#modern day cassandra

[flagellant]

anyway im really tired of pretending that voting matters or does anything when all evidence is that the only thing y'all say it does is "slow the fascism down" rather than "stops the fascism". perhaps this is because the system itself encourages fascism and stratification of power and wealth and anyone who works in that system is obligated to perpetuate the system at all cost and above all else.

there is no such thing as a good american politician. there are well-meaning american politicians. but they are all proponents and advocates of the american systems which oppress us and, at the end of the day, AOC and Ron DeSantis are merely fighting over who gets to run the same system. isnt it just so weird btw how things constantly get nonstop worse even during democratic majorities? and how you keep having to settle with ceding partially to Republican fascist demands?

surely, you keep saying, voting blue no matter who THIS election cycle will do something

surely, i keep saying, you'll have to figure out it won't do anything at some point

[flagellant]

"Can we just genetically alter all mosquitoes to fundamentally redesign their entire evolutionary biology and ecological niche? I'd appreciate them a bit more if that way."

I understand you're probably being more than a little facetious but like...no? And if we can, we really shouldn't just go ahead and try and radically redesign the genetics of a keystone population like that.

[literallyjusttoa]

"Sunny!" you cry, "Why did you draw the entire Trojan royal family from oldest to youngest in two days? That seems wildly unhealthy!"

"hurghhhhhhhh" I reply.

Anyways here's the full family portrait

(Only four of these people survive the Trojan war btw :D)

[blackbatcass]

Not to get back on my soapbox but bruce & cass’s early relationship does make me want to eat drywall. any outsider could tell you bruce is obviously enabling cass’s unhealthy behaviors and yet he 100% completely believes he’s doing the right thing for her because that’s what he thinks he would have needed in that situation. and. that says some real interesting things about bruce as a person. wow, mr. wayne, are you totally sure that what you needed when you were cassandra cain’s age was someone holding you to impossibly high standards, keeping you shut up in a cave all day, training you until your lungs gave out and encouraging vigilantism to consume every aspect of your life? is that really what you think you needed? does this maybe stem from an ultimately twisted view of yourself, bruce?

[flagellant]

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.

[flagellant]

"What then"

What then is that you have invented a hypothetical scenario which you want to excuse not offering help to those around you based in the fear that you might not be perfect at it, and justifies not asking people for help out of pride and the idea that they might just make it worse.

What then is that you isolate yourself, try and pretend you are capable of being an island, too proud to admit that you require aid via infrastructure and interpersonal relationships and so you push away those who care or could care about you. You second-guess every relationship you have, convinced that if you ask for help or even show a shred of vulnerability, the person will hurt you, or even just not give a shit about you, and you will be unaware you're doing that to them with the lack of trust you're willing to offer them.

What then is that you begrudge and resent everything and everyone when your life isn't perfect and exactly under your capacity to control, which is always. You decide you don't want help for whatever reason and then you blame people for not offering you help when you haven't asked, or you even blame them when you've explicitly told them you don't want help. You curl up inside of your own ego like it's a snail shell, a fragile husk of a life and you're filling yourself with salt on top of it.

What happens next is you either get over yourself and you start learning how to be a human being in relationship to others, definitionally one of community and aid, or you die.

Nothing I’ve read has changed me more than “you do people a favor by accepting their help” like I repeat this constantly to so many people because it’s true!!! People like to feel useful, they like to feel kind, they like to feel like they have an ability to impact people’s lives so just let them!! Not everything is a thing to be owed back — accept people’s kindness without making a competition out of it

[yellowraincoat]

Beautiful how at heart Kai is just a conspiracy theorist who accidentally has really good taste in conspiracies.

Like

Kai: Torin, what if Princess Selene survived the fire and was brought to earth? What if Levana is bugging the palace???? WHAT IF letumosis is biological warfare created by the lunars and purposely released to weaken earth and make us vulnerable to a lunar take over and that’s how Levana has the antidote!!!!!

Torin: what if your highness -_- What if.

[brionysea]

team batgirl is all knowing. cassandra and oracle and spoiler. are they trying to sound like prophets?

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Text: The gas station prophet is called Cassie. She sits at the register, bored and ignored, explaining visions to mystified customers.

Bonus Prompt:

I just want a cheap cup of coffee when I stop by the gas station, and Cassie behind the counter says I’m about to cause the apocalypse

[helenofblackthorns]

I was flipping through city of lost souls the other day & came across this quote. and now it lives rent free in my head like?? hello??

[mediapen]

you know something devastating has happen to carlos sainz when user mediapen is revived and reblogs religious content

You're Welcome

[brakingpoint]

perhaps he’s a prophet……..?

george refusing to get out of lewis's way because he thinks alonso hasn't served his penalty yet i looooove the cultural impact of spreading misinformation

[daughterofzeus-the-novel]

I know some of classicsblr dislikes the way Madeline Miller modernized the Illiad for Song of Achilles but I loved Circe and I'm really liking this one so far

[livvyofthelake]

this is what i was referring to the other day btw.... she literally said well you people were annoying last time so fuck off i'm not doing it anymore.... and i stand with her <3

[synechd0che]

.

[flagellant]

every leftist likes to call themselves against America and its oppressive and evil government systems which cause untold suffering

until they hear about an anarchist that doesn't vote. then y'all are very quick to go "why aren't you partaking in this system where evil always wins? you're a fed/russian/chinese. you're why the neonazis are winning"

you're all fucking pathetic, honestly. if you're a pro voter lefist, stop calling people libs when you're just like them and parroting the exact same reformist/delaying shit.