#people don't really understand
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i hate this one thing that always happens. when me and my friends do truth or dare, or something, and I get asked if I have ever had a crush, I say no. BECAUSE I LITERALLY NEVER HAVE. and no one believes me. no one.
anyways I'm aroace hi
#help#this happens so many times#they're like#“NO CHANCE YOURE LYING”#or#“JUST TELL US”#like no#I don't have any crushes#and I never will#so yeah#aroace#people don't really understand#what#AROACE#means.#aka most of my friends (or ones I've had)#like please I'm not in love with anyone#even if I wanted to#rtgyhufhuysujsf\#IM NOT IN DENIAL I LITERALLY DONT LIKE ANYONE#GRRRR#“oh I know you have a crush”#OH REALLY#huh#I love how some of my old friends just#ASSUMED#anyways hi I'm aroace#ace#asexual
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#cw assault#transmisogyny#allegory#the animatrix#the matrix#so a lot of people don't really understand te“rfs” or gcs tbh#or right wing women in general#they're often very aware of how patriarchal violence functions#they're just gender nihilists#they don't think it can be fought only bargained with#and are willing to throw more marginalized women under the bus to secure their own position in the heirarchy#mean though it may be
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"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."
This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.
I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.
Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)
His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:
A) a short lived person
B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.
The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.
But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".
So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.
Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.
The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.
Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.
Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!
Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!
On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.
That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.
The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.
And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.
And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.
Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.
Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.
Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!
I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.
Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!
and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.
#dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi manga spoilers#dungeon meshi meta#kabru of utaya#laios touden#labru#laios x kabru#dunmeshi#og post#kabru is such a big picture thinker. and he evaluates people more than he judges them imo#the hater jokes are funny but the people he judges most harshly arent laios and co. they're people like the island's lord.#but you don't see that as clearly because he isn't interested in the island's lord. he understands him. finds him contemptible but useful.#whereas laios lives in his brain rent free because he WANTS to understand him but doesnt quite.#even though he sees the elves as a major threat to his ultimate goals and dislikes the way they treat short lived races#he still understands and evaluates mithrun as an individual based on his own merits#he's one of the characters who is least judgemental in that sense because while he's always making judgements and evaluations#he's also constantly revising them whenever he gets more information#my beautiful machiavellian prince <3#it's genuinely a really laudable way of understanding others imo.#the only problem is that because he's driven towards his goals by his PTSD and survivors guilt#he pushes himself into situations (the dungeon and also interpersonally) that trigger him or even just upset him#without regard for what he authentically wants or his own wellbeing.
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Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?
You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?
#those 'monday is a general strike stay home if you can!!!' posts are SO performative and they really annoy me#like. you MUST know you can't organize a general strike of tens of millions of people by sharing an infographic on twitter. Right?#don't even get me started on the most recent one that was like 'we understand the last strike only gave one day of notice'#'so this time we're giving you two! strike is on tuesday everyone don't forget!'#like GENUINELY was that supposed to be a joke#the linked article also touches on how difficult actual organizing a workplace is which is nice#because they mention previous failed attempts in which organizers basically just handed out leaflets#and assumed the benefits would be obvious. which i think is basically the equivalent of posting an infographic on twitter#which is to say - not effective at all. Organizing is a LOT of work! Running an effective union even more so!#labor rights
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if you're a white person taking pleasure in the idea that Trump voters of colour are experiencing racist violence from white trumpers because "they got what's coming to them" I don't think you're anti-racist at all, I think you were just waiting for an acceptable target, and you're also fucking weird.
Bad Person Deserves Punishment For Their Sins give me a fucking break and get yourself out of the fucking catholic church. you're all prison abolitionists until you see someone you don't like.
#assholes still do not deserve to be victims of bigotry#people will crow this up and down until they find someone they think is a big enough asshole to really deserve it#watch your cognitive dissonance kids#i really am only speaking to white people here. as a white person.#POC can feel however they feel.#though i still don't think it's an appropriate sentiment to turn into Political Praxis there is of course a need to vent#like idk i don't find any marginalised suffering under fascism funny. i think it's fucking sad.#i think it is sad when right wing gay people experience homophobia and i think it is sad when right wing trans people experience transphobia#and when right wing disabled people experience ableism and when right wing women experience misogyny#leopards eating faces is funny when it's about like. rich people or misogynists or whatever it's.#do you understand that this is punching down?#why are we wasting our energy hoping for the victimisation of specific marginalised people#this would be a great time to do some outreach but instead everyone is just fucking MOCKING THEM#you're so fucking stupid you don't care about The Cause you care about Winning#this shit makes me furious.#have some compassion#the system speaks#USpol#Trump#racism#politics
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Flower Empowered.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#lan wangji#wei wuxian#lan wunian#The absolute chaos that ensued when Lan Wangji showed up...those girls went wild.#We have to give kudos to narration that takes the form of a bunch of suitor seeking ladies.#They were so loud about being here for the hotties and whispering gossip. You go girls.#Wei Wuxian most likely just picked up a already tossed flower to throw. Second hand flowers...are still flowers I suppose.#Can you imagine if LWJ had allergies? Poor lad.#Okay it's time for the real gritty discussion point. The one everyone is waiting for me to talk about:#So...from where we are in the timeline...what the hell is WWX supposed to be wearing?#I'm serious. Put all the fanart out of your brain for a moment.#We are post burial grounds and sunshot campaign so he's had his little goth moment reveal.#*BUT* he is still with the Jiang sect. And by proxy of this flashback talking about his disrespect - they never bring up his attire.#meaning he is likely in some kind of Jiang Purple.#Continuity wise it really feels like this scene should have been *before* the burial mounds.#I understand why it's post - we need to build up on the mystery of how he became the YLLZ.#But also his personality feels way more 'pre-burial mounds WWX'. I think this was probably a 'I don't want to kill my darling' scene.#(The Phoenix mountain flashback is a lot of people's 'darling'. I am knowingly putting myself in the line of fire here).#I'm willingly putting him in Wen Qing's borrowed cloak and assuming people take him wearing it as like...a war trophy.#Historians will revise this moment later on but for now he *is* a hero of that war.
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Listen to me Suzanne Collins did not have to give Katniss and Peeta a history before the games. She did NOT have to do that. She could have just had their story begin when Peeta's name was called. She could have had them be total strangers until the moment of the reaping.
Like: "And the boy tribute is... Peeta Mellark!" Katniss: Who's that? Or she could have made them vaguely familiar with each other! Peeta's name is called and Katniss just thinks, Oh, I know that name! He's in my class, actually. Poor boy... Anyway!
Either way, SC could have written the rest of the story exactly the same! I think many authors would have done that! Because if Peeta's purpose in the book was to be Gale's competition, to be one of the 3 corners of a love triangle, THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE WAY TO DO IT!! But that's NOT how she did it because that's NOT what Peeta is.
And who is he? To Katniss, Peeta's someone who saved her and her family and received nothing in return except a beating. Peeta's someone she has had her eye on but has never worked up the courage to talk to. Peeta's someone she associates with kindness and hope. And all this before the start of the events of the book! Just because WE, the READERS, met Gale before Peeta and immediately felt a connection with him does NOT mean that was Katniss's experience! And that's what SC is trying to tell us!
To dismiss Katniss and Peeta's past as unimportant or inconsequential compared to whatever Katniss and Gale have in the present is to fundamentally misunderstand Katniss as a character and, as a result, condemn oneself to never fully understand the choices she makes in the future.
Suzanne Collins wrote it that way on purpose because she had something to say. And no one will ever be able to convince me that something wasn't "It was always going to be Peeta".
#thg#everlark#peeta mellark#katniss everdeen#the hunger games#sorry i hope this one's not too harsh#i just has to let it out lol#I'm not saying people only like gale because they misunderstand SC's writing#obviously everyone has preferences and that's great snd normal#but SC wrote Katniss to have preferences too?#and those preferences are pretty subtle at times I'll admit#but sometimes they're so glaringly obvious#i struggle to empathize with people who don't understand these books and honestly that's a me problem#but it really is difficult when people seem to hate Katniss because she didn't make THEIR choices#okay rant over
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Basically, my philosophy around disability fakers is: I would rather a thousand people fake a disability than have one disabled person suffer without care, aids, compassion, or any help.
#disability#disability advocacy#and there's a difference not many people seem to recognize between faking and realizing you don't have [x] problem...#...such as realizing you don't have [x] disorder because it is instead [y] disorder...#...or you haven't completely understood your care needs/your symptoms/what helps you...#...and some people see ANY change in your understanding of your disability as proof of maliciously faking...#...when i suppose in my personal experience people don't *maliciously* fake disability...#...i'm not saying it could never happen but that i don't think it's the *only* thing motivating people called fakers#i just think (like most everything) this is complex and nuanced because it's a *human* experience#like for me personally i /know/ i still have a lot to learn about my disabilities...#...like... i realized recently that my hands shouldn't be in AGONY when warm water is ran over them when it's SLIGHTLY cold inside or out...#...and i realized that i likely have a Noticable limb difference that needs checking out. does this sound like i'm faking...#...or that maybe i just didn't really explore my own needs and body because of a variety of factors?#i can assure you it is because i haven't really thought before about how i deserved to understand how to best help myself
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"Even when I was winning all these championships, on one level I was miserable"
Lewis on healing and opening himself up to people ���️🩹
#lewis hamilton#you know I really understand how people hear platitudes when he says these things#but I don't see how you could really believe that if you're watching him#he puts in the work to heal and it always shows!!!!#i love you lewis hamilton and your big heart and your open mind#nadia's things
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happy pride to all the aromantics out there :) your experience with love is undeniably queer and your presence in the community is so valuable. love loses <2
#if ur not aro and get mad ab the love loses joke. i want you first to understand that it is an aro people joke.#and second to just block me and move on. i really don't care what you have to say about it#happy pride aros!!!!!!! giving you all a little kiss on the forehead :)#talking#aromantic#aromanticism#aroace#arospec#aspec#aro positivity
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I hate it when there's someone in your orbit that you want to be friends with, but can't. They're moots with your moots. Their interests align with yours. You're pretty sure you'd get along great.
Except for their "Zionists DNI". Except for where they deny your people the right to exist, to defend ourselves when attacked, to live and thrive and continue our 4000 year old traditions. They're not Palestinian. They're not connected in any way to the Land of Israel. But it's become a fandom now, and everyone's taking sides. They don't even know you, but they don't want to talk to someone like you about unrelated topics, because you're one of (((them))).
#it's just frustrating#i know you don't have a good understanding of the situation#i'm willing to bet you don't really want all Jews and all Israelis to be killed by a terrorist group#but the people you support do#and you're not interested in meeting anyone who doesn't agree#perils of being a jew#jumblr#jewblr#antisemitism
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if ordan karris wanna complete that sentence does that mean he also likes us?
#i mean. the ordan part can control what sentence he wanna hijack right?#hmm#after seeing so much dialogue from his quote page i really wanna see the ordan part inside ordis actually has major impact in canon#and not just to roast parvos. i absolutely love that part but i hope i can see more than that#also makes me wonder how much details in his quote implies what would happen later in the game#like. idk how long ordis has been calling us the operator but i guess it's definitely before the second dream#and i also guess people would understand it as the operator of orbiter or something and not about#...that#yeah that kind of detail#does that count as a spoiler?#what am i talking about this whole post IS a spoiler#but i don't actually wanna tag my each and every post as spoiler tho#cephalon fragment has existed for years so i guess im just gonna... keep. not tagging that. yeah#warframe#warframe ordis#warframe ordan karris#my art
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mmmmm danny with sensory issues both in and out of his ghost forms, but on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Ghosts can't experience sensations the same way humans can when they're in the mortal realm. They're naturally intangible, and it takes energy to be physical. When they're physical, all touch feels the same barring the texture. They feel no heat, no chill. Sunlight passes through them, and so does wind and rain.
You know when your foot falls asleep/goes completely numb, and you go to touch it with your hand and it causes a strange jumble of sensations? You can feel the skin there, your palm is pressing against an object and there's resistance, pressure, but you can't feel the heat? It's kinda something like that. Like he's feeling everything through a set of gloves.
As a ghost, when it rains, he can feel the raindrops hitting him, and he can feel his hair getting wet, but he can't feel the chill of the water and he can't feel the wetness. His suit is soaked but there's no weight like there should be. During the winter snowflakes don't melt when they land on him, and he can't feel the chill of the snow when he gets buried under it.
Sunlight passes through him, a nice breeze ruffles his hair but there's no relief in the sensation. All pressure, no sensation. It's like a strange form of sensory deprivation. And of course, the internal things. It's even worse when he's intangible, when he's not putting energy into being physical. He doesn't feel real.
As human, things become too much. Especially when he's been a ghost for hours. He can feel the weight of his ribs pressing against his ribs, he becomes hyperaware of the expanding of his lungs when he breathes, the feeling of his heart pulsing in his chest.
He curls his fingers in and out slowly and becomes fascinated by the feeling of the joints moving. He turns and grabs Tucker's hand, and soaks in the warmth of his body heat -- he can't feel it as a ghost. He runs his fingers through his hair, and he can feel the individual strands.
There's a weight when he walks. A small drag when he bends his knee and lifts his leg and takes a step, and when he's been a ghost for too long he stumbles over himself, drags his feet along the floor and stomps when he doesn't mean to because he forgot to weigh his steps. Sometimes when it rains he goes out and sits on the front steps of the house just so he can come back in shivering and soaked through to the bone. Runs his fingers obsessively over the goosebumps up along his arms and legs because he can't get them as a ghost even if he's cold.
Because there are certain things, even when he's in the ghost zone, that are exclusive to the living. The little internal things you don't notice and take for granted. Things like breathing and goosebumps and exhaustion exclusive to running that makes your heart pound against your ribcage and your chest hurt with the need for air. Sore muscles from working out and sweating. Thirst and dry mouths, chapped lips and hands, blinking and dry eye, the feeling of the sun soaking into your skin on a nice summer's day.
As a ghost, Danny faces sensory issues in the form of not enough. When he can't feel the hair behind his ears or the weight in his limbs where there should be muscle, tissue, and bone. He can't feel the sun or the wind, everything is in a permeable state of 'just fine', and its maddening. He can breathe if he wants, but there's no point to it. He has no lungs, he can't feel them expand, and there's no relief behind it. He's going through the motions without any of the reward.
On those days, the idea of going ghost again makes him feel ill. Paranoid. He can't stand the thought. He needs to feel. He needs to feel the soft texture of the rug beneath his feet and the grooves in his knuckles, he needs to feel dirt crumble beneath his fingers and get stuck under his nails, he needs to feel the heat of his sister's hand and the feeling of body warmth passing from her to him. He lays on the carpet room and stretches out, and focuses on the feeling of his heart beating and the weight of his bones and muscles and tissue pinning him to the floor.
As a human, Danny faces sensory issues of too much. When all the things he's starving for suddenly make him sick. He feels trapped in his own skin. His ribs become a cage and breathing becomes a dumbbell that he can't put down. He can feel the hair along his arms and it rashes him. He's too cold, he's too hot. He feels like a ghost puppeteering its own corpse and he needs out.
On those days, Danny dips away when he can and goes ghost, and Sam and Tucker don't see him for the rest of the day. He's gone invisible, intangible, and he does nothing but exist.
Just, him experiencing sensory issues as both ghost and human, but in opposite directions from each other. And the idea that ghosts experience the mortal realm differently, and that there are certain things that are just exclusive sensations for the living that Danny doesn't realize until he's a halfa.
#danny fenton is not the ghost king#danny fenton#danny phantom#dp ghost headcanons#dp headcanons#dpxdc#danny phantom headcanon#<- bc i originally thought of this for the blood blossom au except its generic enough of a headcanon that it also works as a standalone#but also i think dpxdc folks would get a kick out of this#but yeah danny realizing that there's SO much that the living have and experience that ghosts don't even in the infinite realms.#i imagine that when he overshadows someone he can re-experience a handful of those sensations like if he were living and suddenly#he understands really well why there are some ghosts who come thru the portal that almost exclusively overshadow people. Or try to.#The mock feeling of being alive again must be *addicting* to some of them. Because he knows it is for him when being a ghost is too much#not a lot of extra tags today folks i got everything i needed to say out into the post :]
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it's really callous how many people are so ready and willing to call any and every Palestinian fundraiser on here a scam, as though the extensive efforts to vet and verify campaigns simply don't exist, and not even CONSIDERING that a false accusation could be enough to basically doom a family in need. is it really that much easier to tell yourself "those aren't real people desperately trying to convince anyone that their lives and families matter enough to save. everyone on this website is American probably and anyone else is just a bot :)" like. do you hear yourself?
#i understand being overwhelmed like i get dozens of requests a day to share fundraisers and i cannot keep up#and yes you should Check and Be Sensible but cmon is it really so fucking hard to believe that Real People in a Real Place might Reach Out?#Especially if they don't have many other avenues left to pursue?
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My real time reaction of watching an American influencer spread straight up lies about my country because they lived/visited there at some point
#“some DISGUSTING truths about korea” oh okay- i mean sure yeah. Racism is still pretty intense in Korea- I can understand how-#“60% of men and 81% of women think cheating is GOOD for their relationship” WHAT.#WE LITERALLY DON'T????#WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT STATISTIC THAT YOU PULLED OUT OF YOUR ASS#“it's super cheap to live and buy food in korea” NO??#WE HAVE THE SAME SHITTY ECONOMY AS YOU FAM- THE PRICES AREN'T FUCKING “3 TO 4 DOLLARS” PER MEAL???#HAVE YOU BEEN EATING PACKETS OF PEANUTS FOR BREAKFAST DINNER AND LUNCH?? WHAT?#and then they mentioned the racism which yeah- like I said-#it's a big problem there- that's a totally valid point#but 60% OF MEN 81% OF WOMEN DO NOT THINK CHEATING IS GOOD??#I think I'm more concerned about how many people were wholeheartedly believing it in the comments like- please at least ask her to site her#sources other than her own experience#I UNDERSTAND that you had a relationship with a korean guy once and he cheated on you and had a whole other girlfriend but MAYBE have you#considered that you just had a really shitty boyfriend and that it doesn't apply to everyone else
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It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.
Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.
In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).
The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.
This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.
I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.
Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.
It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.
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*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.
**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.
The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."
#self-indulgently long tangents even for me but i had Thoughts!#i almost appended a third footnote to the second footnote. rip#anghraine babbles#long post#fitzwilliam darcy#lady anne blogging#austen blogging#austen fanwank#ivory tower blogging#anghraine's meta#eighteenth century blogging#gender blogging#i do think it's interesting that associating his flaws with lady catherine's is honestly fair - she comes to wonder about this later#but lbr that is totally understandable! lady catherine is the awful parody version of him!#but the times when elizabeth's assumptions are highly inflected by Yes All Men Actually generalizations she's utterly wrong#it's not some horrible misdeed but it's not really fair#not because she's oppressing him (lmao) but because people don't work that way#not saying that p&p is some huge blow against gender essentialism but i do think it's FAR less friendly to it than its fans are
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