#or UNTIL it needs to be done in a post-forced-poverty world | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yourtoradorasextendedwarranty · 2 years ago

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I doubt highly that I will put my thoughts as eloquently as you have but let me add to what you have said in layman's terms since the person debating you doesn't understand.

One of the biggest points that mitigatedchaos is trying to paint is one that I, myself, have tried to point out to a number of people. The left and the right, both in lock step, but at different points, have decided they wanted to "help the poor". The issue in this is that the money for this is granted at the drop of a hat, and little is done in regards to making sure the money is actually being used to help.

Hell. Often that money will find it's way back to the politicians either in donations, or in them being affiliated with the programs meant to "help". An example actually of this is the fact that people have shit on Elon because I believe it was the UN (you can fact check to see for sure I don't remember the org) came out saying with money like his they could end world hunger. So Elon actually decided, "You know what? If you can break down how the money will be spent. Where it will go, and submit yourselves to an investigation/audit after the fact to prove the money went where you said it will go. I will give you the few Billion you claimed will end world hunger." And you know what happened after that? Elon didn't back out. They just could not prove jack shit, and would NOT submit to an external audit/investigation.

Which is funny because we know WHY. I'm not strictly anti government but they have too much power. My point above being that if you can't prove something will work, why the hell would I trust you with my time or my money? I wouldn't. And I never will. Because you will always just keep pushing the goal post further and further and further. And always in lockstep with democrats and neo liberals.

The world on a fundamental level is not fair. Not even remotely. And helping others while good only gets you so far. And just like war is a racket, so to is poverty, homelessness, and all other social programs in general. Or to make the point far more in your face this video.

youtube

This man, a man that didn't have a lot of money to begin with, tried to help the homeless in his community. Do you know what happened? The local cops forced the homeless out of these small shelters, stripped them of the solar panel and copper cabling, and anything else they could sell off. Many were pointlessly destroyed, while few others were saved, though still stripped down to nothing. Do you know why this happened? Of course not. It was because they city had just run a campaign worth several million dollars, (that would make it's way back to them) all so they could pat themselves on the back.

Moreover, the reasoning they gave publicly was, "These aren't real homes. The homeless need to just do better. If we let them keep these, they will just stop trying to do better. Besides the shelters are bad for neighborhoods and not safe."

So lets bring this back around to "Reparations" and what not. Most generational wealth lasts about 2-3 generations. And if we look at the black american populace before welfare, they were actually doing stunning. Right up until we decided, or rather, democrats decided, that those poor helpless black people just are not doing well enough. Let's mindlessly throw money at them, meanwhile incentivizing out of wedlock baby making, and coerce government reliance.

Looking at that as a baseline, also consider how many people, whom look VERY white are the descendants of black slaves in the US. What about people like Will Smith? Kevin Hart? Oprah? Are we going to give them money too if they were descendants of slaves? If you say no to this then you're being discriminator against people because they fought for what they earned, and made it in life. If you say yes, you are giving free money to people who clearly don't need it. IE: Lose/Lose for you. And like Chaos also said, what about those just landed here 2-4 years ago. Some of them are black. They were not oppressed. Hell, many of them are doing better than american whites. Middle Eastern Asians are out earning almost every group in the US. We're racist though right?

I won't go on for much longer because this post is almost as long as a light novel, but I will finish off with a few things.

There is no way to tangibly prove how much any one family was hurt by slavery.

You, as well as many others can not and will not submit to the idea that you will move the goal post when it becomes convenient.

You, and others, would not be willing to take race out of it because it is ambiguous and therefore "ever changing". As such to half quote Chaos, "With no end in sight". Which is the point.

Any programs we make to "help" will likely not only not help at all, but will ignore any and all other causes of poverty causing the problem to never actually cease.

Poverty is everywhere among all ethnicities, all religious groups, and all countries. Pointing to something as menial as race in 2023 when a Tan person can either be from Spain, Mexico, Iran, Egypt or Brazil, and a Brown person can be from Cambodia, Nigeria, Jamaica, or Britain; It makes zero sense to keep focusing on race as a root cause of poverty for a lot of people. My family is of Irish descent. Historically the Irish were slaves to the British and not even viewed as "White" by the British or the colonies. Not for a long time. And even then, most Irish were poor as well and affected by the same slave trade.

My final point will be this. I do not trust anyone trying to solve issues based on race because it is a factor that only seeks to divide us. Which the further on the left have actively sought to weaponize. In the 90's and early 00's however race relations were the best they had ever been. Far better than they are now where video's exist of "white" americans showing how much they care by kissing the literal jack boots of a group of black americans. This on top of story on top of story of new age affirmative action, where companies are exposed saying, "Sorry, we can't hire you because we have too many white people". Especially in entertainment. Hell, Asians are being discriminated against in college entrance. Needing to score MUCH higher, and having to be, "Personable" enough for the college to let them in.

In short? All of these programs that are supposed to help "BIPOC" etc, find ways to actively discriminate against people based on race. So rather than look at the root causes of poverty or anything else, we have been whittled down to ONLY looking at skin color. Not only that, but we have done one further where we are hyper focused on only black americans. Never you mind Manzanar. Never you mind Irish slaves. Never you mind the ones that sold your ancestors to the english, some of whom came here and also owned slaves as well.

We CAN NOT place most of the focus on race when looking at poverty. We need to actively look at root causes. Mental illness. Permanent Injury. Fatherless homes. Motherless homes. Poor education. The further lefts perpetual, "Soft bigotry of low expectations". I want to help people in need. I am not willing to go out of my way to do that when the criteria for those "in need" is based on race. More over when it would be extremely difficult to tell whom were actually victims of slavery, segregation, redlining, etc. And even harder still to put and number on, or value on, how affected they were by those things. And while I don't think the answer is to remove welfare, I do think that there needs to be more clear criteria for it, and it needs to be applied universally across the board. To men and to women. To black and to white. To single parents and to Individuals whom are getting screwed over by life.

Last point as the over arching point. People should not support you in your attempt to direct help if that help is based on race. Because that very notion is like claiming that Oprah is oppressed and lesser than because of her skin color. And a homeless white veteran with PTSD, and war injuries are better than and better off because of his skin color. That's not a tenable concept. And as such has no tangible way to be solved. And frankly speaking, it's kinda racist.

I think a big question is why, exactly, we should be privileging racial wealth gaps and other racial gaps in the first place?

People say that this is about "justice," but that just punts the question! Why should we care about justice between racial groups, which are statistical abstractions, rather than about justice between individuals? The groups in question aren't even countries and don't have specific elected governments. Why should we award benefits for being "a member of a historically-harmed group" by skintone when guys with the same skintone just stepped off a 747 two hours ago?

It's ridiculous because poverty is obviously the single most intersectional criteria.

Injured or disabled? Can't work well; poverty.

Discriminated against? Can't get work; poverty.

Live somewhere with no jobs and can't afford to leave? Can't get work; poverty.

Mentally ill or had a psychotic break? Can't work well; poverty.

Never did well in school or testing and can't manage to demonstrate your talents to others? Can't get work/can't work well; poverty.

Homeless? Can't work well; poverty.

Hurting someone's ability to gain money or maintain wealth is probably the best single-metric measure of how much something hurts them, since money is used to buy almost everything except social relationships, and even buys the tools to help with that, too.

The only reason to take the race-first approach is if you can show substantial gains, but if that's the case, then where are those gains?

#Youtube

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pumpkinpaix · 4 years ago

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Pleeeeeeease get into the class one at some point because I very much want to understand the class dynamics happening in the story but I have yet to find a meta that dives into it

god anon you want me dead don’t you alsjdfljks

referring to this post

okay, so -- my specific salt about class interpretations in mdzs are very targeted. I can’t pretend to have a deep understanding of how class works in mdzs generally because uhhhhh yeah i don’t think i have that. i’m just not familiar enough with the genre and/or the particulars of chinese class systems. but! i can talk in general terms as to why I feel a certain way about the class dynamics that I do think I understand and how I think they relate to the themes of the novel! i’m gonna talk about wei wuxian, the daozhangs, xue yang, and 3zun with, I’m sure, a bunch of digressions along the way.

the usual disclaimers: i do not think you are a bad person if you hold opinions contrary to my own. i may disagree with you very strongly, but like. this isn’t a moral judgment, fandom is transformative and interpretive etc. etc. and i may change my mind. who knows what the future will bring!

OKAY so let’s begin!

here’s the thing about wei wuxian: he’s not poor. I think because characters use “son of a servant” kind of often when they’re trying to insult him, a lot of people latch onto that and think that it’s a much stronger indication of his societal status than it actually is. iirc, most of the insults that fall along the “son of a servant” line come after wei wuxian starts breaking severely from tradition. it’s a convenient thing to attack him for, but doesn’t actually indicate anything about his wealth. (exception: yu ziyuan, but that’s a personal familial issue) this is in direct contrast to jin guangyao who is constantly mocked for his family line, publicly and privately, no matter what he does.

so this, coupled with all the jokes about wwx never having any money (wei wuqian, sizhui’s “i’ve long since known you had no money” etc.), plus his like, rough years on the street as a child ends up producing this interpretation of wei wuxian, especially in modern aus, as someone who is very class conscious and “eat the rich”. but the fact of the matter is, wei wuxian IS rich. aside from the years in his childhood and the last two years of his life in yiling, like -- wei wuxian had money and status. he is gentry. he is respected as gentry. he is treated as a son by the sect leader of yunmeng jiang -- he does not have the jiang name, but it is so very clear that jiang fengmian favors him. wei wuxian is ranked fourth of all the eligible young masters in the cultivation world -- that is not a ranking he could have attained without being accepted into the upper class.

wei wuxian’s poverty does not affect him in the way that it affects jin guangyao or xue yang. he is of low-ish birth (still the son of jiang fengmian’s right hand man though! ok sure, “son of a servant” but like. >_> whatever anyways), but for most of his life he had money. he, jiang cheng, and their sect brothers go into town and steal lotus pods with the understanding that “jiang-shushu will pay for it”. this is a regular thing! that’s fucking rich kid behavior!!! wei wuxian is careless with money because he doesn’t have to worry about it. he still has almost all the benefits of being upper class: education, food security, respect, recognition etc. I think there may also be a misconception that wei wuxian was always on the verge of being kicked out by yu ziyuan, or that he was constantly walking on eggshells around her for fear of being disowned, but that is just textually untrue. i could provide receipts, but I admittedly don’t really feel like digging them up just now ;;

even in his last years in yiling, he was not the one who was dealing with the acute knowledge of poverty: wen qing is the one managing the money, and as far as we know, wei wuxian did little to no management of daily life during the burial mounds days -- mostly, he’s described as hiding in his cave for days on end, working on his inventions, running around like a force of chaos, frivolously making a mess of things -- it’s very very cute that he buries a’yuan in the dirt, but in classic wei wuxian fashion, he did Not think about the practical consequences of it -- that A’Yuan has no other clean clothes, and now he’s gotten this set dirty and has no intention of washing them. is this a personality thing? yeah, but I think it’s also indicative of his lack of concern over the logistics of everyday survival, re: wealth.

furthermore, i think it is important to remember that wei wuxian, when he is protecting the wen remnants, is not protecting common folk: he is still protecting gentry. fallen gentry, yes! but gentry nonetheless. wen qing was favored by wen ruohan, and wen ning himself says that he has a retinue of people under his command (the remnants, essentially). their branch of the family do not have the experience of living and growing in poverty -- they are impoverished and persecuted in their last years, but that’s a very different thing from being impoverished your whole life. (sidenote: I do not believe wei wuxian’s primary motivation for defending the wen remnants was justice -- i believe he did it because he felt he owed wen ning and wen qing a life debt, and once he was there, he wasn’t going to stand around and let the work camps go on. yes, he is concerned about justice and doing the right thing, but that’s not why he went in the first place. anyways, that’s another meta)

after wei wuxian returns, he then marries back into gentry, and very wealthy gentry at that. lwj provides him all the money he could ever want, he is never worried about going homeless, starving, being denied opportunities based on his class and accompanying disadvantages. who would dare? and neither wei wuxian nor lan wangji seem to have much interest in shaking up the order of things, except in little things like the way they teach the juniors. they live in gusu, under the auspices of the lan, and they live a happy, domestic life.

were his years on the street traumatizing? yes, of course they were, there’s so much delicious character exploration to be done re: wei wuxian’s relationship to food, his relationship to his own needs, and his relationship to the people he loves. it’s all important and good! but I feel very strongly that that experience, while it was formative for him, did not impart any true understanding of poverty and the common person’s everyday struggles, nor do I think he ever really gains that understanding. he is observant and canny and aware of class and blood, certainly, but not in a way that makes it his primary hill to die on (badum-tss).

this is in very stark contrast to characters like jin guangyao and xue yang, and to some extent, xiao xingchen and song lan. I’ll start with the daozhangs, because I think they’re the simplest (??).

I think both xiao xingchen and song lan have class consciousness, but in a very simplified, broad-strokes kind of way (at least, given the information we know about them). we know that the two of them share similar values and want to one day form their own sect that gives no weight to the nobility of your lineage and has no concern with your wealth. we also know that they both disdain intersect politics and are more concerned with ideals and principles rather than status. but, I think because of that, this actually somewhat limits their perception and understanding of how status is used to oppress. as far as we know, neither of them participated on any side in sunshot and they demonstrate much more interest in relating to the commoners. honestly, i hc that they were flitting around trying to help decimated towns, protecting defenseless villages etc. I ALSO think this has a lot of interesting potential in terms of xiao xingchen and wei wuxian’s relationship, if xiao xingchen is ever revived. regardless of whether you’re in CQL or novel verse, xiao xingchen really doesn’t know wei wuxian at all, other than knowing that he’s his shijie’s son. he knows that cangse-sanren met with a tragic end, like yanling-daoren before her, and that he wants to be different. but here is cangse-sanren’s son, laying waste to entire cities, desecrating the dead. I would very much like to get into xiao xingchen’s head during that period of time (and i think, if i do it right, i can write some of it into the songxiao fixit), but that’s neither here nor there, because i’ve wandered off from my point again.

i would posit that song lan is used to an ascetic lifestyle, and xiao xingchen probably is too -- but that’s different from poverty because there’s an element of choice to it. I also think that neither of them is particularly worldly, xiao xingchen especially. he lived on an isolated mountain until he was like, seventeen, and he came down full of ideals and naivete about how the world worked. I think that both of them see inequality, that they are angered by it, and that they want to do something about it -- but their solution is neither to topple the sects, nor is it to reform the system. rather, it seems to be more about withdrawing and creating their own removed world. I think that the daozhangs embody a kind of utopianism that isn’t present in the minds of any of the other characters, not even wangxian. honestly, baoshan-sanren’s mountain is a utopian ideal, but one that is not described. it exists outside of and beyond the world. i have a lot of jumbled, vague thoughts about utopianism generally, mostly informed by china miéville and ursula k. le guin, and I don’t think i have the ability to articulate them here, but i wanted to. hm. say something? there is something about the inherent dystopianism contained within every utopia, that utopias are necessary, but also reflections of the existence of terrible things in their conception. idk. there’s something in there, I know it!! but i suppose what I want to say is -- i do not think the daozhangs understand class and social hierarchy very deeply because they don’t see a need to examine it deeply. for their goals, the details aren’t the point. they’re not looking to reform within the system, they’re looking to build something outside of it. I think they spend a lot of time concerned with alleviating the symptoms of social oppression, and their values reflect the injustices they witness there.

regardless, even if their story ends in tragedy and there is a certain amount of critique re: the utopian approach, i think the text still emphasizes that xiao xingchen left a utopia and that he thought that people mattered enough for him to try, and that was an incredibly honorable, kind, and human thing to do.

YEAH SURE THE DAOZHANGS ARE THE SIMPLEST ok ok RETURNING to class and moving forward: xue yang.

i also don’t think xue yang has class consciousness lol, or not in any way that really matters, but I do think poverty impacted him in a much stronger way than it impacted wei wuxian. wei wuxian spent some years on the street as a child. xue yang grew up on the streets. chang ci’an’s horrific treatment of him was directly due to his class and social standing: chang ci’an is a nobleman and xue yang is not even worth the dirt beneath the wheels of his cart. what I think is the seminal point though, is that this does not make xue yang think particularly deeply about systemic injustice, because xue yang is so self-centered, self-driven, and individualistic. he is not even slightly concerned about how poverty and class might affect other people -- they’re other people. what he takes away from his experience is not an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a system, but an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a specific man.

xue yang is not particularly concerned with the politics of the aristocracy -- he has no obvious ambitions other than, “i want to eat sweets whenever i please”, “i want to hurt anyone who wrongs me”, and “i want to be so strong that no one can hurt me”. like, he just doesn’t care -- it’s not the kind of power he wants. he sneers at people for like, personal reasons, not class reasons -- “you think you’re better than me” re: xiao xingchen and song lan. to him, all people -- poor, wealthy, noble, common -- are essentially equal, and they are all beneath him. after all, what does he care what family someone comes from, how much money they have? everyone bleeds when you cut them. some of them might be harder to get to than others, but xue yang does not fear that sort of thing. it’s just another obstacle he needs to vault on his way to getting revenge and/or a pastry.

ANYWAYS onto jin guangyao (wow this is hm. getting rather long ahaha oh dear): I would argue that the two characters with the most acute understanding of class/societal politics and the injustice of them are jin guangyao and lan xichen. i’ll start with jin guangyao for obvious reasons.

where xue yang took the damaging effects of poverty as personal slights, I think jin guangyao is painfully aware that there is nothing personal about them, which is, in some ways, much worse. why are two sons, born on the same day to the same father, treated so differently? just because.

he watched his mother struggle and starve and work herself to the bone in a profession where she was constantly disrespected and abused for almost nothing in return, while his father could have lifted her out of poverty with the wave of a finger. why didn’t he? because he didn’t like her? no -- because he didn’t care, and the structures of the society they live in protect that kind of blase treatment of the lower class.

“so my mother couldn’t choose her own fate, is that her fault?” jin guangyao demands. he knows that he is unbelievably talented, that he has ambition, that he has potential, and that all of it is beyond his grasp just because his father didn’t want to bother with it. his mother’s life was destroyed, and his own opportunities were crippled with that negligence. it isn’t personal. that’s just the way things are. your individual identity is meaningless, your humanity does not exist. when he’s kicked down the steps of jinlin tai, it’s just more confirmation that no matter how talented or hardworking he is, no one will give him the time of day unless he finds a way to take it himself and become someone who “matters”.

jin guangyao’s cultivation is weak because he had a poor foundation, and he had a poor foundation because he was denied access to a good one. he copies others because that’s all he can do at this point, and he copies so well that he can hold his own against some of the strongest cultivators of his generation. he’s disparaged for copying and “stealing” techniques, but -- he never would have had to if only he had been born/accepted into the upper class. the fact is that i really do think jin guangyao was the most promising cultivator of his generation that we meet, including the twin jades and wei wuxian: he had natural talent, ambition, creativity, determination and cunning in spades. in some ways, I think that’s one of the overlooked tragedies of jin guangyao: the loss of not just the good man he could have been, but the powerful one too. imagine what he could have done.

jin guangyao spends his entire time in the world of the aristocracy feeling unsteady and terrified because he knows exactly how precarious his position is. he knows how easy it is to lose power, especially for someone like him. he’s working against so many disadvantages, and every scrap of honor he gets is a vicious battle. jin guangyao fears, and I think that’s something that’s lacking in xue yang, wei wuxian and the daozhangs’ experiences/understandings of poverty. i think it’s precisely that fear that emphasizes jin guangyao’s understanding of class and blood. jin guangyao exhibits an anxiety that neither wei wuxian nor xue yang do, and it’s because he truly knows how little he is worth in the eyes of society and how little there is he can do to change that. to me, it very much feels related to the anxiety of not knowing if tomorrow you’ll have something to eat, if tomorrow you’ll still have a home, if tomorrow someone will destroy you and never have to answer for it. it’s the anxiety of knowing helplessness intimately.

moreover, jin guangyao is the only person shown to use the wealth and power at his disposal to take concrete steps to actually help the common people typically ignored by the powerful -- the watchtowers. they’re described in chapter 42. it’s a system that is designed to cover remote areas that most cultivators are reluctant to go due to their inconvenience and the lack of means of the people who live there. the watchtowers assign cultivators to different posts, give aid to those previously forgotten, and if the people are too poor to pay what the cultivators demand, the lanling jin sect pays for it. jin guangyao worked on this for five years and burned a lot of bridges over it. people were strongly opposed to it, thinking that it was some kind of ploy for lanling jin’s personal benefit. but the thing is -- it worked. they were effective. people were helped.

i believe CQL frames the watchtowers as an allegory for a surveillance state/centralized control (i think?? it’s been a minute -- that’s the hazy impression i remember, something like a parallel to the wen supervisory offices?), but I personally don’t think that was the intent in the novel. the watchtowers are a public good. lanling jin doesn’t staff them with their own sect members -- they get nearby sects to staff them. it’s a warning network that they fund that’s supposed to benefit everyone, even those that everyone had considered expendable.

(did jin guangyao do terrible things to achieve this goal? yeah lol. it’s not confirmed, but his son sure did die... suspiciously...... at the hands of an outspoken critic of the watchtowers........ whom he then executed....... so like, maybe just a convenient coincidence for jin guangyao, two birds one stone, but. it seems. Unlikely.)

lan xichen is the only member of the gentry that ever shows serious compassion for and nuanced understanding of jin guangyao’s circumstances. lan xichen treats him as his equal regardless of jin guangyao’s current status -- even when he was meng yao, lan xichen treated him as a human being worthy of respect, as someone with great merits, as someone he would choose as a friend, but he did so knowing full well the delicate position meng yao occupied. this is in direct contrast to nie mingjue, who also believed that meng yao was worthy of respect as a human being, but was completely unable to comprehend the complexities of his circumstances and unwilling to grant him any grace. you know, the difference between “i acknowledge that your birth and status have had effects upon you, but I don’t think less of you for it” and “i don’t consider your birth and status at all when i interact with you because i think it is irrelevant” (“i don’t see color” anyone?)

to illustrate, from chapter 48:

大抵是觉得娼妓之子身上说不定也带着什么不干净的东西，这几名修士接过他双手奉上来的茶盏后，并不饮下��而是放到一边，还取出雪白的手巾，很难受似的，有意无意反复擦拭刚才碰过茶盏的手指。聂明玦并非细致之人，未曾注意到这种细节，魏无羡却用眼角余光扫到了这些。孟瑶视若未见，笑容不坠半分，继续奉茶。蓝曦臣接过茶盏之时，抬眸看他一眼，微笑道：“多谢。”

旋即低头饮了一口，这才继续与聂明玦交谈。旁的修士见了，有些不自在起来。

rough tl:

Probably because they believed that the son of a prostitute might also carry some unclean things upon his person, after these few cultivators took the teacups offered from [Meng Yao’s] two hands, they did not drink, but instead put them to one side, and furthermore brought out snow white handkerchiefs. Quite uncomfortably, and whether they were aware of it or not, they repeatedly wiped the fingers they had just used to touch the teacups. Nie Mingjue was not a detail-oriented person and never took note of such particulars, but Wei Wuxian caught these in the corner of his eye. Meng Yao appeared as if he had not seen, his smile unwavering in the slightest, and continued to serve tea. When Lan Xichen took the teacup, he glanced up at him and, smiling, said, “Thank you.”

He immediately dipped his head to take a sip, and only then continued to converse with Nie Mingjue. Seeing this, the nearby cultivators began to feel somewhat uneasy.

all right, since we’re in full cyan-rampaging-through-the-weeds mode at this point, i’m going to talk about how this is one of my favorite 3zun moments in the entire novel for characterization purposes because it really highlights how they all relate to one another, and to what degree each of them is aware of their own position in relation to the others and society as a whole.

1. nie mingjue, who is a forthright and blunt person, sets meng yao to serving tea and is done with it. he notices nothing wrong or inappropriate about the reactions of the people in the room because it’s not the sort of thing he considers important.

2. meng yao, knowing that his only avenue is to take it lying down with a smile, masks perfectly.

3. lan xichen, noticing all this, uses his own reputation to achieve two things at once: pointedly shame the other cultivators in attendance, and show meng yao that regardless of others’ opinions, he considers him an equal and does not endorse such behavior--and he does it while taking care that no fallout will come down on meng yao’s head.

is this yet another installment of cyan’s endless lxc defense thesis? why yes it is! no one is surprised! but this is my whole point: both meng yao and lan xichen understand the respective hierarchy and power dynamics within the room, while nie mingjue very much does not. this is not because nie mingjue is a bad person or because nie mingjue is stupid--it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. nie mingjue is straightforward and has no patience for such games. but then again, he can afford not to play because he was born into such a high position: that’s a privilege.

to break it down: meng yao knows that he is the lowest-ranked person in the room, sees the way people are subtly disrespecting him in full view of his general who is doing nothing about it. in some ways, this is good -- nie mingjue’s style of dealing with conflict is very direct and not at all suited to delicate political maneuvering. after all, the way he promoted meng yao was actually quite dangerous to meng yao: he essentially guaranteed that his men would bear meng yao a grudge and that their disrespect for him would only be compounded by their bitterness at being punished on his behalf. (it’s like, why often getting parents or teachers to intervene ineffectively in bullying can just be an incitement to more bullying -- same concept) meng yao’s reaction during that scene shows that he’s pretty painfully aware of this and is trying to defuse the situation to no avail. nie mingjue gives him a bootstrap speech (rip nie mingjue i love u so much but. sir) and then promotes him, which is pretty much the only saving grace of that entire exchange, for meng yao at least.

lan xichen, on the other hand, understands both that meng yao is the lowest-ranked person in the room and that any direct attempt to chastise the other cultivators in the room will only serve to hurt meng yao in the long run. he knows that if this were brought to nie mingjue’s attention, he would be outraged and not shy about it -- also bad for meng yao. so he uses what he has: his immaculate reputation. by acting contrary to the other cultivators’ behavior, he demonstrates that he finds their actions unacceptable but with the plausible deniability that it wasn’t directed at them, that this is just zewu-jun being his usual generous self. this means that the other cultivators have no one to blame but themselves, nothing to do but question their own actions. there is nowhere to cast off their discomfort. meng yao didn’t do anything. lan xichen didn’t do anything -- he just thanked meng yao and drank his tea, isn’t that what it’s there for? he doesn’t disrupt the peace, he doesn’t attack anyone and put them on the defensive, but he does make his position very clear.

i know this is a really small thing and i’m probably beating it to death, but I really think this shows just how cognizant lan xichen is of politics and emotional cause and effect in such situations. certainly, out of context I think the scene reads kind of cliche, but within the greater narrative of the story and within the arc of these characters specifically, I think it was a really smart scene to include. it also showcases lan xichen’s style of action: that he moves around and with a problematic situation as opposed to moving straight through.

not to be salty on main again, but this is why it’s very frustrating to me when I see people call lan xichen passive when he is anything but. his actions just don’t look like traditional “actions”, especially to an american audience. it’s easy to understand lan wangji and wei wuxian’s style of problem-solving: taking a stand, moving through, staying strong. lan xichen is juggling an inconceivable number of factors in any given situation, weighing his responsibilities in one role against those in another, and then trying to find the path through the thicket that will cause the least harm, both to himself and the thicket. lan wangji and wei wuxian are not particularly good at considering the far-reaching consequences of their actions -- again, not because they are bad people, but because of a combination of personality and upbringing. they’d just hack through the thicket, not thinking about the creatures that live in it. that is not a terrible thing! it isn’t. it’s a different way of approaching a problem, and it has different priorities. that’s okay. there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and where you come down is going to depend on your personal values.

okay we’ve spiraled far and away from my original point, but let’s circle back: i was talking about class.

I think it’s undeniable that class, birthright, fate etc. are some of the driving forces of thematic conflict in mdzs, and the way each character interacts with those forces reveals a lot about themselves and also about the larger themes of fate, chance, and what it means to be righteous and good and how that is and isn’t rewarded. a lot of the tragedy of mdzs (the tragedy that isn’t caused by direct aggression on the part of one group or another) stems from the injustices and slights that people suffered due to their lot in life. it isn’t fair. none of it is fair! we sympathize with jin guangyao because we recognize that what he suffered was unconscionable, even if we don’t excuse him. i sympathize A Lot with xue yang as well for similar reasons, though I understand that’s a harder sell. this is a story focused on the mistakes of an entrenched, aging gentry and the effects that those mistakes had on their children, and a lot of it has to do with prejudice based in class and birth status. whether the prejudice was the true reason or whether it was just a convenient excuse, the fact remains that the systems in place rewarded and protected the people in power who used it to cling to that power. mdzs is also a story of how the circumstances of one’s life can offer you impossible choices that you cannot abstain from, and it asks us to be compassionate to the people who made terrible choices in terrible times. it’s about the inherent complexity in all things! that sometimes, there are no good choices, and i don’t know, i’d like to think that people would show me compassion if I had to make the choices some of these characters did. not just wei wuxian, mind you, every single one of them. except jin guangshan because I Do Hate Him sorry. and i guess wen ruohan. i think that’s it.

good. GOD this is clocking in at //checks notes -- just over 5k. 8′D *stuffs some weeds into my mouth like the clown i am*

(ko-fi? :’D *lies down*)

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gatheringbones · 3 years ago

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[“While people from England, Spain, Portugal, France, Scotland, Sweden, and Holland had all colonized parts of America by the late 1600s, it was the English who controlled nearly all the colonized territories in what would become the United States in 1776.

The 1500s and 1600s in England were anything but gentle times. People were routinely burned at the stake for heresy, a practice that began in the twelfth century and continued through 1612. Torture was an official instrument of the English government until 1640. The famous Tower of London was, in part, a huge torture chamber. One of many torture devices in the Tower, the rack, was used to stretch human bodies and pull them apart. Here is a description of the apparatus at work:

This caused terrible pain for the victim as well as increasing physical damage as the torture continued. Tendons were ripped, joints separated and bones fractured. The sounds of muscles and tendons tearing and snapping provided audible signs of the damage being done.

During much of the Middle Ages in England, torture wasn’t just wildly popular; it was a spectator sport. In his essay “Violence and the Law in Medieval England,” historian Sean McGlynn puts it this way:

Throughout the whole medieval period there was popular demand for malefactors to receive punishment that was both harsh and purposefully terrifying. This reflected people’s enthusiasm and the desire to see justice being done. There was even an executions transfer market: bids were made to stage the executions of condemned men in front of home crowds…. Mutilations sent out a message of warning and deterrence; executions offered the ultimate guarantee against repeat offenders … with few prisons and no police force, severe punishment was deemed invaluable as a deterrent to crime.

In her book A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman offers this parallel description of everyday life in medieval England:

The tortures and punishments of civil justice customarily cut off hands and ears, racked, burned, flayed, and pulled apart people’s bodies. In everyday life, passers-by saw some criminal flogged with a knotted rope or chained upright in an iron collar. They passed corpses hanging on the gibbet and decapitated heads and quartered bodies impaled on stakes on the city walls.

It is not hard to understand why so many people from England fled to the American colonies. (Fleeing is, of course, a survival response.) Many of the English who colonized America had been brutalized, or had witnessed great brutality first-hand. Others were the children and grandchildren of people who had experienced such savagery in England.

Barbarism was not the only reason to flee England. The Great Plague raged through much of the country in 1665 and 1666, killing an estimated 100,000 people in London alone—almost a quarter of the city’s population. In the village of Eyam, the Plague killed four out of five residents over fourteen months. Many English immigrants were desperately trying to get away from poverty, starvation, and overcrowding.

For all their talk of the new Jerusalem, the Pilgrims and Puritans were not explorers. They were refugees fleeing imprisonment, torture, and mutilation. In England, one Puritan writer, William Prynne, had his ears cut off and his forehead branded (burned with a red-hot iron) with the letters SL, which stood for seditious libeler. Another Puritan, John Lilburne, was flogged with a whip, dragged by an oxcart through London, and forced into a pillory. Others had their noses split or their tongues bored with hot irons.

In Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, DeGruy asks, “Isn’t it likely that many slaves were severely traumatized? Furthermore, did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of slavery?” We need to ask these same questions about the English colonists who made their way to America. Isn’t it likely that many of them were traumatized by the time they arrived here? Did over ten centuries of medieval brutality, which was inflicted on white bodies by other white bodies, begin to look like culture? Did this intergenerational trauma and its effects end with European immigrants’ arrival in the New World?”]

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and Healing our Hearts and Bodies

#resmaa menakem #history stuff #and that’s where nancy isenberg’s book comes into it #you had shipment after shipment of Waste People dumped off on the coast #street scrapings and convicts and children and whores with no agricultural or survivalist skills #told to farm or die #so they cannibalized each other #the puritans had the church and each other but they were surrounded by Waste People with ties to nothing #finding ever more inventive ways to cannibalize each other for centuries

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makeste · 4 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 300: Days of Our Todorokis

Previously on BnHA: Hawks was all “hey Jeanist, wanna go on a road trip with me to my mom’s house?” Jeanist was all “you know it,” and so they hopped into Jeanist’s jercedes and took off. Hawks took a nap and had a flashback to his Dickensian childhood living in a abject poverty with his jerk mom and jerk dad, thinking heroes were make-believe until one day Endeavor arrested his dad and Baby Hawks was all “OH SHIT.” And then he saved a bunch of people, and the HPSC was all “what do we have here,” and blah blah blah, you know the rest. Back in the present, Hawks was all “well my life is currently in shambles, but on the plus side there’s no one bossing me around anymore so that’s pretty cool,” and then decided he was going to talk to Endeavor. Fandom was all “I can’t believe Hawks would side with his childhood hero over the man who burned his wings off and posted a video calling him a violent murderer who took after his abusive dad,” so that was fun and stuff. I can’t wait to see what piping fresh takes this new chapter will bring.

Today on BnHA: Our old friend Carbonation Carl tries to loot a Starbucks and gets his ass kicked by a senior citizen. Society is all “YEAH, WE’RE REALLY STARTING TO GET SICK OF THIS SHIT.” Old Man Samurai is all “this room won’t stop me because I can’t read it” and abruptly decides to retire, which, fun fact, is literally THE LEAST HELPFUL THING ANYONE HAS EVER DONE. Anyway so then a bunch of other punkasses follow suit, and while I won’t say that I’m actually starting to root for Stain to kill some peeps, just for the record I’m not not saying that either. Back in the hospital, Endeavor cries some tears because his life sucks, and then is confronted by his entire family, LED BY QUEEN REI, FIRST OF HER NAME, BACK IN BUSINESS AND LARGE AND IN CHARGE. Rei is all “fuck feeling sorry for yourself, we have a rogue Murder Son on the loose” and I swear to god I have never felt so alive.

so here we go! and just for the record, even though the last two chapters have been phenomenal, I don’t necessarily have any sky-high expectations for chapter 300, mostly because chapters 100 and 200 consisted of Mei Boobs, and Toadette and her horrific quirk lmao. so go ahead Horikoshi, what are you gonna pull out of your hat for this one

oh, back to this stuff again. sob

I guess there was only so much time we could spend having hospital antics and exploring Hawks’s past before we got back to dealing with the whole “the world has gone to absolute shit” issue huh, lol

omg

what’s with these bizarrely cute Noumus. why do I want to pet them

so the narrative text is going on about how people have been super paranoid about the Noumu ever since the USJ incident a year ago. so yeah, I guess the fact that there are now a bunch of them confirmed to be running around is really freaking people out even on top of everything else

wtf is happening here

what did this poor lil glass ever do to anyone. r.i.p.

OH MY FUCKING GOD

SODA SAM IS BACK ON THE LAM

tsk tsk tsk. my man has graduated from snatching purses to raiding cafes. going after that big money. this man has no business sense whatsoever lmao

OH BUT WATCH IT NOW!!

OH SNAP THE PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING BACK. WHATCHA GONNA DO NOW SAM

THIS MAN IS 172 YEARS OLD AND HE’S NOT HERE TO PLAY GAMES!!

WTF IS HE LIGHTING THIS THING ON FIRE OR SOME SHIT. GETTEM GRANDPA YEAHHHH HE’S CHARGING AT EM YEAHHHHHH

lmao so that was fun. and now we’re cutting to Wash!! omg. look at him

he’s so dedicated. too bad you don’t have a car like Best Jeanist. probably takes a while when you’re just running everywhere

you see?? you were too slow!!

NOOOO, GRANDPA. he defeated Pepsi Pete, but lost his life in the process. this is too tragic

anyway so the good news is that the cafe has been saved! but the bad news is, there really isn’t much of a cafe left. huh. I guess that’s one of the reasons why people are supposed to get a license to use their quirks like this

oh snap and now everyone is coming outside, and they’re none too happy to see poor old Wash over here

seriously Wash, get a bicycle or something. also the way this guy is gesturing so dramatically with his hand in this sort of “YOU SEE!! YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!” manner is sending me

OH MY GOD

HE SPEAKS. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS. IT MEANS JEANS PUNS ARE YESTERDAY’S NEWS, FOLKS!! MAKE WAY FOR THE LAUNDRY PUNS. CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH THIS ALL... UNFOLD

“the heroes had dwindled away” okay real talk you guys, it is literally only a matter of time before they press-gang the children into picking up their slack. I still don’t know how to feel about that, but it is happening one way or the other regardless. Child Soldiers 2 Electric Boogaloo. wonder if we’ll see a rise in vigilante action as well

OHO WHAT’S THIS? THIS IS A CHAPTER OF GRANDPAS HUH

-- no fucking way

WOW. WOW. WOWWWWWW

wow. so he didn’t do a fucking thing while the rest of the top ten were being turned into red mist in the previous arc, and now that it’s all over and they need his help more than ever, he decides... THAT IT’S TIME TO RETIRE. holy shit. “fuck you” doesn’t even begin to cover it my guy. you stand there and soak up those boos you coward

ohhhhhhh shiiiiit you guys. oh shit

the “I am not here” breaks my fucking heart for real though y’all. oh man. everything he worked for is gone just like that

(ETA: okay so a couple of the takes I’ve seen on this make it seem like All Might is somehow the bad guy here?? “this is what happens when society puts a bunch of glorified cops on a pedestal”, “finally the cracks in hero society are showing”, etc. etc. so, just a friendly reminder that this isn’t happening because of too much trust and a lack of critical thinking; this is happening because the villains killed all the heroes and broke a bunch of murderers out of jail. it’s happening because an organized league of terrorists succeeded in terrorizing, and so society is now understandably awash in fear and panic. like, it’s just wild to me that AFO is RIGHT FUCKING THERE, and yet week after week fandom still has their “IT’S ALL THE HEROES’ FAULT” signs still up on their lawns. BUT WHATEVER, MOVING ON.)

also though, so exactly how much time is passing here now? I wanted to go straight back to the hospital and see what happens with Deku and the Todorokis. please don’t tell me we’re jumping ahead sob. my aaaaangst

OH SHIT

STAIN. LISTEN UP BUDDY. I KNOW WE’VE HAD OUR DIFFERENCES, AND I STILL DESPISE YOU FOR CRIPPLING TENSEI AND TRYING TO KILL MY BEST BOY TENYA. BUT AS IT HAPPENS, THERE ARE ONE OR TWO OTHER HEROES OUT THERE NOW WHO I WOULDN’T MIND YOU PAYING A VISIT I’M JUST SAYING

LOL BUT IT ACTUALLY ISN’T THIS MAN, FFFFFF

sob. yeah I was talking about Old Man Samurai actually but YEAH. HEY THERE ENJI

also is this entire hospital actually run by characters from Super Mario Bros though. first Yoshi and now this guy, come the fuck on that is not a coincidence

lmao they stuck him in another one of these cavernous creepy hospital rooms

wtf is it with Horikoshi and these giant fucking rooms lately. Kacchan’s in chapter 298, then Tomie’s colossal house furnished with like one table and a TV, and now this. and the weirdest thing about it though is that “huge space with nothing to fill it up” is like the exact opposite of what you’ll usually find in Japanese homes lol

so now Enji is just sitting there thinking things like “my head is fuzzy” and “I’m alive” lmao okay. not quite all there yet, huh. I’ll give you a minute

I’m so fucking curious as to who his first visitor is going to be omg. either way it’s going to be interesting af, and either way fandom is probably going to feel some way about it but OH WELL

okay now his thoughts are getting more coherent! and he’s remembering Touya, and feeling regret for freezing up and forcing Shouto to deal with everything instead

!!! OH HERE GOES BRACE YOURSELVES Y’ALL IT’S ABOUT TO GET SPICY

NO TOUYA PLEASE DON’T CRY HONEY NO PLEASE

ohhhhhhh man

okay, I mean I didn’t expect you to, but so instead then you’re just going to do... what? lie there and wallow in regret and self-pity for the rest of your life? son you know that’s not how we deal with our problems here in Shounen

though also, I totally do get it though. honestly, thinking on it, I probably would have been disappointed with any other response. but so this is where the rest of his family (including his adopted son) come into play now though, because like it or not they’re all in this thing together. and so friends, I am once again asking you WHO IS GOING TO BE THE ONE TO VISIT ENJI FIRST

AHHHHHHH

KRANCH!!!! OMG AND THE OTHERS ARE SO TINY NEXT TO HIM THAT I ALMOST DIDN’T SEE THEM AT FIRST. IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE TWENTY MILES AWAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS REGULATION HOCKEY RINK OF A ROOM

holy shit I’m so excited lkjlklhlglkasdsjldfk

SDKFJLSKHLKJL

the way she has him by his collar lmaoooo. “lol nah you’re not going anywhere pal.” damn straight, siblings have to be ride or die in situations like this. banding together for survival. strength in numbers

OH MY STARS I’M JUST WARNING YOU NOW THAT I’M ABOUT TO DISSECT EVERY LAST REMAINING PANEL OF THIS CHAPTER PROBABLY YOU GUYS. WE COULD BE HERE A WHILE

love how Fuyu has absolutely no idea how to segue into THE SINGLE MOST AWKWARD CONVERSATION SHE’S EVER HAD, so she just GOES FOR IT in pure small talk mode like they’re meeting up for brunch somewhere

I KNOW IT’S A SMALL THING, BUT I APPRECIATE THAT THE FIRST THING ENJI ASKS IS WHETHER THEY’RE OKAY

lastly while I can’t wait for more of this delicious Natsu angst, I also just have to say that Enji has as much reason to cry right now as anyone on the planet. you can’t deny that being confronted by your not-dead-but-you-thought-he-was-dead son who’s all “SURPRISE DAD I GREW UP TO BE A MASS MURDERER AND I HATE YOU AND EVERYTHING IS ALL YOUR FAULT AND NOW I’M GONNA MAIM YOUR OTHER KID” with a side order of “EVERYONE HATES YOU AND SOCIETY IS CRUMBLING AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE GOOD EVER AGAIN” is enough to bum pretty much anyone out. there’s a Pagliacci the Clown joke here somewhere. BUT DOCTOR, I AM THE NUMBER ONE HERO

oh man lol he is seriously falling apart

damn. like you guys, I’m sorry, go ahead and cancel me, but I do feel compassion for the man. it’s therapeutic for me to see an abuser actually feel remorse and be truly sorry and want to change and want to make it up to his family. and it’s also compelling as fuck to read a narrative about a family that’s trying to grapple with that, because let me tell you straight up, as someone who’s done a version of that song and dance -- it is exhausting. it is a piping hot mess. it’s a gigantic mishmosh of extremely volatile emotions that all somehow all contradict one another. love, hurt, hope, anger, betrayal, resentment, attachment, longing. it’s something you can both be desperate for and also want nothing at all to do with. and attempting to portray all of that and write about it is a monumental task, and one which Horikoshi has done so, so delicately thus far, and damn but I appreciate it. anyway, so I’m here and I’m ready for my latest helping of Todoroki Fam Feels you guys

GASP

oh man. OHMANOHMANOHMAN. CAN IT REALLY BE. IS THIS THE REDEMPTION ARC OF CHAPTERS 100 AND 200???

LMAO SHE’S ALL “WE ALL FEEL BAD YOU JACKASS STOP CRYING ABOUT IT”

LAY INTO HIM REI!! SORRY ENJI YOUR PITY PARTY HAS BEEN CANCELLED IN FAVOR OF A “SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT” PARTY COURTESY OF QUEEN ELSA OVER HERE. THE PEOPLE TOOK A VOTE AND WE WANT LESS WHINING AND MORE ACTION

oh my god look at this lady folks

NOTE THE HAIR BLOWING IN THE NONEXISTENT WIND. NOW WE KNOW WHERE SHOUTO GOT THIS POWER FROM

(ETA: btw guys, seeing Rei handle this crisis like an absolute champ despite everything she’s been through is everything, though. I’m reminded of Hawks’s line last week about people sometimes unexpectedly finding liberation when they’re backed into a corner. like things may be shit but goddammit her kiddos need her.)

THE CHAPTER IS ALREADY ENDING SOB, IT’S ONLY A 17-PAGER THIS WEEK, BUT GODDAMN WHAT A WAY TO CLOSE

oh my god. oh my god oh my god. AND FUCK YOU HORIKOSHI FOR CUTTING IT OFF THERE sob. it’s like each week the wait for the next chapter becomes more painful. the Todofam is about to get real, and on top of that Hawks is gonna crash the party at some point down the line, and on top of that we’re still waiting for Kacchan to have his own heartfelt discussion about What The Fuck Are We Supposed To Do Next with his best friend who’s currently in a coma. all I want to do with my life is read about these three things, and all I can do is simply wait as they are portioned out in agonizing, addicting little installments every week

anyway! tune in next time as we answer the question of whether or not fandom will finally run its train of logic all the way through to its natural conclusion and somehow manage to cancel Noted Abuse Apologist Todoroki Fucking Rei. don’t act like it can’t happen. you all know nothing is sacred lol. anyways but I’m ready for anything lol, bring it

#bnha 300 #endeavor #todoroki enji #todoroki shouto #todoroki rei #all them todorokis #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #I can't believe I've done 300 of these now lol #think I'm gonna finally have to update the post index again

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unknownzapy · 2 years ago

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Author’s Note: Here’s another AU of mine that I have recently made and, of course, making a separate post for canon characters. That doesn’t, however, mean I’m not working on any requests as of yet; I certainly am, mostly working out with Matchups 👍🏼. Please do not steal, repost, and/or claim this Undertale/Deltarune AU as yours on any platform whatsoever; what you can do is give either questions, praise, or constructive criticism on this AU.

Alternate Universe Created By…

@unknownzapy.

Alternate Universe Name

Tempest Yonder

Name of Universe by @unknownzapy.

Theme Song

Honey, I’m Home by Ghost

Plot

In this universe, everything and everyone is made to be “perfect” and “flawless,” forcing the inhabitants to pretend that there is nothing wrong. However, everyone at least has one problem which clashes to their day-to-day lives (i.e. LGBT+ Discrimination, Mental Illnesses, Racial Stereotypes/Discrimination). Some of these people try to “fix” and/or support each other until said problem(s) is said and done, even if it risks their lives for equality and better support sets, or by letting it consume them until they die.

Despite their efforts, nothing is achieved. An omnipotent individual, named ‘Player’, at first, is believed to be “God '' in this world, having a religious group following close behind, whether it be in cults, simple worshippers, and so on. They eventually do come to this world in the form of their vessel that they created. They act like an ideal friend or even a parental figure, a deity from these mythical stories even, and live up to their religious expectations, bringing an end to many, many social complications, promising to bring those with a pure heart to “Heaven” when they die and send those who did wrongdoings to “Hell.”

They bring a false hope of harmony, although underneath this façade of hopes and dreams lies sinister intentions and malicious ideals—-Whether it be slaughtering both the guilty and the innocent, corrupting others until they are a husk of their former self, or something else entirely—-This “God” simply does this purely for their own amusement and entertainment. Their ultimate goal in all of this is to cause a post apocalyptic world, even so, before they can achieve such a thing, will anyone be willing to stand up to such a powerful being?

Religious Information/Hierarchy

Name of Religion is called Xojagar (pronounced as “Yo Yay grr”).

Seven Divinities (no pronunciation needed) - Praise and provide for God and represent their most valued traits in anyone and everyone, such as, but not limited to: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, Faith, Hope, and Charity. They are the ones closest to God and spread goodness and awareness of God’s presence to everyone and anyone.

Cropid (pronounced as “Crow Pid”) - Assigned to protect special places and items from either God themself or from The Seven Divinities.

Anara (pronounced as “Ah Nara”) - Spread God’s Prowess and Judgement to anyone. They bring special messages to any part of the world, including Lightner and Darkner worlds which includes when someone is going to die (to Heaven or Hell).

Valame (pronounced as “Vala may”) - They are trained to be warriors and fight in Wars opted out from God. They fight against Sinners or anyone who deviates from God and/or their religion and Sinners who act hostile towards each other and worshippers of God.

Perydra (pronounced as “Perry draw”) - They are tasked with watching over Parenthood and helping abused children/young adults. They also assist with anyone who is struggling to become a parent themselves in some way.

Sigriff (pronounced as “see griff”) - They bring healthy harvests, food, and animals. They also protect others from famine, poverty, and diseases.

Dhienost (pronounced as “Die Honest”) - They are personal helpers to both God and Sinners, They guide Sinners towards redemption by any means possible so they can reach Heaven. They also assist God in choosing who is deemed necessary to join God’s Holy Ranks and who to kill, whether the person is a Sinner or Offending God in some form, deeming them cold and murderous and known as “Exterminators of Winter” because of it and the fact that they are more active in the winter season for an unknown reason.

Chizo (pronounced as “chee so”) - While the Chizo are more on the peaceful and aloof side than others, they don’t necessarily care about everything around them and don't involve themselves in anyone's affairs. However, they represent Celebrations and Feasts, including celebrating the Sins of Sinners and Non Believers, keeping their opinions and personal emotions completely and utterly Neutral and Nonchalant towards God, Worshippers, Sinners, and Non Believers all together.

Iza (pronounced as “eye saw”) - They are the farthest from God, but still retain most holiness. They are Guardians set to protect Humans, Monsters, and the majority of people from Sin. Like Dhienost, They also try to make Sinners repent before being officially sent to Hell if they fail to feel remorse for their actions.

Canon Characters

List of Characters

Tag list

@breadaton , @0beetle-legs0 , @chill4ccin0z , @blueemberthefox

#Deltarune AU #Undertale AU #alternate universe #AU #utdr au #utdr #dr #dr au

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helion-ism · 4 years ago

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let’s talk about elucien

there are so many reasons why I love elain x lucien and why I think these two would not only be amazing together, but also why they belong together. one of those reasons is lucien’s sassy personality, which we already got a glimpse of in acotar (and that I miss terribly btw), and which is, in my opinion, exactly what elain needs in her life. we’re talking about lucien “your eyes are like stars, and your hair like burnished gold” vanserra. we know he’s got quite a big mouth, that’s how we got to know him, but we also know that mouth is exactly what’s gotten him into trouble before. case in point: the eye incident. lucien doesn’t mince his words and yes, that is one of the reasons why elain really needs to spend some more time with him.

she has been coddled by not only her father, nesta, feyre, but also the entire inner circle, which has allowed her to live her life passively. yes, she killed the king of hybern, and good for her, but she did it because nobody else could have done it at that point in time. ever since the war ended, elain has not actively contributed to any plot matters, whether by choice or because someone else took the choice from her. azriel said in acosf, “there is an innate darkness to the dread trove that elain should not be exposed to.” even amren pointed out that elain is capable of defending herself, but for some reason, nobody let her even though elain said she would try to find it: “then I will find it. I might require some time to … reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.” and yet, by the end of the book, elain’s been barely in it and has not contributed at all. (I know some people claim there’s certain things already happening in the background, but honestly, I’m not satisfied with that development happening off page, so I can’t wait to finally go on her journey and actually see her do stuff)

this moment is crucial:

does it look like she is happy with the way the others treat her? not really. when nesta snapped at her, elain started laughing. that signals relief to me because nesta, the one who has always tried to protect elain the most (nesta baby Ilysm), is the one who suddenly lost her patience. elain needs somebody like lucien, somebody with a big mouth and sassy attitude, who can coax her out of that paralysis she’s been stuck in, a bit like nesta in this scene. additionally, the banter would be top tier. I want another “if I offer you the moon on a string, will you give me a kiss, too?” moment, please. god please. (elain blinks. “and where would you like that kiss?” — and lucien just loses his mind.)

another thing that lives in my head rent free is the fact that lucien has travelled almost everywhere and could introduce elain, who wishes to see more of the world (see: “elain had always wanted to visit the continent to study the tulips and other famed flowers”), to the different courts and the continent. I refuse to accept that we will not get to learn more about the other courts, for my sake, but also for elain’s sake. I want her to see the spring court at least once. I want her to go and see those tulips she’s dreamt of. I want her and lucien to discover the day court as a new home, which brings me to the next point.

elain has been craving sunshine for some time now. there’s several quotes that emphasise her connection to sunshine/light, here are a few of my favourites:

I marveled at it, actually — that those years of poverty hadn‘t stripped away that light from elain.

the suite was filled with sunlight. every curtain shoved back as far as it could go, to let in as much sun as possible. as if any bit of darkness was abhorrent.

she had been always so full of light. perhaps that was why she now kept all the curtains open. to fill the void that existed where all of that light had once been. and now nothing remained.

what can I get you, elain? — sunshine.

elain doesn’t belong into the night court. feyre has found her family there, with rhys and the inner circle. nesta has found (or should I say accepted) cassian and found gwyn and emerie, her chosen sisters. but elain?

elain is somewhere in the background hiding with the twins and tending to gardens of the citizens of velaris. you can’t tell me that is satisfactory to you. she is currently ignoring her seer abilities, and the members of the inner circle are basically encouraging her to do so. the only time she’s been confronted lately was during that conversation with nesta and her reaction was not exactly what any of us readers would have expected, was it? that tells me there’s much more about her we don’t know yet, and I’m convinced we won’t know until she finally leaves and finds her own people, finds herself again and start dealing with everything that happened to her. elain must leave the night court, i.e. the darkness, behind in order to grow.

the same goes to lucien: he’s not at a place where he can just jump into a relationship or mating bond. he’s got so much stuff going on. lucien was forced to abandon his home and his abusive family, his “father” killed the fae he loved in front of his eyes, his best friend is an abusive pos who never appreciated him anyway, and neither has anyone in the night court. lucien is used because of his connections and because of the mating bond that ties him to elain, whether he wanted it or not. feyre knows he would never turn away from elain unless she explicitly wishes him to, and so she and rhys and the others use that to their advantage. it is smart, of course, but at the same time, they also keep important information about his own life from him that could change many, many things. so he’s spending his time with mortals in the human lands — a place where he as a fae really does not belong.

lucien being the heir to the day court, well, to me, it feels like sjm is practically screaming it into our face: how could he find a home in the night court, the literal opposite to the day? darkness vs. light. and what about elain “he’d never once in the two years he’d known her found elain to be plain, but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court … it sucked the life from her” archeron? just looking at the symbolism, not only do the quotes from above indicate that the night court cannot possibly be her home, but also very recent quotes from the latest book. elain is a side character in the night court. and so is lucien. they both need to leave in order to become main characters — and it doesn’t even matter that both are already crucial to the further plot of the series because how can they possibly contribute to it in a place where they are both kept down?

mor said in acofas: “stay out of it. she’s not ready, and neither is he, no matter how many presents he brings.” and “let him figure out where he wants to be. who he wants to be. the same goes with her.” mor’s power is “truth”, whatever that means. but there you have it. they’re not ready to be with each other yet, and that’s okay.

[elain and lucien are also connected not only because of the mating bond, but also because of the plot. lucien must know quite a lot about her and her sisters simply because of all the time he spent with their father. the father who made a bargain with koschei. koschei who put a spell on vassa. lucien is therefore tied to both papa archeron as well as koschei and vassa. elain, we know, is a seer, despite her not using her abilities (or is she, and we simply don’t know?). elain is (obviously) connected to her father, but also to koschei and vassa (remember those visions she had).]

now let’s get to the mating bond stuff, and I need to say this loud and clear: elain has always had and will always have one (1) true mate. there’s no such thing as “false mate” or even multiple mates. there has been no indication whatsoever. lucien is the mate the cauldron had given her when she was born. and elain is the mate the cauldron had given him when he was born. even when she was still human, they already belonged together — tied together by strings of fate. absolutely nothing will change this fact. should elain reject the bond, lucien will remain a part of her life/her soul forever. should lucien reject the bond, elain will remain a part of his life/his soul forever.

when she was still human, lucien had already felt a pull between them and tried to save and protect her from hybern. when elain was already fae, when it came to protecting her, azriel clapped cassian’s shoulder and left (is this the true mate they’re all talking about?). it’s unfair to lucien, elain, AND azriel and this comparison alone is enough to disprove this theory.

the thing is, lucien has been nothing but respectful, kind and caring towards elain. when he arrived in velaris in acowar, he could immediately sense what she needed and said, “she needs fresh air” (vs. the response “we’ll judge what she needs”) and “take her to the sea. take her to some garden. but get her out of this house for an hour or two.” (I’m gonna make another post about this because I have a few thoughts on this)

of course, she doesn’t owe him anything, but elain herself doesn’t wish to be treated like a child, she maybe she should start acting like an adult because although she doesn’t owe lucien an apology or explanation, she has to have a conversation with him, like two responsible adults. there is no way feyre or anyone in the inner circle hasn’t told her that she can reject the bond and move on with her life. but just like her powers, this is another thing she chooses to ignore. I’m not blaming her because I know she has to work through her trauma first and heal, but by the end of the series, she has to acknowledge that at least.

in acosf, elain says “I am not a child to be fought over” when they discuss the dread trove. I wonder what she would say about the fact azriel threatens to challenge lucien to the blood duel because of her? based on literally everything we know about lucien, I can say with certainty that he would not physically fight over elain. if she only had a conversation with him and told him to move on and leave her alone, lucien would do just that. he would leave her alone and try to move on as best as he could (which we know is difficult for males). but he would never act as entitled to her as to demand a blood duel and fight to death. it goes against his principles.

to finish this off, sjm summing up everything I just said:

#elucien #mating bond #mp

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bring-it-all-down · 3 years ago

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Capitalism & Racism in Black Sails

In order to properly understand the individual and collective responses to England’s empire in Black Sails, it is necessary to understand capitalism and its relationship to racism. What follows are my thoughts on the relationship between capitalism and racism (focusing on the late 1600s/the development of capitalist England), and how those things relate to the show. It’s a long post, but by no means is it an exhaustive analysis of either capitalism or Black Sails, so I look forward to what others have to say on the subject!

First, what is meant by “capitalism”?

Capitalism describes an economic system in which private businesses own the means of production––the materials and tools used in the production of goods. This system creates distinct classes within society: the bourgeoisie who own the corporations and the proletariat who must work at these corporations and thereby become subservient to the bourgeoisie.

Explained in Ellen Meiksins Wood’s The Origin of Capitalism, capitalism emerged most specifically in England as a result of the agrarian feudal creation of the landlord-tenant relationship, in which the landlord rented land to the tennant, who was incentivized to produce as many goods as possible. This system led to the complete privatization of land and the creation of wage-laborers who could not produce enough goods to themselves become part of the bourgeoisie. Over time, as these wage-laborers became more numerous, society shifted from being agrarian-centered to revolving around the creation of cities to facilitate the mass production of goods.

How is capitalism tied to racism?

The spread of early capitalism throughout Europe was facilitated by improvements in technology allowing for the mass production of goods from raw materials. Capitalist countries thus turned outward in search of raw goods to power their economies. As Marx explains in Capital:

The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of blackskins, are all things which characterise the dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre (Chapter 31).

Capitalism thus rests on the idea of “primitive accumulation,” that being the initial expropriation of the individual from the land, achieved through feudalism domestically and chattel slavery internationally. Because capitalism demands the constant mass production of goods, it requires increasing volumes of raw goods––sugarcane, cotton, coffee beans, etc.––which are obtained through the extension of colonialist enterprises in order to keep parts of the world in a continuous state of underdevelopment.

Although pre-capitalist societies had slaves, the advent of capitalism necessitated slavery on a mass scale, produced through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, in which indigenous populations were wiped out and replaced with slave laborers. This system resulted in complete alienation of labor as white laborers in the “New World” were replaced by the early 1700s with more ‘cost-effective’ enslaved Africans who had no ties to their owners or to the land they worked. As former Trinidadian Prime Minister Eric Williams put it:

Here, then, is the origin of Negro slavery. The reason was economic, not racial; it had to do not with the color of the laborer, but the cheapness of the labor. [The planter] would have gone to the moon, if necessary, for labor. Africa was nearer than the moon, nearer too than the more populous countries of India and China. But their turn would soon come” (14).

Racism, then, is indistinguishable from the power structures of capitalism. The desire of the bourgeoisie to increase their capital led to the creation of the slave trade in order to accumulate mass volumes of raw goods so their proletariat workers could transform them into goods to then be sold back to the workers for profit.

This system thus creates two types of exploitation: the exploitation of the enslaved people and colonized lands, as well as the exploitation of the domestic working class. The need to keep this system in place demanded capitalist societies craft the false belief in white supremacy in order to justify the enslavement of Africans, Indians, and various Indigenous peoples in Asia and Latin America.

So, how does piracy come into the picture?

In the mid-late 1600s, England began its industrial revolution, propelling the island to increase its Atlantic trade. This desire to trade created a new merchant class, expanded the number of laborers in American colonies, and launched England into various wars with competing European powers. In Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, Marcus Rediker describes the social conditions of this era thusly:

By 1716, big planters drove armies of servants and slaves as they expanded their power from their own lands to colonial and finally national legislatures. Atlantic empires mobilized labor power on a new and unprecedented scale, largely through the strategic use of violence––the violence of land seizure, of expropriating agrarian workers, of the Middle Passage, of exploitation through labor discipline, and of punishment (often in the form of death) against those who dared resist the colonial order of things. By all accounts, by 1713, the Atlantic economy had reached a new stage of maturity, stability, and profitability. The growing riches of the few depended on the growing misery of the many.

Piracy emerged from this poverty in England and in its colonies, as poor people who knew how to sail figured they had little to lose and much to gain in turning to piracy. Moreover, piracy offered an alternative to the oppressive nature of living under England’s empire. Pirate ships “limited the authority of the captain, resisted many of the practices of capitalist merchant shipping industry, and maintained a multicultural, multiracial, and multinational social order.” On these ships, pirates learned “the importance of equality…[their] core values were collectivism, anti-authoritarianism, and egalitarianism, all of which were summarized in the sentence frequently uttered by rebellious sailors: “they were one & all resolved to stand by one another.” In Marxist terms, pirates retained control over the means of production and their labor, producing a more egalitarian division of profit in which all received the same share.

The Golden Age of Piracy, then, emerged in response to England’s adoption of capitalism. Despite the threat of death, exploited workers turned to piracy out of desperation and the quest for securing immediate wealth. Although piracy was often violent, it nonetheless embodied a system of labor in stark contrast to that of capitalism, based not on unequal acquisition of goods but on the fundamental equality of human beings.

How does this capitalist context enrich our understanding of Black Sails?

England’s capitalist-driven empire provides the system under which all of our characters struggle and thus informs their every decision. The characters’ backstories we are given all pertain to their desire to either escape from capitalism or assimilate with it. As this post is quite lengthy, I won’t go into detail about every single character, only the ones who most illustrate the manner in which capitalism operates.

First, James Flint’s backstory is not simply that of a man who experienced homophobia and wants revenge for it. We learn of him that his father was a carpenter and he was raised by his grandfather in Padstow, a working-class fishing town in north Cornwall. Because of this, he was barred from receiving a formal education and likely joined the navy because it offered him the opportunity for some sort of upward mobility, though it’s clear in his interactions with his peers that they will never see him as an equal due to his lower-class status. The manner in which James’s peers treat him very likely plays a role in his decision to support Thomas’s plan for Nassau. Despite the plan still being colonialist, it did seek to undermine a key component of capitalism: the dehumanization of the working force. This dehumanization is a fundamental element of capitalism (and this empire) because if laborers believe they have inherent worth, they are more likely to challenge the bourgeoisie. Thus, James’s exile from England was not because he was gay, but because he sought to undercut the foundations of England’s wealth, a choice driven by his love for Thomas and his own relationship to capitalism.

Connected to Flint’s backstory is Billy’s, as it also involves the navy. From the mid-1600s to the early 1800s, Britain relied on the practice of impressment––forcing people to serve in the navy––to advance its colonial aims. Billy’s parents were levellers, people who opposed impressment. As punishment for this, Billy was taken as a child and forced into “press gangs” and served in the Navy for three years as a bonded laborer (the naval equivalent of debtors’ prison) until his ship was captured by Flint and he was given the opportunity to join the crew after killing his captor. Like Flint, then, Billy became a pirate as a direct result of the violence done to him by capitalist-imperialist England.

Likewise, Jack became a pirate as a consequence of English capitalist industrialization. His family had for generations owned a tailoring business, but it was driven out of business by the creation of a massive textile mill. After his father died, Jack was forced to assume responsibility for his father’s debts, which he would work off as an indentured servant at the very textile mill responsible for the debt. Jack, then, turns to piracy to escape capitalism.

To understand the backstories of Flint, Billy, and Jack, you must understand the process by which England assumed a capitalist economy and how that shift from feudalism to capitalism affected both domestic and international practices in the early 1700s. The introduction of distinct classes based on relationships to labor mandated strict inequality and the valuation of mass production at the expense of individual lives.

How does Black Sails depict the relationship between racism and capitalism?

The most obvious answer here is the show’s involvement of Madi and the Maroons, who exist solely as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Because this is already a lengthy post, I would like to set Madi aside in order to talk about Max, who I think offers a less overt critique of what Cedric Robinson calls “racial capitalism.”

Max, rather than seeking to run from capitalism, wants to become a member of the bourgeoisie. Her enslavement is, of course, the result of French colonialism in the Caribbean, but rather than recoil from civilization, her enslavement propels her to want to join it. As she tells Anne:

“When I was very small, I would sneak out of the slave quarters at night to the main house. I would stand outside the window to the parlor. I would stand amongst the heat and the bugs and the filth on my toes to see inside. Inside that house was a little girl my age… With the most beautiful skin. I watched her dance while her father played music and her mother sewed. I watched her read and eat and sing and sleep, kept safe and warm and clean by her father. My father. The things it took to make that room possible, they were awful things. But inside that room was peace. That is what home is to me” (3.3).

She reiterates this understanding of society to Marion Guthrie when she states that “progress cannot begin and suffering will not end until someone has the courage to go out into the woods and drown the damned cat” (4.07). While she recognizes the evils of civilization, she also believes that it offers comforts for the select few, and she wants to be one among the few.

Max, indeed, is successful in assimilating into capitalist society. She works her way out of sex work until she owns most of Nassau, not once but twice. This achievement initially seems like a massive success and proof in the viability of Max’s methods, but in subtle ways, the show demonstrates that assimilation is not liberation.

Because, as Ibram X. Kendi stated, “The life of racism cannot be separated from the life of capitalism,” Max’s attempts to assimilate come with the betrayal of the rest of the enslaved people. Although she herself refuses to use slave labor, her treaty with Mrs. Guthrie, Silver, and the Maroons requires the Maroons to return escaped Black people into slavery. Moreover, she has won herself power in a system that refuses to recognize her presence, forcing her to pretend that Featherstone is the real governor of Nassau.

Further, her assimilation into the capitalist system alienates her from other Black people. The two characters with whom she is most closely associated with are Anne and Eleanor, white women whose whiteness affords them a certain level of protection not offered to Max. She never interacts with Madi or any of Madi’s people and she therefore cannot comprehend any other path but assimilation.

For all of Max’s efforts to learn from Eleanor and do better than Eleanor in running Nassau, she ends up in virtually the same place as Eleanor, but even more hidden. The Guthrie family still holds financial control of Nassau, Woodes Rogers still looms in the distance, and though piracy exists, it is even less acceptable. Thus, while Max is often credited as the person who most “sees life as it is,” her alienation under capitalism prevents her from seeing life “as it should be.”

Conclusion

As capitalism emerged as the dominant economic and political system beginning in the early 1700s, it came to define all aspects of global society, down to the very relationships people had with each other. It is impossible, then, to truly understand the motivations of anyone in the show without discussing their relationship to capitalism. This is by no means an exhaustive account of Black Sails’ commentary on capitalism and racism (I didn’t even mention Vane’s conversation with the Spanish soldier), but it hopefully underscores the idea that knowledge of capitalism (and therefore imperialism) is essential for fully comprehending the show.

#black sails

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years ago

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Why do you think Tomarry would work? I see a lot of people hating on it and the only response I ever see is that they come from similar backgrounds or people just like enemies to lovers. Also which horcrux do you think Harry would go best with (including Voldemort)

So, this is probably a more complicated question than you intended, but that’s because I live in bizarre head canon lands that few ever dare venture towards.

With that, let’s get started.

But What Do You Really Ship, Muffin?

First, it probably bears saying that I’m not really a Tomarry shipper. I know, I’ve written more than one Tomarry story, so if that’s not Tomarry what is? Well, remember that those Tomarry pairing tags are a filthy lie. October I committed the grievous sin of breaking up the Tomarry and throwing Tom at Harry’s mother. Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus is barely a Harry Potter fic in any capacity, and while the ship is the driving force of the fic, it’s also this nebulous, distant, thing that really shows up only in strange side stories where I try to make people laugh. When Harry Met Tom is probably the closest that I take seriously, but I also intentionally subvert all your typical Tomarry tropes for my own enjoyment.

The only Tomarry story I’d say I’ve ever actually written is “The Burning Taste of Fire Whisky”. It’s a very popular story, sadly perhaps my most popular on Ao3, but I actually loathe it entirely.

A lot of the time I feel like I just happen to have a Tomarry shirt on and then I suddenly became a subject matter expert. If you want the Tomarry opinions from real Tomarry people, I’m probably not the best person to ask. In fact, if you want really any standard answer about Harry Potter anything, I’m not the best person to ask.

Now, I’m not just saying this to be a hipster but to sort of give some background for why I’m going to give the answer I’m going to give and why it’s going to be 100% different from everyone else’s and yes, sometimes, I do think I came from Mars.

Will the Real Tomarry Please Stand Up?

So with that, the bottom line is: taking canon as JKR intended, completely at face value, Tomarry doesn’t work at all. This is because JKR fully intends a very flat, one-dimensional, and frankly quite boring Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle’s evil, Tom Riddle was born evil, Tom Riddle was evil in the womb because of rape. He is completely and utterly irredeemable and understands nothing of love.

Well, that sort of sinks the ship right out of the harbor, doesn’t it? A Tom Riddle incapable of love is one incapable of growth, especially in a romantic focused story. If you try to write it you just get weird sociopathic whump porn where Tom probably whips Harry in a closet somewhere.

Added onto this we get that, despite what she put down on paper, Harry is supposed to be a straight man. That aside, he’s also a righteous man whose understanding of things like love and friendship mean he’d never sully himself with gross Tom Riddle. Ew, what are you people thinking?

Well, what if we take canon just mostly as JKR intended? What if we just look at the characters the way she actually wrote them versus what she was trying to do? Still no dice.

Tom might now be capable of love, be a far more engaging character who can go somewhere, and be pulled out of a pit of rage and despair by someone but that someone ain’t Harry.

First, while I firmly believe Harry is gay (gay, not bisexual, compare his descriptions of Cho/Ginny to Tom Riddle/Sirius Balck/Cedric Diggory/Charlie Weasley, that boy pants after Tom Riddle and Cho’s kiss is “wet”) he’s also a much worse person and much dumber character than JKR intended. It’s really the first that damns the pairing.

I have a whole giant post on how Harry’s a little yikes but the long and short of it is that while Harry thinks he understands friendship and love he’s also someone who will cut out his friends at a moment’s notice if he feels remotely slighted, uses and sacrifices them for his own ends, gleefully uses unforgiveable curses when given the opportunity, and is the kind of guy who would cut someone up in the bathroom, leave them to bleed to death, and only really feel bad about it when it seems he might get in trouble for it.

This Harry ending up even with a Tom who could potentially be redeemed would more likely lead to, well, weird psychopathic whump porn where Harry tortures Tom in his basement to make him pay for all the horrible things he’s done while Harry claims he’s the most moral person ever because his mother loved him.

So, yeah, no Tomarry for you.

But Wait, Didn’t You Say You Believed in Tomarry?

What I believe in are archetypes.

Remove what Harry’s supposed to be, remove what I think he actually is (one maladjusted, violent, dude with a whole lot of anger issues), let’s make Harry what perhaps JKR didn’t even know she wanted: one of those rare fundamentally good heroes who warps an entire story with the strength of their inner nobility.

Harry Potter is meant to be a story about love and friendship. Now, it’s not actually, and we sort of end with Harry being Jesus and none of us are sure why. Except that he apparently forgives Dumbledore and Snape for brainwashing him to be a kamikaze agent. They’re the bravest men he knows. But let’s pretend it actually is a story about love and friendship.

To me, the strongest story of love we could possibly have had in this world is the redemption of Tom Riddle. Here is a man who was supposed to have been irredeemable since birth, he has done many horrific and unforgiveable things, grew up in extreme hardship in a society that spits on everything he ever was, and is mired in bitterness, despair, and rage. Beneath all that, Tom Riddle has given up hope in the world and is now content to burn it down himself.

Harry, through the nobility of his spirit and integrity of his character, somehow managing to redeem Tom Riddle is not only a fascinating story but a very good one at its core. The fact that they are tied together by destiny as well as tragedy, that Harry houses a shard of Tom’s soul (and I do so love horcruxes), only makes it more so.

This is the kind of story that carries epics, and that is why I gravitate towards it.

Now, do I change Harry up to do so? Good god, yes. I wouldn’t say any Harry Potter I have written is anything close to the Harry we know from canon. Some are closer than others, but they always in some way deviate. That said, from what I’ve seen almost nobody writes the actual Harry we remember from canon, so this is a very standard practice I can get away with, without too many people calling foul.

Ultimately ending in tragedy or in the full redemption of Tom: either works with these base characterizations and the world is your oyster.

What About All Those Other Arguments?

I’m not going to get into this too much except that I wouldn’t argue Tomarry works for the reasons you list. At all.

On the similar backgrounds, the fact is Harry and Tom don’t have similar backgrounds, JKR just says they do because she likes that trope (and so do many of the readers).

Harry and Tom have dark hair, they both came from abusive homes, but that’s where the similarities start and end. Upon entering the wizarding world Harry is treated very very very differently from Tom Riddle.

Harry, grows up in this weird sort of pseudo poverty where he dresses in rags because the Dursley’s hate him but he never actually has to worry about money. When he gets to the wizarding world he can afford everything he wants. He can buy a new wand, he can buy new supplies, he can buy all the candy off the trolly cart. Money’s not an object to Harry, is barely even a concept.

Tom Riddle is presumably on scholarship and money is everything to him. He buys a new wand but likely all his clothes and books are second hand. He can’t buy whatever candy he wants, probably can’t afford gifts for his peers, Tom is very aware of the haves and have nots.

Harry similarly never has to worry about a career. He never gets that far, fearing for his life so much, but the fact is that Harry has enough money that he doesn’t actually need to work. More, who would turn down the great Harry Potter? He wants to be an auror, is afraid he might not qualify, but it’s not really desperate.

Tom Riddle is to the world an impoverished muggle born. He tries for the Defense position and is turned down mostly because Dumbledore threw shade. Dumbledore tries to make it seem like Tom desperately wanted to work in this weird shop in London’s magical back alley, but probably that was the only position Tom could get (everything Dumbledore ever says, especially in those pensieve lessons, must be taken with a large grain of salt). Everything else goes to friends, family, and purebloods.

Adding to this, Harry has this glowing reputation. Now, Harry might not like it, he might want to be just Harry but the fact is that everyone has heard of him and most people worship the ground he walks on. Doors are open to him everywhere. His first introduction to the wizarding world is from a man who loves him and gushes about Harry as a baby.

Tom Riddle is someone with a muggle last name, who comes from a muggle orphanage, in other words he is nobody from nowhere. (For reasons I won’t get into here I find it very doubtful Tom ever revealed he was the heir of Slytherin until he became Voldemort and let Tom Riddle fade into obscurity). His first introduction to the wizarding world is some asshole lighting all his stuff on fire because the matron talked shit about him.

Harry wants to stay at Hogwarts because the Dursleys are abusive. Yes, this is terrible, but Tom wants to stay because Nazis are bombing London and Dippet says, “So sorry, Tom, no exceptions. Enjoy those luffas!” Harry’s concerns are never treated with the same disdain.

To make a long story short, they do not have similar backgrounds, at all. To say they do is utterly laughable and not much better than saying “they both have dark hair, they have so much in common!”

They both came from abusive homes, yes, but even the nature of those homes were very different and when they went to Hogwarts they were worlds apart.

... So much for not getting into it, eh?

As for Enemies to Lovers, well, it’s a trope and people enjoy it but it’s not my jam. I could go into why, but I think I’ve said enough.

Which Horcrux Do You Think Harry Would Go Best With?

We see so little of the individual horcruxes I’m not sure I can really take a stab at this. I sort of just make up their personalities as it suits me every time I write them.

With that I suppose I’m partial to the one in Harry’s head? Given that he has a front row seat to Harry, has seen Voldemort’s tragic demise, I think he’s in the best position to end up with Harry in a meaningful manner.

Especially as, if you think about it, he could represent the very last of Tom Riddle’s humanity. The single shard of humanity that remained in him until the bitter end.

#ask #anon #tom riddle #harry potter #headcanons #tomarry #archetypes #redemption #enemies to lovers

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wersoverytired · 4 years ago

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Watching the Supernatural finale hours after almost dying is, well. Different.

I cannot stress this enough: MAJOR triggers for frank discussion of a recent suicide attempt (no, not because SPN ended). Steer clear if this might hit too close to home. I'm no longer at risk, this happened a while ago and is over, and my care manager is aware.

Right, and spoilers for the series finale.

_____ _____ _____

I'm old enough to have been a fan of SPN since 2005. And considering the fact that childhood abuse had me suicidal at around age 12, probably earlier, it's safe to say that I have never watched the show without that constant battle going on in the background, unrelated.

When Dean said he was tired, that he was done, I got it. When Sam asked in that abandoned chapel what the upside was to him being alive, or when he confided in his brother in a hotel hallway that he had always felt unclean somehow, I could relate. There was more to the show than that, of course -- the love, the loyalty, the humor -- but the struggle was another point of connection.

As both the show and I grew long in the tooth, and my life circumstances were progressive getting worse (as they sometimes do when you carry untreated trauma), I used SPN and the fandom as a comfort. And increasingly, living to see how the Winchester story ends became one of those grappling hooks you latch on to when you look for reasons to keep going just a little longer.

Naturally, that didn't (and couldn't) arm me against the waves of acute, hope-obliterating, soul-sucking despair that can routinely crash on your head when you're dealing with poverty, chronic physical illness and disability -- and in a harsh country, too -- as well as being severely post traumatic and dissociative. Saving me was never the show's job, nor should it have been. I used it as much as I could, though.

The more I felt like I had to die, the more I tried. Dying hardly ever comes naturally, not even when you feel like there's no other way. Painfully isolated and increasingly bedridden, I watched convention panels and smiled so hard my face hurt. Other times I cried. And I made online friends, often through the fandom, who made life less empty. Who loved and laughed and cried with me from afar. It's hard to overstate the effect that can have when you're trapped in a body that's pretty much your cage, with a mind that's wounded and struggling.

I kept fighting. But I also kept finding myself, over and over again, faced with the reality that most people who are deeply traumatized, certainly those who are also severely dissociative, get to know early on: the world excels at letting many of us know that there's no place for us. Fighting hard to survive with about 10% of what I need to live, I sometimes find it hard not to listen to that toxic message that many survivors and disabled folks hear and feel coming at them over and over: you're too broken to justify the cost and effort of keeping you alive.

It's been an especially hard couple of years in that sense. And as the finale was months, then weeks, then days away, I kept telling myself to wait. Wait for that. Decide later. "Deciding later" is a survival technique I've been using for decades now whenever I get actively suicidal. It's not a bad one.

So that very last Thursday evening (or very late night, where I live) came around. And it so happens that I was at the very end of my rope. Again, for unrelated reasons to the show ending, obviously. And I couldn't go on.

The finale was hours away, and off I went on that same journey. Wait. Wait just long enough to see how it ends. It's been 15 years. You've survived so far, and that bit of closure, at least, is within reach. Just fucking wait to watch that last episode; see how they go before you do. Let that be the one last kind thing you do for yourself.

I kept telling myself that even as I numbly went through my final checklist.

I know it hurts so much. I know this damn body is tortured beyond what you can stand, I know we've been told it's about to get even worse. And hours more of this seem like an eternity. Watching anything seems impossible. I know the PTSD is intolerable, I know you can't sleep, you live in constant fear and rage and exhaustion; I know you're alone in this.

I know you live in a place that has made its peace with people like you dying of Covid, and finds it a small price to pay for refusing to wear masks. I know how that makes you feel, to be told that your life is worth that little because you're disabled. I know 9 months of what amounts to house arrest, while living alone, have made everything so much worse. I know you just want to go.

But wait to watch how it ends. And decide later. You can go later. You can.

And I almost made it. I mean, I'm obviously still here, so I eventually survived. But I tried not to. I couldn't wait.

Sometimes, when you get to the lowest low point, when you are in all-encompassing agony, when your circumstances leave no room for hope even though you desperately want to live -- and I do, I so want to live -- no show, no fandom, no unfinished story can keep you from taking that step over the edge. Many times it can, but there are places where nothing has any meaning. Thursday night became one of those. Watching the finale was a faded notion in the background of all that agony, and then it was nothing at all.

I only managed to write one goodbye letter. Hard to be as organized as you imagined you would be, hard not to leave unforgivable loose ends. I have no memory of what the letter said, and I can't look at it, not yet. It's tucked away now, just out of view.

And then I went about doing the only thing that I felt could be done.

I didn't get to go away. Both because I couldn't stand the torment of the only method I had handy, though I sure gave it my best efforts -- two more minutes would have sealed the deal -- and because I was fucking afraid to die. All the way through, until I gave up and stopped what I was doing.

Fear of dying when you're your own executioner is an odd thing. Your body wants out of this plan you've made for you both. It responds like you'd expect when someone's life in under threat. It makes you have to run to the bathroom over and over, it makes your heart hammer in your chest and your ears ring.

There was no crying. Not at that point. I don't think there was crying when I gave up and accepted that I was staying alive, either. But I can't remember.

I don't know what I did during the few hours after that. The physical consequences of what I did were gone within half an hour or so -- being so ill, I knew not to try something that would land me in the ER during COVID, should I not complete the plan. I'd also be on my own there, and most likely dissociated to such a degree that I wouldn't be able to move or speak. That's not something I ever wanted to experience again, and a fucking horrible starting point if I survived.

Anyway, I was okay physically soon enough, which is not how it usually goes. I just remember being fuzzy and distant and alone. There was no one to call, and I also thought about how it would feel to get a call like that. I considered a crisis hotline, but didn't have the energy to explain my messy, complicated circumstances. I probably just lay there.

A few hours later, I was present enough to watch the finale. Still don't know how. Dissociation has it occasional advantages, one of which is being disconnected from certain things when it's all too much. And so I watched the final episode in bed, with the aftermath of that suicide attempt still all around me.

I watched Dean die the way he did. I watched Sam die. I watched them both being given the pained, tearful reassurance that it was okay to go. Watched them being held, watched those two strong, kindhearted, emotional, loyal men crying as they breathed their last. Dean's death, especially, broke my heart. He so clearly did not want to die. Was afraid, more than ever before.

I did cry then. I sobbed. I could cry for them. Hell, I could cry for that dog, wandering with Sam through the empty halls of the bunker. I cried as that dog looked up, with all that trust and love, at the only human he had left. I cried for Sam, sitting drained and aching in the dark library. Saying "I know, me too" on the unmade bed in Dean's cold, empty room.

Before that, back in the barn, I watched Dean not want to go. Sam begging him not to go, then forcing himself to tell his older brother what he needed, what he begged to hear. That he wasn't abandoning the one person he had spent his life looking out for. That Sam would survive him going, now that he had to go.

I never saved the world, and there's nothing heroic about me. But so much of what went on around those characters' deaths echoed what I had felt hours earlier, what I still was feeling. It gave me a safe way to cry for that, too.

I will always be grateful to the show for that small mercy. And grateful to Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, whom I've never met and never will, and have given such phenomenal performances here that they reached through all that distance, to unknowingly touch an ache that I could not cry for. They'll never know that. I imagine there are so many people like me who feel the same gratefulness, too, for their own similar moments of human connection.

The show is over now, and I try not to be sad about that, and I'm sure I will be. It would be sadder if I didn't feel a loss. Meanwhile, life doesn't stall just because you tried to stop your own. It's around two weeks later now, bright and loud outside my window in a world that's not safe for me to go out in, and I am lying in bed in a half-lit room trying to manage my pain. I didn't die. I'm still here.

I can't pretend I'm glad that I am, but I also know that I'm not ready to go yet. I'm just not. I have no good reason for that; sometimes you're just too afraid to die. And so I can't see myself trying to go away again any time soon. My health might take care of that for me anyway, but otherwise, looks like I'm stuck on this ride.

I'm very grateful that I've had SPN and its people for so long through this battle, to give me and the rest of the fandom so much more than meets the eye. And I'm grateful for that last, good cry, too.

Well, not the last cry, for sure. There's always rewatch #475783.

#spoilers #supernatural finale #triggering stuff #surviving #Suicide #supernatural 15x20 #supernatural #15x20 spoilers #ptsd #cptsd #trauma

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theculturedmarxist · 4 years ago

Link

[lots of useful graphs and images omitted]

These notes were based on an interview with me by Swiss-based journalist Thomas Schneider in German in early May.

https://www.facebook.com/klaus.klamm.9235/

A sugar rush or economic recovery?

The IMF foresees a strong economic recovery. The assumption is that the virus can be controlled to such an extent that lockdowns and social distancing are no longer necessary. This is mainly due to the vaccination campaigns.

It looks like an upswing, at least in the G7 countries, this year most major economies, at least in advanced countries, are likely to (more or less) reach the real GDP level of the end of 2019 by the end of this year. Europe is forecast to lag slightly behind, while the US is developing more strongly. However, the situation in the so-called Global South, or ‘emerging economies’, is different. India and other countries are in a terrible situation.

The US, along with China, is one of the countries that seems to be recovering most quickly. That’s partly because of the Biden administration’s big fiscal packages, which have reduced income losses and provided money to companies. The big question, however, is how effective and sustainable this will be.

If the IMF now says that we will have strong growth, it is mainly due to economies opening up. If a substantial part of an economy has been closed and can now reopen, there will obviously be a strong bounce back. But this pace will not be sustainable. It is really like a sugar rush and as you know, once the sugar is consumed, you feel a little sleepy and down afterwards.

The Biden administration is passing a huge infrastructure program through the US Congress to boost the economy and create jobs. Two trillion dollars sounds like a lot of money at first glance, but if you spread it over five to ten years, the stimulus then amounts to just half a percent of US economic output each year.

So Biden’s package will give the US economy an early rush, but it’s not enough to boost long-term growth. The low pre-pandemic growth rate will resume; and with it, productivity-boosting investment will be weak, wages will not grow much and jobs will remain precarious for a large part of wage-earners.

The scarring

The pandemic slump has been over two years in which there have been huge losses in production, resources, income and jobs, many gone forever. Globally, the slump has pushed some 150 million people further into the most abject poverty, who were otherwise seeing some improvement. These two years have been a huge disaster. The loss of the two years will never be made up again. It’s like an abyss, down one side and up the other, but the abyss is still left behind.

Profitability and growth

The global economy was already growing very weakly in 2019, which is likely to be the case again after the rapid recovery in 2021. That’s because capitalism grows sustainably and strongly only if profitability increases. However, average profitability was already very low before the pandemic, and in some countries, it was at the lowest level since the end of the Second World War.

The investments now being made to boost employment and income will not restore this profitability. Profitability will improve compared to the bottom of the pandemic, but it will not go above the rates of previous years. That means that investment and growth will not improve in the longer term. In capitalism, profitability determines economic development. Investments must pay off accordingly. If we had a different economy, we wouldn’t have to worry about that.

At the moment, we see in that around 15 percent of GDP is productively invested by the capitalist sector, ie not in property (4-5%) and financial speculation. By contrast, public investment is low: it contributes just 3 percent of GDP a year to productive investment, and Biden’s packages will increase that by only 0.5 percent, as above.

This will not be decisive for economic development over the long term. Indeed, even the U.S. Congressional Budget Office expects long-term average real GDP growth of only 1.8 percent per year in the US for the rest of this decade, based on its forecasts of productivity and employment growth. That rate is even lower than in the last decade.

Zombie companies and debt

Profitability would only increase if some rotten layers of capital were removed. There are, for example, the so-called zombie companies, which make little profit and can only just cover their debts. In the advanced economies, we are now talking about 15 to 20 percent of the companies that are struggling in this situation. These companies keep overall productivity low, hindering the more efficient parts of the economy from expanding and growing.

The zombies reflect in the enormous increase in debt, especially in corporate debt, globally. Debt levels are the highest since World War II in most developed economies. Interest rates are at historic lows, but the sheer mass of debt is still weighing on firms’ ability to invest productively.

The immense debt also gnaws at profitability. When profitability falls in the productive sector, capital flees into financial speculation to make more profits. In the COVID slump, the super-rich have done so well!

When there is a financial crisis, there are defaults and devaluations, but there is no economic downturn if the productive sector is healthy. But the financial crisis can trigger a production crisis if it is combined with low profitability in the productive sector, as we saw in 2008.

Creative destruction

The burden of debt and low profitability can be overcome through so-called “creative destruction”, as Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called it. This is also the perspective of Marxian economic criticism, which Schumpeter had read very carefully. Through the devaluation (writing off) of capital and, in particular, the liquidation of inefficient, indebted companies, profitability can be raised. But that means a huge devaluation, in order to create the conditions for a new upswing.

So far, there has not yet been much destruction of capital because it is a grisly thought for governments and decision-makers – instead, bankruptcies of weak firms have been very low. Governments fear the political consequences and so are forced to continue with the big credit/money glut to keep companies running even if their productivity and profitability growth

Inflation

Many people have suffered severe hardship in the pandemic slump, but others have also saved money that could now be spent as economies open up. This will lead to a sharp increase in demand for all kinds of goods and services. Probably the supply side will not be able to keep up with that. So there could be stronger inflation over the next six to 12 months, especially in import prices, as international supply chains are still weakened. We could therefore see a rise in prices over a period of time.Inflation in the late 1980s was immense. In most advanced countries, it was in the double-digit percentage range. Over the last two decades, inflation in these countries has, broadly speaking, been around 2%. But perhaps we will see inflation for the next 12 months until production can catch up with increased demand.slows.

The monetarist theory that an increased money supply must lead to inflation has been proven wrong. Central banks have spent vast amounts of money and supported banks and firms without prices rising. While the sum of money has increased, its orbital speed has decreased. Instead, it was parked at the banks, which did not lend it onto companies. The big firms often did not need the money, the smaller ones were cautious about borrowing even at low interest rates. So the banks put the money into financial speculation. There was also an unprecedented rise in the price of financial assets. But will it continue?

The answer is complex, but there are certainly two factors that are decisive. On the one hand, how much value is present in economies, how much flows to the capitalists as profit, and how much goes in wages to the workers. The development of these variables determines demand. The capitalists drive the demand for capital goods, the wage-earners for consumer goods. The level of wages and profits is therefore central, but the supply of money also plays a major role, because this is intended to compensate for weak profits and thus to stimulate demand.

In Marxist theory, there is a strong argument for a long-term decline in inflation. Rising productivity means that less investment is made in labour power and more in means of production, which also leads to an increasing organic composition of capital. As a result, both sources of demand are undermined: wages and profits (new value) growth slows. Capitalism therefore has a tendency towards disinflation when there are no counter-measures involved. Central banks have been trying to reverse the disinflation trend with money injections for about 30 years, but with little success.

The Keynesian notion that higher wages drive inflation is not supported by the evidence. Marx had once conducted a discussion with Thomas Weston, a trade union socialist of the Ricardian school. Weston claimed that the fight for higher wages must also lead to higher prices. Marx replied that this did not have to be the case, since the higher wages would likely come at the expense of profits. Inflation only needs to occur when wages and profits rise at the same time and then demand increases, while investment remains relatively low due to low profitability. It depends on the combination of these factors.

Golden Years and neoliberalism

The golden years of post-World War II capitalism were an exception, at least for the advanced economies: near full employment, rising living standards, high profits in advanced economies, and expansion of trade. If you look at the history of capitalism, you don’t find many such periods. The closest is probably the “Belle Epoque” from the 1890s to the 1910s. The big question is: why didn’t these phases last?

Neither mainstream economists nor most left-wing theories have an answer to this question. The latter claim that the post-World War II phase was over because of the departure from Keynesianism – because governments stopped spending enough money and stopped managing the economy. The follow-up question arises: why did they stop? The answer is found in economic development itself, the declining profitability of large capitals. This led to a decline in investment, to which Keynesian macro management did not find an answer. Thus the big capitals put pressure on governments to take a neoliberal path.

The law of value and profit

The central argument of Marxian criticism is based on the law of value. This roughly means that companies only invest if they can make a profit. Profit is the centre of their actions and not the needs of the people. These are only considered important so that the products can be purchased. Profit, however, comes from the exploitation of the labour force in the production process. Labour produces goods and services that can be sold but in constant competition with other capitalists. This means that companies are constantly looking for better methods of exploitation, new technologies and new methods.

For mainstream economists, profit simply does not matter. But even among the left-wing Keynesians, profit hardly appears. For them it is all about ‘demand’, about ‘speculation’ or about ‘financialisation’. These things all play a major role, but profit is the key category for understanding the capitalist process of production and accumulation. And it is important to put it in relation to a company’s investments: the rate of profit is the key to understanding how healthy an economy is. And profitability has tended to fall over the last 50 years, not linearly, but in a wave-like movement.

The high profits of tech companies such as Amazon, Apple or Alphabet are hiding the problem of profitability across the whole capitalist economy. There are a lot of unprofitable zombie companies and for most profit rates have fallen. We need to look at how this has affected investment. This is the central aspect that Marxian economic criticism can bring to the debate on the world economy.

Empirical evidence supports Marx’s law of the tendency to fall in the rate of profit. There are the counteracting factors to this law, but the law is the dominant factor. As far as we can measure the data, they suggest that there is a long-term trend towards falling rates of profit in the major economies. Every eight to ten years, capitalism plunges into crisis. We must continue to learn why these crises take place and what the political consequences.

#economics #economy #marxism #marxian economics #covid news #covid-19 #amazon #apple #alphabet #neoliberalism #capitalism #neoliberal capitalism

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zhanenaomi · 4 years ago

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It must be exhausting to be so weird all the time

Earlier, I saw a clip on the BBC Facebook page of Original Flava (a British-Caribbean duo creating recipes), making some bbq jerk burgers. As is my bad habit, I checked the comments for the inevitable racist comment about the BBC trying to be “woke” for showing people that black people exist in the UK. There I found a random account, posting a youtube clip of the late Dame Vera Lynn singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. This comment was obviously in reference to the fact that the BBC recently announced that ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ would be performed without words at the Proms (only for this year). This, again obviously, is the fault of all black people (including Original Flava) and absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that we are in a global pandemic of a virus that is easily spread by loud singing. The thing that disturbs me most about these comments is less the blanket assumption that all black people just sit around foaming at the mouth at the sheer idea of colonial lyricism, and more that this random person had clearly just copied the link to this video to post on any video they saw with a black person in it. Whether that video was about black people barbecuing, black people singing, black people talking about the economy, they were ready to own us with a youtube video of a song literally none of us will click on and listen to. It just made me think, surely it is exhausting to be so weird all the time?

Now, comments like this are admittedly pretty harmless, especially given the fact that they present that the person commenting is much more hurt than anyone else in this situation. However, by far the most disturbing thing I saw in the BBC comments that day, was on a Children in Need post. BBC Children in Need announced that they would specifically be donating £10 million to black children (a thing that is reasonably necessary given that 46% of BAME children live in poverty) (also this will be going over the course of 10 years, not a one time payment). By all intents and purposes, it is highly likely that vast amounts of Children in Need money were already going to black communities, given they go to… British children that are in need. The post in question was clarifying on false reports that they were giving money directly to the Black Lives Matter organisation, and in response many people said that since the BBC were now giving money to black children, they would no longer give money to the BBC. This, despite the fact that Children in Need fundraises year-round, and raised almost £50 million during their official appeal night last year and has raised more than £1 billion since 1980, and so £10 million over ten years is likely a drop in the ocean for this organisation. Way to throw your toys out of the pram, right guys? “If disadvantaged black kids are getting my money, then no disadvantaged kids are getting my money”! What a bizarre world view to have! It must take up a lot of time and energy to not only decide that giving money to disadvantaged children of colour in a country where they’re more likely to be disadvantaged than white children is racist for some reason, but then also to camp out in random Facebook comment sections talking about how you hate this alleged racism so much that you will be boycotting a charity because of it. Remarkably wild. Amazingly wild. Incredibly wild.

The last Facebook comment section weirdness I want to talk about is the reaction to news involving arrests, crime, and police brutality, most specifically the “If you do nothing wrong, the police will leave you alone” argument. First of all, tell that to yer man Harry Maguire. Second of all, there is police data stating that between March and May, you know, those months when we were knee deep in the throes of a global pandemic that is disproportionately killing black people, 21,950 stops and searches on young black men were carried out in the capital, approximately 80% of which lead to no further action. So if we’re keeping score, not only is the most expensive defender in the world not exempt from being harassed by police when his account suggests no wrongdoing on his part, but around 18,000 young black men were put directly in harms way by being searched by police without masks (and obviously without social distancing) in the midst of a pandemic, for no crime other than being black and maybe having a nice car. The reason I bring up Harry Maguire is because I would assume that most British people believe and support Harry Maguire over the Greek police, and none of them would ever use the “no crime, no police intervention” argument towards a news story about him. You know, like they did when George Floyd died. The point here is that people in these comments like to pretend that they are indiscriminate. They like to say “I don’t care if you’re rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight (insert identity here), if you’re getting arrested you must have done something wrong” which is simply just not true, and the fact that you don’t say these things when a white British footballer is brutally arrested is very telling. It shows who you assume to have being “doing crime” when they were apprehended versus who you assume to be innocent until proven guilty. Because the fact of the matter is that you DO care whether someone is black or white or poor or rich and the like, you obviously do. And its weird to lie about it to save face in Facebook comments. Ain’t you tired, Miss Hilly? (I’m assuming you all understand that reference given the unnecessarily large amounts of people who rushed to watch The Help after the BLM protests began earlier this year).

These things are all interconnected, because I’m sure that these keyboard warriors had some similarly angry takes when Stormzy offered scholarships to black students aiming to go to Cambridge University, and love to talk about “black on black crime” when black people are invited onto news outlets to talk about institutional racism in the police force. What this comes down to, is a clear lack of critical thinking and a clear racial bias. We know that crimes like theft and drug dealing tend to be crimes of necessity. No one steals bread and milk for the “thrill of the chase”. Poverty and crime are intrinsically linked. So why are you so hellbent on preventing black people from receiving assistance to escape poverty? If you want crime to reduce, then you should also want poverty to reduce, this is just the truth. If you don’t see how crime in black communities links to socioeconomic status in these black communities, then you probably (consciously or unconsciously) believe that nothing can be done to help black people; we are just inherently bad, born with a criminal gene. Suffice to say, this is a racist thought to have. Even when black people do manage to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” this also does not mean we’ll be treated favourably by the general public. The nation’s favourite punching bag is a black woman who was born into a low income household, attended Cambridge University, worked in the Civil Service and became the first black female MP in this country; this is of course Diane Abbott, who unfortunately receives half of all the abuse sent to female MPs overall.

Although I started out joking about how these people are just weird, the more I write, the more uncomfortable I feel. Is there a way out? Is there anyway we can win? Is our destiny to win the bet, just to be shot in the face by our loan sharks and have our proverbial jewellery shop ransacked (metaphor working on the assumption of your knowledge of the film Uncut Gems)? Its one thing to say weird things in video comments, it’s another to actually truly believe them. In the wake of the recent shooting of Jacob Blake, I’ve witnessed a spate of comments making statements about the case that are simply not true – things that have never been reported by the police or any credible news outlets. What do you gain from lying about these things? I guess you gain more public distrust in the black community and more animosity towards BLM protesters. I assume that’s what these people are aiming for, since I can see no personal benefit to lying about a case (unless you are the actual police officers involved in the shooting?). I actively try and stop myself from hopping into comment sections now because honestly and truly, it’s one of the most exhausting things to see hundreds of people talk about how bored they are of black people appearing on their screens. I’m sorry that my presence tires you out, guys. I’ve been staying off of Twitter because it’s good for my mental health to not be dialled into the ~discourse~ 24/7. It’s sad the way that these things often make black people feel that they are the ones who need to pull away in order to protect themselves. Dawn Butler has tweeted about how many young black women tell her they can’t see themselves pursuing a career in politics because of the sheer amount of hate they see black MPs receive. I want black children to receive financial support without fear that the rest of the world hates them for it. I want black people to get uni places and jobs without hearing others say that they got it because of their skin, rather than their merit and potential. I want black people to be present in the public eye without having to report racial abuse against them to the police on a weekly basis. The way that Britain works is that Britain has been and always will be, a multicultural nation. This is the result of the British Empire that we’re all oh so proud of. Therefore, (and this is not controversial to say), British people descended from individuals born in Empire nations deserve to live in Britain without constant apology for our existence, our actions, and our criticism of our government. Yeah, I bet its exhausting to act in such a bizarre way on social media. But imagine how tired we are.

References:

Children in Need is not donating £10 million to Black Lives Matter - https://fullfact.org/online/children-in-need-blm/?fbclid=IwAR0RfWtsHKxeFGv8PBrY64J-QoqpiEWb3Td1nPE9WvYvZXTuksIB3ZOET9k

BBC Children in Need’s 2019 Appeal raises an incredible £47.8 million - https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/cin-total

Child poverty facts and figures - https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

Met carried out 22,000 searches on young black men during lockdown - https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jul/08/one-in-10-of-londons-young-black-males-stopped-by-police-in-may

Diane Abbott more abused than any other female MP during election - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/05/diane-abbott-more-abused-than-any-other-mps-during-election

#long post #politics #uk politics #british politics #blacklivesmatter #blm #blm uk #racism #antiblackness #police

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evilelitest2 · 4 years ago

Note

Are you familiar with the extensive history of the African continent? I'm asking because a surprising number of people seem to lack knowledge about the pre-colonial history of the Continent. It doesn't help that some of them go of on the popular stereotype of African history just being about tribes and mudhuts.

I have some knowledge of Africa but not of the whole Continent, Africa is huge and has the oldest history of humanity in the world, so I would not say I have extensive knowledge of the whole continent, rather I know a few periods of some parts of Africa. I”m pretty good at North African History and certain parts of Colonial Africa (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa, the Belgian Congo) so compared to most white Americans i probably now more than most its still pretty shallow honestly, and there are whole sections of the continent where I don’t know any history prior to decolonization. I’ve only taken 1 Grad school class on Africna history and a sub unit of an Undergraduate class in terms of the history rather than just contemporary politics.

African history is really complicated and horrifically neglected (Outside of Egypt), and there are a few reasons for that

1) Racism. For the last 500 years, European Culture has been built upon the lie that African culture is not valuable, and that anything made by black people is just worthless. So Africa is usually dismissed as just primitive or savage, but even among people who aren’t consciously racist, there is this notion that African history isn’t important. If you make any effort to lean history, a lot of civilizations will jump out as “OMG SO IMPORTANT” like China or Mongolia or Persia, but SubSaharian Africa is usually just seen as “They fucked around until Colonialism happened (Ethiopia being the one exception). And that racism is self perpetuating, the more worthless a region is seen, the less people go in to study it, which makes it more neglected, which means less people go to study it ect

2) A limited notion of what is worth studying. One of the most constant rules of history is that centralized states which build giant monuments and have standing armies tend to only respect other centralized states with giant monuments and standing armies. So Rome respected Egypt because “Hey, they also built giant monolithic structures just like we do, and they have a capital city, and a standing army and a central administrative bureaucracy and a writing system and a legal code, and a ruler who commands it, sweet we get that. Sure they are inferior to us, the Greatest Empire in the history of the world, but still they are in the club. So civilizations that don’t have those features, which are decentralized or never invented a writing system or didn’t build huge structures often are just dismissed as...not worth studying. And since this includes a lot (but to be clear, no where near all) of pre Colonial African civilizations, there is this notion that “Nothing important happened in Africa until whitey showed up”

3) Deliberate cultural erasure. Of course we know that many parts of sub saharan Africa did have centralized states, and big buildings, and standing armies and writing systems, all that good stuff. However when Colonialism happened, alot of the records of that were deliberately or accidentally destroyed by the Europeans, meaning that future historians can’t study them. This is espicically true in regions where there were major colonial wars...and also the Belgium Congo. Fuck you Leopold II. There has also been some similar cultural erasure done by the post Colonial governments, though no where near as extensive.

Ok so now unto the less malicious reasons Sub Saharian Africa gets neglected (though racism plays a role). Note that North Africa isn’t included, it gets a lot of love actually.

4) Lack of primary sources. Historians are defined by the sources they study and unfortunately for many (but not all) parts of Africa...there aren’t as many. Many parts of pre Colonial Africa (but I can’t empathizes this enough, not all) didn’t develop a writing system, which means we have to rely on Oral history. and with several centuries of cultural erasure and genocide that makes it more difficult. Now Oral history is often looked down upon by Historians which isn’t fair it has a lot of value, but it is a lot less...precise than written. With a document we can say “this was written in 400 BCE” while with a story we can say “it looks like certain elements were added but where...who knows”. its possible but it is a lot more difficult. Now many parts of Africa did have written sources and we tend to know more about them (Mali, Ethiopia, Ghana) but a lot of those records were destroyed during colonialism or the civil wars that followed, or just the usual difficulties in preserving records every culture faces. Also many (but not all) parts of Africa didn’t have paper, but substances that didn’t last as long (Palm leaves for example) and so the records are lost or more damaged.

You can rely on Archaeological evidence but that is more expensive.

5) Poverty and war. Now we need to be super careful about generalizing Africa as a war torn improvised Continent because again..its a fucking continent, its huge and super diverse. A lot of parts of Africa have had problems with war and poverty and unfortunately, those are not circumstances that create historians. Places that have a degree of stability, wealth, and established education systems produce historians. And since a mix of Colonialism, Post colonialism,, Neo Colonialism, and Nationalism can create consistent wealth issues for many parts of Africa, it means you have less historians. There are still thousands of historians from Africa so I don’t want to over state this.

6) Difficulty studying places. The parts of Africa which are currently in a state of war, climate disaster, extreme poverty or just general instability are less likely to get historians to go there to study. Like studying French history unusually means that you go to France, which isn’t so bad. It still does happen though, I don’t want to over state it there are thousands of Africans of every region.

7) Funding. A lot of African countries have their own historical traditions, but many (not all) of those governments tend to encourage historians to study the stuff that gets more funding, which is usually the Colonial/Post Colonial period. Or to even go into Europeon history. There is a lot more money and attention studying Apartheid or the Zulu Empire than South Africa in 1000 CE. This is to say nothing of when regimes are actively nationalistic and limit what historians can study or try to force them to work within specific narratives. This is even more true when it comes to European historical societies which have research grants and they want to give it to place that they already know about, which means that like 90% of African historians focus on the colonial era (which to be fair, is super important to study.

8) Incompetence. A lot of early historian of Africa were Europeans who were...well they were bad. And their mistakes have made it more difficult for everybody else following in their example.

9) The Language thing: Finally, it is important to note that despite all of the above mention factors...there are millions of books written on African history. There are tons of African historians who talk to each other and write works on every element of African history. But here is the thing...not all of it is in English. A ton of it is written in various native African language, or in the other major non African languages (French, Dutch, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese). There is a lot written in English don’t get me wrong, but Africa has several million languages and so a ton of the material out there can’t be easily translated, which means that much of the info is inaccessible to other Historians. Like if I wanted to study African history in serious depth, I would have to first improve my French and then learn a bunch of African languages, none of which are part of the English Language family. So that would take years of study before i could even make a serious start. Which limits it all.

Now again, even with all of those factors, there is a lot of African history out there, and a lot of it in English. But most of it is high level academic history that you read at Grad schools or historical journals, not much of it has trickled down into “popular history” for the lay person. Like a history enthusiast can get a pretty good understanding of the Byzantine Empire without ever going to college for it if they read the right popular histories of the period. Most of Africa doesn’t have that, its basically starts (in the US at least) with the high level stuff.

Also remember many of these African countries are quite young, so presumably they will produce more historical traditions given time.

#ask EvilElitest #African History #Racism #Colonalism #post colonialism #neocolonialism #Ethiopia #South Africa #Apartheid #Belgium Congo

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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842

have you ever violated school dress code? My Catholic school had us on a very tight leash and we’d have to be crazy to dare to break the dress code over there. My university doesn’t have a dress code though and anyone entering the campus can dress up any way they want, which I’ve always been grateful for. if you are listening to music, is the singer male/female? They are five dudes. what, if anything, do you give up for Lent? I never observed Lent; and as much of a religious fanatic my mother is, I’m glad she never forced me to fast or abstain from something I liked. what phrase leads your mind directly to the gutter? 69, even though it’s childish. when you feel like giving up, how do you convince yourself not to? I just tell myself that things will get better because that seems to be the pattern all the time with me, which is a really good thing.

what are your opinions on immigration? I don’t know much about the issues and its intricacies but as an Asian, I really admire fellow Asians who don’t speak a word of English, end up in the States or somewhere similar and build themselves a better life there. It’s fucking metal. would you tell an actual immigrant your views? Sure, if the topic is raised. what was the subject of the last list you made? There was a tweet asking people to list down which YouTubers practically ~raised them~ growing up, so I joined in the fun and gave my own names. If I remember correctly I listed down Pewdiepie, Smosh, Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart, and the entire Brit crew. do you ever get nervous before interviews/important meetings? Only if it’s supposed to be crucial. Like I imagine I’d be sweating bullets for my first job interview. who pays for the majority of your belongings? My parents. would you ever willingly shop in a thrift store? Of course. There are always some great finds in them. what is the most that you would ever spend on an outfit? Assuming I’m earning my own money, I’m willing to spend around ₱5000 to ₱10,000 on a top or bottom but I can widen my wallet a lot more if we’re talking shoes, because I like them more haha. is there anything you do that just outrages your parents? I know my mom hates it whenever she pulls us for online mass and I visibly grumble. I don’t know if my dad is annoyed with anything I do; and if he feels that way he’ll tell me. I respect him a lot more so if that’s the case, I’ll actually stop whatever it is I’m doing. when was the last time you were embarrassed in public? Probably when I was brought to the hospital a month ago and the nurse was explaining to me how to take a urine test. have you ever won an award you were actually proud of? If Latin honors count, then yes. That was my only goal when I started college, and I reached it, so I’m allowing myself to be proud of, well, myself. the importance of education, rate it from 1-10, 10 as most important? 12. --- explain your choice to rate it as such? It’s different when you come from a third-world country. Education is realistically your only way out. what is the coolest science experiment you've ever done? I liked the ones that we did that involved chemicals and powders. are you experiencing difficulties with any friends right now? Not really. There’s a chance JM has been irritated with me because I always turn really grumpy when he messages me about work stuff, but if he is, at this point I don’t really care anymore because I’ve been detached from org work for a while now. I busted my ass for the org for three years so I think I’m entitled to feel detached now haha. how do you deal with a fight between yourself and a friend? I haven’t been in an argument with one of them in a while but I would prefer to talk it out. when you apologize to someone after a fight, how do you go about saying that you are sorry? I apologize and I mention the thing I did that they were hurt by, so that they feel acknowledged. In the end, I tell them that I’ll be better and if there’s anything I can do to make them feel better or to make the situation better, that they shouldn’t hesitate to let me know. have you ever played around with "dry ice"? No. Isn’t that dangerous lol? do you think parents are responsible for the actions of their children? For the most part, yes. But I know there are still some instances where parents can try and try to be understanding and be the best influences, but their kids will still end up going down the wrong path. There isn’t one answer to this, I think. should the military draft take both men AND women? why/why not? I don’t know, it’s a little complicated. I’m definitely all about equality and providing the same opportunities for men and women, but I know there’s a lot of issues on sexual harassment and assault in the military that have yet to be fixed. Until that’s ironed out and I hear change taking place, it seems a little shady to randomly pick out women to join the military. when was the last time that you corrected someone? My mom had a grammatical error in her Facebook post from yesterday so I told her what the right word to use was. when was the last time you were corrected? I set the table for breakfast today and apparently it wasn’t enough for my mom, who liked her plate to be set in a certain way. when did you last say "i told you so"? Maybe when Kate told me she had broken up with the guy she was having a thing with, lol. is there any celebrity you like to "keep up with"? Not really. I think I’m over that phase now. I’ll check up my faves from time to time, but otherwise I don’t feel the need to read daily updates on them anymore. celebrity gossip: YAY or BOO? Yay if it has substance or if it’s controversial, like a celebrity being exposed for sexual harassment; boo if it’s something stupid like “Kendall Jenner spotted eating pasta today.” what is the most life-changing book you have read? I haven’t encountered it yet. have you had a negative impact on anyone's life? I would say so. I wasn’t always the nicest kid; and I also did a shitty job handling my friendship with Sofie when we were off to college. has anyone had a negative impact on yours? who/why? Yeah. Some relatives, some teachers who didn’t know how to act like teachers, and some people I distinctly remember that bullied me when I was a kid. how will you know when you are ready to get married? I guess when I’m no longer nervous thinking about it and when I’m already 100% sure that I’m independent and capable of looking out for myself. I don’t wanna be married and still be slightly dependent on my parents, which is what a lot of young Filipino married couples end up doing. how much time have you spent contemplating your own death? A very, very good amount. is there a joke that you just can't stand? Ones that you just can’t defend and are just simply offensive, like slavery or poverty. I’ve seen a few shows where they’d refer to the Philippines being poor or being a source of child labor for laughs, and they’ve never been funny to me. have you ever read any self-help books? No, I don’t really trust those lol since they’re usually written by people from other countries who most likely have different experiences and perspectives. If I need some help I’d rather figure it out myself and hear from people that I trust, like my friends. what's your take on the obesity problem in america? It’s a serious problem, obviously. I don’t know much about it other than the fact that Americans are crazy about their fast food and that their serving sizes are ginormous. I really hope they find more ways to address it. what is something you used to love, but now greatly dislike? Journalism. what is something you used to dislike, but now like? Chicken curry, and I think spicy food in general haha. when/if you become a parent, what will you do differently, compared to how your parents raised you? I’ll be more involved. I’ll compliment them more, not invalidate their feelings, and I’ll let them talk when I do something that upsets them, and I’ll apologize to them for it.

do you equate spanking with physical abuse? would you spank a child? The way Filipino parents do it, yeah especially. They don’t just do it with their hands - spanking kids here usually involve slippers and belts. My mom forbade anyone to spank me and my siblings, but nonetheless I watched it happen to my cousins and that alone was traumatic enough for me. How much more for them?

The thing is that it can’t be assumed that kids are able to process why they’re being punished, so I think that any physical punishment to them will just drive them away from their parents, which to me makes it physical abuse. I would never spank my own kids. what's the most ridiculous thing you've done this week? Skipping out the rest of my shower because a moth came into the bathroom and started flying around me lmaoooo eugh. --- did you regret it/love it/hate it/want to do it again/etc? I fucking hated it. if your bf/gf wanted to wait until marriage for sex, would you be willing? Yes. Sex honestly isn’t really a big deal to me. when you look at the sunset, what do you think about/feel? I don’t really think when I look at the sunset. I just admire how pretty it looks and savor the quick few seconds of the sun going down. is there someone you wish you could trust/you wish was trustworthy? No? I don’t wait on people to be trustworthy, if that’s what you mean. I’m grateful for the people who are already around me that I can trust. is there anyone that you no longer want in you life? who/why? There are times I wish I could get rid of my mom so that I don’t get yelled at as much anymore and so that I don’t have anyone watching my every move so much so that I’m cautious to walk around in my own house.

how has your outlook on life changed in the past few years? I’m a lot happier and more stable this time around. I’m glad I stayed around to see the change happen. have you ever walked out of a boring movie (in theaters)? Absolutely not. Even if the movie was bad, I’d watch it through the end. Ticket prices are not to be fucked with lol. how open are you with people you know online? ...What do you think? what do you think of athletes that take steroids? Idk about other sports but that’s a big fuck no in wrestling, after it’s led to addiction, overdoses, and a lot of deaths especially in the 80s and 90s. if a celebrity is involved in scandal after scandal, is that likely to affect how you view him/her & his/her work? Depends on the scandal. I don’t mind when nudes or videos get leaked because honestly, the leakers are the assholes in that situation. But if the scandal is something like people speaking out to accuse a celebrity of racism, abuse, or harassment, then I can very much turn against that person. what is one celebrity that you have zero respect for? Amber Heard. have you ever driven under the influence of alcohol/drugs? Just slightly tipsy, but I’ve always made sure that I’m super super super aware of my surroundings in those times. I won’t drive – and I know my friends won’t allow me to – if I was even just a little dizzy. I’m always the first to start sobering up when I go out to drink because I’m usually the only one with a car and thus responsible for bringing my friends home. are you overly attached to your material possessions? For the most part, yeah. have you ever ridiculed anyone for their clothing choices? Not to their faces. living in poverty: what do you think it'd be like? I already live in a country wallowing in it. My family isn’t poor, but I see poverty on a daily basis nonetheless. No documentary or article can best explain it to anyone who has never lived in a poverty-stricken country. Pretty insensitive question btw. what is one "diet" that you think is just utterly worthless? I’m not familiar with any of them. what advice would you give someone that is uncomfortable with his or her body/appearance? I prefer not to give advice because some people don’t wanna hear it and just wanna hear reassurances and boosters. That said, I’ll just keep encouraging them and telling them that they look really good in their outfit and just making them feel valid and seen. what advice would you give someone about to start high school? Don’t be scared to make mistakes and while you should always study hard and do your best, don’t take everything seriously. It’s high school and won’t matter on your professional resume. what foreign food are you NOT interested in trying? Uhhhh this question makes no sense to me ahahaha I’m always down to try anything. what foreign country do you believe is misunderstood? I can’t speak for other countries but I know mine is pretty misunderstood. I’ve read countless testimonies of Filipinos getting condescendingly told “You speak good English for a Filipino” by white Americans, not knowing that their country conquered mine for 40ish years. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to misconceptons about my country and its people. have you ever felt entirely unwanted and alone? Of course. in your eyes, which is worse: rape or murder? Both are equally bad and disgusting but I’ll have to go with rape, because 1) the victim has to live with the trauma and fear for the rest of their life, 2) victims are usually too scared to speak out for fear of being judged or not being believed, and 3) victim-blaming is still a big problem today. do you understand/read shakespeare? No. When we took up Shakespeare in high school I bought the No Fear versions. would you feel comfortable living with someone that owned a gun? No. do you know anyone that lives in a foreign country? Tons.

#survey #surveys

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years ago

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Hello! So, I read your last musing, about Oscar's most powerfuls spell, and it made me realise one thing: in the old Remnant, everyone could cast magic from their hands, but Ozma used a cane for it. Do you think that he may have been handicapped? Maybe he wasn't as connected to the world magic as much as others and he needed to use a medium. We know that he used a cane because he didn't believe in aggression, but what if it was also a sort of magic prosthesis?

Hey Yellow. Ironically that’s something I noticed too to after I finished posting my last Pinehead headcanon. Thus far, Ozma and essentially all of his successors are the only ones who used an object as a conduit to channel their magic

As to why, I’m not sure. I do like your concept of Ozma originally being magically handicapped than other magi from First Remnant. But since you also mentioned the tidbit about Ozma (and technically all the Wizards) preferring to use a sceptre/cane as their weapon of choice as it’s less lethal, it’s making me consider a different new headcanon about Ozma. Here me out:

What if…in his youth, Ozma was a completely different person.

When we were first introduced to his character, he was described as man who fought for righteousness and the people. But what if …this wasn’t always Ozma’s personality? What if …Ozma used to be the complete opposite of who we met him as during his younger teenaged years? Probably when he was roughly around the same age as Oscar is presently.

Since First Remnant was described to be home to kings and queens, what if… Ozma was possibly a young prince in his time. This could be a small little nod to his Oz counterpart of the same name who was a princess. But despite being of noble blood, imagine if…Ozma was rather spoilt and selfish in his youth, caring very little for others which was inclusive of the very people who lived within his family’s kingdom.

And because of this lack of empathy towards his fellow man, Ozma would often abuse his powers. Let’s say…rather than being magically handicapped, Ozma was quite talented in the mystical arts but lacked proper disciple as well as the patience to learn how to properly control it.

Since ‘arrogant’ was a word once used by Cinder Fall (as propagated by Salem) when describing Ozpin; as Ozpin is the current version of Ozma’s soul, perhaps in his past Ozma was very supercilious to a detrimental fault.

Picture…a fourteen-year-old Ozma, crowned prince of a kingdom devastated by poverty and ruled by greed, being the type of cocky adolescent whose vanity was only outmatched by his lack of self-control in using his own abilities.Like imagine Young Ozma being the type to walk around proclaiming that he was the greatest magi in all the land because of his abilities, having come from along line of powerful witches and wizards on both sides of his family.

Picture…Ozma being the type to cockily challenge others to a duel of might and magic since he’s arrogant enough in his abilities to know that he’s strong enough to wipe the floor with any opponent (or so he believes) whether his opponent was willing to participate or not. As a matter of fact, picture a scene where Ozma is training with his royal tutor using servants as his sparring partners. However Ozma keeps disobeying his master’s orders and going overboard with his magic to easily win his matches since the boy is fully aware that his lesser magically incompetent servants can’t put up much of a fight against.

Pretty soon the easy wins start to bore Ozma and he demands a proper challenge; to which one servant responds that there are no more servants for Ozma to fight since he’s beaten most of them while the rest were to scared to face him. Ozma then challenges his tutor to a duel claiming that since he was such a so-called powerful warlock then he’d be provide the challenge Ozma craved. At the first the tutor refused Ozma’s challenge after acknowledging the destruction and pain he had caused he past targets. However when Ozma begins mocking his tutor and belittling his abilities, he finally conceded for a chance to teach Ozma a much needed lesson.

Long story short, the tutor, of course, wipes the floor with Ozma much to the astonishment of the feeble spectators who all rushed to help their beaten prince. However Ozma wasn’t finished. Despite the tutor voicing that the match was won in his favour, the humiliating defeat angers Ozma to the point that he loses control of his magic, unintentionally summoning a much darker power which he unfortunately unleashes upon his tutor.

Of course the tutor masterfully dodges Ozma’s attack only for it to collide with the ceiling of the training room, causing debris to cave down on top a pair of servants caught in the crossfire.

This of course badly wounds both of them and Ozma is genuinely stunned at what he had done. You ever noticed how Salem is mostly the only magic we’ve seen to use dark magic whereas Ozma (and the Wizards) don’t? I’d like to think that dark magic by RWBY terms stems from the power of destruction derived from the God of Darkness.

I’d also like to think that in his youth, Ozma learned just how devastating such type of magic could prove in the wrong hands, in more ways than one.

Anyways, as the injured servants are whisked away and as Ozma was still recovering from the shock of using the forbidden dark magic, his astonishment is short-lived as he was suddenly pulled aside to be scolded by his tutor, infuriated for his behaviour and his sudden misuse of the dark arts.

This in turn only serves to further annoy Ozma as he claps back at the older warlock, threatening to have his father—the king—behead the man for so much as daring to speak back to him in such a manner. As a bold reminder, Ozma even tells the tutor wizard that he was a servant of his kingdom and as a servant of his kingdom, he bows down to Ozma. And as you might expect, this threat causes the tutor wizard to resign as both Ozma’s mentor and a servant of his kingdom; joining the rest that came before him.

I’d like to think of Ozma being such a poor student that he racks up mentors faster than the servants can find one willing enough to take the job. Beside I like the satire of Ozma formerly being a pretty terrible student in his first life as compared the humble teacher he comes to be in later lives.

Both as Professor Ozpin and his predecessor—the King of Vale since he founded the huntsmen academies and I’m still holding onto my hunch that the Warrior King—King Phadrig as I dubbed him—trained the very people who fought under him during the First Great War; including Great-Grandpappi Arc ( Jaune’s ancestor) according to my theories.

I know these theories more or less paint a different and less likeable version of the Ozma we know, but again hear me out again. To me, I find characters who start off being one way and slowly evolving into another way kind of fascinating to follow.

Like for example, a story about a timorous street cop, who desired to be promoted to detective but was a pushover for most of his career, slowly transforming to become the most intimidating crime bosses in the city; using his previous experience and knowledge from working in the force to outsmart his previous peers. It was originally meant to be an undercover gig that the cop wanted to use as means to rise in the ranks and finally achieve respect from his fellow cops who would look down on him. But what it leads into is a narrative that makes the audience question whose side this cop character really is many times throughout his arc as he does shady things that makes you wonder where his loyalty lies. Is he still the good cop working to stop the criminals or has hereally switched sides finding the life of a vicious crime lord his true calling since it brought him the satisfaction and respect he always craved? Doesn’t thatsound like a compelling character to follow?

Or, in the case of my small theory here, picture a hero’s journey about anarrogant little prince who cared very little for others outside the family thatspoiled him rotten ultimately growing up to become one of the most virtuousheroes in all the land whose chivalry and devotion to protecting mankind endsup transcending time and history.

The beginning and end stories are such a stark contrast that you’re left wondering how on earth did said character come to be so different in the end, thus lending to the ongoing intrigue of watching the chapters that contributed to this change. You’re left interested in following along to see how the storyreaches this ending in a sense, if you get what I mean.

That and I also like the juxtaposition of Ozma formerly being one of the worse students imaginable in the younger years of his first life but ultimately growing to become a humble man who now passes down his years of knowledge to guide others.

Anyways, let’s continue with the theory idea:

So Ozma is boy who desires to be great like his family but lacks the patience to be one as well as earn the respect of a mentor willing to teach him to be the person he desires to be. At least, not until Ozma meets someone— an old, wise nomadic wizard hailing from a faraway land unknown who ultimately became theperson who changed Ozma’s life forever. For the sake of this headcanon of mine, I’m going to dub this old wizard as Merlin; and going off the name alone you can probably tell or ready where I’m going with this.

Now let’s say, in a land of powerful magi blessed by the Gods there was one fabled to be the most powerful wizard in all of First Remnant—believed to have descended from the First Man created by the Brother Gods.

But in spite of being this legendary mage, no one knew anything of this true identity. Each legend spoke differently but they all shared one common detail—a mystical staff that was said to be the weapon of the legendary mage believed to have been bestowed him by the Gods themselves. Or something like that.

There was not a single child born into First Remnant who didn’t grow up hearing the legendary stories of the nameless great and powerful wizard. Among them was Ozma but he always believed the tales were all hogwash. Glamourous fairy tales of one powerful wizard who travelled the world using his magic to aid others in need yet no one has ever seen him before? How ridiculous, were the thoughts of a teenage Ozma.

And the fact about him fighting with a staff when magic is available by the mere snap of one’s finger just made the stories even less enticing to the boy’s ear ears.

Now in Ozma’s kingdom, like I said, there was this bum—as Ozma referred to him. He wasn’t actually a bum. He was in fact a humble nomad proclaiming to hail from a land far away—a land of light as he described and his travels eventually brought him to Ozma’s kingdom.

The only reason Ozma addressed him as a bum was because the strange newcomer’s attire matched the lower class that lined the streets of his kingdom in droves making the stranger blend right in.

Let’s say…poverty was quite rampart in Ozma’s kingdom since the kingdom royals—his family— did very little to help its citizens and they raised their son to do the same. But this bum—the nomad— peeked Ozma’s interest.

From his home, Ozma would always observe the man. Each day the bum would perform the same routine—come into the kingdom from his temporary abode outside in the forest, sit in the same spot, pretend to accidentally drop a couple of lien into the hands of the starving poor folk who needed it (or perform some other type of good deed) and when the day was done, he would return quietly to the forest from whence he crawled out of only to return again the next day.He was a strange one, as Ozma would often say to himself but in a strange way, Ozma couldn’t help but be oddly fascinated by said man.

Who was he anyways?

The most interesting thing about the man is that he carried a strange sceptre. Ozma always found the sceptre to be the most outlandish thing about the bum since it contradicted with everything else about him.

To fast-forward this idea a bit, let’s say—one day, another kingdom attacked Ozma’s under the pursuit of conquering his throne.

Unfortunately they succeeded. In the span of a single night, Ozma lost everything he once knew. His family. His home. His crown and dignity as the royal heir. He almost even lost his life when the assailants came after him. In spite of fleeing into the forest, Ozma eventually found himself cornered on a lonely bridge suspended over a deep canyon.

Outnumbered, injured and outmatched, Ozma was like a rat trapped in a maze and it’s not like his magic was enough to help him this time. His lack of trainingin control of his powers came back to haunt him as he was easily overpowered by the more experienced assailants.

One of the attackers even resorted to using dark magic to restrain Ozma, twisting his body with the malicious intent of killing him slowly. But in his moments of pain, to the young boy’s astonishment he is rescued by an unlikely saviour.

It was the bum who arrived to protect Ozma from the assailants. And that’s not even the most surprising part, the bum was also a magi. But not just any magi. He was the great and powerful wizard of legend: Merlin the Myth.

I know that Merlin is the legendary sorcerer derived from Arthurian Legend. So imagine if there was a RWBY character inspired by him who played a pinnacle role in Ozma’s Origin story and was the man who made him into the champion of justice we know he came to be?

I know it’d probably be more in character to have Ozma start off as the type of eager hero archetype willing to fight for the people, as we saw with our main RWBY heroine: Ruby Rose.

However, as I;ll say again I like the contrast of Ozma coming from privilegedbeginnings governed by greed and selfishness only to ultimately change to become a better man as a result of all the life changing experiences he endured during his youth while attaining the companionship and guidance of an old soul who left a lasting impression on him.

I like the idea of Ozma formerly being a spoiled prince who initially started to go down a path of revenge when his family is murdered by another kingdom that conquered his own. I like the idea of Ozma being taken under the wing by a legendary yet kind wizard who genuinely saw good and greatness in him and wanted to help him in some way.

Using this idea, imagine young Ozma practically begging Merlin to be his mentor upon learning that the legends about him were real. Picture Ozma boldly demanding that Merlin teach him how to become a powerful magi like him for the sake of returning to his conquered kingdom and slaughtering the people who took it from him out of revenge for what they did to him and his family.

Unfortunately Merlin wasn’t having any of that and refused to teach Ozma at all if his intentions were to use his teachings for harming others. It is only when Ozma agreed to Merlin’s way that the old sage took him in with a smile.

(Side Note: If I also had to depict Merlin the Myth, I’d picture him something like this image above while sometimes adopting an animal form in the shape of a brown owl or white owl. A lot of the images and art I find on Merlin have him featured with an owl of some kind.

Since we know magic in RWBY can be used to turn people into animals, perhaps Merlin used his to shape-shift into an owl and that’s how he traveled from place to place and explains why no one could ever saw his face. He’d always transform and fly off before they could. Just an idea).

Resuming: Since Ozma was desperate for Merlin to teach him, he agrees to temporarily abandon his vendetta for the sake of learning from Merlin. However, truth be told Ozma had merely lied to Merlin so that he would provide him what he needed.

The boy still hungered for vengeance and when Merlin learnt this, he told Ozma that if revenge was his path then there was nothing he could teach him that will be of benefit to him. Enraged by the old wizard’s words, Ozma storms off and attempts his vendetta anyways.

Using what little he had learnt from Merlin, he returned to his kingdom and tried to stage a one-man attack. Ozma had planned to singlehandedly take back his throne by killing the new king and his family just like what he had done to him and his.

However, what made Ozma stop in his tracks is when he soon realized that the new conquerors had young children—four innocent little princesses who were absolutely oblivious to what their father—the king—had done.

In order for Ozma to enact his revenge, it would mean taking the lives of these four girls. In spite of his anger clouding his judgement. In spite of every fibre in his body screaming at him to defend his family’s honour, Ozma…couldn’t do it.

So basically Ozma fails in his vendetta. He believes he is done for when he is caught by the new king. But to Ozma’s surprise, Merlin appears and comes to his aid a second time.

In a nutshell, Merlin protects Ozma and when questioned by the young boy about why he came back for him, Merlin simply replied that despite his impulsive, bratty behaviour—the old soul could still tell that there was a kind heart behind it. In spite of only knowing Ozma for a short time, Merlin was willing to place his fate in the more honest soul he saw in him.

In Merlin’s eyes, he believed that Ozma was destined for greatness. All he needed was proper guidance. Sure he was more than a little rough around the edges but in time, Ozma could be great if he was willing to put in the work to becoming a better person. Perhaps even the type that others could even call a hero.

Ozma scoffs at the very thought of it .Him? A hero? Impossible. He wasn’t even a prince anymore. He had no crown. No kingdom. His own people didn’t even miss him, not like he had ever given them reason to. Ozma was a nobody now and from here, where was he supposed to go? Who was he supposed to be now moving forward?

That’s when Merlin would prompt him with the statement, “Well that’s what you get to figure out. This is your chance to decide your path, young Oz. Your future. You think you lost everything but in actuality, you’ve been given a tremendous opportunity.”

“For what?” Ozma would ask.

“To start over,” Merlin replied optimistically, “begin a new leaf. Before you believed you had to abide by a destiny that was handed to you from birth. Now, you get to decide it for yourself. To forge your own path and decide the type of man you want to be in time.”

“But how am I supposed to do that?” Ozma would then inquire, “I am a prince without a crown or kingdom and a child without a family. I’m just…a boy. How am I supposed to do anything now?

“…Well I never said you have to figure it out right now,” Merlin would reply casually, “and I never said you would be going forward alone either.”

Basically in a nutshell, Merlin agrees to give Ozma a second chance. He agrees to stay by his side and continue training him as his mentor; so long as Ozma gives up his vendetta entirely and devote himself to

And this time, Ozma agrees after realizing finally, that regaining his kingdom was a lost cause.What would even be more interesting is if the reason why Ozma came to this conclusion is because he came to the startling realization that he and his family were in fact the bad guys in all of this. Ozma’s family were tyrants who treated their people like garbage. Ozma used to notice it but at the time, he never cared much for it since at the time he was raised to turn a blind eye to these things. It would be an interesting twist if the new conquerors were good people. Another kingdom who learnt of Ozma’s family tyranny and decide to conquer it in order to help the people who were suffering. Now the people were happy with its new rulers.

Consider it a stained victory—one where neither side is black nor white. They’re each right and wrong in their actions and their reactions to the given circumstance. A starving kingdom was finally freed and living in prosperity under the reign of better, compassionate rulers. However at the same time, an innocent child lost his family in cold blood shed and has his life nearly taken by these same people.

I dunno if that makes a lick of sense at all. I just like the idea of it. I kind of like the idea of Ozma abandoning his title as prince upon learning the truth about his kingdom and what his family used to really do. After that, he was taken in by Merlin who practically raised him like a surrogate father. Together, the two travelled Remnant Merlin mentoring young Ozma on the ways and disciples of how to be a proper powerful magi through righteous rather than sheer talent alone or something like that.

It is through Merlin’s teachings where Ozma learnt the reason as to why he chooses to fight with a sceptre. RWBY has described the Long Memory as being very special to Ozma and essentially all the Wizards that came after him. Through the Lost Fable, we got a sense this is the case since as fans saw from the episode, the sceptre has been with Ozma since his first lifetime.

What was even more interesting is that even after he died the first time, even Salem still held onto the staff. I’d like to think that during their time together, Ozma must’ve told Salem the history behind his signature staff and why he held onto it for so long which in turn contributed to Salem cherishing it after Ozma’s death since it was the last thing she had of him.

I also found it pretty interesting how Salem even held onto the staff after humanity had been restored, after she had become corrupted by the Grimm Pools of Darkness. Not only has the Long Memory sustained time with Ozma (and essentially his descendants) but also with Salem pre-Ozma reincarnation. Wouldn’t been interesting if this somehow lent to the magic within the sceptre.

Like imagine if…the Long Memory was a mystical archive that secretly stored memories from Ozma and all of his lifetimes which is inclusive even of the time he spent with Salem—from the time he met her, to their travels, to the day he died to even before when Salem had the sceptre in her possession and Ozma was able to learn from the cane of Salem’s loneliness, depression and anger after losing him. Or…something like that. Mostly spit balling here.

Once upon a time, I shared a theory about the Long Memory being Ozma’s cherished weapon because it was a gift to him by someone very important from his past. At first, I pegged it had been given to him by the original Four Maidens during his lifetime as the Hermit.

Mind you, this was pre-V6. Eventually I settled on the theory that the weaponwas given to Ozma by an old relative/ mentor who helped him become the man he was.

I figured the Long Memory was either made for Ozma by his old mentor or passed down to him after he set out to start his own journey. To add an extra layer of sentimentality to the Long Memory, I thought it would be nice if the weapon originally belonged to Ozma’s past mentor who then gave it to him upon completing his training as a sign that he was ready. For me, I kind of like the concept of Ozma inheriting his master’s weapon as a symbol of his growth into an outstanding magi, not to mention the everlasting bond he shared with his mentor.

A passing of the torch, so to speak.

Plus it’ll add more significance to the weapon being called the Long Memory having been passed down from Ozma’s former mentor him to him and eventually he passed it on to his next incarnates. This is where I going with the idea of a Merlin-character in RWBY for Ozma’s Origins.

Resuming my theory concept, if a Merlin-inspired character did exist in Ozma’s past, then I like the thought of this character training Ozma fromsince he was a very young teenager; fulfilling the role of the gentle sagewhose wisdom and guidance aided Ozma throughout his life well into his adultyears.

And even after Ozma was forced to depressingly part ways with said mentor (like perhaps he passed away by the time Ozma was older), the lessons and fond memories he shared with his man stayed with and still continue to guide him in some sense after all this centuries.

I like the idea of Ozma transforming from the snobbish boy he used to be to becoming a righteous soul by the time he was a man all through the teachings of the old soul who never lost fate in him and stood with him through thick and thin.

I really like the idea of a Merlin-esque wise old mentor character raising and loving Ozma like a son. And by the time Ozma was finally ready tostart his own journey, Merlin was ready to live this world on the peace of mindthat he had lived long enough to see Ozma grow up into a great young man.

Then following his mentor’s death, Ozma inherited his iconic weapon choosing to fight with it as a means of carrying on his mentor’s legacy in a way. This could add another layer as to why the Long Memory is special to Ozma. Not only was it his weapon but it was also the weapon shared by the kind-hearted old soul who shaped him into the champion he became. I like the idea of the Long Memory not only being symbolic of the memories Ozma shared with his fellow Wizards during their lifetimes. It’s not even symbolic of the years he spent with Salem.

No I’d to think that in addition to these memories, the Long Memory additionally chronicles the memories Ozma shared with the man who trained him. It is a memoir of the times they shared together, journeying, training, living, laughing. More than that, the Long Memory is also a remnant of that mentor since he has wielded it since it he was around Ozma’s age. It was the weapon that Merlin’s mentor trained him with and it is also the same weapon that Merlin used to pass his lessons onto Ozma.

The Long Memory is special to Ozma since it’s something he shares not just with his successors but also the man who was essentially like a second father to him. His hero and it’s his way of remembering him always no matter how many lives he’s lived.

Or…y’know, something to that liking XD This doesn’t necessarily need to happen for Ozma’s story. I mean, Ozma doesn’t really need to have his own mentor. However, since part of his reincarnation cycle does involve his past self imparting guidance onto his present self, it’d be interesting if that ties back to Ozma’s history. I dunno. It’s just an idea XD

And…yeah, I believe that’s all folks. That’s my answer. Sorry if this response turned out longer and took longer than usual to edit and submit. Nevertheless, I hope it was at least enough to actually answer your question, Yellow. I know I deviated from what you originally asked me but let me know what you think if you can. Until then, as always, take care.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#yellow-eyed-green-crocodile #squiggles answers: rwby #rwby ozma #oscar pine #professor ozpin #rwby theories

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