#the whole thing is about class and privilege and oppressive systems

[fredtheengels]

i’m not here to do discourse but king wilhelm truthers are the funniest people how do you misread a show that badly

[shitpostingsapphic]

You know a character is overhated when people have to make up shit that didn't happen on order to justify that hatred.

"Caitlyn gassed the whole city of Zaun" wrong. She uses the grey as a weapon to incapacitate the chembarons in their hideouts, specifically. The montage SHOWS us this. She does this in a strike team she creates as a means to avoid an all out invasion led by the Noxian forces, which would have meant the deaths of several innocents. Even if the grey might have spread minutely to affect civilians, the chances are slim, and the grey is nothing more than factory smaug. Objectively, a handful of civilians breathing factory smaug for a brief amount of time is worlds better than numerous innocent people dying. Even in her rage, Caitlyn knows mercy.

And I guess these same people falsely overstating Caitlyn's actions don't want to talk about Jinx using gas bombs indiscriminately on the entirety of Piltover, intentionally harming innocent civilians. Or that her fishbones blast ALSO killed innocents.

No, I guess we only want to talk about the intentional harming of innocent people if it's Caitlyn doing it, and you have to outright lie about her intentions and the severity of which she acts in order to do so.

And the thing is, when you do shit like this, it makes it impossible to talk about other characters, like Jinx, their faults, their good and bad, without then making others assume that their character deserves hate the way you hate Caitlyn. I love Jinx. She's a fantastically written character. But I call out her actions and the way she harms others and you assume I'm calling her a bad character undeserving of an audience's love, right? The way you are with Caitlyn?

Arcane is supposed to be a show where we're able to discuss the spectrum of morality. And it's actually done phenomenally well, but people like you want to look at things in a very black and white way. You're looking at it on a class based system. If someone is from Piltover, no good deeds they do can be considered if they do something bad. If they're from Zaun, every evil thing they do must be defended in some way. Because privilege and oppression are the ultimate markers of good and evil to you. There's no complexity to be had there for you. People of privilege can't feel pain. Oppressed people can't cause pain.

It's narrow minded.

I love Arcane because we CAN discuss this complexity that exists. And I guess it makes sense why you hate season 2, because it made it impossible for you to stay with your narrow minded way of thinking.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

One of the more interesting theories I've seen is "The Arcane is a metaphor for The Narrative, and Act 3 is about the characters breaking away from the path the Arcane set for them". (Admittedly, there's still a good chance that they're going to become something close to their League selves, but for the sake of the fic, "League Canon" is different from "The Predetermined Path The Arcane Has In Mind".)

I mean, that's definitely A Way™ to try and thematically integrate something like Ekko's time travel into the story... but I don't think they should or will do that, because it kinda flies in the face of everything Arcane has otherwise been about.

Arcane has been about how class and systems of power push people to act in certain ways, it has been about privilege and deprivation, it has been about how cycles of violence and trauma forcibly replicate themselves under oppression, and it has been about the ways in which all of those things can push people to become the worst versions of themselves with the absolute best of intentions.

See Silco and Vander both acting out of love for their cities to try and make the best future they can for their children and fellow citizens, and the consequences of both their methods. See Viktor and Jayce trying their damndest to invent something that will make the world better, vs the pain and devastation their Hextech causes in the world.

Season 2 goes HARD on this too - Caitlyn being enabled and very actively pushed by her class position to turn her grief and trauma into authoritarian oppression, Vi letting guilt and obligation push her into becoming a part of it "for the greater good" because she's desperately trying to live up to what Vander taught her by example.

And saying "ah, no wait actually, it is The Narrative Of The Fiction that is causing this to happen to us!" very badly undercuts all of that. The whole narrative up until this point has been about how bad systems make monsters out of good people, and to pull back the curtain, Wizard of Oz style, and find that it was just A Guy doing it, some wilful entity imposing a narrative on the world... that's a very different kind of story.

At worst, it would turn Arcane into metanarrative wank - a corporation jerking itself off over its IPs and cinematic universe, or writers jerking themselves off over how important and powerful writing is, why, it is the most powerful force in the entire world of our fiction! (looking at you, Game of Thrones Season 8).

From the very start, what I have feared the most is that Riot would turn Arcane into a story not about its characters, but a story about the League of Legends™ family of exciting and highly engaging intellectual properties which we are excited to leverage in a cross-brand synergistic market activation. A story whose ultimate point is "buy League of Legends skins and get excited for Phase 2 of the League of Legends Cinematic Universe!"

So yeah... I would like The Arcane to be a thing inside of its own universe and bound by its rules, not a thing which represents the commercial concerns of the world we live in. I hope you are not correct about that interpretation.

[mochifiction]

I Saw Transformers One Early Last Week. Let’s Talk About It!!! (SPOILER FREE)

EXPECTATIONS

I’m going to be honest, I had very very low expectations for this movie for a multitude of reasons. The first was the cast, particularly choosing celebrity hires instead of professional voice actors for a franchise where dialogue delivery means SO MUCH historically and the present. I like Chris Hemsworth, I do, but I am so attached to Orion Pax that I did NOT see him as someone fit for the role. I was also afraid of it becoming a WFC situation where the VA tries TOO HARD to be Peter Cullen. I am also a huge fan of Elita One, and Scarlett Johansson was not my first choice by any means. The one thing giving me hope was the fact that Scarlett and Chris interact SO WELL in their films together and in press releases and they do give off that Orion and Elita energy sometimes. Regardless, I was skeptical.

Now for the big thing: I was very nervous how they were going to handle the politics and the buildup that leads to Megatronus and Orion’s separation. It is no secret that Pre-War Cybertron in many continuities begins with a very corrupt and fascist Senate. Corrupted Senators, capitalistic manipulation and unethical abuse, dehumanization, corporal punishment, you name it, Cybertron had it. The concepts of functionalism, shadowplay, mnemosurgery, and empurata also come to mind. It is also no secret that the United States is on the brink of total fascism. A lot of Pre-War Cybertron’s themes, particularly the Decepticon cause in its early days as a movement, emphasized the elimination of the oppressive regime and reconstruction with an end to the very infrastructure that caused class division and brutalization of Cybertronian bodies. Not only this, but Megatronus and Orion’s schism often comes because of class, particularly privilege and lack thereof, which is something that often happens in revolution. Those with more privilege often think that reform can happen underneath the system that looms over them, just with a switching of a guard and elimination of a few policies. They are often ones who partook in and benefitted from the system by birth or for the sake of survival. Those who come from the lower classes want to burn the entire system down, understanding in its entirety that its very infrastructure is unstable and is not sustainable, no matter who is in power. Examples of this divide despite deep friendship and similar ideas is Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal of the Philippines (as a Filipino). Orion, in most cases coming from a privileged background, saw hope in simple reform after extracting the corrupt portions of the federal structure. Megatronus, who fought his whole life to be deemed as sentient, understood that the entire system was diseased and could not go on. It would just eventually continue its horrid practices. I can go on a tangent about this, as someone who studies and writes on anti-colonialism, but that’s another post for another day. My concern based on the trailers was that it would address NONE of that and there would be some watered down conflict that removed the nuances and political passion behind a lot of other continuities. The trailers, to me, were not giving me enough proof that it would be handled correctly.

Initial Experience

My theater was filled with mostly adults of various ages who were fans of different continuities. Some people were even talking about how they thought the movie was going to suck, including me with my dad, who has been a fan since G1 in the 80s and was going in blind. However, throughout the entire film, the whole theater was laughing, gasping, cheering, clapping, and screaming. Afterwards, there were people who were literally talking about how it was the movie they’d been waiting for after years of disappointment. Someone literally shouted when leaving the theater that he was so excited for September when everyone else could see it. My dad, who has not been a fan of recent Transformers material, talked nonstop about how much he loved it. Me personally, I was BRIMMING with excitement afterwards, which is huge given that I was ready to criticize the movie’s every move. Let me get into why- note this is SPOILER FREE.

Orion Pax

Believe it or not, I really liked TF1’s Orion. He was witty, had the snark of Aligned Orion, and clearly had a goal in mind: to entirely shift the status quo by breaking the class distinction. He was extremely optimistic like most versions, something that is often criticized in the fanbase, and is also criticized in the film. However, the qualities that G1 created and the Bayverse destroyed were THERE. Orion was a DORK. He was KIND. He CARED for people deeply, even if they weren’t necessarily thinking about him. He was a KNOWN PROBLEM-SOLVER. His intelligence is noted MULTIPLE times. He really is authentically Orion. I’ll do a more in-depth analysis in September.

Megatronus/ D-16

Now, THIS MAN WAS AMAZING. I am so used to the source of his anger being solely lower class-based oppression amongst other things relating to that. The film offered another option, which I will not disclose, but I thought it was a wonderful addition. I will keep my mouth shut about D-16’s personality in this film because it’s a secret, but just know this new take on Megatronus was a bit refreshing and gives new material for both fan continuity writers and fanfic writers.

Elita

I was honestly scared to see how they would portray Elita, especially with their track record of solely making her Optimus’s love interest and killing her off. I also was afraid that they would turn her into a white feminism caricature, which I can go into depth about for clarification if anyone needs it. However, the writers take feminism for Elita and take a much more in-depth route. I found her well done. She was giving mother in this film, absolutely brilliant. There will be an analysis on her as well in September, especially since they have so much intended room for her.

Worldbuilding and Additional Characters

I think that with about an hour and a half, it would have been SO HARD to create an entire world of deep political brutality and nuance like the comics directly. So, I think the writers created a framework that was good enough to convey the fascist undertones of Cybertron while also leaving so many avenues to explore and elaborate on for future films, whether they be prequels or sequels. Some characters were added in with a bit of context, but no in-depth explanations. While I would normally say that’s a downside, I think that it was actually really smart on their part. If you tried to add all of these complex stories from the comics in an hour and a half film combined with everything else, it would have likely been underdeveloped and left more questions and holes than answers. By removing that, I think that it was a smart move to expand on in their own time and with good pacing. Besides, the presence of some characters was very enjoyable and kept the audience I was with wanting more from them. Not in a “there wasn’t enough of them” way at all, but instead a “they were so cool in the short time they were here I need more now” way. Everyone in this continuity gets a new and different start. I honestly think it would give fan continuity writers motivation to continue what they’re doing, now that basic and consistent pre-war plot lines have been redone. I think for how long the movie is, they did a great job.

Additional Thoughts

I think that everything was pretty well done. The pacing was especially important, given we were supposed to witness a buildup in such a devastating “divorce”. That isn’t done lightly, and they made sure that they built it up enough to where the final blow was devastating. It was SO DEVASTATING that people in my theater were gasping left and right. The comedy was well done, as someone who hates poorly-written jokes for laughs. It fit into the characters’ personalities well, that’s what made it work well. It didn’t feel forced because that’s just how that particular character is. I also think that, as a fandom, sometimes we get too wrapped up in very specific characterizations of these individuals to the point where we refuse new ideas. I was extremely guilty of this. However, this film was truly made by someone that loved the franchise and knew exactly what the fans wanted. Brian Tyler, who did the score for TFP, also doing the score for this film was proof of that (as someone who absolutely ADORES film scores as a musician) There was a good amount of brutality within the rating of the film, so bayverse fans who are itching for something shockingly horrible are in for a surprise. I also think that it knew its boundaries well and moved not to push them while also being considerate of certain audiences who may be a bit younger. It was a good restart, especially for animated Transformers films, and I think that they can really build it into something great. This was a very sound foundation and I was not disappointed.

ALSO, THERE IS A MID AND POST-CREDIT SCENE SO DON’T LEAVE IMMEDIATELY

[bloop-bl00p]

Not me showing up after months.

I watched the new Helluva Boss episode. I have one question, why does Hell even need to have trials? If Hell is so unfair, why would they bother to try and establish a jurisdiction system? The Royal Class is powerful enough to impose their laws, and they already established that Satan controls everything since he’s more powerful than the other sins. (Minus Lucie but he retired for lack of better terms.)

What if instead, IMP was forcibly pulled to the court like in the beginning, Andrealphus lists the crimes they committed and the end goal isn’t to prove they did it but to make Blitzø confess, through pain, full-on medieval tortures. Why would they need to do that?

To humiliate him and showcase their supremacy as the higher class, on TV to show every lower class what happens when you cross or are suspected of crossing the line. If you want to make it even darker, you can have Blitzø take the punishment of IMP for him. Like they committed multiple crimes, and have different sets of torture assigned to them, rather than seeing the people he considers his family suffer, Blitzø decides to go through all of this himself. Then Stolas saves him when in the middle of getting beaten up.

And you can have a moment where Stolas realizes, "This system is so fucked up." because for some reason, he never realized his privilege despite being surrounded by imps, but okay, I guess.

Striker incriminating Blitzø was bullshit. Okay, he can work for the Royals when money is guaranteed, I can understand. But you’re telling me that the guy whose whole personality is essentially "Eat the Rich" would willingly participate in an event that will contribute to the oppression of HIS class and prevent anyone from trying to rebel?! Is it inconsistency or hypocrisy, only time will tell.

Oh and about my rewrite, yeah I’ll continue it, I just decided that I wanted to actually write it and not just make pages and pages explaining the world. I just need to figure out a thing or two about backstories and Hell and Heavens.

[gece-misin-nesin]

I hope it’s ok if I rant a little about MHA because your post about Endeavor walking free reminded me of how detrimental some of the messages MHA can be. (I’ll try not to write much, feel free to delete this tho!)

It is so frustrating how the story doesn’t linger enough on the weight killing people that have yet to commit a crime, people that are a threat to the status quo, holds.

Sometimes I legit feel insane because people will be saying things like, “He could be a threat, so of course they should kill him.” And then talk about Deku and class 1A “changing the world for the better,” when the series doesn’t care to unpack its systematic issues past individual issues + the series essentially maintained the system that failed so many—resorting to reforms and expanding programs doesn’t actually solve the problem imo.

And it’s so hard nowadays to even try to have a conversation that entails criticism of the story, when so many fans fall for the condescending righteousness the story feeds as a response just because it came from heroes. Even though the story itself presents reasons why we shouldn’t blindly trust heroes (Endeavor literally right there) 🤦

Like, the story presents characters being oppressed and the ultimate response to their plight is constantly, “Just be a better victim.” The whole situation with Touya and Endeavor + what Deku says to Touya, is absolutely insane to me.

It made me sick to see people saying, “This is what Touya always wanted.” This is what people are taking away from the story, when many people who grew up being abused and didn’t fit the “perfect victim” criteria will tell you how fucked up that ending was.

Anyway, sorry for ranting. It’s so hard to find people who understands criticism in the MHA fandom 😭 The story has a lot of good points and potential, Hori just couldn’t handle it properly.

I am ALWAYS happy to listen to bnha rants!! I devour the bnha critical tag like a wild beast lmaoo

As for your thoughts, 100% agree. I feel like a big part of the problem is that the story spends so much time setting up systematic issues and then just..drops them? Acts like they don't exist? And instead it redirects all blame and reason to indovidual problems, like Endeavor for example. Touya became a villain because of Endeavor..but the conditions under which he became a villain could have been massively prevented if the ranking system didn't exist and if so much value hadn't been placed on it. Or if the wealth and privilege that being a hero had brought to Endeavor hadn't let people turn a blind eye to his bullshit. Because are you really telling NO ONE had even an inclination that something was wrong in that household? Really?

This also applies to Tomura. In the beginning The Walk where he spent some amount of time on the streets without anyone helping him seemed very important to his backstory. He didn't become a villain just because his father was a pos, he becane a villain because the state of heroism led to a society that glorified heroes to such an extent that people didn't help a bloody kid on the street because a 'hero would'. But instead most of his memories Deku interferes w are about the Shimura household instead of the very important bystander syndrome. And THEN to top it all off, we learn the stupid 'AFO orchestrated Tomura's whole life' thing. I cannot find the right words to express just how much I loathe that.

Anyway, Touya and Tenko are just two examples. Overall, the story chooses to resolve individual problems (and how well even those are resolved is certainly debatable) and frame them as the leading causes of villainy when its mostly systemic issues that cause it and then act like there were no systemic issues in the first place. I mean, literally no one has a problem with the HPSC casually having private assassins to commit extrajudicial murder, so. Guess Nagant should have just been "optimistic" and waited for someone to, idk, topple the literal government.

[drbased]

Seeing people with this attitude is genuinely fascinating to me. I wrote a post a while back talking about the dangers of talking about 'bigots' as if they're uniquely maladjusted, and I think this is a good example of that. Like, I can't think of anything more normal than referring to people by their observed sex. That is, after all, what we invented the words 'man' and 'woman' for. These people want to have their cake and eat it too: they want 'accepting someone's gender' to be the normal person thing, but also for transphobia to be a widespread bigotry under a powerful cisheteropatriarchy.

I've noticed this as a problem with a lot of people on the left: despite the supposed desire for class analysis, where we acknowledge that people in positions of privilege have a motivation to preserve said privilege, the more liberal-leaning people like to believe in a world where everyone is just bumbling along and simply misinformed: they believe that the average person wants to be good, and so these 'normal people', despite whatever privileges they have, will always choose kindness over preserving said privilege, and simply need to unlearn implicit biases. So then we have a large group of people who pay lip service to the concepts of class analysis, privilege and oppression, but when it comes down it still cannot conceptalise people outside the boxes of 'good' and 'bad' - and the 'good' people are always the normal, healthy, well-adjusted ones, struggling against a system that has been corrupted by those evil bigoted goblins who infect others with their hate speech. It's this childish and incredibly palatable idea that sticks around because it means that all you have to do is play the part, and hang around with other people who seem to play the part, and then you get to be one of the 'good' ones.

This is why transgenderism has been so useful in easing political anxieties - it's the fastest and most concrete way you can signal to others and yourself that you're one of the good ones. Sure, you can accept gay people, you can drink your 'respect women' juice. But there's a unique statement being made every time someone says 'trans women are women'; a unique 'fuck you' to some imagined status quo - that, in its irony, is so easy to do precisely because it's not really a fuck you to said status quo, or at least not in the way these people want. Instead it's a necessary signal that they're willing to do the extreme mental gymnastics needed in order to play the part - and said part is of feeling normal, feeling well adjusted, feeling safe.

This argument keeps getting used time and time again against radfems - that we're chronically online, that we have brainrot, that we're 'obsessed' with trans people. And it's so patently false that it's absurd. But absurdity is built into this whole thing.

[dangerouslypassiveaggressive]

A Terribly Organized Almost-Essay About Suzanne Collins and Why I Think She Writes

Lukewarm take because it's been years, but here it goes: if there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that Suzanne Collins is not a people pleaser. (The author, at least. I don't know her personally lol). And she be pleasing the people, that's not what I mean! I just kept hearing the same question being asked over and over again. "Why Snow? Why him?? Why not anybody else? Really?? A prequel about HIM??" It really made me think.

And don't get me wrong! I'd slash someone's tires for a Finnick prequel just like the next person (Suzanne please!), but that has never been the point of her writing. The Hunger Games novels, and by extension, the prequel book The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, aren't just fun fiction reads. Yeah, they're gripping. The world-building is superb. Young people are at the center of it. And all these characteristics are great, but the thing that draws us in, that keeps us consuming her media like hungry little caterpillars, is that they are, time and time again, a captivating and accurate criticism, analysis, and deconstruction of the broken systems society experiences in the real world. I can only speak from my own experience as a Mexican American woman in the United States, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

The Capitol is colorful and fun and interesting and horrible and sadistic. And it is all those things because it is a symbol of our own real-world 1%, except our own glittering Capitol members here in the real world feed us the hope that we may reach their status if we only work hard enough for long enough. The Hunger Games system never makes that claim. In fact, they are fed the narrative that the system only works because they're stuck where they are. Suzanne Collins is taking everything one step further in her writing because it is a type of satire, a critique of the things we already know. So as an author, she blows it out of proportion so that her reader will say "look at this! How ridiculous! How would someone let the system treat them this way!" And it is ridiculous, it's downright laughable that an entire society, an entire country, would let itself be oppressed in such a cruel way by just a few people in charge instead of rising up and- oh wow, yeah, I see it. She wrote about us.

Suzanne Collins just organized everything neatly into boxes- well, districts. Because every district comes with some form of product that they manufacture, but much more importantly: a class. We go in order from 1-13. District 1 manufactures luxury items and District 2 makes weapons (but mostly trains Peacekeepers), so they have the most privilege and wealth. On the other end, Districts 11 and 12 are the agricultural and coal mining districts, respectively. That's back-breaking work. Not to mention District 11 puts kids as young as 12 to work, and District 12 is poverty-stricken and starving. "But what about District 13?" You may ask, "They make nuclear weapons! Why aren't they up there with 2?" Fantastic question. If we know, and the people of Panem know, that the hierarchy is very clearly set by literal number order, why would one of the most powerful and competent districts be given more power and be put at the top? Placing them at the end lets them believe that they aren't powerful or competent. I mean, jeez, look at 12 and they're before 13? I wouldn't believe I could make it on my own either. (We know now that's not how things go down, but it's a clever power move regardless.)

But after all this, would it hurt Suzanne to give us a single book just for fun?

Yes, I believe it would, that's the whole point. We're not meant to fall for the Peeta/Katniss/Gale love triangle. We're not meant to be interested in Finnick's secrets and early life. We're not meant to want to know the morbid details of how Haymitch won his Games (with double the contestants! Ooh. Aah.) We're meant to be horrified at every turn, at every story. We're meant to ask ourselves how things got so bad, how anyone let this happen. Suzanne Collins has written wonderfully fleshed out characters that grip us and make us want to know more, but the point has never been them or even their loved ones. It was never about Katniss or Prim or Peeta or Finnick or Annie. It's always been about the systems that let this story happen, and where Suzanne got her inspiration: the very real lives we lead. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shows us the same thing.

So why Coriolanus Snow? Because he is the catalyst to a broken system that only serves the powerful. If Suzanne were to write a novel about any of our much more beloved characters, then she would be writing the exact same book over and over about the same oppression happening in the same system. She does not write for the sake of bringing her very well-written characters to life, but to flesh out the poverty, the starvation, the power struggles, the horrors they experience. We know this because she writes a lot of her characters as symbols. (Coin, for instance, as the symbol for a power-hungry figurehead, or Prim as the innocent during war.)

Snow is living in a slightly different biome than what we know from The Hunger Games series. He has to make sacrifices and decisions for him and his family, but it's different. It is a view and critique from the inside looking in. This is not Katniss getting to experience the Capitol for the first time and understanding just how terribly unfair everything is. This is someone who is very aware of the way things work and playing the game to stay in power and keep their privilege. Not only that, but it's someone who feels entitled to all of it. In this novel, Suzanne plays around with power and people's position in it. What if a mad scientist was in charge? What if the creator of the thing that brought a semblance of peace was just as horrified as the reader? How far is one person willing to go for power? What if we saw the dawn of a world we're already familiar with?

So I hope she keeps writing, because I love seeing our world through her eyes and the parallels she writes from our world to hers of the injustices happening every day. Even though we'll probably never get the stories we crave, but that's okay. Keep putting those kids through hell, Suzanne.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #47 – City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This book was recommended to me by a few different people, and in any case I am generally a pretty big Tchaikovsky fan. So of course I’m only getting around to reading it now, however many months later. Having put it off so long for no good reason at all, I can say that the book is in fact very good. Not Tchaikovsky’s best work (that’s still Children of Time in a walk), but a good read and one that left me curious (if not exactly excited) about checking out the sequel.

The story takes place in Illmar, the eponymous City of Last Chances – scarred and oppressed, tyrannized by cursed dukes and conquering imperialists, built upon a dangerous and unreliable route to other worlds and forever attracting the sort of people with no better options available to them. While the book has any number of characters, it’s really the city itself that is the star of the story – a story of how the theft of an imperial magistrate’s ward before he makes an experimental voyage through the gateway in the woods leads to a whole series of byzantine intrigues and bloody misadventures, culminating in an abortive revolution against the Pallseen who occupy and rule them. Which in one sense is an absolutely massive spoiler and in another just feels like stating an inevitability that was obvious from the first chapter.

The book was apparently quite heavily marketed as harking back to the whole New Weird trend of a decade or two ago – marketing that is lived up to wholly and entirely. The whole book absolutely drips with Mieville and Vandermeer. The oblique worldbuilding, the mundane day-to-day life built around the opportunities and inconveniences of some intrusion of the sublime, the awkward intersection of ancient magic and industrial bureaucracy, and so on, and so forth. The Reproach in particular feels very Area X (or very Roadside Picnic, as you prefer), but in general the city feels like absolutely nothing so much as Bas-Lag with the weirdness dial turned down from an 11 to a 5 or 6.

It’s a real triumph of the book, I think, that the world genuinely feels vast and strange even beyond the points where it matters to the story - that all the little asides and the ways something affects a certain character feel like just small parts of something far grander and more uncanny than anyone can hope to understand. Maybe I’m just painfully tired of rpg-system worldbuilding, but it’s an effect I dearly love.

Much like Bas-Lag, Ilmar is very clearly a magical fantasy city going through a magical fantasy 19th century industrial revolution (instead of steam engines its demonic slave labor contracted and imported from the Kings Below). The meat of the book is playing into the whole tradition of the idealistic, virtuous but tragic liberal revolution – 1848 in Berlin or Vienna, the June Days and Commune in Paris, Warsaw a dozen different times, Les Mis. You know the type. Students singing patriotic old songs, workers rising up against class oppression, ‘revolutionaries’ who are mostly cowardly nobles pining after lost privileges and criminal syndicate putting on airs being caught flat-footed by events. You can probably tell the basic story in your sleep. But for such a venerable genre, this book's honestly probably the best rendition of ‘fantasy 1848’ I can recall. Something which won it my instant affection.

The other thing the book just overwhelming shares with the Mieville’s Bas-Lag books is a very keen sense of the necessity of revolution combined with an extreme cynicism towards anyone who might actually carry it out. The university students are sincere believers, and also naive sheep the narrative views with condescension (at best). The professional revolutionaries are all power-grabbing hypocrites who have wrapped themselves in the flag. The workers syndicates have a real sense of solidarity among themselves, and also none at all to the demon slaves that are used and broken powering the mills and factories. And so on. The overall thrust of the book is a tragedy not in the sense of railing against the inevitable, but in the sense that triumph and revolution were absolutely possible – indeed plausible – but for the flaws and frailities of the revolutionaries who might have accomplished it.

Not to say that it's misanthropic – the book is very humane towards the vast majority of its POVs. Of which there are enough for ‘vast majority’ to be a meaningful term. It was something like 130 pages in before any character got a second chapter through their eyes, a feat I had previously only seen in Malazan – and that’s not including the chorus chapters which just give a half-doze vignettes from across the city. But yes, most characters (even the ones who are really just viscerally repulsive) are shown through their own eyes as someone who is at least understandable, if not particularly sympathetic. The sheer size of the cast in a 500 page book mean that no one character or set gets that many chapters from their perspective (you could easily have written as long a book about roughly the same events with half or less of the cast), but some of the dynamics that are very lightly touched on are just incredibly compelling. Its enough to make you wish this was a series that would ever get any fanfiction written about it, really.

Given the way the book is so deeply concerned with oppression and violence on the basis of culture, class, and nation – imperial occupiers, native population, refugees and immigrants used and scapegoated by both – it is kind of fascinating that this is a world where misogyny and (possibly? Not very explored, the only example of a queer relationship we see is hardly going to be concerned by normative society) homophobia just flatly don’t exist. Which would be less interesting if it was unusual, really – the same could be said about very nearly every recent sci fi or fantasy book on the same lines I can recall. Interesting because it is very much not the case in Melville’s stuff – the cultural impact of Ancillary Justice continues to echo down the years, I guess. So yes the imperial police inspector will extort sex out of a brothel owner in exchange for not stringing up the entire workforce for peripheral involvement with the resistance, but also this is entirely gender-neutral. Something very modern about how oppression is imagined relative to the ‘90s or ‘00s (or just a different genre of self-consciously feminist novel a few book shelves to the left).

But yeah, great book, I am compelled. No idea where the sequel would be going, but will probably hunt it down sooner rather than later.

[atlas7seo]

Arcane Season 2 spoilers kinda

Hot take - I've seen a couple people talking about how they don't feel bad for Piltover or can't feel bad for Caitlyn for what's happening in season 2 because they're is privileged. And like I totally get their point. The undercity has been screwed over time after time and Piltover is deliberately oppressing them. But like also I find it interesting how that take is also playing into the themes of the show. Caitlyn is very privileged, that is something made very clear in season 1 and the whole point was her seeing how privileged she was. Just because she has privileged struggles doesn't mean they're not also struggles? Like do yall get my gist. People are comparing how Zaun doesn't have a choice, but Caitlyn and Piltover do. How Jinx is more excusable than Caitlyn. And likeeeee that's not the point of the show? I mean that comparing who is more in the right for terrible actions isn't the point not the privileged and choice part. I feel like people's ability to lack empathy for Piltover getting attacks and Caitlyn's grief is very clearly portraying Caitlyn's whole "It's so easy to hate all of them because of one person," schtick. Piltover's government is clearly in the wrong in this situation, they made Zaun the way it is. Also I'm not excusing Caitlyn's actions, she's my favorite character, but that doesn't mean the things she does are right. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I feel like lacking all empathy for Piltover is just wrong. I get that they're privileged but most of Piltover's citizens are equivalent to modern middle class. And yeah we spend most of our time with the highest class in Piltover, but it's really interesting. I understand why people dont feel bad for whats happening to Piltover and they genuinely need a complete destruction and reconstruction of their government system, but like also... don't lack empathy for them? People are still people and yes many corrupt people are getting their comeuppance, but don't forget the regular people there too. Idk maybe that's a hot take

Arcane is like so good that even irl, the things people think are able to bolster the themes of the show itself.

[xanderisbraindead]

I don’t usually talk ab politics, but previlaged white liberals are making me so mad.

2 things can be bad at the same time. Just because what’s going on in Palestine is terrible and inhumane without even words to describe it doesn’t negate people’s fears about the US election.

For context, people were talking ab their fear around the election, and someone responded that palestine was more important. Another person responded that they wanted to focus on the US and they got absolutely dragged. “You will never have it as bad as them! You are so tone deaf!” Just because we won’t ever have it as bad as them doesn’t mean we can’t be scared. Oppression is not a race.

NOBODY deserves to be brutalized by the police or to get shot on their day to day, or die from birth complications, or bear a child they can’t support/don’t want. Nobody deserves to have a college degree and still be homeless because the price of living is double their wage. Nobody deserves to be incarcerated for their whole life because they didn’t get a proper trial or because of a biased judicial system. Nobody deserves to suffer because the price of their prescription medication skyrocketed and they can’t afford it.

This can coexist with any statement you can make about the unjust treatment of the Palestinian people. They’re not mutually exclusive. Don’t negate the fears of your fellow American, ESPECIALLY if you are privileged enough to where the attacks on queer people, poc, the working class, disabled people and immigrants won’t harm you.

Not voting is a vote for trump. You have a voice to stop this, use it.

[jingerpi]

Its honestly very concerning how popular ContraPoints video on "Transtrenders" was. I want to make a post discecting it briefly because I feel the video does a disservice to young trans folk looking to learn, instead leaving them feeling unjustified in their indentitiy under the guise of some radical acceptance One of the main issues with the video as a whole is how natalie breaks down existing understandings of trans medicine as a tool to try and unseat transmedicalist talking points, and show how being trans is about personal experience and "feelings". While its important to critique transmedicalists, what she does here is undermine what many people see as the best justification for trans existence without replacing it with anything. She does this in my opinion, because she honestly doesn't have anything to replace it with, and doesn't understand the real basis for gender in the world. Saying this is all well and good, I can critique anyone for not giving good basis for thing but its no help if i don't give anything of substance to back it up either, so heres a brief explanation of why transphobia is a problem, based in actual socio-political analysis.

Patriarchy is an economic structure which has been built up across centuries of accumulated surplus value which was passed down through the eldest son of the ruling class. this is a vast over simplification, but functionally this means there are systems in place in society which privilege men, give them access to more wealth, better positions, and control over non-men. Patriarchy has grown and changed over time and held different shapes depending on the society, we no longer have eldest sons inheriting royal rule (in most places), but we continue to have men as the group with the most economic and social agency in our societies. This privilege that Patriarchs have is constituted not of some magical benefits bestowed upon them from an abstract "system" but are instead taken directly from those who are not men. More specifically, men and Patriarchs take labor and resources from those whom patriarchy considers "non-men". Reproductive labor goes unpaid, women are under privileged in political society, we often don't get choices over our bodies. This isn't merely a coincidence, but serves specifically to give men power and confer more benefits onto them. Because of this, there must be systems in place to manage who is let into the patriarchy, who can be a Patriarch.

The most universal way of doing this is by deciding whether or not someone is a man and conferring onto them certain benefits as long as they uphold this structure, and ostracizing them if they are not. They do this ostracization because if this structure is not upheld artificially through oppression of women and bullying of nonconforming men to keep the categories of man and woman or even man and non-man distinct, the privilege given to the in-group starts to fade. In the same way that "White" is an artificial construct created and upheld to facilitate racism like slavery, imperialism, housing discrimination, and unpaid labor, so too is "manhood" and "womanhood". These constructs appear to be based in existing biology, so they often go without question, but race is also based on such "biology" and that does not mean its a founded construct. The basis for both "race" and "gender" break down once you look at higher level understandings of these concepts. Not all people with xy chromosomes are men, not all people of African decent have black skin, etc etc... I could go on about the "exceptions" for quite some time but you likely know many of them already. These are categories created fundamentally to give one specific category an economic advantage and justify their oppression of those who are outside of said category. The reason we need to respect trans-ness isn't because there is something inherently justified about being transgender, nor because we just have to be really nice to everyone and treat their feelings as absolute truths. Its because the systems which confine us and define gender so rigidly exist purely to oppress and extract value from others. These borders are deeply unjustified and we need to tear them away. We do not need to justify existing outside of the borders, but instead challenge the borders in the first place. Contrapoints fails to meaningfully do this Natalie focuses almost entirely on the arguments surrounding justifications for transness and gives little thought to the justifications for patriarchy. It is treated as a default, always existing, status quo that is unquestionable. It makes me wonder how aware of it she really is, she seems to get stuck in justifying her own existence. the "Transtrenders" video focuses on a discussion between several characters where the primary issue at hand is how to justify being trans, should it be done through medicial, scientific frameworks? or should it be done from a kind and accepting view of others? She makes arguments against the former for being flawed and the latter for being unfounded, but she never actually replaces it with any critique of society, instead saying: "Okay, so what am I supposed to tell Jackie Jackson then? What am I supposed to tell the TERFs? That I'm a woman because reasons?"

"No, not even because reasons. Just because you are."

"So it's what, a leap of faith? Oh great. I'm sure that's gonna convince all the rational skeptics. Justine, it makes us sound completely delusional."

"Well Tiffany, delusion is what separates us from the animals." Which is an extremely unhelpful answer to give after tearing down what is to many, a key aspect in their reasoning for why they are justified in their identities, and while it is partially correct that trying to use one of the specific theories she outlined earlier to justify trans existence is an exercise in futility, she can't seemingly offer any alternative than some kind of "because I said so" when there ARE very good reasons to be in favor of trans acceptance, and historical reasons for our existence. In failing to do so she misleads perhaps an entire generation of trans people into thinking theres no real justification for their existence

The justification comes from understanding that the premise is false, that the forces which try to bind people to a specific societal gender role are themselves the issue.

She tries to point out that we dont need to justify transgender existence because the frameworks which hold us to cisgender existence are the real problem, but without ever talking about these cisgender standards in an actually meaningful way, instead talking abstactly about societies "expectations" or whatnot, where she should could be attacking the real economic forces of patriarchy. She should be tearing down patriarchy first and then using that to liberate trans existence but instead she tears down trans existence without touching patriarchy or any of the coercion or exploitation that arise from it. I consider this a great tragedy, and a prime example of her failures as an educator.

[bisexualfagdyke]

How does misogyny and patriarchy work if its not "men oppress women" I'm actually curious dont be mad at me 😭😭😭

Soz I forgot that I got this ask

Anyway, I was never trying to say that misogyny and patriarchy isn't bcuz of cis men oppressing women (obviously, lol, it would be ridiculous to deny that) – I was saying that many people (typically radfems, gendercriticals) believe that the male gender solely exists to oppress women and uphold misogyny, that gender as a concept is solely about oppression, which is a very awful perspective of gender & lacking all kinds of nuance. I was trying to say people cannot comprehend gender identity that exists outside of the idea of "men oppress women" because I was discussing trans men, who do not oppress women. This is also not even considering all the other factors that impact patriarchy & gender oppression (race, class, disability, so much more)

It's transphobic. Standard TERFs typically believe that being born male is something you cannot ever escape because you are born "inherently privileged and as an oppressor" etc etc. this is bioessentialism. "trans-inclusive" radfems (and such) tend have similar views but flipped, and about gender – they typically believe that transitioning to male is about having privilege over women, oppressing women, transitioning into male privilege, etc etc. this is gender essentialism.

Obviously this is whole idea is harmful to trans men because it disregards the fact trans men are Men that are Oppressed, do not hold cis male privilege, do not oppress women, etc. it literally waters down our identity as men to being misogynistic, oppressors of women, benefiters of the patriarchy – when it's absolutely none of that. It also reinforces the idea that trans men transition to escape misogyny and join the side of the oppressor, etc. among other things.

Yes, of COURSE cis men oppress women (but also, all gender oppressed people, including trans men) on a systemic level. You could absolutely say cis manhood is oppressive. But you can't then, bcuz of that, view manhood (as a vast gender experienced by many people who are not cis) as an inherently misogynistic, patriarchal, oppressive thing – bcuz that leaves out trans men & nuance. Manhood itself is not what is oppressive, it's CIS manhood, you cannot separate the cis from the oppression that cis men cause, you cannot separate the cis from patriarchy. Cisgender men created this system, created this patriarchy. It was not created in mind to include all other types of (non-cis) men, honestly barely even cis men of colour, disabled men, etc etc. trans people do not fit into the patriarchy because the patriarchy is a cisgender concept.

Yeah, so, I hope this clears things up! Sorry if this isn't worded well. Feel free to correct me on anything as well (I will never claim to be 100% correct on everything – this is just my view on things, as a trans man passionate abt talking abt my own oppression.)

[arcaneconfessions]

One thing ppl often forget when they "criticize" Mel's "power" is that at the start of S1 she was literally poor and lower-middle class at best, girl had no money or say in what the council does unless it benefitted them (had to go to the lengths of manipulation towards her "peers" to save Jayce's ass bc she felt bad for him, or work around it by being a mediator with Hextech's safety for example). It's the reason she decides to work with Jayce and Viktor for Hextech's success. She was also an exiled Noxian, basically an immigrant, and by Piltover standards was an outsider with no ACTUAL power IN Piltover or the Undercity and understanding of its systems. Meaning, she might have learned how Piltover operates (in trades, laws, etc.) but not Zaun bc either she hasnt been there long enough to understand, doesn't know much about it, or has never seen the state of The Undercity (considering she lived the rest of her years to the present in Piltover.) My guess? Piltover prob swept any kind of large "inconvenience" of killing Zaunites under the rug (Ex: The Day of Ash)

Could Mel have actually done something to prevent this? Yes and Maybe, because by the time she arrived in Piltover she was prob 18-20 and it might have prob took her a lot of time to be accepted into the council as a trusted member (it's a pretty high position for a clan or house.) Regardless IF she did, you do realize that the council, who literally started if not continued this whole oppression and classist system (NOT mel), at the end of the day would literally give no shits and just.....sent her back home or exiled her again if she tried to go against their laws/system (they dont owe anything to her literally).

You're accusing the wrong person....is all I'm saying. Should we hold her accountable bc she had privilege? Yes, in some cases....but you would ALSO have to hold the ENTIRE council accountable (yes, even Jayce to some extent at the start of his councilship) for their classist views and keeping the oppression on innocents since they are the ones with any REAL power or choice. (Cait's mom, Salo, Heimerdinger and etc.)

At the end of the day, she was a person while with her FAULTS or Flaws....did things to protect ppl at the end of the day and later found redemption thanks to the support of others (Jayce, Elora and etc.) in pursuing her own self, rather than validation of her family standards, in seeking peace/mercy for others like she wanted to do, the very mindset she was shamed and exiled for as a child by her OWN mother.

.

[animeisforanimation]

Arcane: the finale

To be honest, I still don’t know what I think about s2 in general. But there’s a thing I can’t shake off: narrative threads, or rather, narrative foils.

There are a lot of ways to look at the ensemble cast, but I think the show is built around Vi and Jayce. The first tries to be the middle ground between Piltover and Zain (Cate and Jinx). The second is pushed into the role of a mediator between politics and science (Mel and Victor).

But Vi and Jayce are also Zaun and Piltover personified, no not even that - they are the ideal of the cities: a strong and capable fighter that stands for “her people” and a self-made man whose genius lets him “climb to the top” - both turn out to not be enough, both repeatedly fall or are thrown down from the pedestal - but they keep standing up. They keep making mistakes and then try to correct them.

Just like these two, the rest keep mirroring each other: Jinx and Victor are wild cards, genius scientists, but broken people, they keep hurting people around them and drowning into the despair and loneliness. They are both Zaunites at their core: but one tries to reform the system from ins de, while the other doesn’t really care, but still ends up trying to blow it up.

Caitlyn and Mel are the most interesting to me. Piltover’s golden girls, born into money and power, idealists who try to make the world around them better - except they do it in the most privileged way possible: Mel is opposed to violence, yet doesn’t realize, no consciously closes her eyes to the fact that even non violent avoidance breeds death and suffering, she barely meets a Zaunite, the whole conflict is more of an abstract for her. Caitlyn does get her hands dirty, but this only shows her prejudice and classism off more clearly. She’s just as idealistic, but her upbringing and her biases are undeniable. And these two women start the second season as the most powerful people in the city.

All that - and millions other details - make the story of Arcane a tapestry, or a spider web: you pull one string and the whole thing moves.

But the finale didn’t move a string, it took out the frame itself. As far as I can see, by reconciling the cities this fast and without really talking about the problems that bred the opposition in the first place, creators lost the edge.

The sisterly bond and the forbidden romance bloom and they are emotional as heck, but they suddenly become just that - not a mirror of a horrible mortifying problem. And I do find prison sex ok, actually - as they say, we never feel as alive as we do at the funerals and for Vi it is in a lot of ways just that - a funeral.

Jayce does see Mel morph into Victor, he finds his former partner alongside her - but there’s no politics left and barely any science left in the show (the older Medarda turns them into war and magic and the war is different. war against an outsider is always very different from a civil war. they are not interchangeable). Mel is gorgeous but wasn’t she more interesting as a fighter on a political arena, not a literal fighter? More unique, more real? And yes, the boys finding each other in every universe is very pretty and poetic, but again, they are some cosmic beings now, untethered from their humanity, from the things they initially represented, from everything but each other and their greater good(s).

On the other hand, there are other characters too. Other themes. And there are other interpretations of what’s important.

But for me characters in a story are more compelling not just as themselves, but as mirrors that reflects themes. And Arcane very heavily insinuated it was about class oppression and the way people (even well meaning people!) with power (physical, economical, political, scientific or any other) can cause the gap between the oppressor and the oppressed widen - only it was just insinuation, unfortunately. Alas.

[originalleftist]

Something I dearly wish more people, especially those who identify with progressivism and the Left, understood is Intersectionality.

I don't claim to be any kind of expert on the subject myself, and I have my own biases and privilege, so take my position for whatever its worth, and feel free to dissect it. But very basically, "Intersectionality is a sociological analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, height, age, and weight. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empower and oppressing. However little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the practical uses of intersectionality." (Wikpedia)

Put very simply, its about how different aspects of someone's identity affect how they are privileged and disadvantaged/discriminated against- and, crucially, how one can be both privileged in certain ways, and discriminated against in others.

I had heard the term previously, and probably had a vague sense of what it meant, but I believe that, as with so many things, I first started to really realize its importance, and the deficiency of awareness of intersectionality, while following the Depp v Heard trial (full disclosure: I actually used Depp v Heard as an example of intersectionality on a college anthropology exam, and I will undoubtably repeat some things from that here, though I do not have the exam on-hand to refer to).

One of the recurring arguments raised by certain Depp supporters (presumably those sympathetic to the Left, or perhaps more astute at manipulating the Left) was basically that Amber Heard did not deserve support because she was wealthy/famous/privileged. A recurring line (and example of how, despite being deeply rooted in Right-wing MRA/Incel ideology, "the Justice for Johnny Depp" crowd coopted Left-wing and social justice rhetoric) was to mock and dismiss Heard's obvious distress as "white woman tears".

Of course, this term is typically used to call out white fragility/defensiveness around race, and white women who play the victim against Black people- not a white woman who is in actual distress because she's being forced to publicly relive r*pe trauma in court before a jeering mob of her r*pist's fans. And the entire narrative ignores that Depp enjoyed far more power and privilege than Heard did (those who claim otherwise are generally adopting the misogynist "Men's Rights Activist" narrative that women are actually the privileged gender in society and are always believed, while constantly making false accusations against men- which was probably their whole point). It also means ignoring that Heard was repeatedly and viciously targeted based on her gender, her sexual orientation as an openly queer woman, and her mental health. Depp was subject to some ableist attacks as well, for example, in that he was stigmatized for the illness of addiction, but Heard, as with most things, got by far the worst of it.

One could and should also point out that much of what was directed at Heard and her supporters-the censoring of her freedom of expression, harassment and death threats against her and her child, abuse of the legal system, etc, as well as the horrific and life-threatening abuse inflicted against her by Depp and previously found to be true by a UK court-would be unjustified against anyone, regardless of their relative privilege, at least assuming one believes in universal rights or the rule of law. But the argument of privilege on Heard's part is itself selective, and misleading.

Now, flash forward to October 2023, for case study number 2. Among the arguments of the anti-semitic Left since October 7th have been that Israelis (primarily Jewish citizens of the world's only Jewish state) do not deserve sympathy or consideration, and that anything that is done to them is justified as "resistance", because they are the oppressors- they hold the power and privilege. Often, this has manifested as attacks not only on Israel and Israelis, but one anyone who supports them- and anyone who is Jewish. Again, one could and should reject outright that atrocities such as murder, r*pe, slavery, and torture are justified against anyone, for any reason. But the premise of the argument, that Israel holds the power and privilege, is again over-simplistic. Certainly, Israel has more economic and military power than Hamas, Gaza, or Palestine. But on a world-wide scale, the Jewish people are still a very small, marginalized, and vulnerable group- and would likely be far more so without a nation capable of defending itself. Jews amount to less than half a percent of the world's population, and the vast majority live in one of two countries- Israel and the United States. Further, regardless of the power disparity that exists between Israel and Gaza or Palestine, it should be self-evidently preposterous to argue that a random Israeli civilian, confronted by a Hamas gunman and facing imminent murder, r*pe, abduction, or all of the above, is in a position of power. But all of this is frequently ignored to try to justify bigotry, terrorism, and collective punishment of Israelis- and, very often, Diaspora Jews as well.

One should also consider how many Leftists have reacted to the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is unquestionably the smaller, less powerful party in a war with Russia, and it is unquestionably the victim of aggression. So, how did the Putinist/Tankie wing of the Left justify supporting Russia over Ukraine? Easy- they just treat Ukraine as an extension of NATO/the US, rather than as a sovereign nation, and argue that NATO aggression and imperialism caused the war, which Russia is then the underdog resisting (this of course is basically a Kremlin propaganda narrative).

Now, let's jump forward to the present, where Joe Biden's political future is being imperilled by relentless attacks asserting, on little to no solid evidence, that he is both mentally and physically unfit to run for or serve as President. One would assume that if any person on Earth is immune to systemic discrimination, it's Joe Biden. He is a fairly wealthy, heterosexual, cisgendered, white, Christian, American man. He basically won Privilege Bingo. And he currently holds the single most powerful position on the planet- one which just became frighteningly more powerful with the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling (albeit a ruling they obviously only made for Trump's benefit, confident that Biden would not abuse the immense and utterly unprecedented power that they have bestowed upon him).

And yet, as we saw with Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama before him, even climbing to the heights of political power does not shield a marginalized identity from attack. Hillary Clinton is a former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State, and was a major party's nominee for President. But she was subjected to relentless attacks, some obviously misogynist, and it certainly played a role in her defeat and the election of Donald Trump- a serial r*pist who was taped boasting about being able to get away with grabbing women "by the pussy". Barrack Obama won the Presidency twice- but not without a widespread movement denying that he was even a real American, allegations that he was a "secret Muslim" (which would not be disqualifying for the Presidency in any case), and a backlash that also likely contributed to the election of Trump, a virulent racist.

Biden, as a white man, has advantages that Obama and Clinton never did. But Biden too can still be attacked and treated unfairly based on his association with various marginalized identities. As soon as he showed signs of age and frailty, he was subject to the relentless contempt of our society for the geriatric and the disabled. Add to that his life-long stutter. Granted, Biden has far more power than most to resist such attacks, so it would probably be a big stretch to say that he is a victim of systemic oppression. But these attacks, using ableism and ageism to declare someone unfit for the Presidency, are ultimately also attacks on the dignity of all older and disabled people (there's also a good bit of racism and misogyny underlying it, as at least some of the hyperbole and fear-mongering over Biden's age and fitness is clearly driven by fear that a Black woman might succeed him- see in particular the recent piece in The Washington Post calling for Biden to stay in but replace VP Harris).

So what is my point in all of this? It is that peoples' identities are complex, and that just because someone is privileged-even immensely privileged-in certain ways does not mean that they cannot be underprivileged, marginalized, or oppressed and discriminated against in others. And that if the Left/progressives as a whole had as solid a grasp of intersectionality, and its importance, as they do of privilege, they would be far less likely to fall so easily for fascist psy-ops trying to convince Leftists that no, this whole class of people are okay to persecute because they're actually Oppressors, in order to divide and conquer us all.

Because the thing is: privilege is real. So is systemic discrimination. Certain people and groups of people do have unfair advantages over others based on their identities and how they are perceived, which contribute to bias and must be accounted for and rectified. But this is also true: everybody has multiple different identities. Everybody has ways in which they are advantaged over someone else, and ways in which they are disadvantaged. Some people have far more things that fall on one side of the scale than the other. But you can find something about just about anyone that gives them an unfair advantage over someone else. So if you focus only on that, and define someone's worthiness to receive sympathy accordingly, then you can reframe anyone as the Oppressor, and therefore unworthy of sympathy, and deserving of anything that is done to them.

Of course, one might also cynically argue that many people WANT to fall for that ploy, because it gives them an excuse to engage in harassment, bullying, and abuse; to join in the mob, while pretending to be righteous. I might also observe that the Left's fixation on determining who is worthy of sympathy based on who holds the most power essentially commits them ideologically to always being on the losing side- should any Leftist ever actually succeed in achieving major political success, they will become part of "the establishment", and immediately suspect. And I wonder how large a role this sort of thinking plays in Leftist third party "purity politics", and the infamous "circular firing squad".