#no basis in reality for that whatsoever

[betty-bourgeoisie]

Also I like China and Iceland as metamours/ fuck buddies who are dating the same two guys, because ultimately the history of China-Iceland relations is a history of two nations just mutually going "Well Russia and America both seem to think they're important so I guess I should talk to them...." which is, at the end of the day, possibly the most realistic metamour relationship of all

[pizzabookbuying]

I actually love that while usually movie/tv versions of book characters end up oversimplifying the character (especially for enemies to lovers ships) Vampire diaries did the exact opposite.

TV Damon said complex, he said yes I do bad things yes I’m morally grey yes I will have a long and investing character arc. Book Damon said oh? Elena doesn’t love me? Fine! YES I MURDERED ALL THOSE PEOPLE! (He did not) YES I KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED MY BROTHER (he did not) btw…Elena…would you like to spend an eternity with me…I like your hair today

[doberbutts]

The problem with the concept that there are trans men who don’t have male privilege is that it seems to imply that there are trans women who DO have it, which is a concept that is widely agreed to be unequivocally transmisogynistic. Any rebuttal for this?

My rebuttal is; I know trans women who have lived in my house and sat on my couch and watched movies and played videogames with me who have told me to my face that they did receive male privilege on a similar incredibly conditional, individual, and situational basis similar to how I am describing for trans men, how it relied on the closet and total stealth, and very aware they had to be of the line they were toeing, and how much worse they are treated now that they are out and transitioning, and how afraid they are to say it because of rabid people online who are looking for any excuse whatsoever to hurt them when they deal with that enough in their everyday lives.

I am forever reminded of this older interview (mid-90s early 2000s I think) of transgender Japanese citizens and this one person who was probably what we would call a trans woman. And, like my butch friend, was trapped in a situation in which there was absolutely zero room to breathe. They were amab, married to a woman with multiple children, working as a businessman to support the family. They said how they always felt like a woman on the inside, and how they knew that could never be a reality for them, so they didn't see much point in pursuing anything because it would break their family apart. The only thing they could do was make various cute needlework girly things during their daily commute to and from work. They had some cover story for their wife that they were buying them from a shop for their daughters or something.

Do you think that this person, who is perceived by everyone around them to be a cis man for several decades, does not benefit from male privilege in any way despite probably not actually being a man? Do you understand what I'm talking about when I say that this is a topic that needs to be discussed with far more delicacy and nuance than "man privilege woman not privilege"?

Do you think that all of the accounts of trans women out there saying "when I came out and started identifying as and passing for a woman, people suddenly started treating me much worse" and "I frequently have to boymode because otherwise my life is too dangerous" aren't discussions of exactly what I'm talking about?

Privilege is a tricky, complicated thing. It's also something bigoted society bestows upon you, and not a moral critique of your own existence. TERFs and MRAs both have poisoned the well, but that's not a reason to completely disregard the much-needed grace that has to be had during these conversations.

Personally I think any trans person's experience with "male privilege" is shakey at best and entirely contingent on a wide number of factors that you can't just point at their gender and say yes or no. I think it's way more complicated than that. And I don't think anyone is lesser for having or not having it, either. Gender is a morally neutral thing. Gender presentation is a morally neutral thing. It is okay to exist. It's okay to have a complicated existence.

[ko-existing]

Get used to seeing your experience as experience only

by Being_is_IT on Twitter

The only fact you have is your experience. Misinterpreting or misrepresenting this fact is the cause of all suffering. Is there something as correctly interpreting this fact? No, correctly interpreting this fact is equivalent to not interpreting at all. Your experience is not interpretable. You better leave it as it is.

Without trying to interpret your experience, then, you will come to discover what it actually is. Such discovery is doable because you are IT already. The only undeniable fact is your experience. Your experience is presence. What does it mean? However you interpret this presence is entirely arbitrary, but the fact of being present is undeniable. Every single thing you think you know about this world and about yourself is entirely this experience. It's not actually that 'a word' appeared. It's not actually that 'a me is born'.

The only thing that appears is this experience.

Please get used to seeing experience as experience only, rather than stuff you interpret them to be. Simply notice the fact that what you are experiencing is experience itself.

Let me stress it again:

You are not actually experiencing a so-called 'life', you are experiencing experience itself.

You are not actually experiencing 'space and time', you are experiencing experience itself.

You are not actually experiencing a world, you are experiencing experience itself.

You are not actually experiencing sun shine, you are experiencing experience itself. You are not actually experiencing "I am living...", you are experiencing experience itself. You may be calling it a 'world', but that is just an interpretation of your experience.

How do you know this is a world? Because you have an experience. And you are interpreting your experience as consisting of a world. How do you know you have a body? Because you have an experience. And you interpret the experience as consisting of a body.

How do you know there are other beings? Because you have an experience and you interpret your experience as consisting of other beings. So, the actuality that is present is simply your experience. All the rest are just your interpretations. It is very easy to hold your interpretations as actual or as truth.

You are used to hold your interpretation as factual reality. But actually, there is no basis for such holding. When you begin to take your experience as just experience itself, rather than take them as interpreted framework of ideas and concepts that you are used to accept, then, you begin to feel very interesting properties. What kind of interesting properties are they? For example, your experience is present, undeniably present.

Nothing else whatsoever is present but your experience alone. You can't find anything other than your own experience. You cannot turn off your experience even if you try. Your experience is automatic. Your experience is instantaneous. Your experience is always here and now. It's always brand new because experience never repeats itself. Experience has no duration. It does not come and go.

You notice that your experience presents infinite range of qualities, such as, colors, lights, sounds, textures, thoughts, emotions, sensations, all of those infinite qualities and nuances. As a convenient pointer, I would name those infinite qualities as Infinite Radiance, or Infinite Shining Forth. So, this presence is Infinite Radiance or Shining Forth.

Even when you are in deep sleep, the Radiance show up as something. Maybe something very subtle, maybe something you can never be able describe, but it always shows up as something. Even when you are dreaming, although the Mind interprets it as 'dreaming', the so-called 'dreaming' is none other than radiance shining forth. The radiance showing up in your experience tends to have infinite degrees of patterning.

Of course, such patterning can be interpreted as 'body, me, others, space, time, events, world, sun, moon, light, dark'. But they are not actually what's interpreted as, they are simply radiance shining forth in your own experience. Please notice, no pattern has any consistency. No pattern ever repeats itself. You never experience exactly the same configuration twice. You never see the same thing twice.

Even if it's a room you go in and out everyday, every instance of your experiencing this room will be a difference experience, always unique and never duplicate. You never think the same thought twice. You never feel the same emotion twice. Nothing whatsoever repeats itself. As soon as a certain pattern appears, it disappears and morphs into some other patterns. Even if you are looking at the same apple for 5 minutes, you may interpret that an object called 'apple' exists independently.

Not so actually, all you are seeing is a patterning in your experience that never repeats itself. It is an illusion to imagine that there is a stable object called 'apple' existing somewhere. This patterning is absolutely unresolvable. Even though the patterning appears to be very structured, when you try to get to the bottom of the patterning, you can't find exactly what this patterning actually is.

Because as you go deeper in your search, the patterning morphs into infinitely different patterning. You will never be able to determine what it actually is. That is why I say that experience is absolutely unresolvable. Many people wish to obtain a definitive and final experience. This expectation is an illusion. You will never be able to reach a final or definitive type of experience. You may imagine that 'death' is a kind of final experience.

Not so actually. When it comes time for you to die, you will discover in total surprise that 'death' is not what you think it is. And you will discover that there is no such thing as 'death' in the first place. Let's get used to seeing experience as experience only, rather than holding them as 'this thing, that thing, me, others, world, universes, my life, me living my life, past , future' and etc., then, your entire energetic alignment will be realigned and subtle miracle would appear.

Directly noticing your own experience is the highest yoga you can ever practice.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi So I go to a Christian school so get tonnes of sex misinformation on the daily

but the other day my bible teacher was talking about porn addiction (bad start I know) and I wanted to know if what he said was in any way accurate

he said that when someone first sees any kind of pornagrhaphic content it sticks in their mind and that’s all it takes to want to see more, does this have any basis in reality whatsoever?

hi anon,

well, yes and no.

if you enjoyed what you were looking at - if it made you feel aroused, if it was interesting to look at, even if it was funny! a lot of erotica is funny! - then sure, it may stay in your memory and make you want to see more. you know, the same way that having a tasty little snack might make you want to have another tasty little snack, or watching an episode of a cool TV show might make you want to watch another episode, or listening to a great new song might make you want to listen to it over and over. porn doesn't have a unique death grip on your brain, your brain just likes things that are exciting and enjoyable. being turned on can feel good, and there's literally nothing wrong with that - on a biological level we're wired for it, since sex is necessary to pass on our genes and continue the species. and even if the sex we're interested in isn't reproductive (sex alone, sex where no one can get pregnant, sex with protection against pregnancy, etc) your brain doesn't care - that shit feels good regardless. so, yes, wanting to return to things that make you feel aroused is as normal as, like, wanting another sip of a tasty drink or to keep playing your favorite video game. as long as it's not taking over your entire life, it's harmless.

crucially, it's not like this is a power that all porn has over every person. porn that does nothing for you - kinks that aren't your kinks, actors or characters using terminology that turns you off, scenarios that simply aren't sexy to you - is incredibly easy to just look away from, and it's not like you're doomed to an instant boner every time you see something even a little bit sexual. people read erotic novels or fanfic in public all the time, and on this very website it used to be incredibly common to encounter gifs of random porn among your scrolling (still possible in some corners of tumblr, but less frequent now). it was very simple see two (or more) people hardcore boning on the dash, say "huh," and then just keep trucking, no worse for the wear.

in my experience I've found that the people who have the most difficulty with obsessing over sexual images are the people who have been most thoroughly trained to think of sex as deviant and dangerous, which makes it very upsetting to see and difficult to get out of your head. folks who are able to conceptualize sex as just a thing that happens that people do sometimes tend to have much less trouble with those kinds of repetitive thoughts.

[genderkoolaid]

Just happened across absolutely yuck take:

https://www.tumblr.com/bichoplaza/730303719824130048/like-men-arent-usually-into-the-nonbinary-thing

I don’t even know what to say to this, to be honest. Hoping you could give a more comprehensive breakdown, if you feel so inclined.

funny enough I already have this person blocked. they're a TERF, for context, so when they say "man" they're talking about people assigned male:

so the post is basically just typical"trans people assigned male are only trans to hide their misogyny" misandry. but its extremely funny to act like

people assigned male being nonbinary and using they/them pronouns is accepted, as if they aren't constantly rebinarized

trans people assigned male are never accused of misogyny, nobody ever views them as being dangerous misogynists

but like. modern radfems really really want to be Radical and Transgressive against patriarchal society. but they've essentially based the entire current movement off of Trans Bad (with the supporting figure Sex Work Bad). so they have to convince themselves that the patriarchy loves trans people and society at large is extremely fond of and protective over trans people, so they can say things that aren't even slightly based in reality like this. its like when they say "well why do you hear so many stories about transfem predators????" as if they are not the ones popularizing those stories because they are obsessed with the idea of transfems being predators. they don't want to face the fact that their views on trans people are totally in-line with patriarchal thoughts on trans people, and that trans identity is not protective against accusations of misogyny or misogynistic violence. because facing that means that their transphobia isn't radically feminist as much as normally patriarchal, and the traditional radfem theory of transness has literally no basis whatsoever in reality

[askshivanulegacy]

OP is very much barking up the wrong tree, clutching pearls at "how dare you call AI images not art!"

Well, AI images are NOT art. The person who inputs the prompt for them is very much a lazy button-pusher and NOT an artist. If the prompter is akin to anything in the art world, it would be an art commissioner, because that's exactly what they do. And yet, the AI tool is just a tool. There's no artist involved.

A "broke, disabled hobbyist" using the AI tool is still a lazy button-pusher no matter how you want to look at it. Doesn't matter how broke or disabled they are. None of that will magically transform them from a button-pusher to an artist via AI. None of that will make their AI output into real art. Full stop. You can't wishful think that reality away just because you want the title of "artist." Is that unfair? Well, do you think typing prompts into a machine actually qualifies you to be an artist? Ever? No. You will need to find some other method of creation that doesn't outsource the process to a machine, if you want to be called an artist. The quality of being "unfair" doesn't make reality change.

Does it matter to anyone at all if that "broke, disabled hobbyist" wants to generate pretty images for their home? NO. Nobody cares! It will impact no one. Personal use is fine.

But you can't turn around and sell those images. You can't turn around and suddenly market yourself as an artist. You can't go to corporations and demand to be paid as a button-pusher to sideline real artists who devote time, effort, and skill to create real work. You can't tell an artist that you didn't want to pay them so you used the AI to mimick their work and get your art for free.

I mean. You COULD but that would make you a selfish, entitled ass.

I've seen other comments on this post talk about "fair use" and "collages" and "data collection."

When you collect data from people to use for published purposes, those people have to give permission. No permission was given; AI is theft.

When you make a collage, you don't sell it. If you want to sell it, you must legally source and seek permission from all your sources for their original work to be used in your derivative thing and sold by you. AI is theft.

When you make fanart under fair use you are also legally not allowed to sell it! All the fanart and fanfiction operate in a very gray zone. Fanartists assume that they're chump change and no one will go after them, and that they provide free promotion. It's a fair assumption! Legally, the real creators are allowed to take issue with it, if they want.

AI is theft. At the very minimum, it is theft of the data, because there is no legal basis for these giant corporations to make use of personal art and writing for the purposes of training an AI which they turn around and profit from.

AI is theft, AI is NOT art, and those lazy-ass button-pushers are NOT artists.

Economic anxiety has a way of bringing out reactionary sentiment in anyone if they're not careful.

It is deeply, deeply frustrating to watch it play out in front of me in leftist spaces such that self-proclaimed leftists are using actual, literal fascist arguments about Real Art vs. Fake Art and Real Labor vs. Lazy Button-Pushing.

These things don't become any less bad when you SAY your enemy is "some rich techbro" while calling broke disabled hobbyists "evil soulless automatons".

The central logic doesn't become true when you SAY you're targeting an inhuman machine while you screech obscenities about a great replacement at its operator.

When you say one minute "there is no unskilled labor, only undervalued skills", it doesn't magically absolve you of saying "nooo, you were supposed to automate away the BAD and DEMEANING jobs with no financial safety net for the workers, not THIS one I consider RESPECTABLE" in the next breath; it only makes you a fucking hypocrite.

"Fair use for me but not for thee" is not a rational position to prevent plagiarism and forgery; it's just a means to codify an ingroup and an outgroup.

"Degenerate art" is always, ALWAYS reactionary and proto-fascist thing to believe in, even if you wrap it up in other fancy words because you know "degenerate" is a Bad Word. "There is Good Art that makes society better and Bad Art, if you can even CALL it Art at all, that will rot our brains and turn us all into mindless drones if it's allowed to survive" cannot be made into anything but a reactionary position! Period! End of!

"Lazy button-pushers" are EXACTLY what corporations want you to think ANY automation operator is, so they can take credit away from those employees and criminally underpay them. They said the same damned thing about digital artists back in the early days of Photoshop. They say the same thing about overworked VFX artists today. You are DIRECTLY helping them make it worse with this argument.

The same old fucking trick of making you uncertain of your financial future so you lash out at other victims of the system because you "can't take the risk" of coming together to fight the actual enemy? Is working a FUCKING treat on way too many people who pride themselves on Not Being Like That - and it's even worse because a lot of the time pointing this out will get nothing but denial because maintaining pride in a leftist, progressive, pro-labor, pro-human Identity is more important to way too many people than ACTUALLY identifying the root of reactionary sentiment and the strategies used to spread it.

It makes me genuinely feel like I've fallen into a Fox News convention, hearing all these blatantly reactionary arguments and actively self-defeating strategies to Protect Labor.

[powerpuffobsession]

I don't like Vaggie getting retconned into an angel

(This one is more of a personal opinion/complaint/vent. I'm just trying to analyze why exactly I dislike this plot change. Viewer discretion is adviced)

When the leaks first said that would happen, I chose to believe it was fake until the very last second. I remember even denying it in my mind when I started watching season 1, hoping that they haven't implemented such a change....

Because the sinner Vaggie premise had so many interesting possibilities - of making her a person, someone interesting on her own, when separated from Charlie

Her sex worker past (meaning the incoming bonding with Angel Dust over shared trauma), her life in El Salvador, her death age that was supposed to be very young (early 20s dead in 2014) contrasting the other hotel residents exept for Niffty (who's from 50s), an interesting dynamic with Charlie where a human sinner gets together with an ancient demon princess - we were promised all of that.

The fandom built plenty of fancontent on the "sinner Vaggie" basis and got used to it. Not many expected an angel Vaggie, and I remember a lot of people saying that would be too obvious and boring and that that wouldn't happen

And in reality, it turned out to be even worse, in my opinion. Now Vaggie is literally one of the faceless Barbie dolls mass produced by Adam. She's so unimportant in-universe, she got broken and thrown away when she was no longer in use. Very symbolic, don't you think?

Her boss, Adam, is objectively more interesting than she is now! By becoming his inferior, Vaggie lost her miniscule interesting features in favour of being outshined by a male character! The one who mistreated her too. So typical... never change since the pilot era

To add salt to the injury, we learned that Vaggie IS in fact, short for Vagina, and that this "charming" name was given her by Adam, the sexist murderous pig! And she kept that name, as if actually liking it! Great!

(Vaggie being short for Vagatha was still unpleasant because Vivzie's dumb humour was obvious through and through, but a lot less offensive than what we actually got)

(And wow thanks a lot for that Vagatha joke with Sir Pentious. Way to mock the viewers by accentuating what was lost)

Also, Vaggie has basically no backstory now - "she was a murderer, then BAM she's not a murderer anymore, and out of nowhere she became a love interest for the main character". And her sparing a child was honestly such a cheap attempt at pulling at the viewer's heartstrings... why did she spend so many years murdering everyone in her way (making her the most effective exorcist, according to Adam himself!) but suddenly decided not to kill a child sinner? Were there no other child sinners before that one? Besides, it's hell, girl! That child could have drove his peer to suicide or killed animals for all we know!

And we are seriously supposed to care about a character who was a boring basic warrior intended for mass murdering just a while ago? Sure, that cliche can actually work with the right portrayal, but not like this! (Personally, I really felt my interest to Vaggie drop when the angel plot twist was revealed, it was like a cold shower)

That leaves Vaggie no choices of showing any personality whatsoever other than clinging to Charlie and having every moment of her life revolve around being with the princess, loving her and helping her. No thoughts, hobbies, world views and goals of her own. Come on, that's so bland!

Vaggie basically just changed one owner to another - from Adam to Charlie, to completely dissolve in their needs and wants instead of devoting some time to her own (which she can't have because she was born as a slave - that is if exorcists are created by Adam)

I feel like I shouldn't complain. I want to believe that if angel Vaggie was given time and space to develop, I'd like her, but really no... the very idea of making her part of Heaven was still-born to begin with, given the nature of hazbin hotel. This cartoon shot itself in the foot with an awful pacing. In the light of that, making Vaggie a significant part of a plotline that had no time to shine was a choice to avoid

And angel Vaggie should have stayed an urban legend in the fandom instead of making it into the show. I feel sad that for me Vaggie was ruined as Hazbin Hotel's aspect I could have enjoyed

I hope she at least gets more interesting interactions with Charlie and other characters in season 2. The ones in season 1 were not so bad, even if they're not the ones I wanted. And I'm still going to love Vaggie out of habit even if she's not the same anymore. Maybe I'll come around and start loving her as an angel eventually 🤞

P.S. why did they change the delicate white colour of her dress and the light pink colour of her bow to bright red shirt and bow? If she's a angel, wouldn't it have made more sense for her to be wearing pallette that has a bit of white in it to make her stand out? Even in that regard a questionable decision was made, dear god...

[city-of-ladies]

“In discussing all these diverse images of armed and actively fighting women of Old Norse literature, and in critically acknowledging that many of the accounts that concern them were created several centuries after the events, it is easy to relegate them all to the sphere of fiction and to regard them as having no basis in historical reality whatsoever. But if we turn to other medieval sources, created independently of Old Norse literary tradition and stemming from different cultural milieus, we will find within them very similar patterns of the occasional female participation in martial activities. The two case studies reviewed above – namely that of Æthelflæd of Mercia and of the women who fought in the siege of Dorostolon – strongly support the idea that there could be some reality behind the stories of armed women that survive in Old Norse literature. Also other historical women of the Viking Age, especially those who stemmed from the highest echelons of society, were occasionally compelled to engage in endeavours associated with warfare and would oversee military operations. For instance, the great Princess Olga, who was the wife of Igor of Kiev, led her army against the Slavic tribe of Derevlians, devised her own impressive strategies and through all these initiatives gained recognition among her companions, regardless of her biological sex.

It thus feels highly unlikely that all these medieval accounts, including the famed descriptions of female warriors in Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum, were only inspired by legends of the ancient Amazons and served as curiosa and literary embellishments to entertain the audience. As we shall see in the following chapters of this book, archaeological finds from across Scandinavia provide support for the idea that some Viking Age women did wield weapons and in one way or another found their place in the martial sphere.”

Women and Weapons in the Viking World: Amazons of the North, Leszek Gardela

[r-ob-yn]

I don't think internet discourse by people in the imperial core about the ongoing decolonial efforts in Palestine have any effect whatsoever on the events. I don't think engaging in this discourse serves any purpose beyond trying to make ourselves feel righteous. It's also basically impossible to engage in without playing into genocidal rhetoric of one persuasion or another.

The thing that's much more interesting to me is just how fundamentally far apart my and other imperial core residents experiences are from those living in the midst of the most active imperial violence. No one I know has ever even gotten close to throwing a rock at a cop, let alone bulldozing a border wall staffed by an active duty military. Self described activists and freedom fighters in our circles are comparirively hardcore if they throw a brick through one window in their life.

And it's clear that this separation isn't necessarily geographical either, there are plenty of people in the us who have to damage border walls on a regular basis, or who are actively defending their land from the us military, or who have to steal and run from cops to survive.

The inescapable but usually hidden reality is that most of us in these privileged circles who talk about things like revolution are deeply and uncompromisingly invested in our own safety and comfort. For us, radical action looks like organizing mutual aid groups or painting bike lanes without state permission. Action that more genuinely threatened imperial hegemony would, of course, get us removed from our positions of comfort and relegated to the lifestyles of those like the people living in Palestine, or us prisons, or under seige reservations, or latine refugees.

And of course mutual aid and pro transit work and the like are wonderful! And frankly I think anyone in our position would do the same to protect their well being.

But at the end of the day, it's deeply unproductive to pretend that this divide doesn't exist, or that we haven't made the active decision to prioritize our well being at the expense of these people we are clambering to support on the Internet.

Let's be real, you are never going to bulldoze a border wall, and neither am I, because living on the other side of those walls is miserable enough to engender this kind of action in the first place. And you and I, like most people in the world (including the people driving those dozers!), just want to be okay.

[aliasrocket]

Rocket has never liked intimacy.

That’s why he’s in your shower, showering alone, letting the hot water seep into his pores and nearly fry his nerves to rid them of the numbing feeling engulfing his veins the way a tree sets its roots on the ground.

but this wasn’t part of the plan.

no, no, no, he sees you staring right back at him as he’s rubbing the towel into the fur at the nape of his neck.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” you answered softly. “Until you opened the bathroom door.”

You continued to stare as he picked up the clothes decorating your bedside table and chair. His fur had been fluffed up from the fresh drying, and it had been just like staring at a grounded brown cloud.

“Can I hug you?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Not happening.”

when Rocket looked over his shoulder, his tail perked up as he was sent scampering up to your chair before you could trap him in your arms.

“Just one hug!”

“No, hey! Stop chasing me! Hey—hey are you listening t’me?” Rocket was basically jumping off the walls as he forced you to run laps around your room just to try and get a hold of him. “Woah! Watch the tail!”

“You had your fingers in me like an hour ago but I can’t even hug you?”

“Those are two very different things!” Rocket shrieked. “And I know you only wanna hug me because of the fur!”

that was when you got a hold of his hand while he was on your window—and you yanked him down onto your bed, effectively securing your arms around him.

Your chest hits his back as you feel him deflate at your touch almost immediately, and make the painstaking effort not to stroke his fur in any way, shape or form. Your arms contract around him even closer, as if locking yourself away from the temptation that had its grip on you entire body.

He grumbles to himself but it was barely audible for you to make out. But even if he kept a bubbling growl in his throat instead of letting to rise to his teeth, you could feel it shaking his back in disagreement.

“You never hug me but the moment I’m all cute n’ cuddly you suddenly want a piece a’me. What a poser,” he finally grumbled a decibel louder.

You felt every move he made, your arms serving as some sort of sensor to Rocket’s movement.

But the thing is, the only movement he’s made is the steady fall and rise of his chest; his breathing.

There was a question hanging heavy in your mind, but if it ever made it past your tongue you knew all this running, all this hugging and all his warmth—it would end. So you chose a different set of words instead.

“I’m only concerned for my safety—you’d bite my arm off if I ever got close to you for reasons other than sex but this,” you give your arms a little tug and he groans. You chuckle.

“This is worth it.”

“Is that seriously why you don’t hug me more often?”

“Of course. You’re amazing to hug.”

He lowered his head, the fur of his neck tickling your arm but you don’t budge at all.

“You’d get sick of it.”

Your brows furrowed.

You waited, and then waited some more for maybe some sort of explanation to his five word statement that had no real basis whatsoever.

But he continued to look down.

“Why? How can I get sick of it?”

“Hugging me ain’t the same as hugging another humie your size. I’m just gonna be a toy to get rid of when you’ve outgrown it.”

Your eyes fluttered and widened at his words. Your arms loosen, but only for one of your hands to land right over Rocket’s own.

“Forget it.”

Rocket finally breaks away from your tight embrace, the reality of his superior strength hitting you not only on your arms but in your head when you were knocked back.

He starts gathering his clothes again.

a/n. was wondering if you guys would prefer if I made random imagines like this often?? Cuz I always have a lot of ideas that are too exhausting to write into full fics so I was wondering if this is ok hehe.

[sophieinwonderland]

Well, I went through all the trouble of typing a response and then they just block me before I can post... if only there was a tag I could post my response in... 🤔

You’re the ones who invaded our tags first,

That's pretty clearly not true if you've been paying attention to anything happening over the past several months on this site and anti-endos constantly posting hate in inclusive tags.

Not only do you take away system resources,

What resources? Be specific?

Terms? Because again, besides Plural as a term, fictives and factives were taken from the endogenic soulbonders. In reality, vast majority of system terms in circulation came from endogenic and pro-endo systems.

Maybe you mean resources like Pluralkit and Simply Plural. You know, that are made by the pro-endos. And get many of their donations from endogenic systems.

Or, I don't know... do you think the non-trauamgenic systems and non-disordered systems are seeking mental help from your trauma therapists? 🤣

Come on! Tell me the resources! Don't just use this as a buzzword!

Tell me, you have no actual medical professions claiming endogenics are real and we have many claiming they aren’t.

Oh? You do, do you? Can you name them? I can name mine!

Here's Dr. Eric Yarbrough...

That book, Transgender Mental Health, was actually reviewed and published by the American Psychiatric Association, by the way!

Of course, if you want the opinions of an expert in DID, there are these emails from Colin Ross!

Oh, but what does he know? He's just one of the foremost experts on DID with 40 years of experience.

How about brain scans? Here's Dr. Michael Lifshitz, psychiatry professor of McGill University discussing some of the findings from his $50,000 study into tulpa systems, sponsored by Stanford University, which showed neurological changes in tulpa systems while a tulpa was controlling their limbs.

To be fair, the results haven't been published yet, so maybe you can hold onto the hope that this professor with many published papers on his belt is lying about the results. That will be a fun hope to see crushed!

And I could go on... and on... I have a long list and this is just a taste of it.

But anyway, you were telling me how these "many" medical professionals are claiming endogenic systems aren't real. Can you name them for me? Even just one? Come on. If there are so many, it shouldn't be hard!

People like you groom actual systems into believing their trauma “wasn’t bad enough” so they think they’re endogenic

"Punk" to you is apparently using authoritarian right-wing queerphobic tactics of misusing the word "grooming" to make people associate the out group with child abusers. (See every right-winger accusing LGBT people of grooming kids to be gay or grooming them to be transgender.)

Not to mention you stole the term syshopping from RAMCOA survivors.

Nope. That's a lie.

System hopping, as a term for traveling between different bodied-systems, existed since at least as far back as 2005.

The RAMCOA association came from one RAMCOA system in 2021. The system who originally said that later said their words were taken out of context, deleted the original tweet, and condemned anti-endos for using their tweet to spread hate.

I've gone over this before with sources in the post below, thoroughly debunking this lie.

There is zero basis to this whatsoever.

Although you bringing this up and reminding me how anti-endos are trying to rewrite history to take this term too is only increasing my motivation for taking the systempunk and syspunk tags.

Not to fucking mention, you steal actual therapists from us by trying to make them believe in endogenic bullshit.

Wait!

I thought you said no medical professionals believed us!

Now we're stealing therapists by making them believe in endogenic systems?

Which is it??????

never touch the systempunk tag again

Nope! Sorry! Too late for that now!

Anti-science hate groups don't get safe spaces. And the fact that you've created an echo chamber where you can safely spread lies like the systemhopping libel above is only evidence that I need to make more of an effort to correct the lies of anti-endos at their source.

No Safe Space For Hate!

[lunar-years]

TV Show Reddit Pages: cesspools for the worst takes about the show you can see on the internet. absolutely no one will interpret your favorite characters correctly and in fact they will probably misinterpret and butcher characters you feel mainly neutral about so severely that you will feel a need to write essay long thinkpieces defending the honor of a character you've only thought about twice in your life. there will be at least one post a day that is straight up racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted, and then there will be people in the comments agreeing with it. be prepared to see "WAIT I just realized..." followed by something that a) was incredibly obvious to everyone who watched the show; b) never even happened; or c) is a theory with no basis whatsoever in reality. you will leave every thread appalled and dismayed and possibly permanently damaged

Craft/Hobby Reddit Pages: Beacons of gentle human interaction and kindness. a celebration of life's simple joys. at least one old lady is there to show you the way. everyone is gleefully sharing their wips and finished objects. post yours for instant validation and gratification! the two snotty comments have already been downvoted to oblivion. they will provide links to everything you need to make the thing in the post. 1000/10.

[alienpossession]

They are the kind of men best described as meathead. They are not the brightest, seen fron their glazed eyes that shown that there's not much thought hidden behind those eyes and the way their body mostly consisted of muscles that bulged in all the right places

They live and breath gym. Their sweat and stink penetrates other people's nostrils, their grunts boomed across the gym, their bated breath showcased the effort they put in perfecting their already sculpted body. Strangers or people unfamiliar with them might be disturbed or annoyed by these, but for fellow gymgoers, it's nothing but a sign of hard work put on daily basis by the people that desires to build body worthy for worship and admiration

People rarely seen them outside of the gym. It's like, these men lived in the gym 24/7 and have nothing else actually going on in their life. It could be heard that these men have occasional conversation about partying with coworkers by Friday night, banging some chicks or pretty boys with good mouth on the side, some detail about works outside the gym or any other details that make them sounded humans. But I know those are empty talks, some artificial reality that they spluttered based on memories of the meat they are controlling to ensure that they looked convincing enough to pass as humans to the rest of gymgoers that has not been converted. The small critters really did well to emulate the human emotions, no one raised an eyebrow even when the two opposing gang members talked intensely about fucking up each other's ass.

Or maybe the humans are just afraid to mess up the wrong person or maybe they are just not care that much about the others around them. That's one of the reason why the takeover seemed easy so far, I guess, the way the people lived in big cities barely cared about each other make the process becoming more and more upfront. Literally yesterday, one of the taken over guy kissed a straight married man that is busy doing bench press and the critters simply unloaded from his mouth to the straight married man that was soon fell under control and not a single eye cared about it, let alone realize that something beyond their comprehension just happened right in front of them

All in all, beware of the big muscle man around you. They are strong and powerful indeed, but maybe those powers are going to be used to subdue you. Especially when their eyes seemed to be too empty, almost drone-like and barely contain any independent thoughts whatsoever, I suggest for you to run and escape the situation because who would know whether those big guys are just blanked out from using too much steroids that fried their brain or they are no longer humans and simply use as a meat puppet to advance extraterrestrial agenda

[wumblr]

i've said this 500 times now, but: when you are trying to persuade someone, particularly in contexts like "out of neoliberalism" or "away from religious cult thinking," it does no good to appeal to logic or factual reality, it does not matter the quality of analysis you bring to the table, it doesn't matter what sources you cite, because that was never the basis of the belief to begin with. it's retroactive. the reasoning is retroactively applied to supplant the conclusion they already knew they wanted. it's a choice. not always a fully conscious choice! but as a point of fact, any reasoning whatsoever, no matter how obviously flimsy, is good enough. tomorrow they will pick any new, flimsy reasoning that blows by on the wind. you can't keep up with that, and that's precisely why the strategy is effective

if you want to actually affect them you have to approach the core choice itself, and this is notoriously difficult because it's a topic that so often leads to things like disowning your own children, because the alternative is facing the error of their lifelong worldview. in the case of christian extremism you're usually asking them to let go of an eternal life to face the fact that this is not a waiting room. that is something that can take twenty years in the extremely rare cases where it does work. if their own children didn't have any capacity to affect that underlying choice, then, as politely as possible: neither the fuck do you

these discussions in public can still have utility, but you have to be aware that the only available purpose is to persuade an audience who was already leaning toward agreeing with you. they might be better persuaded by simply pointing out "well that's obviously flimsy reasoning" and letting them do the work themselves, because you're still up against the effectiveness of flimsy reasoning's neverending deployability. you can't stop a firehose with a thimble, what you need is a long wrench at the faucet, a strong arm, and saintlike patience. because that firehose is going to keep blasting everything out of its way while you're trying to disconnect the water. stepping into it to debunk one drop mostly just soaks you with nonsense and knocks you 50ft off your course!

[mesetacadre]

On the Slogan for a United States of Europe

In No. 40 of Sotsial-Demokrat we reported that a conference of our-Party’s groups abroad had decided to defer the question of the “United States of Europe” slogan pending a discussion, in the press, on the economic aspect of the matter.

At our conference the debate on this question assumed a purely political character. Perhaps this was partly caused by the Central Committee’s Manifesto having formulated this slogan as a forthright political one (“the immediate political slogan...”, as it says there); not only did it advance the slogan of a republican United States of Europe, but expressly emphasised that this slogan is meaningless and false “without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, Austrian and Russian monarchies”.

It would be quite wrong to object to such a presentation of the question within the limits of a political appraisal of this slogan—e.g., to argue that it obscures or weakens, etc., the slogan of a socialist revolution. Political changes of a truly democratic nature, and especially political revolutions, can under no circumstances whatsoever either obscure or weaken the slogan of a socialist revolution. On the contrary, they always bring it closer, extend its basis, and draw new sections of the petty bourgeoisie and the semi-proletarian masses into the socialist struggle. On the other hand, political revolutions are inevitable in the course of the socialist revolution, which should not be regarded as a single act, but as a period of turbulent political and economic upheavals, the most intense class struggle, civil war, revolutions, and counter-revolutions.

But while the slogan of a republican United States of Europe—if accompanied by the revolutionary overthrow of the three most reactionary monarchies in Europe, headed by the Russian—is quite invulnerable as a political slogan, there still remains the highly important question of its economic content and significance. From the standpoint of the economic conditions of imperialism—i.e., the export of capital and the division of the world by the “advanced” and “civilised” colonial powers—a United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary.

Capital has become international and monopolist. The world has been carved up by a handful of Great Powers, i.e., powers successful in the great plunder and oppression of nations. The four Great Powers of Europe—Britain, France, Russia and Germany, with an aggregate population of between 250,000,000 and 300,000,000, and an area of about 7,000,000 square kilometres—possess colonies with a population of almost 500 million (494,500,000) and an area of 64,600,000 square kilometres, i.e., almost half the surface of the globe [...] Add to this the three Asian states—China, Turkey and Persia, now being rent piecemeal by thugs that are waging a war of “liberation”, namely, Japan, Russia, Britain and France. Those three Asian states, which may be called semi-colonies (in reality they are now 90 per cent colonies), have a total population of 360,000,000 and an area of 14,500,000 square kilometres (almost one and a half times the area of all Europe).

Furthermore, Britain, France and Germany have invested capital abroad to the value of no less than 70,000 million rubles. The business of securing “legitimate” profits from this tidy sum—these exceed 3,000 million rubles annually��committees of the millionaires, known as governments, which are equipped with armies and navies and which provide the sons and brothers of the millionaires with jobs in the colonies and semi-colonies as viceroys, consuls, ambassadors, officials of all kinds, clergymen, and other leeches.

That is how the plunder of about a thousand million of the earth’s population by a handful of Great Powers is organised in the epoch of the highest development of capitalism. No other organisation is possible under capitalism. Renounce colonies, “spheres of influence”, and the export of capital? To think that it is possible means coming down to the level of some snivelling parson who every Sunday preaches to the rich on the lofty principles of Christianity and advises them to give the poor, well, if not millions, at least several hundred rubles yearly.

A United States of Europe under capitalism is tantamount to an agreement on the partition of colonies. Under capitalism, however, no other basis and no other principle of division are possible except force. [...] Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, and anarchy in production. To advocate a “just” division of income on such a basis is sheer Proudhonism, stupid philistinism. No division can be effected otherwise than in “proportion to strength”, and strength changes with the course of economic development. [...] There is and there can be no other way of testing the real might of a capitalist state than by war. War does not contradict the fundamentals of private property—on the contrary, it is a direct and inevitable outcome of those fundamentals. Under capitalism the smooth economic growth of individual enterprises or individual states is impossible. Under capitalism, there are no other means of restoring the periodically disturbed equilibrium than crises in industry and wars in politics.

Of course, temporary agreements are possible between capitalists and between states. In this sense a United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists... but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressing socialism in Europe, of jointly protecting colonial booty against Japan and America, who have been badly done out of their share by the present partition of colonies. [...] On the present economic basis, i.e., under capitalism, a United States of Europe would signify an organisation of reaction to retard America’s more rapid development. The times when the cause of democracy and socialism was associated only with Europe alone have gone for ever.

A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism—about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states.

It is for these reasons and after repeated discussions at the conference of R,S.D.L.P. groups abroad, and following that conference, that the Central Organ’s editors have come to the conclusion that the slogan for a United States of Europe is an erroneous one.

On the Slogan for a United States of Europe. V. I. Lenin, 1915