, if you want to listen to intersex people. To listen to our voices.

So, please, if you care about us - don’t take away from intersex people what we have struggled so much to even get.

To close this thread, I just have to say: Thank you for reading, I hope you could at least learn something or get a bit of perspective on to what being an intersex person is like, and a bit of interpretation about Kainé from one.

If you want to go ahead and follow what I’ve said on it, you have a forever thanks from me. Happy pride month guys <3

[finelinens1994]

Hey, about your media literacy post—which was very well done—I totally agree that we sort of unable to trust other users or institutional opinions right now. So the way I see it, the option left to us that is to learn to trust ourselves. Learn to pay attention to the way truth feels when we ourselves say it (on any topic, especially the tiny ones), what it sounds like, and what untruth feels like when we also say it (the instances where we say things we don’t mean). A focused study of truth in ourselves makes it easy to recognise in others and other situations.

For example, I’ll now know when my answer to a maths/logical question is wrong, because it feels/sounds like not the truth, even if it’s what I have logically deduced and therefore ‘should�� be right. So then I’ll know to stop and rethink until I do find the right answer, I’ll realise my logical thinking was off, which I recognise because it feels like the truth when I see it. (This is all easy to prove because they’re all maths / logic questions, for example. It works. And then extrapolate this concept.)

It’s interesting that in the past many would have dismissed this approach due to its seeming lack of objectivity—but it is glaringly obvious now that trying to form an opinion based off ‘objective’ evidence is just not going to be possible (and I’d argue, it never was). So, this is my approach of some tools to which to turn. Honestly, it’s the only way out that I see. Increasingly I am realising truth is not a set of facts, which can be easily manipulated, or which are scientific fact one day and not the next, but rather this total calm knowing which goes beyond all need for argument. I feel like if you can just calmly smile in an argument rather than argue back, you’re probably closer to the truth.

i debated a lot about whether or not i should post this message at all but it might be a good thing to talk about, so i'll post it for now

the thought process you described here has the potential to be really unbelievably dangerous, so i hope you can try to hear me out here. the truth "feeling" like the truth is such an incredibly subjective thing and is 100% vulnerable to your own biases. at one point in my life, the "truth" according to my feeling was... just not true at all. the "truth" according to my feelings was that transgender people were mentally ill and just needed some sympathy and help in order to get better. i genuinely felt this, and, like you described, it felt true and right. it was not true or right, though; my perceived "truth" was not truth at all, it was just ignorance entirely influenced by my own biases and fears. the way of thinking you described in your message is exactly what leads people to believe that their thoughts borne of ignorance are true and right, no matter what, because they feel right. of course they feel right! ignorance is comfortable! you could absolutely debate the validity of objective truth as a concept, but purely functioning on a vibes-based moral and ethical system is just accidentally giving yourself permission to remain ignorant or bigoted.

i apologize if my original post wasn't clear enough, as i said, i was just writing out my thoughts unedited! i wasn't trying to say that since there is no way to verify information anymore, we should just give up and go with our guts. i was saying that information is becoming increasingly more difficult to verify, so i'm nervous about the future of education and information gathering. i don't have a proposed solution, i'm just expressing fears that are widespread nowadays. a possible solution to this frankly existential issue is something i think about a lot, and i'm glad to see many others thinking about it too.

hopefully this makes sense, and hopefully it prompts you to reflect on your philosophy about your relationship with truth!

[detransdamnation]

Do you have any ideas for what would make social detransition easier? I can understand how it might be hard when you're around lots of people who still subscribe to gender ideology but I also understand radfem/gender critical crowd is also not always very understanding. Also, that dichotomy itself probably doesn't help. I'm not detrans but I'm always looking for ways to support those who are. Hope you have a good day

I've come to this question about two or three times since I've gotten it, and every single time, I've fallen short of an actual answer because I truly don't feel like any individual action would ever make me feel truly comfortable socially detransitioning when I still live in a world that actively demonizes detransitioners for speaking on how the transgender community and transition industry has harmed us. It's easy to say I don't want to be politicized—most everyone would agree with this statement—but trans and detrans are very politicized identities, and when you are the only (de)transitioned person the people in your life have ever known, you kind of assume the position of The Educator on those issues by default. It's easy to say I want people to be nuanced—a statement that, again, most everyone would agree with—but the topic of transgender identity has become virtually void of any nuance unless you actively look for it and the average person is probably not going to because they simply don't care enough about the issue itself. Certainly, I appreciate those rare gems of individuals who see the person and sympathize with the pain before they even think about the controversy—but it's very hard to not feel like these people are just raindrops in an ocean of reminders of just how much the community and their supporters hate me and wish me either silent or dead. And this, alone, does not even touch the myriad other reasons why I, and many others, may delay their social detransition that other people can't exactly help us with. Social detransition is a unique beast to fight when you've been on hormone replacement therapy for years, or have even had surgery, and have carefully formulated your whole entire life around being the opposite sex because you genuinely cannot pass as what you biologically are anymore.

There are certain things that go into this process that are never going to be easy to handle even with social support—and even excluding those factors, it's hard to think anything short of the world changing its tune would make social detransition an any less scary, devastating prospect for me. I know this all is rather pessimist of me to say—but that is how I feel, supported by... well... everything and everyone around me. Ultimately, the struggles faced by detransitioners are largely collective, systemic problems. This is not something that any one person can fix.

I'm very sorry for the non-answer. I hope you have a good day as well.

[wordsmithic]

Hi, your post about misuse of Greek mythology was very interesting. I was wondering what exactly is considered a problem in depictions of the Gods. The lack of Greek cultural clothing for sure, and that makes sense, and the tendency to misunderstand their symbols and attributes, I think I’ve seen most people agree on that. But I see different opinions on skin color and I’m not Greek so I don’t know what to think. Is it disrespectful to draw non-white Greek Gods and maybe more specifically black Greek Gods? Some people say it is, others say it isn’t since some of the Gods came from different cultures, and everyone thinks that those who disagree with them are racist so it’s hard to know what is or isn’t acceptable

Hi! Thank you, it's nice to see interactions with this post and people wanting to know more!

While Greeks consider themselves White, other countries like the US don't perceive them as White due to different histories in their social issues. Actually... Greeks are suddenly White when people want to blame us for something that colonizer European nations did (or their own White - usually WASP - people do), but we are non-White when they see our appearance, our names, when they see our dances, our food, our customs, etc. Meaning, when they see what Greek culture and people really are, outside of their fantasy.

We are extremely close culturally and racially with Middle Eastern and North African nations. Western media and education won't tell you that because the thought always made Western powers uncomfortable and ruined their white supremacist ancient Greece fantasy. And yes, how we are perceived affects our interactions and our employability as studies have shown. So, in this context, the Greek gods are already non-White.

(*Many ethnicities are legally White in North American countries but they're not afforded this privilege in reality, because of systemic racism. The Greeks gained "White" legal status in the US and the Anglosphere very recently, but other countries still have us in other non-White racial categories).

In light of this big disclaimer... I think this post has a pretty comprehensive explanation of the situation and expresses the thoughts of the majority of Greeks.

[majorbaby]

Can you elaborate on your personal gripes for how mulcahy is used in the narrative? I have seen people talking about not liking him but I think it was more disliking him as a guy, so I would like to hear your thoughts

okay well, first i'd just like to say that nobody is a bad person for liking mulcahy and i have less of an issue with HIM as a guy (his thoughts, feelings, wishes, his favourite colour, his favourite food, his relationships with others) as i have with how he is positioned by the narrative. you seem to get this, but i still want to make it clear. if anything i'm all for mulcahy getting it on with whoever because it would undermine his vocation as a celibate priest.

long explanation under the cut but TL;DR: mulcahy is positioned as being a morally upright person. this is dangerous because apart from his being a character on the show, he is also representative of the catholic church. moreover, positioning the church this way severely undermines the show's central, anti-establishment, anti-war messaging.

there's lots to love about MASH, but the way it deals with religion and the church is a major weakness. the show wants me to accept that patriarchy, militarism, imperialism, social conservatism are bad, but draws the line at critiquing religion, by positioning its chief representative in positive light. it's a big oversight.

let me try this a new way compared to how i've done it in the past and start with the military:

fuck the military, right? we agree that it is bad? and we agree that MASH came out swinging against the army and that that is part of the central messaging of the show? and we agree that one of the best things about MASH is that it took such a hard line against the military? cool.

why do we hate the military? it's violent, it's paternalistic, it eats up public money that could otherwise be spent on making peoples lives better, it influences public policy in a negative way, it's hostile to equity-seeking people (racialized people, lgbtq+ people, women, people with mental and physical disabilities), it is also hostile to even the most privileged in our society. MASH specifically took aim at the draft, which still functionally exists in US law.

basically, it is overwhelmingly oppressive and does far more harm than good, if you can even make a case for what good it does.

the catholic church is bad for all the same reasons. most catholics are born into the church, assigned catholic at baptism, which occurs when you are a baby and which cannot consent to. its ranks are overwhelmingly male and priests are literally called "Fathers".

your mileage may vary when it comes to the separation of church and state but...

where i live, the catholic school system is funded by tax dollars - technically any child can attend a catholic school even if they aren't catholic, but say, idk, want some free indoctrination. but you must be catholic to teach in catholic schools, so half of all these 'public service jobs' which are unionized, pay well and difficult to secure are only available to catholics. you can go to catholic school yet grow up and be unable to teach in one, like, currently, in 2023, in Canada which has some fucking nerve to be still upholding this archaic system. people aren't born pro-life or homophobic or believing that sex should be between a man and a woman and purely for procreation, or that masturbation is a sin... these are all things we see in policy, in education, in medicine, in media, as a result of the influence of christianity. what flavour of christanity varies based on where you live but in many instances, it's catholicism. you could extend some of these critiques to organized religion in general but i'm not doing that right now because mulcahy is catholic specifically.

like... purity culture didn't just pop out of nowhere. you may not be christian but sex shaming and the elevated ideal of marriage and the gender binary and the idea that we need to be 'civilized' in a certain way are all christian values that were spread violently across the globe, often hand-in-hand with military exploits. not only are the military and the church similar, they're often indistinguishable and they very much need one another.

MASH was trying very hard to say, originally at least, that there are no good military brass. even henry gets the piss taken out of him whenever he tries to be a 'colonel' to hawkeye and trapper. so why henry, and not mulcahy? (also why not potter but like, that was a different era and potter is a character i actually do proper hate)

if there can be no good army officers, then there can be no good priests. and mulcahy was both.

[sunshinesfaraway]

A cry, or a whimper for help.

I do not like to go into specifics while venting most of the time, as talking about and revealing these sorts of things is incredibly painful and difficult for us all. But, alas, life has been incredibly rude and cruel to us as of late - so this once, I will break the rule I have established for myself. Right now, we are ill. It's not of much relevance for the vent, but it is important enough to mention. We are sicker than we have been in a long, long time, and so is the rest of our family. Despite this, however, for the past month while the rest of our family has been sick, we have been up and taking care of them and absolutely everything in the house. Dishes, fetching things our family members request, yard work, cleaning the home, taking care of our dog, etc etc. This has continued to even now, while we have fallen ill as well. Tonight, though, we were hit with an ultimatum. Despite how we are ill and have been religiously taking care of our family for not only this past month, but for a.. *very* long time despite how hard it is for us to even take care of ourselves, we were met with this: Obtain our GED and Drivers License, or face the risk of being kicked out, and perhaps more punishments. This, to say the least, was gut wrenching for us. We are severely mentally ill and have ran out of our medication due to our father's incompetence, and been out of therapy for even longer due to the same reasons. Now, getting our GED should be.. easy enough, I assume, if it were not for two glaring issues. One - we have not been taken to the GED test center to obtain any studying materials what-so-ever for 4+ years despite our numerous requests. and Two - we have the education of a middle schooler. The state in which we reside has one of the lowest education levels of the United States, and the district we're in specifically may be the worst of our state. Most of our high school life, before we dropped out due to our rapidly deteriorating mental health and the utter incompetence of the school board there, was spent retreading on things we should've learned back in middle school. It was horrible, an utter waste of time. However, the GED test follows a far, fare stricter and more standard form of education. Something far above our paygrade. Even with the study materials, I'm not entirely sure we'd be able to actually pass the test due to the failure of the school system here. As for our driver's license; that one is easy enough, we just need to get over our fear of cars and even bigger fear of being out on the road. The point is, we are lost. I am lost. I don't know what to do, how to help, or how to hold us all together. I feel utterly betrayed by our family right now, considering both of our parents have agreed and moved forward with this ultimatum for me - even my mother, who we've taken care of since we were a child. Though, I assume with how poor her mental health is recently and my father's track record of abuse and manipulation, he likely forced her into this like he has many times in the past. Infact, an ultimatum hasn't even befallen my brother, who is far older than me, a horrible person who blows all of his un-earned allowance on gacha video games and adult materials. I don't know what to do. I'm lost. Please help. I need guidance. I need help.

[jewishbarbies]

“I’ve learned more on tiktok in the last two years than I have my entire life in school!” and how much of what you ‘learned’ was later debunked, corrected, etc. how much was made up for funzies by a bored teenager. you’re a grown adult. you have access to libraries, every educational webpage available to the public. you don’t NEED tiktok for education and that’s where you’re completely missing it with the tiktok ban. it’s not so much about keeping people uneducated as it is preventing people from communicating through and using an app the government doesn’t effectively own. look at how many politicians META has been paying off since the resurgence of this issue. META wants a monopoly and congress is paid enough to agree it’s for the best. you’re not a bunch of revolutionaries reading banned books in a closet, you’re literally the victims of capitalism and a corrupt political system like everyone else. maybe if we focused on exposing META’s predatory and corrupt practices we’d actually get somewhere with this.

[ashuribbon]

Be careful about the trucks. This is by no means any kind of agreement with Devsisters' actions (past and present), but simply a warning.

The reason the trucks were effective boils down to one main point: it affected the gameplay. The Awakened system (along with the original card system in Ovenbreak) were game-changing mechanics that would be either extremely P2W or simply changed everything up to that point.

Gameplay is the reason why korean players decided to raise their voice and protest with the trucks.

But when it comes to issues like this? It's most likely that the majority of gamers might mock and laugh at you or ignore you. The korean gaming scene has many issues so I'll avoid discussing them as of now.

Save your mental health and avoid having to deal with that. It isn't worth it in the long run. But do continue protesting and sending emails to Devsisters.

One last ask regarding this for now since I don't want to end up draining myself, and have work to do for myself and my boss! Nothing bad, I just want to save my mental health and not burn myself out since I have a life outside of the internet. Gotta care for my needs too, you feel me?

But that I can understand; your warning is understandable (And don't worry, anon! I know you're not agreeing with the devs and just want to advise us on things). If anything, from what I've seen from the Invocation Cards and the Awakening system, it was more of the P2P perspective than it was the issues with the racism. I recall another ask with another anon stating the same thing. The Korean gaming scene is a tough case, if not rather tough to deal with (my sister mentioned the that a few weeks ago since she's a Lost Ark player, or just in general very much into MMOs). Not my place to talk about it, though I have seen some Korean players acknowledge some of the issues with racism before.

If things don't go to fruition, and it all fails, the best we can do is educate and talk about the issues. I am not the one leading the protest, but I do know that people were suggesting we get trucks.

The best we can do is follow the advice I mentioned in my post. Leave a 1-star review, listen to people, contact the devs, and don't buy any packages or watch any ads if you're playing the games, or not play the game at all. If anything, I am one of the people who plays the games but doesn't buy any packages or watches any ads (I'm one of the F2P grinders). Like I said, nobody is saying you can't play Cookie Run or enjoy the characters and have fun. It's always important to acknowledge the issues with the games, and educate people about it, just like how we all do it with certain medias we enjoy.