#that it feels intellectually dishonest to just ignore it

[yngai]

i think there's a lot of valid critique to make of how ada's character is portrayed & written especially with capcom's misogyny & their dependance on the cool sexy female character but i genuinely don't see how the remakes "fixed" ada's character by giving her a separate story/proper character motivation when those things already existed & were pretty heavy handedly given to the audience in RE4 (she tells them to the player verbatim) + the remake separate ways draws very heavily from ada's characterization in RE6 which was actually capcom's second/better executed foray into giving ada her own unique narrative that only scantly intersects with leon's, because the original separate ways was hastily put together & its story was relegated to ada interjecting her own thoughts between chapters. i'd argue the only appearance that fails ada the most is damnation because it's a rethread of 4 with less substance but even that movie gives the audience enough hints towards ada's purpose & the imbalance in her relationship with leon + the homoerotic fight scene with svetlana that there is at least something to enjoy

[gaymom]

the fact u immediately throw people with low empathy under the bus is super funny also Lol. god forbid people with npd be wary of people who use narcicissm as an insult as if the word isnt intrinsically tied to the disorder now. we look up resources and are constantly fucking bombarded with articles telling us we're abusive monsters for having npd. have a little decency bro.

yeah you can't pretend that all discussions of narcissism are implicitly tied to the disorder. Narcissist isnt just an insult, although the traits associated with it are definitely negative under a non-individualistic value system. Narcissist is also a word that has been used by people far before NPD was researched and defined in the dsm. The word describes someone with low empathy and a specific affect to their ego that is self focused and disregarding of others. The FACT is that the vast majority of individuals with narcissistic traits DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE that they have narcissistic traits that negatively impact those close to them NOR DO THEY PURSUE MEDICAL SUPPORT OR DIAGNOSIS FOR IT. Which is exactly why I haven't talked about people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Often those who find nothing wrong with taking advantage of others end up finding communities/workplaces where their disregard for others is valued, and that's pretty easy in a capitalist society where many people look up to those with narcissistic traits for the power they have over other people. There are plenty of abuse survivors who have experienced narcissists like Amber Heard not take accountability and take their smear campaigns to the public stage and still successfully take advantage of the biases of large populations of people who form impressions off of lies.

So maybe take a look at your reactivity to people talking about this topic and why you felt the need to send me this, because it's disregarding the subject of my posts and is disconnected from the material reality of narcissistic traits and their effect on social systems. But I'm guessing this is a personal feeling of insecurity on your part that you identify with the narcissists I'm talking about because instead of recognizing I'm talking about abusive narcissists who don't take accountability and don't seek help and take lies and cruelty too far, YOU IDENTIFY with the narcs Im referencing and send me this pity party about how hard it is for you to hear how angry people talk after being hurt by people who let your condition go unchecked. Low empathy is not a sub-human trait, I dont think people without empathy are monsters. But I KNOW some of those people dismiss the reality of their low empathy and the damage they do BECAUSE of their narcissism. So maybe, be less wary of people talking about the damage of narcissism and be more wary of how your biases can lead you to being out of touch.

[tumblingxelian]

The "real" Batman

I see people complain about the emphasis some people put on Batmans more negative character traits a lot.

"That's not the real Batman, that's flanderiztion, fanon, a few bad but popular adaptions, the 90's only" and the like are common refrains and it really gets to me. Cos see, while I am aware no incarnation of Batman is totally one note, I emphasize the more negative sides of Batman for reasons that aren't "Edgy, badass, GRRR, Toxic masculinity woooh" bullshit and I hate being dismissed as such.

So, here's why I do it:

First is because of general frustration at the dismissal of any incarnation of Batman, regardless of popularity, or ongoing presence in the main-line comics and timelines, being invalid. IE, the "HE's not the real Batman so he doesn't count" when he canonically is, & as done stuff like that.

60s/80s Batman smiles after sending a purse snatcher away in an Ambulance, kidnaps & others relies on torture style interrogations. Just like 90s/2000's Batman threatens people with assault in prison & looms over a Mugger he slammed so hard into a wall it left a giant blood splatter.

It is fair to ague that brutality is not all of what he is, that's valid. But that side of him is not something I feel one can just handwaved away as "not canon" & people doing so frustrate me in large part because it feels intellectually dishonest. Its refusing to engage with a metric ton of the canonical lore of a character they are discussing.

Secondly is the fact that a lot of the lore, history, character development, derailment, treatment, tone, framing and more for characters OTHER than Batman relies on him having a history of problematic behavior.

Cassandra basically living in a Bat-Cave with no civilian life or identity because Bruce is giving her what HE wants for himself even though its bad for both of them is just an example of a huge part of their dynamic. One that can be deeply damaging, self destructive and messy, but also makes perfect sense given the characters involved.

How Jason's entire shift in character and framing was done largely to insulate Bruce from criticism over his death, IE, Jason being characterized post death as violent, arrogant, not particularly bright and then coming back as a villain also ties into 20 something years of smearing his name to protect Bruce's.

Stephanie's entire character history begins falling apart if Batman doesn't treat her like the trash he did in canonical mainline comics, and leaves her with only a couple of borderline cameos at best. Hell, even 'new' stuff where he's "nicer" still has him do things like fake therapy appointments to trick her.

Hell, even Dick in a lot of incarnations as well as mainline comics at different times has a lot of issues that came from being raised/trained by Bruce. No, it isn't universal, but it is far too common & recurring of an element to just say "doesn't count!" & declare the discussion over.

& the thing is, when people say they want the "Real" batman or the "Good" Batman, they not only erase these characters histories. They don't replace it with anything worthwhile for anyone but Bruce himself.

If ignoring all that meant replacing it with stuff like Jason never died & or never became Red Hood & is a totally different character. Or Cassandra and Bruce having arcs about their obsessions with vigilantism at the expense of their personal lives, or Stephanie actually getting to be ROBIN. Then it would be something at least somewhat interesting to engage with. But they don't, instead Jason still became a supervillain & is the Red Hood, Stephanie still got fired if she was Robin at all.

They are either forgotten (Cass & Steph) or end up being warped (Jason) so their characters history, everything is different and all to better serve making Bruce look good. I really find it vexing that even in "Batman is not a jerk" stuff, he still warps the narrative to everyone else's detriments.

[shadycomputerpolice]

"Why are you so passionate about the Imane situation? I haven't seen you this passionate about anything like this on Tumblr. "

Firstly, there is precedence of the IOC letting males with DSD compete in women's categories. That is why I am frustrated by people trying to act like this is some Right Wing conspiracy theory. In addition, it is not the Imane situation, it is the males with DSDs competing in women's sports situation; to me, Imane and Lin Yu Ting are irrelevant to this debate. Plus, I am on leave so I have the free time.

Secondly, people trying to weaponise racism and homophobia in this discussion are trying to emotional blackmail people from having this relevant discussion. I understand some people are being weird by speculating about other WOC's sex but I am responsible only for what I post and reblog. While we are on the topic on racism and homophobia, I vividly remember when Caster Semanya's competitors were questioning Caster's sex and people were accusing them of racism, homophobia and hatred of GNC women. The same "train harder", "Karen", "white women tears" quips that people are using against Angela Carini and other female boxers now were used then. When their suspicions about Caster's sex was confirmed, silence and definitely no retractions and apologies. Many people do not follow sports so I guess many of you know nothing of that situation that is similar if not identical to this one but because I remember that situation, I am not going to cast aside the IBA's claims because of accusations of racism and homophobia.

As for the "you guys just hate GNC women" accusation, the IBA conducted two tests that they say makes the two athletes ineligible to compete against women. This is not a case of people are picking on GNC women who are living their lives for no just reason. The IBA's claims are why people are doubting the sex of those athletes. Are there some people doing that to some GNC female athletes, perhaps but it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that everyone having this discussion is like those people.

Thirdly and most importantly, I feel some of you are ignoring the fact that we are talking about a combat sport here. I don't think men should be competing in women's categories in any sport but especially not in combat sports. Do you know how dangerous that is for women? Do you know the short term and long term health impacts that could have on female athletes?Most males are inherently physically stronger than most females. If you believe acknowledging that is sexism then continue living in your delulu land and stop trying to comment on real life issues.

Also, this is not a case of females with high testosterone. I do not know where you people are getting that information because the IOC is not making that claim. They are saying their passports say female therefore they are female. So where is that information coming from?

The IBA has made a strong case with their evidence as much as they can legally because releasing personal medical records is illegal while the IOC has not made a strong case plus they do allow males to compete in women's categories if a sports governing body allows it. The reason for the clash with the IBA is because the IOC doesn't recognise the IBA as a sports governing body because of its ties with Russia.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

This post has been a long time coming but it's something I need to talk about. There is a general notion that is saying if you're not a liberal when you're young you don't have a heart and if you're not a conservative when you're old you have no brain. Or something generally to that effect one of the things that bothers me greatly, and why I generally agree and disagree with that sentiment, is because I don't think that it is a liberal principle to have sympathy and or empathy.

In the same vein I don't think that being a liberal excludes you from being intelligent. One of the things however, that I have noticed, is that it feels like modern liberals never grow up. They have this very strange believe that bleeding hearts empathy or sympathy makes them a better person. And what makes that particularly funny and interesting, is that it proves them to be moral busy bodies in the exact same way hypercurity Christians were in the 80s and 90s. Which if you really think about it makes a lot of sense. Because they would have been those same kinds of people if they had existed in the 80s and 90s. At least as older teens and or adults. The reason of course that I can prove this it's because back then those people were not really Christians in the actual sense of the phrasing. They were individuals we thought Christianity gave them a reason to moral grandstand and basically bully people into intellectual submission. And we see a lot of that today on the modern left.

To further this point I've recently seen several videos of people talking about how the American dream is dead. How they have X number of degrees and can't find a job, or that they make three times the minimum wage rate and still can't survive. And every time I hear these stories I kind of laugh a little bit. Not because I think it's hilariously funny. But more because I believe that it is generally humorous of the general ignorance of why this is. Recently I heard a couple talking in front of me to a Dollar general clerk. And they were talking about how the minimum wage for fast food workers in California was raised to $20 an hour and how companies were complaining that they weren't going to be making enough so they laid off workers. Something we knew that would be the case and no one listened. A lot of people generally blame capitalism for stuff like this. But that's because they have no idea how companies work, and also have no idea how economy works. Profit is something that generally gets reinvested. The reason for this is so that the company can continue to grow. because there's this weird idea that everyone outside of managers and CEOs at companies all just make dirt poor wages at minimum wage. Which is not only dishonest and not true but broadly ignorant in general. Backed up the matter is people need to that profit of a company does not just end up in the pockets of CEOs or board of directors.

A lot of very rich people in the world do not have access to most of their wealth. Because most of their wealth is actually tied to stocks. Those stocks are known as solid assets. And for those that know Jack squat about economy, that is an asset that is difficult to turn liquid at a moment's notice. And if you don't know what a solid asset is it is likely you also do not know what a liquid asset is. Liquid assets is basically money that you immediately have access to. IE money that you can spend at the drop of a dime. Most filthy rich people on Earth do not just have a billion dollars that they can spend at a moment's notice. So the idea that billionaires can just spend a billion dollars on something immediately is ignorant. Most of you need to learn more about the economy before you keep talking about stuff you have no clues about. When a person is deemed a millionaire it might be because they own a company. That company's worth could be 1.5 million dollars. Because that company is worth 1.5 million dollars the owner of said company is considered a millionaire by proxy.

And because it jeopardizes the wealth of others outright selling stocks in a company in a very quick manner can cause the price of said stocks to either plummet or skyrocket. Due to that there are government regulations that stop this from happening as much as the government is able to do so. That's important because people think that billionaires and millionaires just have immediate access to all of their worth. If I owned a million-dollar home that was gifted to me by a family member when they died, and I have a $50,000 car that I am making payments on. But, I am only making about $20 an hour. What then ends up happening is that the government can steal the home that was gifted from me because I likely would not be able to pay the property taxes on it. But until the government confiscated something that was not theirs, I would be considered a millionaire when I was not making more than 100K a year. And if you do the math I wouldn't even be making 80k a year. Because a metric crapton would be taken out in taxes.

So what is all this have to do with left and right? Well the answer is actually very simple. Leftists often no absolutely nothing about the economy. Though I should hold up just a second and I need to be fair. The reason I say leftist rather than left most of the time is because there is a difference between people on the left and leftists. Leftists are cultists who worship the fact that they are on the left and often a lot of their views are particularly far left. Because they have been inundated by communism and socialism as viable ideas despite the fact that both systems support slavery. Now, back to my point. Leftists mostly do not understand economy and it shows in the people that they vote for. They vote for slavery effectively. They want free money, they want free food, they want free houses, they want free everything. And it's because they think that they have a right to it. Now a lot of leftists will debate this point but it's just fact. Because they don't think anyone should ever have more than they do.

But one of the bigger issues is the fact that people have a tendency to not understand how to manage their own money and that's one of the larger problems. If you are a person who is barely making it from paycheck to paycheck, and you are not living in one of the most expensive cities in the United States, and I'll give another caveat of you're making more than $15 an hour. It is likely you are not managing your money properly. What do I mean by this exactly? So $100 at a grocery store will buy you significantly more food for you to eat, then if you go out for fast food. And a lot of people I personally know who complain about not having money order fast food. Unfortunately because of inflation fast food is more and more and more expensive every single day. And it's going to be funny watching those costs go up significantly higher and places like California because of the minimum wage fast food law where they expect fast food workers to be paid $20 an hour bare minimum. Now forgive me if I laugh my ass off at you if you are complaining about this while subsequently you voted for it. Every single vote for a socialist Democrat like Gavin newsom is a vote for the poor and low middle class to get more poor by the day.

Because if you honest to God believe that Democrats are going to forsake their Rich donors you are out of your mind. They will tell you until they are blue in the face, that they will destroy the rich and make them "pay their fair share". Meanwhile the amount in taxes that the rich are paying currently dwarfs with the other 98% of us pay in taxes. I would say that that's kind of unfair. Because effectively what you are saying is if you make more money that money should therefore be forfeited to the government to spend on things we don't need to spend it on. Which means money going to things you don't want them to go to. So congratulations to you leftists who hate Jews and hate israel. Because every single tax law you've ever voted for to increase the tax rates funded missiles that got dropped on Gaza. So if all of the Jews who have nothing to do with Israel in America are guilty of crimes that they didn't commit according to you you have blood on your hands for taking more money from American citizens for bombs that got dropped on a country who you wholesale support for no reason.

None of you pay attention at all. And it very much shows. Socialist policies do not do anything but destroy countries. Always have and always will. Because do you know one of your bastions of socialist healthcare Canada, is currently cheering on their government funded death care. What do you really know why? It's because their entire healthcare system has been flooded for years with people waiting weeks to months or longer for checkups. Or to have stuff taken care of that they need taken care of, forcing them often to have to find different hospitals that are less flooded or go to a privately funded hospital. But that wasn't the only reason that the Canadian government was praising their own government-funded death care. The other reason was because of how much money they're saving by killing people rather than helping them. Yes, you heard that correctly they are praising the fact that they now get to kill people because they can't continue to afford saving them. So much for your socialist healthcare right.

So let me basically lay this out in a way that makes sense. If you vote for leftist policies you vote for your own demise. If you are complaining about how expensive colleges the fault is Democrats. If you vote for raising the tax rates and watching your money get robbed from you, that is the fault of Democrats. If you are complaining that you cannot find a job at all with multiple degrees, that is the fault of Democrats. And if you truly and honestly want to know why, it is because they have allowed unchecked millions into the United States over the past few years, who they can hire for minimum wage because the government is literally giving them free money. They are fast tracking them to citizenship, and they are giving them all the free stuff that they possibly can so that they can be voted for. And to make this point absurdly clear Joe Biden's administration admitted to flying 300,000 plus people into the United States from foreign countries illegally and dropping them off in undisclosed locations around the US. Meanwhile also pushing a bill through the courts as hard as he can to make it so that non-citizens can immediately get citizenship and vote. If Donald Trump had done this you all on the left would literally be screaming for him to be hung. And yet you continually vote for your dollar to be worth less. You continually vote to not be able to find work. And you continually vote to be robbed blind by your own government thinking that you're going to go get those filthy rich people for being rich. Eat the Rich am I right?

Is any of this saying at all that the right does not do anything wrong? No it is not. The right has done their fair share of really dumb things. Republicans have done their fair share of really dumb things. But one of the dumbest things that the Republicans have done is not enforce rule of law. Another thing that leftists have voted against. Allowing criminals to get away based on their political ideology or the color of their skin. A black man who has BLM stapled all over all of his social media can literally go out and rape murder pillage and anything else and the entirety of the mainstream media will do all they can to hide his ethnicity or call him a brilliant talented scholar who was just misunderstood. But it's not just black either it's trans people it's LGB people it's anyone who is non-white. Unless it's a woman with a very flamboyant hair color that's not natural (caveat her being a leftist activist).

I'm generally sick of the ignorance of leftists and a lot of people who lean left. And it's just funnier and funnier and funnier every single day watching these people complain about stuff that they literally voted for. Unchecked immigration and lunatics in the street? Leftist policies. Have fun getting punched in the face. You're bleeding heart sympathy and empathy is not going to get you anywhere. And it doesn't help others. More often than not it actually harms them by enabling them to continue on very destructive paths. And honestly, as a person who leans left myself, it drives me nuts that I have to make posts like this at all. Because I would love for the Democrats to actually represent me as a person. I would love to have anyone represent me as a person. Unfortunately the only people that seem to do are Rand Paul and Ron Paul. With a few of the new blood Republicans leaning closer to how I view things than not. Because while they are conservatives they're not lunatics. And a large chunk of them are definitely not warhawks.

So keep whining on tick tock and Twitter and every other platform about how supposedly Republicans and conservatives are ruining your lives when literally every single thing that is ruining your life is literally a policy created by the left. (However, here is a honorable mention for the Republicans that voted for sending more billions of our dollars to foreign countries for wars we don't need to be involved in. Yeah fuck you guys too)

[kkoffin]

You were very clear about what you meant in your gender post. They have no argument so are choosing to ignore literally 99% of your post just to be annoying about one sentence.

the thing i love most about tumblr (which i still feel like i’m somewhat new to as a platform) is kind anons, because you know there’s no ulterior motive to their kindness, it’s just their genuine thoughts and a desire to share them - and it’s not like other anon platforms where the anonymity is only used to hide from consequences of hatred. Tumblr truely is a crazy platform to join after only being on instagram, tiktok, twitter etc. it’s like the communism of social media in the best way possible.

Anyways sorry for the yapping, you are right, and it is really frustrating. It’s just dishonest rhetoric, intending to derail the conversation and disregard every point made based on one, mostly irrelevant flaw. Whenever I see someone using tactics like that, I realise they are being intellectually dishonest, and have no interest in a genuine debate and sharing of thoughts. They just way a “TERF/Feminist owned!!” moment to show their friends. They aren’t worth arguing with, unless ur finding ur own joy in it, or intending for others to see it/get involved in the discussion. That person does not intend to learn anything, and you aren’t gonna get anywhere with them.

[hamliet]

Hi! Hope you are doing well. By any chance, have you happened to watch The Glory?

Oh no.

I say "oh no" because I have, in fact, watched Part 1. I will not be watching Part 2. And... my feelings on this story run long, and they run deep. I have only talked to two friends about it because my feelings are so unpopular but--

I hate The Glory. I truly, truly hate it as a story, as a piece of media, and I cannot for the life of me understand why it gets any praise at all.

Well, that's not fair, I guess. I can understand--it appeals to the id. But I still think people neglect critical thinking when it comes to this story, and as someone for whom this issue--bullying--is extremely personal in a lot of ways, I find it offensive.

*Also, I do want to acknowledge that there are absolutely cultural elements I am not familiar with. That said, I'm also not coming from "just googled it" when it comes to the specific cultural elements around bullying portrayed in The Glory; I do have experience there. However, I was not raised in this culture, so there are certainly many elements I'm missing*

Listen, I know I'm usually in the "fiction isn't reality!" camp, but I also always add that fiction doesn't happen in a vacuum. It is shaped by and therefore can shape reality. Lots of factors go in to determining how, and I do believe stories, especially those that deliberately try to be "issues" stories, should take care to be responsible. The Glory frames itself as an issues story, and it takes no care to be responsible whatsoever.

Yeah, yeah, it's a revenge story. But revenge stories, frankly, are very dull stories most of the time unless they are 1) shocking or 2) intellectually interesting. The Glory has no interest in provoking questions beyond the very basic "oh, did she go too far?"

The Glory in a rare category of my opinions where I think it is a bad story and the people who made it should reconsider their choices. It goes along with 13 Reasons Why in terms of how NOT to tell a story about an important issue, even if the makers are well intentioned (which I do think was the case for 13RW).* Not every way of bringing awareness to an issue is equal. There are irresponsible ways to talk about issues in fiction that actually reinforce harmful stereotypes, and that transcend the boundary between fiction and reality because the story is designed precisely to do so, and this is one of those cases.

*(Given what came out about the director of The Glory, it doesn't even seem like there was a good intention here. Also this was 0% shocking because the entire damn story is literally "How Bullies Think 101" but presenting it as how a victim thinks and without the self-awareness of calling that out. It's dishonest, unhealthy, irresponsible, shallow, and uses shock value to cover the fact that it has little depth. I hate to tell you but literally 99.99% of bullies think their victims deserve it. This could of course be an interesting meta commentary, but the story's not interested in anything deeper than "bullying bad," which everyone, even the worst of bullies, would say if you asked them if bullying is good or bad.)

So yeah. I hate The Glory.

I will say this: as someone who was bullied as a child, as someone who has worked with victims and with bullies themselves... The Glory is offensive, inhuman, and perpetuates every surface-level understanding of what bullying is, who perpetrates it, and who suffers from it. The reality is that portraying bullies as people who are just born bad is wrong. Morally, it's wrong. Issue-wise, it's unhelpful.

I could tell you stories that would make the abuse depicted in The Glory look tame. I could tell you what happened to those kids, and I could tell you about what it was like to protect kids from their bullies at the expense of my own wellbeing. I could tell you how helpless it feels when you know that other authority figures aren't just ignoring it, but actively contributing to bullying kids, and how many hours of sleep I lost working out plans to protect kids so that even if I couldn't save them, they knew someone cared. I'm still in touch with a lot of these kids today, actually.

I could also tell you what it was like to sit with those perpetrators and understand their lives, what motivated them, how goddamn scared and hurt they were, because hurting people hurt people, and know that I couldn't protect them the way every child deserves to be protected. When you've exhausted every legal avenue to save a kid who abused another and there's nothing you can do, how do you live with that? I could tell you what it was like to watch a child attempt suicide in front of me. Except I don't want to violate those kids any more.

I never met any kid whom I thought was doomed to be a perpetual victim or a perpetual bully. I did meet kids who were beyond my help, and the help my associates could get for them, but it should never have gotten to that point.

Even people who like to perpetuate the idea that rich kids are the problem--I've worked with kids who were literally royalty, who flew on private planes, whose parents are Important, and I've worked with the kids whose parents are coolies and who don't ever get fed at their home. You know what's remarkably similar about extreme wealth and extreme poverty? Attachment issues in their kids that lead to behavioral issues, because their parents aren't around for them physically or emotionally. Yes, rich kids still have more options, not denying that at all. But there's an interesting complexity here that could make for an interesting story, but The Glory is more "rich kids bad." Which is just not a particularly interesting or insightful commentary itself.

[onstoryladders]

Feel free to ignore this but your comment about the 911 fandom yesterday made me look into whatever the fuck was going on there (because I'm nosy and I don't like not knowing shit) and omg it IS so much worse than other fandoms I've been in! I wish I still didn't know shit!

Anyway, I also admire your self-confidence of finding yourself hot af and I aspire to be like that as well, so I wish you a nice day and all the love in the world ✨

Dear beloved anon why would I ever ignore this you're giving me an excuse to talk about my current fandom afflictions 💚

Honestly I had typed a whole rant but then decided to delete it because it was too much 😭 BUT I HAD FUN WRITING IT but anyway, in short, I think the major problems of the fandom are that 1) people are intellectually dishonest and feel the need to justify their opinions by twisting every scene to fit their narrative instead of just saying they dislike some stuff; 2) they keep using shipping as a way to measure other people's moral standards, which only feeds the general toxicity; 3) some people are outright bullies/straight up DERANGED and take things too far; 4) half of them don't know how to curate their online experience to save their life fr.

Anyway!

Aaaaaaaa I hope your confidence will grow and grow! One thing that helped me was looking at my reflection and complimenting me even when I didn't feel like it. Even now when I have a bad day and I look like DEATH I just smile at the mirror and say "you're so cute 😘" and even if I don't believe it it WORKS and makes me feel so much better. With time it got to the point that I genuinely like what I see in the mirror, which in turn makes me feel more confident, which in turn makes me like what I see more etc etc it's a virtuous circle!

Have an amazing dayweekmonthyeardecadeetc 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

[toxic-blogman]

wizard-antis is probably one of the worst antishippers on this site, through the sheer power of being one of the most intellectually dishonest individuals I’ve ever seen. On the surface it’s just very elaborately presented disinformation and bad faith arguments, but they go far beyond that. They put insane levels of effort into echo chamber reinforcement - no one is allowed to disagree with them, and disagreement with them is posited as some kind of egregious offense in and of itself. They also make very sure to suppress any dissent from ever being seen. What’s particularly insidious is the way they will respond to reblogs and asks - reblogs and asks are deleted and blocked, then responded to in a completely fresh post.  The purpose of this is threefold - ensures the argument against them is never seen, gives wizard-antis a totally free pass to construct and attack whatever strawman they feel like, and they can just ignore any points made that are inconvenient to them. They’ve also begun cultivating an open blocklist of non-antis. It’s almost certainly part of the echo chamber thing, but someone is guaranteed to use it as a harassment target list at some point. If you are proship or profiction and do not want to be harassed, it might be a good idea to block them as well as magicalproshipblocklist. 

[collymore]

War! What is it good for?

By Stanley Collymore

The egos of self-entitled, totally   unwarrantedly privileged and   invariably also exceedingly   wealthy, power hungry and rather evilly   obsessed men and women, who have   in spite of what they already crucially   unnecessarily have, still quite simply   literally avariciously feel that they're   so absolutely and unstintingly also,   personally and obligatorily, fittingly   entitled to undeniably much more;   and consequently all those whom   they readily utilize, as their Useful   Idiots, likewise too their distinctly   evidently, fatuously brownnosing   sycophants and the plethora too   of disturbingly sick, significantly   intellectually challenged, simply   brainwashed, and unmistakably   pathetically gullible pillocks are   perfectly, therefore, appropriate   specimens to literally arbitrarily   and repeatedly use in their very   compulsively recurrently quest   for that unquestionably, wholly   distinctive influence; a fervent,   crucial step towards acquiring   greater wealth and undeniably   untrammelled power; vis-a-vis   the heartless outcome of war.

Very well aware - of course - that   it wouldn't be themselves who   will essentially, really suffer   either physically or psychologically as   a result of these pre-planned, military campaigns of theirs that they clearly   patently rather needlessly effectively   shouldn't be organizing but crucially   all the same do simply aggressively initiate; but conflicts that literally of   themselves are also, never inimical   to those who're instigatory of them   although the same, very irrefutably   can not be honestly said for all the   sane and effectively other hapless victims, that through the ludicrous   virtue signalling behaviour; simply   outright hypocrisy and undeniably   really compulsive, war mongering   activities, of these influential men   and women, irrefutably do ensure   that not only themselves but also   similarly and very specifically too   their rabidly avaricious billionaire   controllers, and clique of wealthy   one percenters remain in literally   excellent good health financially!  

And who most essentially are to be blamed for all of this? Well,   as I see it, those who're very   knowledgeably so governments; clearly   people rather undeniably, in essentially   rather powerful positions of authority;   also the ones basically making those   decisions that crucially relate to war;   while absolutely, in marked contrast   it's always the innocent civilians, on   both sides of such stupid conflicts,   who pay the price with unrelenting,   and similarly philosophical regrets.

(C) Stanley V. Collymore 13 October 2023.

Author's Remarks:   Everyone needs to be educated with facts; not through dishonest, deceitful, disingenuous and outright lying, virtue signalling. As all honest, well-informed persons know the true origins of what's going on in Palestine, a continuation of what's been occurring for quite some time now. And no amount of blatantly contrived mass hysteria by hypocritical media outlets: the print as well as the electronic versions, is going to change that! Just the truth, and quite honestly also rectifying past and still discernibly ongoing wrongs.

No different, this state of affairs, from the vestiges of uncaringly and thus as well, the obvious, purposely unresolved injustices, unquestionably pertaining to the Transatlantic Slave Trade barbarity which most consciously and for profit similarly and barbarically began in my ancestral homeland of Barbados. And we know who started and profitably too benefitted quite enormously from that!   And not to even acknowledge let alone seek to honestly rectify the wrongs that have been perpetrated, and still literally are, in Palestine while vaingloriously as well as hypocritically virtual signalling for one's own preferred side is actually therefore as patently crass as basically deliberately ignoring the odious and evil crimes of Jimmy Savile on the evidently ludicrous basis that he effectively also did lots of charitable work and was too involved in many good public causes!

Only in the sick minds of the viciously and acquisitively psychotic is justice for the justly aggrieved ever seen and regarded as unquestionably unrealistic!

[butch-reidentified]

You did say "if any masc woman was going to run into this issue in a public restroom, I'd be shocked it was never me," which strongly implied you don't believe it happens, or are at least not inclined to believe it. Shrug though

in the context of also saying "If OP is going to claim that this phenomenon is really happening (and by happening, I don't just mean once or twice, but rather to claim that it's an actual phenomenon...." and "I find it very hard to believe that this is happening with any degree of significance. And whatever degree it is actually happening..." which repeatedly put the focus on the difference between something happening at all, and something happening so much that it presents a real and pressing matter that needs addressing. To ignore these things in that same post in favor of quoting a part you feel /implied/ that I don't believe it ever happens is intellectually dishonest tbth.

there is too much of this latching on to small aspects of wording of posts while disregarding relevant context (or even just common sense in some cases) that goes on online these days imho, and I usually see it in cases (like this) where it's being used to justify coming to the most negative conclusion rather than give a modicum of benefit of the doubt. this cannot be a healthy or enjoyable way to consume content. it would be absolutely ridiculous for anyone to claim that this has LITERALLY NEVER happened. there's over 8 billion ppl on earth. pretty much everything that can happen interpersonally, happens sometimes. you have to know that I am an adult with a functioning brain who is aware of that, but I don't feel a need to put a whole disclaimer on every post saying as much.

why did you feel the need to send this (and be passive aggressive with it) after I told anon exactly what I did and did not mean with that post? this is a completely genuine question, I'm just unclear what this ask is meant to accomplish

[whatwasupthere]

Talking about the UFO phenomenon feels helpful. I do research, but it's not as intensive as I might like, since I work full time. I can tell the difference between genuine and guff, and I know when somebody's trying to sell me something. What's nice is that honing those skills allows me to relate topics I'm interested in toward more educated friends, and hear their perspective.

Recently I was talking with a friend, and came to realize that I may lack a certain amount of agency. Or at the very least, I choose to stand in ignorance rather than pretend at certainty at a rate that might be a tad higher than the average person.

For example, there's a question of god. What god is, where god is, that sort of thing. My friend is a very intelligent person, and sees that question as reductive- and you can see why. If you have a "god of the gaps," as some like to call it, it removes some of the burden of trying to explain the material, the intellectual, the emotional, even the spiritual. My friend rightly observes that assigning a god to these things needing explanation makes them look and feel and read a lot smoother.

But my position is that, standing where I stand- literally, physically, smaller than the smallest pixel that makes up our pale blue dot, I've got a lot of audacity to assign godhood to anything. Whatever I choose is suddenly responsible, accountable, and the solution to all sorts of things- if I name a distant star "god," I'm making it responsible for prayers, for wars, for weather, for cycles of life and death- and if I choose that, I've changed the way that thing can affect me. It's god now, and not an interesting rock or a broiling hydrogen crucible, and that means I turn in its direction whenever I need answers.

And I may get the wrong answers, since- how much could a distant star or planet know about me? About my health or money or mind? If I try to interpret answers to those questions based on its behavior, well, I'm making existing in the universe worse for both of us. I shouldn't be taking financial advice from a fission reaction, and no random celestial body should be saddled with the impossible burden of helping an outrageously distant stranger in so many ways.

You might be wondering how this sort of thing relates to UFOs, so I'll put it plainly as I can- since I'm not a telepath and can only be accountable for my individual self, it feels wrong to try and assign motive to extraterrestrial visitors, whoever they may be. I watched "Nope" and was completely fascinated by the creature in it, but felt the same way- I can only ever understand this thing peripherally. I can find out what it eats, how it moves, where it stays- but until it and I share a common medium of communication, I can only ever guess at what it knows or what its motives are- and guessing like that, then telling other people, simply feels dishonest.

I don't know what goes on in an abduction. But I hope there's a grain of truth to the stories I've heard on Art Bell about being taken up to learn something. One man claimed he was taken up regularly to learn complex symbology, that- when understood- could impart a huge amount of subject matter with just one precise symbol.

Maybe we're Koko the Gorilla. --And I know that a great deal of her story was exaggerated. But if they're making stops, communicating information, and then returning us to our habitat with some education and new things to think about... then maybe that's what all this could be building up to. And understand, I'm freehand speculating, that's just an optimistic take, what I hope could happen.

That's why I like Bob Lazar so much. My dad saw a vessel, not who was piloting it. A vessel is so much more material than a language or a concept or a culture or a history. You can take its measurements, produce replicable results with its parts- and what there is to perceive and understand is finite. Bob never embellished his story because that's all there was to say, that was the limit of his knowledge and he didn't assign the subject of that knowledge any qualities it didn't have.

Whatever's up there, I'd be happy just to know what it is. Where it comes from and what the pilot wants, I'll leave up to them to tell me, if the time comes.

[tinynebula]

So i watched encanto and you are so right. I also think the movie feels a lot like the way descendents of immigrants imagine the country where their family originated.

Like encanto is soo bland, and i think part of it that it is literally isolated from the rest of humanity. It ignores everything that makes latam, latam, and instead presents a purified version that lacks all the good and the bad things of our countries.

Its all looks no substance. Just pure aesthetics, and honestly feels soooo dishonest. Also, the gringo gaze thing you said is spot on.

i think there are two things going on at the same time with movies like encanto, or whatever projects d*sney regurgitates about non-usamerican cultures. one, that they're never going to make something of substance or that it takes a real political stance because it goes against profit, much less with anything regarding latinamerica since d*sney has been feeding on the interventionist propaganda of south america since ww2. second, it's impossible to make a modern hero's journey movie set in latam because this type of story goes attached to a certain worldview (the worldview that sells you that with enough work and dedication you can change the world, which is basically the capitalist american dream they've been selling for a century now) and that worldview is contradictory with our reality. there is no work hard enough that can change the interest of neo-colonialism. there is no generational status quo that can change the sociopolitical structure of a society built on top of civil wars and dictatorships. that's not how it works, because we essentially don't see the world that way. you listen to any latine media (movies, songs, poetry, art) and there are common themes that show our worldview, like the big boot hanging over our heads waiting to crush us like an ant. it's a very simple analogy, you can guess who is the boot and who is the ant. and you can't be a hero capable of transforming the world when you're just an ant. (this doesn't mean we don't have our types of heroes or our own understanding of triumph against evil, we absolutely do, it's just not compatible with the traditional hero's journey.) and on top of all of that, a story about "generational trauma" that explicitly talks about crushing expectations to fit in, assimilate, and grow beyond the previous generation is a story about immigrants in a prosperous economy, not a story about any sort of generational trauma in latam. our generational trauma looks a lot more like "we lost an entire generation of scientist, intellectuals, artists, activists, to state terrorism, all who would have been the the leaders of today, so our generation is now lost in a vacuum where we technically have it easier but at the same time we have no model to follow. how do you build a society out of that?" a story like encanto feels empty because it's just fantasy (a genre we already explored and improved on with magical realism, which is actually a reflection of our worldview, has multiple layers that speak to adults and children alike) trying to sell you a type of worldview we latines realized was horseshit 80 years ago. i could go on for hours about how inserting a fantasy story in a setting that already has magical realism is like trying to tell a cyberpunk story with the conventions of medieval novellas. it's old, it's out of place, it doesn't work with the context, and in the end it goes against the very premise of the story.

[nierreplicantver122474487239]

(serious thoughts about the k/fka blog)

I never really started the blog with specific goals or guidelines in mind but generally speaking these were things I tried to promote

a sense of humor

being an autodidact (to the degree that someone who went to public high school can be an autodidact)

critical eye towards the cultural establishment (the actual establishment based on practices and institutions founded by like European nobility and the Catholic Church not ghostwriters being paid by the word)

he's not a remote figure

obviously none of these things are possible or palatable in the current climate which seems to be half last-minute power grab before the perceived rapture and half weird gay people looking for even weirder and gayer people to bully. this would be less of a problem if 1. people responded by actually participating in the serious quote/analysis parts of the blog and 2. it didn't create a massive vacuum that misc. reactionaries could astral project into. literally the only people left on the blog are people who think he's a representative of whatever genocidal pet project they have in mind and people who are so obsessed with cultivating this proper intellectual image they can't handle the parts of him that aren't perfectly beautiful and victimlike. like benjamin's essay about the 10th anniversary of his death isn't even particularly nasty or irreverent and it's still not as appealing to the "snobs" as a random flowery snippet from the letters. it's just so deeply dishonest and not good for the environment. why are you blowing a gasket about how it's racist to relate to him on a personal level when you're spamming the crying uwu emoji in every brod post and completely ignoring all the birds-eye view posts about the state of austro-hungarian medicine or the publishing industry in fin de siecle prague. you do realize that there is a person on the other end of this that can see your activity

and of course throughout all of this there's a bunch of people trying to be friends with me or looking up to me as some kind of political/moral paragon while being blissfully unaware of the fact that I'm actually in (insert group) that they wanted against the wall yesterday. this has sort of been a running theme with my germanistik experience where competence in western art forms/languages has frequently been the only thing separating me from being treated like complete garbage (or in the case of vienna, the only thing keeping me from being assaulted) and the feeling doesn't get less creepy the more times it happens. I neither like nor trust using him as a shield as he wasn't able to really defend himself this way in life and there's no reason to believe it'll work out better in death. I mean I personally know and understand that there are external points of contact and similarity between the two of us that would justify me relating to him on a human level in front of any sane historian but the people who are making a half-living panicking about bad femininity and autism are generally not historians or operating in good faith when it comes to history.

in conclusion the situationists were right and I'm gonna do my best to end the blog on a bad note and then it's just gonna be my private archive for all the clippings I've accumulated over the past 6 years. it would be kind of fitting for the blog to begin with a stalking incident and end with a completely different stalking incident but I'm gonna hope that people have moved on. or not,

[problematiquebitch]

Honestly I think many of the white people and "people of color" have no idea how to interact with black people and honestly it shows.

I like how people feel entitled to us and only use us as arguing points but as soon as we express an opinion or don't kiss ass it becomes an off with our head deal.

I think it's interesting how many people will sit here and run these black people are sensitive narratives when in all seriousness I fullheartedly believe black people are some of the strongest people you will ever meet when it comes to overcoming adversity and strife.

Y'all act as though history is a vaccum and try to downplay slavery and the aftermath but fail to understand the lasting implications of it and then try to blame issues such as racism continuously on black people when racism was a dividing force European aristocrats created to keep the poor from rebelling.

Even when we step aside from slavery the fact that many of you will be blind and turn a blind eye to everything that happened after June 19, 1865 and just ignore the history of what happened after as though history acts within a vaccum is extremely intellectually dishonest.

Granted I understand that discourse is discourse however, many of y'all should not be discoursing because none of y'all are trying to learn or be educated. Y'all just want to feel superior and be that mean girl no one let you be in highschool because you were a loser.

There are certain levels of maturity we all need to reach and I personally believe that one concept many people in general need to learn is the concept of understanding things and then going on to not agree with it.

Y'all may think this is a late night ramble but no this is literally spurred on from me because someone on the bird app had the fucking audacity to sit and circle jerk and say that a black person was too attention seeking because they posted about their night and they were crying because a man he approached said he was too fat and black to be asking anyone out.

I genuinely think that people who say racism isn't real or try to derail and argument and go on about racism towards white people need to stop because they aren't adding on to the conversation they're trying to derail and emotionally gaslight a sensitive issue as to not talk about an issue.

Y'all scream words like antiblackness are made up when they are words to describe a behavior that has been around and existed for decades it was just never names and put under the umbrella of racism.

Getting racial slurs thrown at you for making someone mad is not fucking normal. Saying that someone is a burnt black bitch is not fucking normal. Saying that black women and men are inherently ugly meanwhile feeling entitled to our bodies to make you feel better about yourself is not fucking normal.

Until we can get to a point in which we are able to calmly or even get the chance to talk about real life issues without being condescending and acting smug don't expect anything other than violence from me because y'all clearly have no fucking issue dishing it out so don't get upset when I dish it back.

[noethicalconsumptionunderdisney]

Hogwarts Sorting Profile: Max Russo

So, confession time: Initially, I wasn’t actually planning on writing one of these for him.  I’m sorry!  I love Max, but he’s often in the background of Wizards of Waverly Place and just has these really random plots thrown in his direction, rather than interesting character-exploration-type shit like the main sibs.  (Which, to be fair, is probably why some of y’all might be curious what I’m going to say about him.)

But I was thinking about what makes Max so odd as a character, and specifically I was thinking about him in comparison to other characters of his archetype in the Disney Channel-verse.  Because we’ve seen the messy, funny, underachieving brother character a lot, but they come in very different flavors.  Part of that for Max is that he shares some of those traits with Alex in contrast to the overachieving, overly serious Justin, but part of that is… Max often seems to be in his own little world, incomprehensible to mortals and wizards alike, and generally takes in the “real-world” around him with a shrug.  He still cares about the “real-world” when it suits him, but he’s often kind of divorced from it, and that discovery fascinated me.  Furthermore, it made his Sorting “click.”

We’ll start off easy: what does Max do?  The answer is… he’ll do pretty much anything.  He’s not a Burned Secondary, though, he just doesn’t give a fuck.  Max is every bit the Slytherin Secondary that Alex is, we just don’t usually notice because he spends most of his time in his Neutral State.

The Slytherin Secondary’s Neutral State is blunt, rough, and often unphased by stepping on people’s toes. It’s easy to mistake this for a Gryffindor Secondary’s honesty, but it comes from a different place: comfort, relaxation, and/or apathy.  It doesn’t inspire or motivate so much as sit back and do as it pleases, and the Neutral State’s honesty is there for convenience rather than necessity— if a different tactic will work better, a Slytherin Secondary can ditch their honesty and change direction far more easily than a Gryffindor Secondary.

Max isn’t exactly shy about saying what’s on his mind, even if it’s usually dismissed as nonsense.  He also does seem to charge into situations without a care sometimes, but that’s the thing: he’s able to charge into those situations because he doesn’t care.  When he tests out the zombies’ No-Fear Ring, it doesn’t work on him because he’s already fearless.  So while some Slytherin Secondaries are nervous about showing their honesty to others and only show their Neutral State when they’re home safe with people they’re comfortable with, Max lives in his honest Neutral State because he feels comfortable and safe most of the time… even in situations where he really, really shouldn’t.

Curiously, one situation where he doesn’t feel comfortable or safe has very little to do with actual danger, but about personal identity: when he’s turned into Maxine.  And in Maxine’s body, he’s a lot more manipulative.

“You know, I can’t help it if people think I’m cute.  Watch how I make it work for me.”

As Maxine, he uses his cuteness to get out of chores, to get revenge on Alex and Justin in karate, to guilt dishonest customers out of cheating his parents, and comes up with a plan to talk his “boy self” up to a girl he likes as Maxine so that she’ll like him when he changes back.  Yeah, can’t imagine why Maxine reminded Jerry and Theresa so much of Alex…

But there are Slytherin Secondary indications from Max in his usual form as well.

He has no qualms about outright lying — inventing a fake illness to get out of P.E., pretending to be “Tom Sawyer” so he wouldn’t be embarrassed by/compared to his family — but he prefers obfuscation, aka confusing people with his “Max-ness.”

“How do you get your brother to say what’s really on his mind?”

“Oh, I use randomness.”

“What?”

“Well, I just say random things and while people are trying to figure it out, they say stuff that’s on their mind.”

One example of this tactic being employed successfully is with the Genie.  While Alex fails to outsmart the Genie using her quick wits, as the Genie is every bit as cunning as her, Max figures out a way to piss off the Genie enough to blackmail her, then talks circles around her and confuses her until she reveals a way for them to undo her wishes.  Alex calls it “outdumbing” her, but in any case, he succeeded where she failed, and showed that he’s more capable than often assumed.

We get another rare moment of clarity from Max during “Alex Tells The World.”  

“Alex, you know you can’t reveal magic!”

“Oh, even I know that. That’s why I just make people think I’m dumb so if I slip up, ehh, they figure, the kid’s an idiot.  And I slip up all the time, so.  Who’s dumb now?”

Max’s admission that he “slips up all the time” isn’t exactly reassuring, but it is telling that he’s the only one who doesn’t reveal magic during both the Season 4 Premiere and the Season 3 Finale.  Perhaps it was dumb luck that got him there, but I think there’s more to it than that.  There’s a method to his madness.  There’s a logic to it, even if Max’s logic often doesn’t follow all the way through.

Which leads me to his Primary— Ravenclaw.  (LOOK I KNOW. HEAR ME OUT.)

Yes, Max is often seen as “the dumb one.”  Yes, Ravenclaws are perceived as “the smart house.”  And while I’ve just demonstrated that there’s a brain under all the Max weirdness, I’m not about to argue that he’s secretly a genius.  He misses the mark more often than he hits it, and oftentimes when he hits it, it’s through coincidence or dumb luck or Insane Troll Logic that’s impossible for anyone but Max to follow.  But I do believe he operates on logic, just his own wacky version of it.

The thing about Max is that he’s neither as dumb as most people think he is, nor is he as smart as he thinks he is.  He’s somewhere in between, and the fact that people never quite know where exactly he falls on that scale is kind of the point.

In fact, part of the reason I struggled with Max was because I was trying to figure out where exactly he did fit in:

He can be selfish enough at times to argue Slytherin Primary, the stereotypically “selfish” House, but he’s missing Justin’s protective streak.  He doesn’t feel that same sense of duty towards his family that Justin does; when Mason breaks Alex’s heart in “Wizards vs. Werewolves,” Justin turns on him instantly because he Hurt His Little Sister And Is Therefore Bad, while Max is the one most willing to give Mason a chance, because he has his own reasons for wanting Mason in his life.  Yet, he still clearly cares enough about his family to rule out the possibility that they don’t factor into his morality at all, not to mention how easy it is for them to influence him.  

His more humble ending of inheriting his father’s sub shop might make people think Hufflepuff Primary, but there’s even less justification for such a sorting upon scrutiny.  As I’ve touched on above, the staunch loyalty to community isn’t all that important to him, and he’s also not all that into traditions.  There’s no compulsion to help strangers, he doesn’t really make enemies but he kind of just ignores people he doesn’t like (or shatters them in a million pieces on accident), and let’s not forget that he unleashed countless monsters in New York City that killed all the Monster Hunters just to win the competition… even if he did do it when his Conscience was separate from the rest of him.  Not exactly behavior you’d expect from the morality system of “a person’s a person no matter how small.”

Speaking of Conscience, it’s notable that he argues with it, rather than accepting his advice. I’m still a little unclear as to how much this matters (there’s definitely room to argue that most of his brain went into Conscience as well, and that whole plotline was… weird), but even with his Conscience inside his body, he seems to lack that moral drive Alex has.  Gryffindor Primaries have this embedded sense of justice deep within their characters. Even when it’s hidden most of the time, like in Alex’s case, or when it becomes twisted into something dark and dangerous, or becomes Stripped of its certainty, there’s still this sense that there is Right and Wrong in this world, that trusting your gut should lead you to the right conclusion, and that it’s wrong to ignore it.  I have a hard time remembering if there’s really any situation where Max gets that gut feeling of Something Being Wrong at all, much less acting on it with a Heroic Plan… at least, not without convincing.

But Max can be convinced, and that’s key.  Alex often takes advantage of this to manipulate him for her own selfish ends, such as talking him into paying her for handing out fliers to her zombie prom, but more often it’s his parents that act as his voice of reason, whether it’s convincing him to go after the “deli robber,” convincing him to give his siblings a fair shot at the Wizard Competition, or convincing him to tell his girlfriend the truth… and then unconvincing him of that when he takes it too literally and tells her he’s a wizard.  

Actually, Max is prone to misinterpreting advice in this way while trying to follow it to the letter— he does this when he tries to sell fountain water with a puppy, as well, because his mom told him to “add something to it.”  I think he is, to an extent, aware of his own intellectual limits.  He knows he misses the mark a lot of the time, so he’s often willing to trust other people’s judgment over his own, so long as they can get it through to him in a way that he thinks makes sense.

But beyond that, he’s often willing to question “common knowledge” in a way the other characters don’t. When Justin tries to tell him he can’t make life out of the stuff from his room, he simply replies, “Where’s it say that?”  In season 4, when there’s a distinct possibility that he’ll win the competition, he expands the sub shop business by making the Wizard Portal into a Drive-Thru, which genuinely worked as a business plan until Jerry took it too far.  Later that season, he saves his siblings by creating a black hole and then jumping through it to pull them to safety from the black hole in Alex’s apartment.  Like, that was his idea.  He came up with that.  It was weird, it was risky, it was unconventional, it could’ve been incredibly stupid… and it worked.

And that’s what I keep coming back to with this Ravenclaw Primary sorting— that sense of ingenuity, curiosity, and the willingness to experiment.  On one hand, you have your System Claws, who are dedicated to The Rules because they’ve been convinced that living by them is The Best Way To Live, and on the other hand, you have those that are willing to challenge conventional wisdom and try new things.  It’s this willingness to question that I personally attribute to a Ravenclaw mentality, rather than inherent intellectual ability or a large knowledgebase.  While Max may not have the latter, he has the former in spades, and that, more than anything, is really what told me that he truly belongs here.

Conclusion:

Max Russo is a Ravenclaw Primary and a Slytherin Secondary.

As a Slytherin Secondary, Max often likes to confuse and obfuscate to get what he wants, is flexible in his methods, and can even be manipulative when he wants to be.  He’s also relatively comfortable with himself, thus he often lives in a Neutral State where he says whatever’s on his mind without thinking much about danger or whether he’ll be understood.

His Ravenclaw Primary is as curious as it is undefined, and operates on a logic that only Max truly understands.  While this leads him astray more often than not, this also allows him to break from tradition and try new things, and this unconventional thinking can sometimes lead to better solutions than anyone else could’ve come up with.  However, it also comes with a set of brakes in the form of taking input from others.  It’s not always easy to get through to Max, but he can be reasoned with, which in his case, is probably for the best. 

In this combination, we find a character who truly dances to the beat of his own drum.  As the most flexible Secondary and Primary, respectively, Max is a conundrum to most who meet him, confusing even to those who know him best.  That said, being the Russo who “goes with the flow” the most often, he’s also probably the Russo that has the most fun.  He’s certainly more fun to write about than I was expecting him to be!  I’m glad I did, and it’s good to be back.