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mk-wizard · 3 years ago

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Rescue Bots and Decepticons: Opinions?

Hello, TF-Fans! Today, this essay is an answer to the question that the lovely @petrichornial and my most popular “asker” right now. How would the Rescue Bots and Team view factions and Decepticons in general. Before I get into this, I am well aware that recently in Rescue Bots Academy, the issue of good Decepticons was addressed and very nicely might I add, but ultimately, in order for them to accepted into society, they had to convert to Autobot which is kind of the norm. Also, I want to point out that the way humans view factions is significantly different from the way Autobots view factions not just because of life experiences, but also because of cultural reasons.

Being human and North American ones meaning they are very accustomed to people so vastly different, I think the Burns family would be very chill when it comes to different factions. While they would proceed with caution around Decepticons, their way thinking especially the logical and noble Chief Burns would be that the Decepticons Autobots were at war with the terrorists which isn’t wrong. If a Decepticons means no harm, I think they would be cool with it. To them, being different is natural and nothing to fear and being of a different nation, colour, race, etc. is just what a person is and has no impact on their character or morals. So I think the idea of a person being forced to convert to be accepted even if they have no criminal record and their way of life is harmless is cruel and unjust. Heck, I could picture them even being vocal about how unfair such a requirement is.

The heat is on though and the bag becomes mixed when it comes to the bots though because they are all varying shades of not trusting to trusting.

Chase is a very lawful Autobot who rigidly believes the law is absolute and the Autobot way is just as absolute meaning his views on factions would be in the most traditional light and he would be the hardest to convince otherwise. His view is that all bots would be better off being Autobots and a Decepticons having to convert to accepted is just the way things are. In his mind, converting is an act of abiding by the law and loyalty to Cybertron. This is not because he is prejudice or because he’s a bad bot. He isn’t. He is a classic case of a person being raised from birth to think a certain way because it is the “right” way and you can only be a good person if you think this way. In other words, Chase’s actions and views towards factions comes from a place of being misguided or rather, being guided with a view on the world that doesn’t make any sense. Heck, even in history, we have seen many cultures and religious groups be taught to think in such a way to ensure that they don’t stray. Trying to tell a person like Chase who was groomed to think like this that their way is in fact flawed is a shock and it is going to met with a lot of resistance, but with time and effort, I do believe is capable of having his mind changed because like I said, he’s not a bad bot. He is a good bot who was bad ideas like “Autobots good and perfect”, “all other factions wrong”, “Decepticons bad and always wrong” and “all Transformers are only most good and right when Autobots”. This would take a while though and sadly, a lot of arguments and full on fights would happen before he would see the light.

Then you have Heatwave who is not as rigid and would be cool with most factions who are not Autobot, but because of the war, he would probably have some amount of prejudice behaviour towards Decepticons. Again, not because he is bad, but in his case, because the Autobots just came out of a war. I imagine many Autobots would develop some amount of xenophobia and question if a Decepticon has any business among Autobots. Knowing Heatwave, I also imagine he wouldn’t be very nice and in fact, be outright rude to a Decepticon who refused to convert even if they were clean. In his mind, why would someone want to wear the insignia of the bad guys? However, because his xenophobia would only be from trauma, can be cured, and if anything, I think Heatwave would even start seeing the error in the Autobot ways.

Then we have Blades who to be fair is kind of afraid of everything and anyone he doesn’t know, but underneath that, he has a curious and open minded side of which he does like to learn about different cultures and even practices their rituals. Just look at how much he loves Earth movies, storytelling, games and pioneer lad activities. While he has never said, his actions tell us that he sees you as a good person if your customs involve doing things that make the world better or bring happiness to people. I think this mindset definitely extends to different factions which includes Decepticons though in the case of that faction, he would initially be afraid to admit it because he does worry how other Autobots see him. I also want to point out that Blades is an Autobot who can fly which is something you don’t see very often, but among Decepticons, this is common meaning he would find more bots like him in that faction than his own. And not just because of his helicopter mode. As much as I love the Autobots, one of the many problematic things about the Autobot way is that it is inflexible. If you’re an Autobot, you have to live like one to a tee. yes, it’s gotten better over the years, but stigma is still there on Cybertron. This wouldn’t stop Blades from being true to spark and admitting his true views and going with them.

Finally, you Boulder who would be the most tolerant of the four. It is no secret that he is unconditionally kind to everyone and looks at everything in a positive light at first glance. Even with the war, I think he would be the most open to good Decepticons and other factions, and even be for them keeping their factions while living among Autobots. After all, when living on Earth, no one told them to go human to live among humans because it was accepted that they could only be what they are. Doesn’t the same logic apply to everyone? I should also bring up that Boulder always came across as the most progressive among the four and at the risk of sounding bold, the one who I can easily picture questioning the Autobot ways namely the rigid and absolute practices. I can even picture him being at odds with many of his colleagues who don’t agree with him to the point where maybe, just maybe he would even leave for a while. Boulder is not the kind of person to side or condone hate or dominance over another person over anything. I would even go as far as saying that he would start encouraging Wedge to getting back his Decepticonhood because he is a good person as he is and doesn’t need to prove it by changing his identity. I mean, why punish the whole faction over what specific terrorists did?

Anyway, this is all just my opinion and I want to hear what you think. Thanks for reading and as always, stay safe.

-MK_Wizard

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whitehotharlots · 4 years ago

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Sex panic double standard

You've probably noticed a weird double standard in regards to contemporary sexuality. On the one hand--for better and worse--there's a strong demand that we accept and celebrate all manner of sexual proclivities and behaviors that were considered weird and shameful up until just a few years ago: furrydom, polyamory, etc. But on the other hand, we're in the grip of what appears to be a large-scale sex panic, in which behaviors that were until recently considered normal or only mildly problematic are now regarded as sick and exploitative: do a twitter search for the term natalism and you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about.

This is due in part from a rhetorical mess in which several disparate concepts have gotten collapsed into one another: sexuality has become conflated with gender, gender has become conflated with sex, desire with sexuality, and so on. Some of these concepts are considered worthy of protection and the moral exemption of victimhood, while others are now cast as meaningless or suspect. Sometimes conceptualizations will directly contradict one another. More often, protected categories will be applied to some groups and denied to others on the basis of political affiliation, rather than whether those categories even literally apply. A trans woman can therefore boast about her fantasies of putting regular women into rape camps and it's just dismissed as a silly thought exercise. But a hetero guy saying he's attracted to women's butts? That's dehumanization, the sign of a sick mind.

The difference is that one party is given automatic sympathy within our present discourse, while the other is immediately demonized. The intentions and effects of their desires does not factor into it.

We see this most in regards to the age of consent, and especially in regards to the sexualization of children. All but the sickest among us will admit that pre-pubescent children do not have sexuality. They are sexed by biology and gendered by society, but this is not a sexuality. They may also display tendencies that pedophiles and their apologists regard as signs of sexuality: a child may be fascinated by the human body, or even fixate on certain parts of the anatomy. A child may intuit that sexiness is desirable. Far too often, they may be sexualized by adults. But none of this is at all equivalent to adult sexuality: not biologically, not morally.

This gets complicated once the kids hit puberty but are still minors in the eyes of the law, and this is why age of consent restrictions are by nature relative to cultural contexts. Just about every society strongly disincentivizes sexually mature minors from having sex with one another, and likewise has some formal laws against minors having sex with adults. The reasons for this are as manifold as they are obvious: in addition to the risks of disease and pregnancy, we realize that young teens are not mature enough to handle the emotional toll of sexual relationships. Even if a 14 year old gives nominal consent to sex with a 30 year old, we realize that the differential between power, experience, and maturity between those two is too great for meaningful consent to be issued.

The age of consent is not a perfect system, as internet creeps are wont to remind us. And, as much as I hate to admit it, they have a bit of a point. It's hypothetically possible for a particular 15-year-old to be more emotionally and intellectually and materially able to consent to a sexual relationship than a particular 22-year-old. But in reality, this is very rare. And since the law can't be adjusted for every single case, various cut-offs were decided upon: it's 16 in most states, 18 if the younger person goes across state lines, and there are various contingency laws in place so as to de-criminalize, say, a relationship between a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old. Again: everyone admits that the laws are imperfect, but so is basically every law, and their imperfection does not negate their necessity.

Now, until very, very recently, that hypothetical 19 y.o.-17 y.o. relationship was something that very few people would have found problematic. The 17 year old is below the age of consent, but the difference in age between the two parties is such that the relationship is no more likely to be exploitative than one between an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old. Within the neurosis of our present day, however, we've seen a fierce protection of what was once widely understood as a generalized cut-off point.

Fan artists have been excommunicated for drawing pictures of teenaged fictional characters that are arbitrarily deemed too sexy. Authors have been deemed perverts for, again, portraying fictional relationships. Most weirdly, we've seen accusations of "grooming" or even outright pedophilia against couples of differing age who are nonetheless both fully grown adults... I'm not talking about a 50-something executive banging his secretary, but, like a 40-year-old getting called a pedo for marrying a 33-year-old.

What has caused this?

I believe it's due to the problematics of sexual exploitation and abuse becoming understood in terms of identity, instead of how much material harm they cause or could potentially cause the younger partner. It all connects back to the collapse of conceptual categories listed above. People don't take stock of sexual relationships and strive to come to a honest understanding of whether or not harm has been inflicted. Sexual relationships and the people contained within them are simply either good or bad, and that designation is made with an explicit rejection of critical understanding... this is why an essentially arbitrary (though necessary) age marker is now regard as an almost biblical dictate.

But then, what accounts for this madness? Neurosis spreads, sure, but it's not like everyone suddenly lost the ability to think.

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titleknown · 4 years ago

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You realize that fandom being a very *autistic* way of engaging with media doesnt inherently make it morally and politically correct, right? Any more than "all actions fueled by trauma or personality disorders are justified" is true. If people following their basic instincts can be *harmful* (like traumatized adults dumping their issues onto minors), it can also by extension be politically maladjusted.

...First off, I think we need to define “fandom,” because people define it differently in these conversations and I have often gotten into quibbles over it with others.

I would define fandom as A) A specialized deep interest in a particular subject/grouping of subjects and B) Dedicated social groups/spaces regarding that specific subject. No corporate worship; slavish devotion; or all the other crust that’s been built around it in practical existence necessary.

Because, honestly, the perception of fandom as political maladjusted; I think; is very much a “But you still participate in society” argument. In that, so much of the shitty behavior from the worship of megacorps to the ‘walled gardens” of corporate-owned worlds this user talks about from Mark Fisher here to the burn-n-churn iteration of beating a narrative horse into a fine red paste...

It’s not some magic mind-control-ray bibble, it’s a product of material power; specifically the powers of monopoly via copyright and the ever-consolidating means of production/promotion and people getting really weird under its constraints, existing in a culture they don’t get to own; they just rent it. Cory Doctorow has talked about this regarding how social media got more fucked up as it got more consolidated, and I think the same applies to art.

And, I think most fandom-critical discourse is bad, because it not only pathologizes the natural behaviors of “grug like specific art” and “grug talk about specific art amongst cave friend who like specific art” by inherently conflating it with all the bullshit that surrounds it, but it emphatically refuses to find a way out.

Like, the biggest asshole I ever knew who I argued with about this deliberately flaunted the “no solutions” thing. And that tracks with the grand majority of what I see. Zero attempts to build power/undermine monopoly, endless dickery.

You don’t do any of the building of institutions to create better shared spaces for working with homegrown art, you don’t try to do any real; active pushes to break up the copyright system that creates this nightmare; you don’t try and create creative commons media ecologies to work within, you just end up as asshole hecklers.

Which, by the way, contextualizing the way special interests shape fandom and become warped by the forces that warp all fandom as autistic people’s “natural instincts” being politically maladaptive is ableist in that very specific “disabled and neurodivergent people are a burden” way I see often in leftist circles.

Doubly so given the “addiction” metaphors (Which, I mean, fit with my thesis that these so called “addictions” are a result of circumstances of disempowerment, look up Rat Park) and infantilization I see thrown around so much in these debates, because flowery words can only conceal so much contempt for us as a burden on the existence of “real art,” and it is... disability theory 101 that the conception of us as a “burden” is core as to why we’re treated like shit, not helped and dehumanized!

And, I find this important because shit rolls downhill. People like you have not done shit to fix these media systems, but both the pathologization of these means of media have been used by the neurotypical adults in our lives to hurt us, and also only used to push us towards media that performs the aesthetics of maturity rather than being actually mature.

Like, when people try to push us towards “real” “grown-up” media thanks to the broad cultural denigration of the “childish” end of pop culture; IE “childrens cartoons” and all that, we don’t get pushed towards; like; Metropolis or Jan Svankmajer’s stuff (Both of which I have seen and adore BTW), we get pushed towards shit like Law and Order or SNL.

But, even beyond disability, I’ll say the framing and pathologization of “mass culture” and our interaction with it has been an unmitigated failure from both a theory and praxis perspective, and the fact that none of you care to actually engage in the building of power to make it not like that, or go “No, it is the proles who are wrong” on why it failed is flabbergasting and enraging.

#fandom #media #critique #ableism #long post #old man yells at cloud #shut up titleknown #Anonymous

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teruthecreator · 4 years ago

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THS IS A ROBBERY 🔫YOUR ROLESWAP LORE!!! HAND IT OVER 🤲if u want 2 :)

just took my melatonin bc i have to wake up at 4:30 AM to drive 16 hours to my mother’s so i’m sorry if this becomes derailed but uh. here’s the roleswap lore! or, at least, everything i’ve decided (along with matthew and corinne bc the three of us tagteamed on it)

gonna chuck it all under a readmore bc this is going to get long

so first off, just gonna run out in front and say i have no idea how this fits into graduation plot. i haven’t gotten that in plot consideration, given their character differences in comparison to their canonical selves. so, for the most part, it’s a lot of background establishment and character traits. but i do have a few plot bits that i’ve figured out bc i thought it was cool. why such a long preamble? i don’t know. help me

fitzroy maplecourt:

first off, he’s not called sir!!! because he doesn’t go to knight school!

my idea for his backstory is that the way he decides to grapple with his identity crisis/imposter syndrome (which he definitely Still has) is that instead of becoming a grander, larger than life version of himself. he just. goes the opposite.

not necessarily becoming a degenerate (bc he just smokes pot and that’s not bad he’s just vibing)??? but more just like. leaning into the laid-back nature of life that one might pick up from a lifetime in rural country.

he goes to a liberal arts school a ways away and just decides to bum around and take life not seriously. he develops a pretty large group of acquaintances being a hippie stoner; he doesn’t really pursue a degree either. i think if he picked up any major it was probably like. an art major or an english but he basically fails most of his classes bc he doesn’t care!

unlike his canonical counterpart, fitzroy doesn’t mind being called nicknames!! ones i think he has the most are fitz or roy, but basically you could call him anything and he’ll respond. that is because, instead of clinging to the concept of his identity bc it’s the only thing he feels he has, his identity is nebulous!! he doesn’t understand it and it scares him too much to be concrete, so he just lets people decide shit about him for him.

his personal philosophy is more about floating through life and letting people assume shit about him than having a solid personality and backstory that people understand and recognize. it is a more dissociative way of having an identity crisis! how fun! he also barely talks about his past, and what he does talk about are cherrypicked points of his past that fit his narrative of being a casual down-to-earth hippie

the moment that this all changes is when order decides to pop in and grant him powers!!!! wahoo!!!! here’s how that happens:

he’s baked out of his fucking gourd in his dorm room, in the spring semester of his junior year. he’s alone (which is rare) and he’s maybe a little sad, but he decides to just ignore it. he looks at his table and laughs. “hehe, what if this table just. blew up?” he says to himself. it isn’t that funny, but he laughs. then he lays his hand on the table.

the table blows up.

after that, he has magic!!!

i’m going to go into detail a little bit later about how fitzroy’s magic manifests in the roleswap universe, but i wanna get through the backstory first. basically, he gets really freaked out after his magic comes to him because it is So New and Wow What and What The Fuck.

he realizes that this new addition to his character Completely changes how people who know him would perceive him (as a bum stoner chill guy), and he can no longer have control of his narrative with this magic business. so he drops out!

well, he actually just transfers. to a school far, far away where people will never know who he was and he can rebuild his narrative with this magic incorporated into it. he chooses wiggenstaff’s because he figures the school would have more of a knowledge of magic than his libarts school, which would mean he could understand why the fuck weed gave him magic (sidenote: it wasn’t weed, obvs, but he thinks this so for a while he doesn’t smoke!)

he is now the chill hippie of wiggenstaff’s!!! most people like him because his personality is fairly easy to digest; some people think he shouldn’t be there, but he is! he starts out as a sidekick and he would’ve honestly been fine with that forever, but then he’s suddenly thrust into the hero track!!! wow!!!! i will also explain this with the magic.

but yeah!! that’s fitzroy, for the most part. now we’ll move onto the other boy

argonaut keene:

he actually prefers if people call him argonaut, but he’s less likely to correct people than canon fitzroy Or canon argo. he’s a tad bit shyer in this universe!

argo’s backstory pretty much follows the same idea of his canonical background, but with some key differences that shape him into the character he is in the present!

basically he still grows up on shebrie’s ship, surrounded by crewmates and the salty sea air. but his fascination with the sea doesn’t manifest into this swashbuckling lifestyle that he has in canon.

what fascinates him more is the ship itself. how it functions, how water wears down wood, how directional currents can affect navigation. basically, he becomes invested in the sciences part of sealife more than the pirateering. he has special interests in marine biology, but his heart remains in nautical engineering. figuring out ways to make the ship run better, faster, and more efficiently consumes his childhood thoughts!

shebrie encourages her son’s craving for knowledge with tomes and books from all over the world about anything related to engineering and nautical things. he’s homeschooled, basically, but he becomes rather intelligent within a few short years!

and then, well....shebrie dies. yeah we aren’t escaping that finality, sorry folks. that part of canon Still Applies.

after shebrie’s death (coughMURDERcough), argo is. traumatized! and he makes the decision to almost entirely sever himself from his life on the sea. it’s all too painful to look back upon--the times he spent studying with his mother in the captain’s quarters, rattling off dolphin facts as they sailed onward, dreaming of turning gears as the ship gently rocked him to sleep--and so he just decides to throw the whole thing out!

he can’t ignore his lifetime of education, though, so he continues to pursue it. with the remainder of money his mother left behind, he enrolls himself in a boarding school of science and technology, with plans to continue study in Only engineering. no more nautical Anything on his roster.

eventually, when he is old enough and graduates high school, he roams around...trying to figure out what to do. he doesn’t have enough money for college, so he can’t continue his scholarly efforts yet. he works around, job-to-job, city-to-city, and just notices how...delayed everything feels. like society is suffering under this slow pace towards innovation.

and that’s when he decides his next course of action. if he were to discover the root of some problem and engineer a solution, he would be famous! he would gain notoriety and praise and--and all the things his mother had as a captain. but he would have it on his own, separate from his mother, and separate from his past.

he figures out his next course of action: attend a school that will give his prestigious enough marks to be accepted onto a research team, find a problem, solve it, help the world, maybe earn a little bit of that credit and respect that would make him feel like he was doing his mother proud.

the thing i want to emphasize here is that argo’s take on helping the world comes from that morality that canon fitzroy has. canon fitzroy wanted to be a knight because he wanted to fairly and justly instill ideas of “good” and “bad” onto the world. roleswap argo has a similar moral sense, but instead of establishing rules he wants to fix the “bad” and make it “good” in a technological/scientific sense.

the only school argo can think of that can get him that kind of notoriety is wiggenstaff’s. getting onto the HOG board would mean he’d have access to countless resources and be respected by a large audience, which would give him the opportunity to make change happen. even if he’s only a sidekick On Paper, what matters is that the diploma would give him the ability to Apply to the HOG. so he drafts a carefully worded letter for a scholarship and achieves a full-ride!!! epic

like fitzroy’s magic, i’m going to break down argo’s relation to the unbroken chain after i get through backstory stuff. but trust me, I’ve Thought Of It

argo sort of blends into the background at wiggenstaff’s. or, he would, if his roommates/friends weren’t so Fucking Out There. fitzroy is enough to make him always be visible, but even the firbolg’s massive frame means eyes are always on him. which makes him nervous!! he doesn’t like the attention (as opposed to his canonical self, who revels in it for the self-esteem fuel) his insecurities manifest more in what he’s Doing rather than what he Is, mostly because his identity is barricaded by a wall of trauma repression

he’s still plenty funny and witty, just quieter. also he’s a lot Meaner than canon argo, at least to me. because if you irritate him he Will just completely shut you down with words. motherfucker doesn’t bark but he will most DEFINITELY bite

that’s their backstories, for the most part! in terms of how they interact together:

as established, they meet prior to wiggenstaff’s on a tinder date (during the grace period of argo working odd jobs and fitzroy about to be granted immense fucking power) and end up casually dating during the course of their wiggenstaff education. argo is a nervous goober and fitzroy just likes making him blush. it’s very cute.

fitzroy is still less inclined for the romantic than argo, who remains a steadfast absolute romantic internally. fitzroy still holds a lot of the self-doubt and distrust that canon fitzroy has, only it manifests in him not taking anything seriously! which means when he catches Feelings feelings he basically freaks out

argo still falls in love really quickly, only now he’s more conflicted about it because being in love means trusting and trust means communication and communication means Oops Years Of Trauma Are Being Unloaded Uh Oh!

now i’m going to touch on the big points that i find really interesting: fitzroy’s magic and argo’s relation to the unbroken chain

fitzroy’s magic:

chaos is not the being that grants him magic. it’s order!

my take on what this means for what deity is on what plane of reality is that chaos is more Needed so they are the one that is physically On Nua, while Order remains in dreamscapes because they are already a constant amongst the tangible world. yes i know this directly contradicts the reasoning for why theyre Supposed to be where in canon, leave me alone i’m having fun.

my reasoning for this switch is because chaos stands to be a contradiction to everything canon fitzroy has going on. he has a very strict, nailed-down understanding of himself and the world. everything he thinks is in black and white, bold statements, no questions, he follows rules and obeys the law. untiiiiil chaos gives him magic and shocks him out of that complacency. they lean into his inner impulses and that rage he’s kept locked deep inside. they allow for magic to Explode out of him, rather in calculated bursts or with intent.

which is why order is more fitting for roleswap fitzroy!! because fitzroy, in this world, has less of a concrete grasp of himself and the world. he purposely lets himself be nebulous and goes with the flow. thinking of the future in real terms is not something fitzroy Does, he has no plans and that’s Fine. order seeks to give fitzroy a backbone, to put it simply.

his magic doesn’t go impulsively out of him. it is calculated--it comes with thoughts and intentions. the reason it surprises fitzroy when the table blows up is because he didn’t think his thoughts or wants would amount into that, but that’s what order is trying to show him. that his intentions matter. that he matters and he has to Think and Focus and Be Here.

i’m still not sure if his power would manifest as lightning??? because the imagery for the lightning works perfectly for canon fitzroy because of the random power of lightning strikes. but for roleswap fitzroy it’s more like...thunder. like Purpose. thunder happens because of a reaction--it comes with intent. if differing air temperatures collide, it creates thunder. that combination is purpose + intent equating in magic.

i think that part needs word bc like. how would one quantify thunder?? i think fire might also work really well because the idea of a controlled fire. like things have to Happen in order for fire to start, it can’t just appear like lightning can.

order’s manipulation relies more heavily on the concept of boosting him up as a savior/hero, rather than boosting his ego and desire for power. fitzroy Has no desires in roleswap world--he’s just there. but when he gets put on the hero track, now he’s suddenly been given purpose. and order uses that to be like “wow, look at all these people who rely on you! look how important you are! don’t you want to use this magic for good?? to do good?? start a war with a demon come on pussy :-)”

OH YEAH also he becomes a hero in this universe (like in terms of tracks) because of the fact that it directly contradicts how he views himself. for canon fitzroy, it was showing him how much more he is capable of without the restrictions of morals (i.e, king fitzroy). but roleswap fitzroy doesn’t Have an image he wants to bolster! he doesn’t think he needs it and, frankly, he doesn’t care for it. the hero tracks carries with it all these stereotypes and expectations that now directly contradict his personality--thus showing him he is capable of more.

okay now for argo’s business jesus christ this post is so long and im NOT EVEN DONE WITH ALL THE POINTS I WANTED TO MENTION

argo’s relation to the unbroken chain:

so since roleswap argo has less of an association with his past (and, by extension, the memory of his mother), he is less inclined to join the mysterious cult that his mother was a part of.

moreover, he doesn’t necessarily believe the shit he’s told??? he’s way more skeptical of jackal than canon argo is--immediately questioning why and how jackal knew his mother, and constantly trying to poke holes through his narrative.

generally speaking, if you try to talk to roleswap argo about his mother or his past, he Shuts Down. like completely. and that usually results in him snapping at you or just clamming up completely. mostly he just gets really snippy and angry because Hey Shut Up Dickhead I Don’t Want To Talk About It

a part of me still isn’t sure whether or not argo would take the unbroken chain up on their offer. but i also know that, plot wise and character arc wise, it is a necessary part of argo’s story. so i think, at most, he agrees but is extremely hesitant and might even let fitzroy on immediately once he’s given the task of digging into fitzroy’s life

also, they’re boyfriends in this universe, so how could he Really keep it a secret for that long. come on jackal, you idiot, you know they’re kissing.

i think he’d Eventually warm up to jackal as a sort of father figure, but only after many nights of conversation and dancing around the subject of shebrie.

OH YEAH. this argo doesn’t know the commodore murdered his mother! important to note! he just assumes what he was told was true, that she sailed into dangerous territory and was ambushed.

during the tribunal bit If That Even Happens In This World, i think fitzroy actually is the one who figures it out Before argo. and once argo does, well............fuck!

OKAY last little bit, just gonna talk about some random extra parts of the world that i’ve thought of already:

in this universe, grey takes on higglemas’s identity instead of hieronymous’s!!! this is for good reason actually

okay so basically my thought was that, instead of whatever happened in canon yadda yadda dog time, hieronymous and grey are fighting and it’s a pretty evenly matched battle. there’s a cooldown moment where hiero thinks he’s safe but grey uses sneaky backhanded tactics to try and get the drop on him.

only higgs sees it in time and saves his brother, taking the hit himself. he collapses, extremely wounded, and hiero rushes to his aid. he’s cradling his brother’s body, trying to keep him alive, when grey approaches to deliver the final blow.

hiero is completely crushed and defeated and basically will let grey do anything to him by this point. the only thing he begs of is to let him live long enough to save his brother.

now, grey isn’t nice. let me make that clear. grey fucking SUCKS and the reason he agrees is because he wants a Real War with hiero and he can’t get that if hiero is basically like “if you let higgs die then you might as well kill me”.

so, grey agrees, and hiero ends up saving higgs by turning him into a cat. was supposed to be a temporary solution until he could find a better spell, but he wasn’t the magic guy in the duo. eventually, grey gets tired of waiting and decides to do some other shit. like turning the school the brothers have been running into a backalley place for demons!!

he takes the form of higglemas and leaves hieronymous locked in his office as basically a mascot. he’s like the queen and grey is the parliament--grey makes all the rules, but everyone assumes it’s hiero. faux-higgs is more on the ground, changing things and making the school a place more fitting for an eventual war. he builds up the concept of heroes and villains being Real, in the hopes he can sway some mortals to his side when he’s able to open a portal to hell.

hiero still tries to stop this from happening, but his pride and his self-image is wounded by what happened. he feels guilty and puts the blame entirely on him, instead of doing the whole cowardice route like higgs did in canon. he gets people to help him eventually, via mind control and all tht jazz.

also in this universe, buckminster is the one who gets birdified instead of leon!! has to do with my leon/buckminster and higgs/hiero narrative parallels that i’ve thought of for far too long.

firbolg is exactly the same in this universe. it is hard to swap three people and i didn’t want to think about him.

fitzroy doesn’t pick a grab. i think he’d rather a lizard, like a bearded dragon. he names him something stupid. like scaly. or kyle.

uhhh yeah!!! i think that’s....everything i’ve thought of so far!! lemme know if you wanna hear my takes on any other elements in the roleswap world!!!!

#taz graduation #taz sir fitzroy maplecourt #taz argo keene #roleswap maplekeene #ignorance cloud on #thanks em!!!!#sorry this is a mile long i had a lot to say #and now...i sleep!#jesus christ i have to drive 16 hrs tomorrow #help me :-)#ember360

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itsclydebitches · 5 years ago

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Just browsing the RWBY reddit. Seeing your post about Oz on there. The usual backlash against you and the idea that RWBY owe Oz an apology. Honest question. Is it just that their probably teenagers? Not experienced with nuanced storytelling? Think lying is always a bad thing to? It's obvious RWBY are not fully in the right. What fan wouldn't see that aside from just young people? I hate this fuck adults mindset in the fandom. Cordovin should have put them in jail at the end.

All fandoms have a very wide range of ages, RWBY included, so I doubt it’s as simple as assuming they’re all teens. Rather, I can think of a number of different factors, any one (or multiple at a time) that might be at play:

They are in fact teens who identify very strongly with the main cast, to the point where a “screw adults” rhetoric is not just appealing but very logical from their perspective. In the same vein, you have people of any age who have very straight-forward moral views: lying is bad and Ozpin had no right to do it. Period. The problem with this is less the actual belief and more the hypocrisy, as usually the mindset conveniently doesn’t apply to the person’s favorite characters---more on that below.

They’re fans, young or old, who haven’t been trained in/practiced much media analysis. Ozpin’s situation is a complicated one, requiring that fans recall, understand, and are willing to interrogate a HUGE number of details since roughly Volume Two. A lot of the hatred for Ozpin I see here on tumblr is rooted in really simplified “analysis.” e.g. people honestly asking, “How can you root for him when he got Pyrrha killed??” without understanding (or being willing to accept) that “got Pyrrha killed” is a flawed statement on multiple levels.

Connected to the above, fans who are really active in the fandom all year round and become immersed in theories, headcanons, and the like until they feel like canon. We only get RWBY content for a few weeks out of the year. The rest of the time fans are circulating various perspectives, often biased depending on who you follow. So there’s very little material demonstrating Ozpin’s complex nature vs. a great deal of material (fic, fanart, metas, personal posts about how much you hate characters, etc.) painting him as simplistically evil. That’s then the mindset fans are in when the next volume comes along and it’s rather difficult to break. What do you mean he’s a flawed good guy? I’ve been reading Ozpin hate for nine months out of the year.

Fans who are invested in their faves and have no desire to grapple with their more loaded mistakes. Yang is a good example of this, given that she’s one of the most beloved characters while also having a range of flaws. Some flaws---like snapping at someone in frustration---are easy to deal with because we know how close the group is, we know how this show functions, and we know she’ll be forgiven within a very short period of time, if anything as deep as “forgiveness” is even needed. We shrug and move on. More loaded flaws though---like her treatment of Ozpin---require fans to balance a love of the character with a critique of their actions, which a lot of people simply aren’t interested in doing. Acknowledging the ways in which Ozpin might have been in the right and the ways in which the group might have been in the wrong requires that they take a number of faves out of that “cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure, can do no wrong” category. Few fans want to acknowledge that maybe their perfect Ruby shouldn’t have ripped secrets from a mentor. Or perfect Yang wasn’t justified in her manipulative bird anger. Or perfect Weiss shouldn’t be drawing her weapon on Qrow. Or perfect Pyrrha made a horrendous mistake by going after Cinder, etc. For all the people who claim they want flawed characters, fandom is filled with fans who fall in love with characters and then will simply not hear a word against them, not unless (like that snapping example) their flaws are incredibly easy to get past. They want, “My fave is flawed because she yells sometimes but she’s improving!” not, “My fave is flawed because she bought into the rhetoric of a murderous bandit and has been using that to undermine the team’s trust in their leader for weeks now.”

Connected to the above are fans who are neutral or iffy about Ozpin and thus have a “one strike and you’re out” policy that, notably, doesn’t extend to any other character. You lied? That’s it. We’re done. I was on the fence before but this proves you’re not worth investing in. When others point out that a LOT of our cast has either kept information quiet, manipulated how information is presented, or straight up also lied, they’re exonerated because the fan already likes them. They are invested in keeping them looking pure next to Ozpin’s impurity. And they just keep adding justifications indefinitely. Yang is allowed to keep the Spring Maiden quiet because of trauma with her mom. Oh, Ozpin has trauma too? Well he’s a thousand years old so he should have gotten over it by now. Oh, trauma doesn’t work that way? Well... and on and on.

Fans who believed Ozpin was an evil mastermind for six years and have been waiting impatiently for the day when his duplicity is finally revealed and they can celebrate being one of the ones who weren’t duped. “The Lost Fable” once and for all debunked that theory. Ozpin is a flawed man trying to do good, a subversion of the puppet-master archetype. It’s hard to say, “Damn. Guess I was wrong about his character,” especially after years of investment in his supposed immorality. So they just don’t. They tweak the new information and find ways to explain how he’s still actually, truly evil. It’s just even more horrendous because it’s subtle and sneaky and kinda hard to notice because it looks like he’s a good man most of the time, but I swear to you he’s not...

Fans who are attempting to be socially conscious but haven’t gotten the intricacies of that down just yet. Meaning, there are a lot of RWBY fans here on tumblr and tumblr has always been a site that heavily merges social justice with fandom. You read a RWBY post on your dash, then a post about white privilege; more RWBY, post about domestic violence, etc. Generally speaking that’s great (I’m all for learning in low-stakes environments), but that can also create very simplistic views, particularly for those who are young or who are just learning about such issues. Ozpin (Remnant geography and reincarnations aside) appears white. He’s a man. As far as we know he’s cis. He’s doesn’t seem to need his cane outside fighting and is therefore not disabled. He’s in a very significant position of power. He is, in short, everything “bad” that tumblr fans learn to spot in the real world. Ozpin, in that real world context, has a lot privilege and people automatically conflate that with being an aggressor. The villain. We’re living in a society where white guys are raping women and continually getting away with it. Now here’s this white guy preying on Pyrrha! (Again, no close analysis.) The merging of fandom with real world issues makes it very difficult for some people to view Ozpin with any sympathy, particularly when they only have a narrow understanding of these issues. Ozpin a victim of domestic abuse? Pff, that doesn’t happen. The man always abuses the woman. He can’t possibly be the victim here, so by default he must be the villain who tried to steal Salem’s kids away---because we all know that kids are always better off with the mother. That’s just natural. (You can see then how a lot of outdated assumptions color our readings of fictional characters.)

Straight up trolls. Some people don’t actually care about RWBY. They just enjoy antagonizing others about their views of the show. Or just insulting people for... reasons? It’s not about any investment in the debate. It’s about the rush they feel typing out a curse-laden post about how wrong you are and how much you suck. Are they actually wrong? It doesn’t matter. Saying you’re wrong makes the poster feel right and therefore powerful.

#rwby #rape tw #mymetas #long post #Anonymous

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nodesiretogrowup · 5 years ago

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alrighty, play-by-play recap time!

“A shining civilization, until it fell...INTO THE SEA.” Something about that line/delivery makes me laugh

Kind of wish we had seen them solve to clues to Mervana

Why was this Huey’s quest? He doesn’t end up doing much. Did he chose this adventure?

“I like them.” “We know, Webby.”

Scrooge and Huey nerding out together is ADORABLE

Louie is already done

“Cool, now there’s two people who want to put us in constant danger.” Donald understands your pain. We need an episode focusing on Louie and Donald

I NEED to know why Della hates fish

Why is Della piloting the sub if she hates the ocean? I feel like Donald would be more qualified

“HEY, KNOCK IT OFF!” That was SUCH a sibling moment

LP isn’t here because he needed a break after last week’s episode OR something went down when he was with Oceanika and he can’t be in the ocean for some reason

Louie knows how this shit goes down

So according to Louie’s chart; Huey has been sacrificed the less with 10, then Webby with 15, Louie at 23, and Dewey at 63

“DEWEY’S ON TOP!” Sweetie, that’s not a good thing. How many of those times do you think LP saved him?

I bet Donald had/has a tally sheet too

Webby is PRECIOUS

“Life’s not some fairytale filled with happy endings and...” “MERMAIDS!” Webby is SUCH A MOOD this episode

It’s so cute how in AWE all of them are...

Except for Della

One more Della moment in the theme

Poor Donald

Those things in Aletheia’s headband look like eyes and I can’t unsee it. Also, STARFIRE THE MERMAID!

BEAST BOY THE MERMAN! He pretty much looks like a duck/mermaid version of Greg. It’s great

“So, speaking as a mermaid, WHAT’S IT LIKE TO ACHIEVE MY DREAM?!” WEBBY IS ME

I know the “suffering builds character” line is a joke, but it rubs me the wrong way

How is Scrooge’s hat not floating away?

Della’s reaction to saying fish is how I feel about eating fish

“Look at this stuff, isn’t neat!” THAT’S MY GIRL! I bet The Little Mermaid is Webby’s favorite Disney movie

This was much less dangerous than the last time Webby played hacky sack

Scrooge 100% DONE when they say that he’ll have to give up his worldly possessions

THERE’S THAT ONE MERMAID THAT LOOKS LIKE GOSALYN! I’m gonna pretend they are distantly related

Why is Honestus’ statue so BEEFY?

Louie is ALREADY calling bullshit

NO ONE MAY TOUCH THE DONALD

“Wow, a laid-back society where everything is free. Sounds PERFECT for you!” “It’s too perfect.” I love when Louie and Webby are paired off. They have pretty much opposite views of the world

“IT’S. A. TRAP! And take it down a notch, Beakley!” “Sorry, I was trying to drown out your nonsense.” You’re harshing her vibes, bro

“These hippies are harmless!”

Donald playing drums is adorable

“Operation Flower Power was...groovy.” FIRST THAT SUMMER IN PARAGUAY, NOW THIS! TELL ME YOUR SECRETS! Beakley probably has fucked as many people as Launchpad, possibly more

The face Louie makes after Beakley leaves is great. He knows Beakley fucks and does NOT want to think about that

I want to know all the warnings on the cave. My favorite of the ones I could see was NAAAAAHHHHHHH!

“Those MER-MURDERERS” Alliteration is fun, kids!

Digging the more proactive Louie, even if it is just to keep himself from dying

Donald is digging the vibe and Dewey is SO FOCUSED on playing the drums

FUCK YEAH, ARTS AND CRAFTS! Dewey was like “MY TIME HAS COME!” And Donald seemed pretty happy about arts and crafts too

Donald was TOTALLY checking out his own ass

Dewey is SO FOCUSED. Arts and crafts are SERIOUS BUSINESS

He looks SO PISSED when Scrooge takes the tail

Why do they have toxic markers? Hell, where did they even GET those markers?

“They’re ALL our markers” That face she makes is great

Dude, the harp fucking DRAGGED Honestus! We stan!

“It’s a beautiful castle made of coral and shells...” Webby, those are ruins

I knew that fish monster was Honestus. He had a crown and everything. Also they call him a sea serpent but nothing about him is serpent-like

“This is a chase” Is that really any better than a trap?

BEAKLEY TO THE RESCUE

“I’ve never been happier to see an adult!”

“Same thing we are-snoopin”

Webby ended up being spot on that the Mervanans had no idea what was really going on

“Something is going on here.” And Louie raises his arms in victory

I want more Beakley and Louie episodes. They are both cynical but deal with it in different ways, especially when it comes to Webby. Plus Louie has a unique position when he’s been the one that had secrets kept from him

“Her optimism is her strength!” “You can’t hide the truth from her forever!” “I kept her in a mansion for a decade, that worked out pretty well.” I don’t know why but this reminds me of how the Crystal Gems and Greg dealt with Steven

I love that Huey’s tail has the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook logo on it

Me and my sister agreed that Donald’s tail looks like an Easter egg

DONALD IS OUR LORD AND SAVIOR! NAMASTE, MY FRIEND

Dewey has flames on his tail because of course he does

“Man, these are hard to get around in. And off I go.” He just accepts that he’s falling

I’m with Louie, FUCK STAIRS

Della has that dumbass energy. We stan. Also, she and LP need to hang out. I feel like they’d somehow both lose in a game of Go Fish. Stupid, beautiful pilots :’)

“MOM LOOK AT MY SUPER COOL FINS!” “*gags* I have no family.”

CAPITALISTS DO NOT GET TO KNOW TRUE PEACE

Donald and Huey nodding after Aletheia calls Scrooge a judgemental boomer, beautiful

“I don’t want inner-truth, I want outer harp!” That’s a good line

“Scrooge, back to the arts and crafts section!” And then his face! Golden!

Louie clinging to Beakley’s arm is so cute

I LOVE YOU, HARP LADY!

“But I only tell the truth, a thing the merpeople used to value.” I feel like that could apply to other (current) situations

Whenever Honestus speaks during the song I lol

Also, what hard work was going on above the sea? Was there like a war or something? I need more!

I think the Harp and Honestus were a thing at one point

If the merpeople become more monstrous the longer they stay in the water, why are the ones who have lived their ENTIRE LIVES in the ocean still humanoid? How long was he gone? How many generations have come and gone? Why didn’t he age? I NEED MORE INFORMATION

Poor Webby. The person she trusted the most has been lying to her for who knows how long! I think we know what Webby’s arc for the season will involve

Louie does NOT want to be in the middle of this

MER-MURDER-MAIDS!

I want to PERSONALLY THANK the GENIUS that had David Tennant use hippie slang. You did the lord’s work

The face Scrooge makes when he thinks that they are gonna take his money is PRICELESS

I feel bad for the Mervanans. They were left to fend for themselves. They did pretty good for themselves all things considered but still

Della taking baby steps only to be pushed right back into her comfort zone, I felt that

She’s just like, nope

“Gotta get harp down. Gotta save family. Maybe sell the harp later.” The kid has his priorities straight

The way the Harp acts when Beakley picks her up is a mood and I ship it

“Is that what I sound like? Oh, boy.” I love the way Bobby says “oh, boy”

“We would never!” “Yeah, we’re vegan.” At least these merpeople actually flat out say they don’t eat fish, unlike other merpeople who act all high and mighty even though they probably eat fish too

I love the one dude who just kinda flaps out of the water

“I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.” “CORRECT!”

DUDE, DON’T INSULT THE MAN’S COOKING SKILLS! IT’S YZMA, KRONK, AND THE SPINACH PUFFS ALL OVER AGAIN!

I think Donald is just always angry ala Bruce Banner

Donald is me when someone says the wrong thing to me on an already shitty day

He just slings Dewey over his shoulder and drags Huey. I feel like a family meeting about chili is in their future. Though the Harp didn’t say whether or not Dewey was lying so...

“Our king returned and tried to eat us.” In the words of Zuko; that’s rough, buddy

“We’re all monsters on the inside.” “WE ARE?! GET IT OUT OF ME!” Vero is having a very bad day

“Mervana isn’t a place. It’s, oh boy, it’s in your heart!”

Louie and Webby make each other better and that’s what’s great about their team ups

“We need your inner-truths to move from your hearts to YOUR FISTS!” WEBBY WILL FUCK YOU UP

“WELCOME TO MERVANA” BITCH!

Poor Harp. It’s not her fault that she only has one setting

I WANNA RIDE A MERMAID! No, not that way! ok maybe that way too

Webby’s eyes sparkle when the merpeople get to land

DROP ON THE DECK AND FLOP LIKE A FISH

“TIME TO SEND THIS FISH BACK TO SCHOOL!” Della knows how to one-liner

Her Naruto run is great. I bet she’s been watching it with the kids

Della is gonna wash her leg SO HARD after that

I don’t think Honestus should have gotten off so easy. The dude’s a dick who only cares about himself. I know that wouldn’t mesh with the moral of the episode, but I still hate him

Della looks so fucking confused, like LP usually does. THEY ARE MEANT TO BE BESTIES

Dewey kept his tail. So cute!

“She’s kinda harshin’ my vibe.” I know, my dude, I know

“And it’s finally where it belongs.” “Telling shiftless hippies to get a job!” Scrooge is harshin’ my vibe. Stupid capitalist

The head kiss Beakley gives Webby GIVES ME LIFE! SO PURE

Well of course she’s fibbing! Beakley is/was a SPY! Her job was secret keeping!

I really enjoyed this episode. I, like Webby, ADORE mermaids so I wasn’t gonna complain there. I liked that the merpeople weren’t actually evil because that would have been predictable af. It really ties in with the legacy theme of this season. Just because the people who came before you were jerks doesn’t mean you have to be. I think I enjoyed the other episodes a bit more but that’s probably because they were a bit more focused on a single character and only introduced a few new characters. I give it an 8/10, not enough Launchpad and not NEARLY ENOUGH fish puns

#ducktales #dt spoilers #I think I might ship fethry and vero

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theeternalspace · 5 years ago

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House of Leaves 1

Well here we are. My secret project for the last month and a bit. Of course, it grew and grew in my mind until it went beyond a one shot. I’m thinking about ten chapters but we shall see! And yes, I’m carrying on my theme of ‘villainous’ but not really sides. It’s Roman’s turn again to be morally dubious!

This was a collaboration, in parts with @mermaid-of-the-valley. We each had the same basic plot but with certain things swapped. Don’t forget to check out her awesome version!

Title: House of Leaves

Pairings: Romantic Prinxiety

Characters: Virgil and Roman in this chapter.

Summary: Hero and Villain AU.

The Dazzling Prince wants many things in life. To rule, to have power, to be loved. To have his hero renounce the light and dance with him in the shadows of night.

When his other half comes to him for help, Roman finds himself being offered the thing he wants most in the world - if only he can reach out to take it.

Warnings: Villain Roman, Remus and Deceit. They aren’t evil, evil, but they are not angels. Drugs, injuries, loss of control and some manipulation in this part. Mentions of a previous one night stand.

Masterpost

Previous || Next

~~~

“Time to toss out the Princess and bring in a Queen!”

Roman spun around the living room as he sung, the energy harmlessly fizzing and dissipating in the air around him. It made a series of almost fireworks like colours and designs dance around him, vibrant reds, golds and greens mixing in with a more understated purple. Not his usual use for his particular set of skills but it was pretty enough. It made a change from accidentally blasting holes in his walls when he sung a note too high and created a blast of pure energy.

All in all, it was good practise. The perfect way to distract people, and he was getting better and better at controlling the power of his energy. The more control, the less likely he was to ruin something he didn’t mean to ruin.

It was hard work trying to take over a city so that the people within would finally recognise the genius talent and beauty that resided within him. But it was a job that Roman was reluctantly and nobly, prepared to accept.

And then once the city was his, he would be able to make sure that everyone within was safe. Well, the ones that weren’t his brothers playthings. And not the ones who had opposed him too many times. Maybe not the ones that Deceit would want to make examples of. But everyone else. They would be safe. And he would show his mercy by forgiving the one that had stood against him for longer than anyone else. He would have his arch nemesis by his side in fact. He might even let those pesky hero friends of his live, should they pledge their allegiance to him.

King Roman. Prince no more. With his dark haired hero by his side and a cowed populace jumping to do his every bidding. He would put on shows, would thrill audiences with sell out performances. He would punish the wicked, the wrong doers who thought they could hurt innocent people in his territory. Everything would be so much better than this mess that the heroes were currently labouring so pointlessly to protect.

One day. One day they would realise how futile their efforts would be. One day they would see how much better things could be if they did it Roman’s way. One day he would be worshipped and loved as he deserved.

He smiled to himself, the pleasant daydreams filling his mind. There was nothing to do today. No pressing need to leave his house. He was having a me day, which meant no robbing banks or committing crimes in the hope of getting attention. Tomorrow was for all of that. Today he was going to sing, he was going to eat a delicious meal and he was going to - maybe - go out for a walk later and see what pleasant sights he could see in soon to be Romanville.

He glanced up at the various screens above his head, idly taking in the various scenes from inside and out of his home. Well, half personal home, half secret lair, all fabulous. Everything had style and everything was in its proper place. As it should be. All the better to impress his fellow villains. And maybe one or two heroes.

Okay, one hero.

Still, anyone who had seen his hero would understand. The normal rules didn’t apply to him, the normal distance they were meant to keep between the two sides. He was a flame and Roman little more than a moth. Willingly throwing himself on the burning fire time and time again without a care for the consequences.

Movement in one of the screens caught his attention, Roman freezing in place as he stared at the scene playing out in front of him.

A familiar figure stumbled up his path, hunched up and hoodie pulled over his head. If that was his idea at a civilian look, it was terrible. The little things made all the difference - and four wings sticking out of his back were hardly little. They gave the game away as clearly as if he was wearing his superhero costume. Speak of the dev- no, hardly a devil. Roman smoothed down a grin at the thought and the imagined reaction should his unexpected visitor learn that he had been compared to a devil.

Well, well, well. If it wasn’t his little angel. Roman had been starting to suspect that the hero had been avoiding him ever since - well, ever since he had finally gotten a taste of what he wanted. Since they had both gotten a taste of what they wanted.

Roman had half wondered if his desire would end once he had finally caught his prey. It was what normally happened. The thrill was in the chase, was in being denied and testing, trying, until eventually he was able to steal away his heart's desire. Once he had the object or person in his arms, the desire seemed spent. Things always looked better from a distance.

It hadn’t been like that with his angel.

The chase had been thrilling of course. So many times, Roman hadn’t really known who was chasing who. A breathtaking game of cat and mouse as each circled the other. There had been flirting, teasing and it had been a most delightful distraction from the more boring elements of life. Virgil’s face the first time he had escaped police custody and purred that next time perhaps the hero should use fluffy cuffs to trap him was an image that he still treasured.

As with all chases though, there had to be an end. Roman knew he had drawn it out. He had hesitated, lingered before landing the final blow. Part of him hadn’t wanted to end it because no matter how wonderful that moment was going to be, surely it couldn’t be as much fun as all of this.

The end had still come of course. They had bumped into each other as civilians in a pub. Virgil was too socially anxious and awkward to just start a fight while they were both ‘normal’ looking. Not to mention all the possible casualties around them. Instead he had announced his intention to stick close to Roman in order to foil whatever evil scheme he might have planned.

His only scheme that night had been to get drunk. Now it had changed, into getting the both of them drunk and who knew his little angel was so naughty when he had a couple of beers in him?

They had only shared one night together and it should have been enough. He had proved that his hero wasn’t as clean and as perfect as he would no doubt like to believe. He had enjoyed himself and what was more, he knew that Virgil had enjoyed himself. No matter what he might tell himself in the morning. For a villain like the Dazzling Prince, it should have been a victory but also a line in the sand.

Roman only wanted more.

The hero hadn’t seemed to share that sentiment. It had been a little insulting in all honesty - Virgil should have come crawling back to him, desperate for more kisses, more touches. Roman was good in bed, good with romance. He knew how to kiss someone senseless, how to make them happy. Virgil should have wanted that. He should have been unable to resist.

Instead he had seemed almost... cold. Far more chilly than Roman was expecting.

All the quips had vanished from their encounters. All the fun. Virgil barely showed up half the time, sending other heroes to battle him whenever he could. On the rare occasions that he could lure out his angel for a battle, Virgil had been blank. Barely there and all the fun had gone out of their relationship. He didn’t flirt back, didn’t stick around for a second longer than he had to. It was as though they were strangers instead of the more that the Prince had worked so hard to cultivate, the more he saw in his head.

Roman didn’t like it. Which was a woeful understatement of course. He hated it. He hated being ignored at the best of times but this was so much worse than any of those moments. This was being ignored by the man he wanted by his side. The one he knew could be so much more if only free of all the petty restraints of public morality.

He hadn’t yet come up with the perfect plan as to how to steal back Virgil’s heart and now it seemed as though he didn’t need to because after all this time, he had come to him.

Drunk again perhaps?

Well, that was an insult to Roman once more. That he was only worthy of Virgil’s attention when the hero had drunk himself into near oblivion. Roman was a proud strong villain. Not that he liked the term villain. Anti hero perhaps. Yes, that was better. That described how he saw himself. He didn’t want to tear down society for the sake of it, but only because society was broken. Roman had a vision, he had a dream. The world was going to be so much better once he and his friends got control of it.

Regardless of titles, he was more than some... thing on the side for Virgil to indulge in. He wasn’t a dirty secret in that respect. Roman wasn’t interested in being just a passing fancy for the hero. It was strange, it was staggering, it went against everything Roman had ever thought about relationships up to this point, but he wanted something official. He wanted Virgil on his arm. Not just a series of late night visits.

He would worry about that later. First though, he had a guest to greet. A delicious little fly wandering into his web all of his own accord. Roman was going to enjoy this. A second try and this time he wasn’t going to let this one slip through his fingers.

Luckily, he was still dressed in his princely garb, Roman smoothing down the tunic as he walked through his home and out the front door. Virgil was standing a few paces in front of it, swaying ever so slightly. As if in time to some invisible tune. His wings rustled and shifted with the movement, feathers fluttering delicately in the night air. Virgil was so beautiful, that for a moment it actually took Roman’s breath away. Thankfully, Virgil hadn’t seemed to notice him yet, which gave him the moment he needed to recover and slip into the role of the Prince.

“Well, well. If it isn’t my pet hero. Come to discuss terms of your surrender? I promise to be... generous,” Roman said, voice pitched low into what he hoped was a seductive purr. It was always hard with Virgil, he rarely got the reaction he expected from him. Which was, he had to admit, part of the fun. And a lot of the frustration. He offered Virgil a smile, something knowing and teasing in his expression.

If nothing else, he could normally make Virgil flustered and that was sometimes enough. Or at least, it had been, before the night they had shared together. Now Roman wanted to bring him inside and never let him go. He didn’t want flustered if flustered meant Virgil would leave him and his Virgil wasn’t supposed to leave him.

Virgil looked up. Those piercing grey eyes, normally so focused and full of life, of fire were distant, confused. Roman was used to seeing him look at him with passion. Normally a passionate anger, but there had been times when he had seen other passion, had seen a smile in those eyes that Virgil had never dared show on his face. Now, it was as if Virgil was looking at someone he barely recognised.

Roman didn’t like that at all. Those eyes were beautiful. Virgil’s gaze had always made him feel powerful. It was almost intoxicating at times, the rush he felt from knowing the winged hero was watching him and although he would never admit it, some of his more daring stunts had been performed purely because of that. Now, Virgil was looking at him and Roman didn’t feel that familiar, giddy rush of warmth and pleasure.

This wasn’t drink. Roman had seen Virgil - and plenty of people - drunk. He knew the difference between drink and drugs. A wound? Was his precious angel hurt? He felt a swell of self righteous anger rise up in him at that thought.

Who would have dared lay a finger on Virgil? Roman thought he had been very clear on the matter. Nobody was to touch Virgil. They could fight him if he came to try and thwart them. They could defend themselves of course and try and defeat him but there had been an agreement in place. No death. No serious wounds. And should anyone actually capture him, Roman would gladly buy the prisoner off them.

Virgil blinked a couple of times before smiling, his gaze still wavering and uncertain. There was a hint in those eyes though, a reassuring glint of the Virgil that he knew.

“So... sorry,” Virgil slurred, words coming out far too faint for Roman’s liking. “Didn’t... didn’t know where else to go.”

He took another step forward, legs folding up under him as he moved, his body dropping towards the ground. Roman moved without thinking too, trying to catch him before he fell completely. Roman had forgotten to take into account his wings, either the sheer number of them or the weight that multiple pairs of wings added to a person’s body.

The pair crashed to the ground in a tangled mix of limbs and wings. Far, far too many wings. They were fluttered all over the two of them, creating a mess of wings that shielded the pair of them from the outside world. It was almost nice, cocooned inside Virgil’s wings. Roman couldn’t help but feel safe here, protected from anything else.

The way Virgil was pressed close against him was a delicious bonus.

They couldn’t keep lying here though. It wasn’t safe. Roman still had no idea what had happened to him. For all he knew, there could be someone chasing him and while he felt secure within the feathers, he knew it wasn’t true safety. He had to get them both inside. Nobody could get inside his home without his permission - or get out.

“Come on angel, can you stand for me?” Roman coaxed and his plans hadn’t taken into account the idea that Virgil might be too out of it to be able to stand. How was he supposed to seduce him from the path of boring righteousness and towards the path of fun if he was too out of it to even hear any of his very reasonable and tempting words?

Virgil’s whole body stiffened, moving upwards and pulling Roman with him. In a flash, they were both standing upright once more, Virgil holding him and it felt good to be in his arms once more. Good and yet... wrong. So very wrong.

Roman’s eyes narrowed. That... that was different. That wasn’t like his hero at all. Virgil swayed a little as he stood there. There hadn’t been a single comment or complaint, just simply doing as he was told. Roman needed to test this. He needed to know if that had just been a fluke or not. And he had the perfect way to do it. There was no way that Virgil would willingly agree to what Roman had in mind now. No way at all. Surely?

“Kneel,” he ordered, voice husky. There wasn’t even the slightest pause before Virgil was doing just that. The winged hero sunk to his knees in front of of Roman, quiet and obedient.

Roman sucked in a deep breath as he looked down at him and oh - he hadn’t been expecting that. Not the willingness for Virgil to drop to his knees in front of him and look up with such trust in his eyes. Or the way that Roman’s whole body felt as though a jolt of lightning had struck it. He felt electrified in the best sense of the word, alive in a way that Roman hadn’t thought possible. All because of those eyes staring up at him.

He reached out, hand gently cupping Virgil’s cheek. Still, Virgil didn’t move, didn’t protest. Some part of Roman knew this was wrong even for him. His Virgil was a creature of fire and desire. He was abrasive, argumentative, he fought against everything. It was annoying at times, but it was part of what had attracted him to Virgil in the first place.

To have him so docile and well behaved now felt wrong. But it was hard to focus on that that feeling when Virgil was leaning into his touch, his eyes warm and open. As trusting as before. Someone had done this to him, someone had hurt him, changed him. It was benefiting Roman right now, but he didn’t know what other side effects there could be to whatever was affecting him.

There was only one person he could think of that was dumb enough to attack Roman’s hero. One person who would ignore that claim Roman had on Virgil.

Remus. His twin brother.

#sanders sides #Prinxiety #virgil sanders #roman sanders #fic #heroes and villains #house of leaves #aca writes

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

Text

I'VE BEEN PONDERING TOPLEVEL

Object-oriented abstractions. Incidentally, nothing makes it more patently obvious that the old chestnut all languages are equivalent is false than designing languages. 80% of the time you get to social questions, many changes are just fashion. Except for some books in math and the hard sciences.1 These people's opinions change with every wind. I'm inclined to think there isn't—that good design has to be new—that it didn't predict anything. A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions. What can't we say? But, as in more recent times indecent, improper, and unamerican have been.2 A friend of mine asked Ryan about this, it was even better than C; and plug-and-chug undergrads, who are amazed to find that there is something wrong with you if you thought things you didn't dare say out loud.3

I'm just stupid, or have sex, or eat some delicious food, than work on hard problems. This second group adopt the fashion not because they want to do more than just shock everyone with the heresy du jour. Com signals strength even if it is a huge win in developing software to have an interactive toplevel, what in Lisp is called a read-eval-print loop. In the process of developing the pitch for the first conference, someone must have decided they'd better take a stab at explaining what that 2. No one does that kind of thing for fun.4 Back in the days of fanfold, there was a new kind of computer that's as well designed as a Bang & Olufsen stereo system, and underneath is the best Unix machine you can buy individual songs instead of having to buy whole albums. But it's harder than it looks. They let you do many different things, so you can learn faster what various kinds of work equally, but one is more prestigious, you should probably take the organic route, because it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. This article is derived from a keynote talk at the fall 2002 meeting of NEPLS.

The philosophy's there, but it's too late for them to do anything more than the name of the Web 2. And why? Now it means a smaller, younger, more technical group that just decided to make something great. The first sentence of this essay explains that.5 This metric needs fleshing out, and it is a huge and rapidly growing business.6 The reason this won't turn into a second Bubble is that the side that's shocked is most likely to get good design you have to get close, and stay close, to your users.7 If you can think things so outside the box that people call innovative.8 There's no other name as good. Com of your name is that it lets you jump over obstacles. The 2005 Web 2. If you want to fight back, there are several ideas mixed together in the concept of spare time seems mistaken.9

If you work hard at being a bond trader for ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good university. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they will probably use small problems, and will necessarily use predefined problems, will tend to bet wrong. This is an interesting question. Type of x first. Sun now pretends that Java is a grassroots, open-source language effort like Perl or Python.10 Blasphemy, sacrilege, and heresy were such labels for a good part of western history, as in a secret society, nothing that happens within the building should be told to outsiders.11 Explaining himself later, he said I don't do litmus tests. 0 applied to music would probably mean individual bands giving away DRMless songs for free. He wanted to spend his time thinking about biology, not arguing with people who accused him of being an atheist. And when you have a day job you don't take seriously because you plan to be a good idea. Suppose you realize there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is even a saying among painters: A painting is never finished, you just stop working on it. But it's not enough just to tell people that.12

When people say Web 2. Who will? The m. Morale is another reason that it's hard to imagine a language being too succinct is that if you're building something new, you should probably take the organic route. And if it isn't false, it shouldn't be suppressed. Their only hope now is to buy all the best Ajax startups before Google does. Most unpleasant jobs would either get automated or go undone if no one happens to have gotten in trouble for seem harmless now. The quantity of meaning compressed into a small space by algebraic signs, is another circumstance that facilitates the reasonings we are accustomed to carry on by their aid.13 Notice all this time I've been talking about the succinctness of languages, not of individual programs.14 You might find contradictory taboos. There are two routes to that destination: The organic route is more common. But it was also something we'd never considered a computer could be: fabulously well designed.

For example, it is a bad design decision. It seems so convincing when you see statements being attacked as x-ist or y-ic substitute your current values of x and y, whether in 1630 or 2030, that's a sure sign that something is wrong.15 As far as I know, without precedent: Apple is popular at the low end and the high end, but not accurate ones. Surely one had to force oneself to work on them. Bolder investors will now get rewarded with lower prices. Does Web 2.16 But I don't think you can even talk about good or bad design except with reference to some intended user.17 But these words are part of the reason I chose computers.

And if you're ambitious you have to like what you do? If you expressed the same ideas in prose as mathematicians had to do before they evolved succinct notations, they wouldn't be any easier to read, because the paper would grow to the size of a book. What do you do with it? Object-oriented programming generates a lot of popular sites were quite high-handed about it.18 You can stick instances of good design together, but within each individual project, one person has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo.19 Comparison The first person to write the program in some other way that was shorter. Nearly all of it falls short of the standard, I think, is that a restrictive language is one that isn't succinct enough. The programmers I admire most are not, on the whole, captivated by Java.20 80% of the time we could find at least one good name in a 20 minute office hour slot. When you hear such labels being used, ask why. It seems fitting to us that kids' ideas should be bright and clean. I've already said at least one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, is that source code will look unthreatening.

Notes

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for doing badly and is doomed anyway.

But having more of it, but if you repair a machine that's broken because a she is very common, to mean the company is Weebly, which allowed banks and savings and loans to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to go to grad school you always feel you should be protected against such tricks will approach.

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for here, since 95% of the growth is valuable, and b when she's nervous, she expresses it by smiling more. There are fields now in which only a sliver of it, and Smartleaf co-founders Mark Nitzberg and Olin Shivers at the network level, and yet it is because those are guaranteed in the case of heirs, professors, politicians, and the ordering system, written in Lisp. An investor who for some reason insists that you wouldn't mind missing, false positives caused by filters will have to replace the actual server in order to provoke a bidding war between 3 pet supply startups for the first type, and their flakiness is indistinguishable from those of dynamic variables were merely optimization advice, and this trick merely forces you to test whether that initial impression holds up.

There were a first—. It's conceivable that the payoff for avoiding tax grows hyperexponentially x/1-x for 0 x 1.

The IBM 704 CPU was about bands. This phenomenon is not the only way to fight back themselves. Why does society foul you? The reason Google seemed a miracle of workmanship.

If anyone wants to invest in your own mind. All you have is so hard on Google. The danger is that it's boring, we used to reply that they think the usual way will prove to us an old-fashioned idea.

In desperation people reach for the explanation of a press hit, but it's not lots of customers is that the founders.

Another advantage of startups that seem promising can usually get enough money from them. According to a super-angels. But it turns out to be low. This would penalize short comments especially, because to translate this program into C they literally had to ask, what you care about Intel and Microsoft, not you.

The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. He was off by only about 2%.

Since most VCs are only slightly richer for having these things. There is no longer written in C and Perl. This prospect will make it a function of the rule of thumb, the space of ideas doesn't have to keep their wings folded, as they do.

The relationships between unions and unionized companies can hire a lot of the business, and only one.

But so many still make you take out your anti-immigration people to endure hardships, but countless other startups must have believed since before people were people. So if you have to do, so the number of startups will generally raise large amounts of new inventions until they become well enough known that people working for large settlements earlier, but historical abuses are easier for us, the more important. Which OS? He devoted much of the 1929 crash.

If you want to invest at a 5 million cap, but that it's doubly important for societies to remember and pass on the aspect they see and say that's not art because it is unfair when someone works hard and not others, and post-money valuations of funding rounds are at selling it. Surely it's better if everything just works.

On the way to pressure them to. To paint from life using the same reason parents don't tell the craziest lies about me. The word regressive as applied to tax avoidance.

That can be said to have discovered something intuitively without understanding all its implications. But what they're capable of. SpamCop—. A larger set of good ones.

But let someone else start those startups. In fact, change what it would certainly be less than the previous round.

Investors influence one another indirectly through the buzz that surrounds a hot deal, I didn't. At any given person might have 20 affinities by this standard, and one VC. They'd be interchangeable if markets stood still.

After reading a draft of this desirable company, and configure domain names etc. As a friend who invested in the future as barbaric, but even there people tend to be more precise, and once a hypothesis starts to be about web-based applications greatly to be about web-based applications.

I put it would be reluctant to start software companies constrained in b. Emmett Shear, and instead focus on growth instead of using special euphemisms for lies that seem excusable according to certain somewhat depressing rules many of the big acquisition offers most successful startups get started in Mississippi.

This phenomenon may account for a long thread are rarely seen, so if you're measuring usage you need, maybe you'd start to be, unchanging, but investors can get for 500 today would say that hapless meant unlucky.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #fall #questions #customers #computer #draft #design

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eligos-venator · 5 years ago

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Guilty or Innocent: Eligos Venator

Asked someone to marry you?

“Guilty. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t a romantic at some stage in life. Even someone like myself has done that, once upon a time.”

Kissed one of your friends?

“See, because of the wording, I have to say ‘innocent’. I don’t have friends, friend. I have clients.”

Danced on a table in a bar / tavern?

“Yes. And yes, it cost an exorbitant amount of gil for that client.”

Ever told a lie?

“Truth and lies are so easily exchanged for one another. Truth can be used to forge a lie, and a lie can lead to a truth. I’ve told plenty of lies, and I’ll tell many more. Honesty? That’s what I get paid for. But even in honesty, one can deceive through omitting inconvenient truths.”

Had feelings for someone you can’t have?

“That’d require caring enough to have such feelings. I find that to be a waste of both energy and time.”

Ever kissed someone of the same sex?

“Once. I got paid. No, it wasn’t worth the gil.”

Kissed a picture?

“Why would I do that?” The man asked, raising a brow. “That’s rather sad.”

Slept until 5pm?

“Context is required. I’ve pulled all nighters and then slept from afternoon till supper, many times before. But simply falling asleep at a normal hour and not waking till evening the next day? Never. I don’t allow myself to, as I’ve too much work to deal with, and limited hours in any day to get it done.”

Worked at a fast food chain / restaurant

“We all start somewhere. Me, I had to pick myself back up somehow after hitting rock bottom. The skills I had spent years learning at the academy were too identifying for me to be able to sell them, and I didn’t have a gil to my name. I managed to somehow get a job at a quiet restaurant, and worked my way up from busboy to server, to bartender, in the span of a year. Management could tell I was eager to learn and take on every role I could, and the additional roles I took on paid for the equipment needed to start out as a mercenary, and truly start rebuilding my life.”

Stolen something?

“Guilty. I cannot detail as to what because frankly I do not recall. I’ve committed many a crime, but to put effort into remembering them all is a waste of effort. It’s just a paycheck. And sometimes laws must be broken in order to get it.”

Been fired from a job?

“Plenty of times.” Eligos grinned at this. “There’s always someone who thinks lowly of freelancers like myself, and will try to fire them after the work’s done in order to avoid paying for services rendered. There’s even more that try to ask for the impossible in order to claim breach of contract so they can fire you. My advice to fellow mercenaries is to have a good contract, and to make sure to collect something that you might be able to use to, ah, ‘encourage’ them to keep to their word. It won’t earn you any friendship or build camaraderie with your employer, but going hungry won’t help you either. Better to ensure you are able to eat than worry about what your employer’s personal view is of you.”

Done something you regret?

“We all have regrets in life. I try to lead a life without regret, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t stumbled before and thought back on those choices made. Hindsight is perfect, as they say, and to beat ourselves up over the past accomplishes nothing. It’s better to focus on the future.”

Laughed until something you were drinking came out of your nose?

“That sounds painful. No.”

Caught a snowflake on your tongue?

“If so, I don’t recall. I may well have when young, but after a while, it becomes the same as any other weather phenomenon and is something you adapt to, rather than enjoy.”

Sat on a roof top?

“They’re not the best spot to snipe from, but in crowded areas they’re sometimes the only high ground you can use to get a clear shot.”

Kissed someone you shouldn’t have?

“Shouldn’t have, how?” He asked as his brow raised. “If we’re talking about morals, perhaps so, but my paycheck isn’t decided by my personal ethics. I’m paid to do what I’m told, regardless of consequences and morality.”

Sang in the shower?

“Does humming count? If so, then yes. I can’t say I’m much of a singer, but I’ve a few songs I enjoy greatly, like any other person.”

Been pushed into a body of water with all your clothes on?

“I’ve been tossed overboard while still wearing full armor before. I highly recommend always keeping a grappling hook and line on you when out on the ocean, in case you’re either knocked overboard during a storm, or if your crewmates think it’d be funny to see if you can float in your gear.”

Shaved your head?

“No.” Was the immediate, flat, and unamused reply as the man crossed his arms and yellow eyes stared with clear displeasure at the thought of being bald. “I keep my hair short for convenience. But I don’t keep it that short.”

Made a boyfriend / girlfriend cry?

“Probably. Yes. I anger quite a few people. I’ve upset even more. I’ve made mistakes and have made a few people important to me upset before as well. But the biggest mistake is to let that lie and not handle it. If a mistake is made, it’s best to act immediately to try to resolve the matter. It won’t change the tears spilled, but it will help keep more from falling, in both present and future.”

Shot a gun?

“It’s a part of my job description, half the time. I am partial to utilizing a gun to take targets down at a range. It minimizes the risk to myself.”

Still loved someone you shouldn’t?

“I don’t even know if I’m capable of that emotion. I don’t see how I could still love someone I shouldn’t without having the capacity to love in the first place.”

Have / had a tattoo?

“I’m adverse to identifying marks on my own person, given they can be used to pick me out of a lineup if seen. Someday, maybe, I’ll get one. I wouldn’t mind having one, really. But given my job, it’s a bad idea for me to cave to that temptation.”

Liked someone, but will never tell who?

“If I did, you’d never know.”

Been too honest?

“I say it as I see it. If people have a problem with that, they’re welcome to take their issues with them and jump off a bridge, for all I care.”

Ruined a surprise?

“I ruin many things. Surprises have been one of those that I’ve ruined, yes.”

Been told that you’re beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said?

“No.” That was all he had to say as he crossed his arms, his lips tugged down in a frown as he made a small shooing motion with his left hand to indicate that he wanted the next question to be asked already.

Stalked someone?

“For business purposes. So yes. I’m unable to divulge details, due to the contract signed. What I can say is that it’s not something I particularly enjoy. But a job is a job.”

Thought about murder?

“Frequently. My job often entails applying lethal force against targets. It’s natural I have to think abut it and plan ahead accordingly.”

How about mass murder?

“While I don’t find the idea of murdering a population of people appetizing, I work under the assumption that I’ll need to be armed enough to, at minimum, take out twice the number of targets I’m sent in for. No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, and if you aren’t prepared to adapt to the situation, you’ll find yourself in over your head. I always make sure I’ve enough equipment to take care of both enemy and ally should the situation unfold unfavorably.”

Cheated on someone?

“I am very strict when it comes to contracts made. I don’t break the terms unless my own are broken first. This includes relationships. I have never cheated, nor do I have the slightest of reasons to consider such.”

Gotten so angry that you cried?

“Not at all. I don’t get angry. That’s a waste of energy and time. I get even.”

Tried to stay away from someone for their own good?

“No. Why would I care about what’s good for someone else? People won’t spare a second thought about you and what’s good for you. They’ll take what they need. It’s on your own head if you can’t do the same for fear of consequences for another.”

Thoughts about suicide?

”In the past, I considered it frequently. Looking the part of half-breed is rough on any, but especially so when you grow up in a society raised to be intolerant of others not like them. But I’ve learned since then and grown, and no longer consider such an option.”

Had a girlfriend / boyfriend?

” Girlfriend, yes. I’ve had a few relationships. But I’m very content with my life as it is now.”

Gotten totally drunk during a holiday?

“I drink, but not to excess. Even on holidays I would rather keep my wits about me than let myself be overly influenced by beverage.”

Tagged by: @tiwahra-ffxiv @ivyffxiv [Thank you for the tags!]

Tagging: @uurkhilen @voidtouchedduelist @lilac-memorials @lighttheabyss @octophopi @vesper-aldaine @cigarettes-n-daisies @arcurisrilanox @nocturnedreaming @cadrenebula @yokasaris @roleplay-aficionado @cottoncnyandy @wildgirlcinna @misorastraus @arcana-divine @a-corsairs-chorus @shroudkeeper @miyuki-mazaki @knightingale-xiv and anyone else who wants to do it!

#asks and memes #thank you for the tag!

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

Text

Headlines

U.N. says yes to Bono, no to Celine Dion (Foreign Policy) India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway were elected to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday after stiff campaigning at the international body. One seat is still unfilled after U.N. members voted and will go to either Kenya or Djibouti. The two-year term for the new members will begin on January 1, 2021. Canada missed out on a seat on the council despite wooing U.N. ambassadors with a Celine Dion concert. The Irish delegation was more successful—having curried favor by treating ambassadors to a U2 concert early in campaigning.

1.5 million more laid-off workers seek unemployment benefits (AP) About 1.5 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, a historically high number, even as the economy increasingly reopens and employers bring some people back to work. The latest figure released Thursday marked the 11th straight weekly decline in applications since they peaked at nearly 7 million in March as the coronavirus shut down much of the economy and caused tens of millions of layoffs. The decline was much smaller, though, than in recent weeks, falling just 58,000. The total number of people receiving unemployment aid also fell slightly, reflecting the return of many to their old jobs.

Court rejects Trump bid to end young immigrants’ protections (AP) The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to end legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants, a stunning rebuke to the president in the midst of his reelection campaign. For now, those immigrants retain their protection from deportation and their authorization to work in the United States. The 5-4 outcome, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal justices were in the majority, seems certain to elevate the issue in Trump’s campaign, given the anti-immigrant rhetoric of his first presidential run in 2016 and immigration restrictions his administration has imposed since then.

U.S. warns of pirates in southern Gulf of Mexico (Reuters) The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a warning about the threat posed by pirates to boats and oil installations in the southern Gulf of Mexico, in the latest sign of concern about ongoing security challenges facing Mexico. “Armed criminal groups have been known to target and rob commercial vessels, oil platforms, and offshore supply vessels in the Bay of Campeche area in the southern Gulf of Mexico,” the U.S. State Department said in an updated travel advisory.

A teen’s killing stirs Black Lives Matter protests in Brazil (AP) When Rafaela Matos saw police helicopters over her favela and heard gunshots, she fell to her knees and asked God to protect her son, João Pedro. Then she called the boy to make sure he was OK. “Be calm,” João Pedro wrote back, explaining that he was at his aunt’s house and everything was fine, Rafaela told The Associated Press. Minutes after he sent the message, police burst in and shot the 14-year-old in the stomach with a high-caliber rifle at close range. João Pedro Matos Pinto was one of more than 600 people killed by police in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the first months of this year. That’s almost double the number of people killed by police over the same period in the entire U.S., which has 20 times Rio’s population. Like João Pedro, most of those killed in Rio were black or biracial and lived in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, or favelas. As the Black Lives Matter movement brings hundreds of thousands to the streets around the world, demonstrators outraged by João Pedro’s death one month ago have been organizing the largest anti-police brutality demonstrations in years on the streets of Rio.

World War II forces sweetheart singer Vera Lynn dies at 103 (AP) Dame Vera Lynn, the endearingly popular “Forces’ Sweetheart” who serenaded British troops during World War II, has died at 103. During the war and long after, Lynn got crowds singing, smiling and crying with sentimental favorites such as “We’ll Meet Again,” and “The White Cliffs of Dover.” Lynn hosted a wildly popular BBC radio show during the war called “Sincerely Yours” in which she sent messages to British troops abroad and performed the songs they requested. The half-hour program came on during the highly coveted slot following the Sunday night news. “Winston Churchill was my opening act,” she once said. Amid this year’s coronavirus outbreak, Lynn and opera singer Katherine Jenkins released a charity version of “We’ll Meet Again.” Once again the public found comfort in her words of hope, which resonated in the locked-down country. In a reflection of her enduring appeal, Queen Elizabeth II also invoked the words of Lynn’s signature song as she addressed the nation in lockdown. The monarch, who served as an ambulance driver during the war, played on the song’s theme, promising that loved ones would be reunited in the end after being separated by the virus. “We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return,” the queen said. “We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”

Europe said U.S. influence had waned under Trump. Then Black Lives Matter protests rocked the continent. (Washington Post) Europeans have lamented that the United States has relinquished its role as a global moral leader under President Trump. But the proliferation of Black Lives Matter protests around the world has solidified belief here that American society remains a superpower of influence, even if its politicians do not. Protests have erupted in Australia, South Africa, Brazil. But nowhere outside the United States has the Black Lives Matter movement forced a more powerful reckoning than in Europe, where increasingly diverse societies have often done little to grapple with their colonial legacies and modern-day discrimination. In Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Lisbon and cities across Britain, protesters have taken to the streets to express solidarity with Americans but also demand changes within their own countries. Black and minority activists in Europe have been working for years to push for more equitable societies. But they have often gotten a dismissive reception from their nations’ mostly white leaders. This time, though, just as in the United States, Floyd’s death appears to have forced an unusually broad-based reckoning.

Europe threatens digital taxes without global deal, after U.S. quits talks (Reuters) France said a U.S. decision to quit global talks on how to tax big digital firms such as Google, Amazon and Facebook was a “provocation” and the European Union said it could impose taxes even if no deal was reached by year-end. The latest transatlantic trade row was ignited after the Washington said on Wednesday it was withdrawing from negotiations with European countries over new international tax rules on digital firms, saying talks had made no progress. Nearly 140 countries are involved in the talks organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the first major rewrite of global tax rules in a generation to bring them up to date for the digital era. European countries says tech firms pay too little tax in countries where they do business because they can shift profits around the globe with little physical infrastructure. Washington has resisted any new unilateral taxes on Silicon Valley companies in the absence of an OECD deal.

U.S. military aid to Ukraine (Foreign Policy) The U.S. Congress approved a $250 million defense package for Ukraine last week, aimed at boosting Ukrainian military capabilities in the face of Russian aggression. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv announced on Wednesday that $60 million worth of weapons and other military equipment was en route to Ukraine as part of the package. Military aid to Ukraine became a hot-button issue last year, when it was revealed that Trump had ordered his administration to withhold assistance to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings of the family of Joe Biden—leading to Trump’s impeachment.

China Is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Men and Boys, Using U.S. Equipment (NYT) The police in China are collecting blood samples from men and boys from across the country to build a genetic map of its roughly 700 million males, giving the authorities a powerful new tool for their emerging high-tech surveillance state. They have swept across the country since late 2017 to collect enough samples to build a vast DNA database, according to a new study published on Wednesday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research organization, based on documents also reviewed by The New York Times. With this database, the authorities would be able to track down a man’s male relatives using only that man’s blood, saliva or other genetic material. The project is a major escalation of China’s efforts to use genetics to control its people, which had been focused on tracking ethnic minorities and other, more targeted groups. It would add to a growing, sophisticated surveillance net that the police are deploying across the country, one that increasingly includes advanced cameras, facial recognition systems and artificial intelligence.

Egypt thought it dodged the worst of the pandemic. But now hospitals are being overwhelmed. (Washington Post) For three months, Egypt seemed to escape the huge case numbers seen in many other nations, including those with far lower populations. But the number of reported cases in the country has steadily risen in recent weeks, with more than 1,500 infections per day since Friday, escalating pressure on a health-care system that was strained long before the pandemic. Egyptians are now posting dire messages on social media seeking scarce hospital beds and money to pay for treatment. Doctors are accusing the government of negligence, blaming it for shortages of personal protective equipment and a lack of adequate safety measures. Several hundred doctors and nurses have tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and scores have died. The medical union has warned that Egypt’s health system could “collapse.” “The patients are increasing in very rapid numbers,” said a 32-year-old doctor at a quarantine hospital in the southern city of Esna, where every bed was filled with coronavirus patients. “But you don’t have the capacity of beds, hospitals and staff numbers. It’s really exhausting for the staff.”

#headlines #news

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anonymoustalks · 4 years ago

Conversation

The left has become absorbed by identity politics and is obsessed with race.. it scares me that they will create more racists than before they started

(6-17-20) You both like politics.

You: heyaa

Stranger: Hi

Stranger: How are you

You: anything you're interested in?

You: I am fine

Stranger: I'm interested in hearing opinions on things

You: oh, me too ^^

You: what kind of things?

Stranger: Politics is divisive, but in order to get a better understanding I wish to listen to both sides

You: awesome, I think that's great ^^

Stranger: :) thank you

You: do you have issues you care about most?

Stranger: The current fall of western society

You: fall of western society huh

You: can you elaborate more?

Stranger: Over the past few years we have seen western society devolve. Where once we were fairly united and we stood strong, we have become more divided and with the introduction of identity politics, that has just worsened till we have gotten to where we are now. China is currently pushing her borders, and yet with the US in flames and the uk following suit (along with France for that matter), noone challenges it

You: mhm *nodsnods*

Stranger: To speak out against the lunacy is to be called a racist and a bigot, not that that's anything new of course but those who are calling for these things seem to not really understand the importance and significance of their actions. I see this as akin to the 1920s Weimar Republic. They are pushing for things they don't want

You: you type a lot haha

Stranger: Sorry i am choosing my words carefully

You: mhm it's fine

You: so you think strong foreign policy is very important?

Stranger: I do. I am from South Africa, though I live in the uk. For those who live outside the us and Europe, we see the importance of Baro and the us on a geopolitical scale. China owns the east of Africa, if not central as well. The us has been the top dog preventing them and Russia from doing much for years, though that's going to change in the coming years

Stranger: NATO not baro* bloody autocorrect

You: oh okay I was wondering what that was haha

Stranger: If I may ask, where are you from?

You: the us actually

Stranger: I thought you might be given the time :) it's half 1 am here

You: yeah it's late!

You: so in your view, western countries need to have more of a spine?

You: is that basically what you're saying?

Stranger: Always. But history has a cycle.

Stranger: Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times

You: very fair

You: speaking of cycles, I think something that is floating around these days

You: is whether it's sort of like the beginning of the end of american hegemony

You: sort of like UK's empire gradually had its sunset

Stranger: This is what I am concerned with. All empires have their time in the sun, and all shall fade. I had hoped I would be dead before it happened. I made a prediction several years ago that should trump win in 2020 again, there will be civil war. I am unsure on my prediction of civil war, but I can see that he will win. Should there not be war, I give it another 2 presidencies before yourselves will fall, and ww3 breaks out

You: hmm the us is steamy right now, but idk about civil war

Stranger: It's been brewing for a while now by my estimation

You: that said I would not be surprised about China continuing to be more aggressive

You: that stuff with India yesterday?

You: ^^

Stranger: Without strong willed opposition, they will always push more overtly. They have done so in the shadows for years now

Stranger: And that's just one example

Stranger: They have intruded on Thailand air space as well

You: I don't think either democrats or republicans are very foreign-policy aggressive right now though

You: idk if your concern will be that much better with biden

You: clinton was a little hawkish but she lost 2016

Stranger: It would be much worse with Biden, or anyone from the left EXCEPT Tulsi Gabbard

You: oh you sounded like you didn't want trump to win lol

Stranger: I don't like him. But honestly, he's the best option out of what has been shown. Bernie is a socialist, Hillary is a warmonger, Biden will probably be a puppet. Who can stand? Hillary could be strong, but you would go to war. For all his faults, Trump has avoided war and conflict. He brought North Korea to the discussion table.

You: okay ^^

Stranger: I may not like him but he is effective, and has been a boon to you economy though as someone who works in finance, the next crash is due soon

You: fair enough although I think a lot of places are hurt by the coronavirus economy anyways

Stranger: Yeah.. the lockdowns are odd.. why quarantine those who are healthy? We have always quarantined those who were I'll first, and then those who go out and riot get a free pass? It's a bit confusing, and is a little bit of double think. Rules don't apply to you if you have the correct opinions it would seem

You: idk the US never really had forced quarantines

You: everything here was just you were supposed to do it

Stranger: The uk did, apologies

Stranger: Well not heavily enforced near me

You: we had college students going to beaches even though the quarantine was happening

You: because young ppl think they are invincible

You: and dumb ^^

Stranger: Hahaha yeah you aren't wrong in that

Stranger: But I have waffled on, may I hear your opinions on what we have discussed?

You: mhm, I disagree but it's cool yo~

Stranger: No that's great, it shows that we can discuss and hopefully come to compromise

Stranger: Thank you for being chill and relaxed

You: mhm I'm basically a hippie though so I don't usually take strong stances on international intervention

Stranger: That's fair and understandable. I used to agree with that as well for many years

You: I kind of think it's a little bit of a selfish position to take (the peace one)

You: in the sense that I don't want to deal with other people's problems

You: so in a sense it's kinda selfish

Stranger: It is and it isn't :)

Stranger: It's a moral good and a difficult thing. Peace only exists as reprieve from war. Humanity is a war like species, and peace only ever exists between them. And I applaud your pacifism

You: idk I'm not sure if it's always something to applaud

You: I think in a sense it's a kind of inaction

Stranger: A good thought experiment for you then, look at ww2

You: yup

You: I'm familiar with isolationism in history and its ramifications

Stranger: The us was neutral officially for years, and because they took no strong stance, the Nazis rose to power. Admittedly it was partly the fault of all the allies and ww1 but that's a digression.

Stranger: But war was thrust upon them officially by what happened. The peaceful stance can be taken from you, but that is not a bad thing in my opinion

You: yup

Stranger: What would you do if you could, at that time?

You: at that time?

You: hmm

You: it's not a question I've thought very much about

Stranger: I thought on that myself

You: and what did you conclude?

Stranger: My answer was intervention. Stop the Anschluss, the Munich agreement, the extremely harsh measures of the treaty at the end of ww1

You: oh yeah that was a terrible treaty

You: I kind of imagined myself as an average person though haha

Stranger: But I understand the reasoning at the time for allowing all those things to go through

Stranger: I am too

You: you would have protested your government signing that treaty?

Stranger: That's why thay generation was called the greatest generation. We the average man stood up and took up arms, because they believed what was right.

Stranger: It is difficult to say that if I lived in that time I would. Of it was today, 100%

You: mhm... war is frightening

Stranger: We cannot judge the past with the same moral standing we have today

You: of course

Stranger: And yes, war really is a horrible thing

Stranger: If peace was an option, I would go for it. Often times though, we have no control over that

You: mhm there is suffering in a lot of places, and violence that arises from suffering and hatred

Stranger: Look at the Nazis and the hatred of the Jews. That was extremely common all across Europe, the uk and the us. Many leaders in politics and business liked the Nazis initially. But just because something is common, does not make it right

You: I actually never understood antisemitism

Stranger: You are quite wise, and I agree with you. But the sad thing is, there will always be suffering

You: or why people hate(d) jewish people

Stranger: The scary thing is, many of those in BLM look up to a man called Farrakhan (forgive me on the spelling) who is a huge antisemite. Like he openly calls for violence against them. He gets away with it, because he is black. Why he hates them I don't know. They are hated I think, because they are the oldest abrahamic religion and the oldest monothesist one as well, from which both Islam and Christianity draw their teachings from initially

You: I just don't understand why they are hated

You: often by christians too

Stranger: Me neither, I find it abhorrent. They have been persecuted for thousands of years

You: yeah idk I just don't understand why

Stranger: I have yet to find out why. I know in Islam they hate them as it is dictated within their scriptures, though the exact wording I am unsure on. Christians I would think it's because they don't believe that Jesus was the son of God

You: I guess so

Stranger: But I may be entirely wrong

Stranger: Which I probably am

You: idk I don't know anything so I have no clue

Stranger: Hence why I like and want discussion :) we learn more through communication

Stranger: We become better the more we communicate

You: is there a reason why you dislike blm so much?

Stranger: I stand against identitarianism

You: so basically all those "pride" movements?

Stranger: I come from a racist country that segregated everyone and everything based on the colour of everyone's skin and I was hated for being the colour of my skin just for being born. I cannot condone movements that wish to implement the same things, as it will lead to suffering and hatred.

Stranger: I have nothing against being proud of your race, though I think the idea is a bit stupid. I have an issue with everything needing to divided up based on the colour of ones skin, I choose to judge someone on the basis of their character. I'm not perfect and there are times where I have been prejudiced but it is something I am consious of and wish to not do

You: mhm okay

You: I'm not sure if blm wants things to be divided up based on race though

You: I thought they were mostly against police brutality

Stranger: Some very much so are. Though I will concede that not all of them are, and I should tar everyone with the same brush. But as a counter to that, look at CHAZ in Seattle, they have segregated farms though calling them that is hilarious

You: I thought chaz is just a city block?

Stranger: On the police brutality, I agree with them and that reform must happen. Abolishing police is not a good idea. More funding is required, better training and better internal policies and structures to vette and review the officers is needed. Abolishing them will lead to anarchy. You are correct that Chaz is, but it is a microcosm showing the very things I stand against. I am against racism of all kinds, segregation is a form of racism. The us had a history where they did it too and agreed that it was wrong

You: mhm

You: I just wasn't familiar with blm as pro-segregation

You: that said, most blm activists are just really young

Stranger: They have been co-opted by those who are. And many activists are young white kids

You: I don't think mainstream democrats take them very seriously

Stranger: I'm not so certain. But I hope I am wrong

You: idk I mean these days who knows what kind media we each read

You: so I'm sure I'm in a bubble too

Stranger: They may see these things as a good and helpful idea, but the road to hell is often paved with good intentions

Stranger: Of course, and I hope I'm wrong. I recommend a variety of news sources, especially independent ones. A great one is a guy named Tim Pool on YouTube. He is a left leaning centrist guy who is upfront with his leanings. But he gives the news as it is

You: mhm I try to avoid youtube news

You: although idk if it's truly reliable to always go through bbc or ap or others

You: they are just mainstream

Stranger: BBC is very biased in my opinion. Tim used to work on mainstream media but he left. I would call him credible, he looks at news sources and verifies them. He's very milk toast and fence sits allot the problem with news is that all sides want to spin things the way they want it

You: mhm okay

You: is there any kind of mainstream media that you like?

Stranger: I don't trust any of them when it comes to almost anything except weather and sport scores. I will listen to what is said from various sources before coming to my own conclusions. I have lost all faith in the media since 2016

You: I see, I guess it ends up being hard to find something to trust

Stranger: Unfortunately it is. My reasons for it was both the elections in the us for 2016 and the brexit vote here in the uk. I was very similar to you then, very much so a hippie and very left leaning. I disagreed with Trump and Brexit, but I lost. But the way the media and society within the left handled themselves and the situation, that put me off completely and pushed me to become more conservative than what I was

You: interesting, although I'm not exactly following what made you more interested in conservative things

Stranger: The constant denigration of those who you disagree with. The treatment hat those people got, most of whom are the working class, upon the backs of which society is upheld. They are not racist or evil. They have a different opinion and different values. How does making a choice in a democracy make someone evil when neither side is perfect?

Stranger: The left preaches tolerance, except that it doesnt in reality

You: mhm yeah I don't like that

You: I don't think it is effective either

Stranger: All it does is polarize people

Stranger: And drive them further away from reaching g a compromise

You: right

Stranger: Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with Brexit, but as a democracy we made a decision. So now we need to exact that decision. I would have voted for trump despite my disdain for him

Stranger: Enact not exact*

You: I think there are a lot of people who think similarly as you do ^^

Stranger: There really are

Stranger: The left has become absorbed by identity politics and is obsessed with race.. it scares me that they will create more racists than before they started

Stranger: Constantly calling your opposition racist and evil will force them into being it

You: mhm I think there are some things to distinguish between social media left-wing people and people in everyday life I think

You: the vitriol is always much more amplified online than people are irl

Stranger: Oh agreed! Twitter is not real life, but it has started to bleed over

You: I live in a fairly liberal state, although I don't really think I have ever seen twitter irl

You: although I do think there is probably self-censorship occuring

You: in the sense that people are afraid of what their neighbors will think

Stranger: There is allot of that

Stranger: Anything you say will be used against you. Even if it's not that controversial

Stranger: People have lost their jobs for an opinion not done at work

You: that said, I don't think that's per say the "left's" fault though -- I just think that public opinion has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years

Stranger: Or how about the man who lost his job because his wife said something controversial

Stranger: I agree with you

Stranger: I really do

Stranger: Allot of this I do think could have been stopped years ago

You: I don't really like the lynch firing of people

You: that companies do for their public image

You: because the truth doesn't matter

You: it's just public image

Stranger: They do so because they are scared of the mob

You: but at the same time, I think public image is a thing because majority opinion really has shifted in the past two decades

You: opinions on homosexuality have swung dramatically in the US

You: ten years ago it was totally okay in public to be anti-homosexual

Stranger: Obama was against gay marriage until it was politically important for him to win the next election

You: but public opinion I think has swung really fast

You: yeah

You: I think he swapped at the first poll that showed >50% of americans supported it

Stranger: Yep! I find it hilarious that that was the case

You: yes but I think conservatives find this kind of fast change extremely uncomforting

You: I can understand that sentiment

You: also isn't it getting kinda late for you? ^^

Stranger: Conservatives are by their very nature are conservative. Change is neither malevolent nor benevolent, but we cannot look at change as universally good. Not can we disregard tradition

Stranger: It's 3 am and I can still keep going, I'm enjoying this conversation :)

You: I need to do the dishes eventually lol

Stranger: If you wish to leave you can by all means :) I won't hate you for it

You: I'm fine either way tbh

You: are you working right now? if you have work tomorrow you should prob go to bed

Stranger: It's up to you :) I can go for ages though my coherence Kay descend

Stranger: I'm sadly unemployed at the moment having lost my job earlier this year

You: coronavirus?

Stranger: Sadly yes

You: that's unfortunate, I'm sorry

Stranger: Not your fault :) so don't stress

You: so aside from Russia and China and the decline of western things, is there anything else that you stress about lol?

Stranger: The drive of censorship

Stranger: I have serious issue with censory

You: mhm

Stranger: And yourself?

You: mhm I dunno really

Stranger: That's good, though I would urge you to become concerned with censorship

You: mhm maybe

You: for me it's sort of a contextual concern I think

You: in the sense that it depends on your vantage point

Stranger: Opinions, art and books doesn't matter. Today it is their voice, tomorrow it is my voice. The day after it becomes your voice. Censorship takes away their rights to speak, and your rights to listen

You: mhm, what I mean is that my family immigrated from China

You: so my reference point of censorship is literal government censorship

You: in comparison the "political correctness" thing just doesn't seem as big to me imo

You: because 90% of it to me is sort of like a person's relationship with the neighbor basically

You: the US government doesn't censor what you can publish essentially

Stranger: That's fair enough, but this is where it starts. Things take time, and if anyone gives in (such as they have in several cases) that builds. In time that becomes the norm, there after what gets censored will not be at the choice of the people but of those who are in power

You: perhaps, although I kind of have faith in the 1st ammendment and the US supreme court

You: we barely have libel laws or defamation laws in the US because of the 1st ammendment

Stranger: I have seen calls to change and amend it. In the uk we have no freedom of speech, people have been arrested for jokes, what's been said on Twitter, etc. There are those who say that it's ok to censor this and that because e they are problematic or it would be good for everyone. But that is how it starts. The US has so much freedom

You: ahh... yeah I feel like it is different in the uk

Stranger: The uk doesn't care for free speech. It's very worrying and there are calls for even more censorship here.

You: mhm that sounds worrisome

Stranger: I guess I project it across to all western countries, and that is something we have seen recently

You: I don't think the US will lose the 1st amendment anytime soon, it's not politically realistiic

Stranger: Look at Amazon censoring books and movies being removed etc, this is how this begins. If it is allowed now, how can we stop it in the future

You: idk the status of free speech in other countries

You: actually this is a very interesting topic

Stranger: The us is one of the only countries that has it

You: do you think freedom of speech should be protected in private spaces?

Stranger: Codified in law that is

You: because technically freedom of speech for us is supposed to be only related to public government relationships

Stranger: I believe it should always be be protected

You: specifically "congress will make no law restricting freedom of speech" (paraphrased)

You: so you believe that private companies should not control what is said on their premises?

You: I mean it's fine if you believe that, it's actually just a bit further than what the current status quo is

Stranger: Yes. They are not above the law. Society may shun them, but they should not become involved. Outright calls for violence are against the law and that should be honoured, outside of that no they should not impose on pthers

You: hmm in the US this is where things get super complicated

You: because conservatives are also the ones who want content restricted/said in their religious schools too

Stranger: I've noticed.. and that has an effect on the rest of the world

You: basically "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech" being on the same political side here makes things very weird

Stranger: And yeah I am aware of that as well, though the pendulum seems to have swung to the other side now. And it will swing back to the other side again

You: kind of like "My store should have the freedom of religion to deny my patrons of being homosexual in my store" kinda thing

Stranger: Yeah it is hard but there is more to the opposite side than just the one thing

You: it's a weird convoluted thing when both are conservative issues

Stranger: That's a difficult one, but I would say that should be discussed and debated but the highest courts. I cannot say from a legal sense one way or the other, morally I can say that it's hard to decide. I think that everyone should get a choice but I am uncertain

Stranger: By not but*

You: mhm that's fine ^^

You: I just think it's very interesting because most laws here, they govern the relationship between between the government and the people

You: so our freedom of speech laws do not apply to amazon censoring books because they are a private company

Stranger: Which is the difficult thing

Stranger: They are protected by being a private company

Stranger: As it's not just them

You: maybe ^^ we have a free market though, so things that cannot be published on amazon will find an outlet elsewhere

You: provided there is a demand for it

You: that said, it also has some gray area with morality laws

Stranger: That is true but monopoloes make things harder to find

You: kind of like youtube banning pornographic content

Stranger: Yeah I can understand that morally, legally I don't know but I would assume that there is some laws regarding that

You: I mean I'm just used to many various sites having bans of various sorts

Stranger: The uk has some

Stranger: Yeah, but there are protections for them being platforms not publishers

You: I don't think there is any law forcing youtube to ban pornographic content; it's just a branding choice by the company

Stranger: If they are publishers, those protections don't apply

You: like I think they want to be seen as family-friendly

Stranger: Fair enough, would have thought there might be

You: porn sites are not illegal in the US lol

Stranger: Not family friendly, advertisement friendly

You: lol true

Stranger: Sorry I don't know enough to be able to say :) I'm happy to admit that

You: mhm aside from political correctness, I guess I just don't personally see a big problem with censorship in the US

You: although I think I have a different belief than you that I think it's okay for private companies to choose what they want to publish

You: even if the ban content

You: these companies still need to compete

Stranger: Them doing so is fine, but if they wish to be protected as platforms they cannot act as a publisher. I think that's the Crux of their protections

Stranger: It is something that has been going for a while though

Stranger: And I think Trump will have it in his campaign for reelection this year

You: okay ^^

Stranger: But I don't know, he has been interested in censorship and has said he is against it in the past

You: I think people mean different things by censorship

You: but that's just imo

You: there are almost no western countries that experience censorship by their governments

You: so people mean things like censorship at their workplace

You: although imo that's kind of less censorship and more on the political correctness spectrum

Stranger: True. That is very true. But if you don't stop censorship openly, then should it come from government you don't already know you can stand against it

You: but to me, that "political correctness" isn't anything new either; it's as old as time

You: like did we always worry about saying something that would offend our boss?

You: ^^

You: it's always been there

You: I just think people are uncomfortable because bosses have changed in the last few decades

Stranger: It's not just their work place. The new "town square" is has become online. Your freedoms online are not protected despite it being codified in law

Stranger: And you aren't wrong, and coming from China or at least your family, you bring an interesting perspective

You: I feel like in the US we have very little digital legislation

You: the US of is head of hear

You: *there

Stranger: The world needs a digital bill of rights, to protect us all and our data. But we won't get it

You: but I don't think we have anything guaranteeing that speech on the Internet is free by any regard

Stranger: I would argue we do

You: hm? which law?

You: I like most websites have ToS's and rules banning X Y or Z on their site

Stranger: Freedom of speech and expression

You: oh I mean in terms of law

Stranger: That is what I meant, so that we are free to speak and express ourselves. I also believe that our data should be private and cannot be sold and that should be protected. There are other things that I have heard but it's difficult to remember all those that were proposed

You: ahh

You: yeah we don't have those laws right now

Stranger: Today stuff is okay but you are not protected

You: although the EU has some privacy ones that we don't have in the US

Stranger: The EU doesn't care mostly

Stranger: Some laws only protect some information, I'm talking about all of our information

You: ^^

Stranger: Everything we post and do is tracked, monitored and sold

Stranger: We revel in it, "I was talking about cats/dogs and all of a sudden I got adds for cat/dog products"

Stranger: We hear that often

You: yup

Stranger: Also, with regards to our rights and things, who holds these companies accountable?

Stranger: Take google for example

Stranger: They have been caught tampering with the elections

You: well, again, we have basically no laws about this in the US so there is no accountability

Stranger: They openly censor news and opinions

Stranger: They are a monopoly

You: although some europrean countries have lawsuits whatever with them

You: yup they totally are

You: where are anti-trust laws lol?

Stranger: That's what I think Trump will be looking at, I would if I was in his shoes

Stranger: But they were given special protections

Stranger: Those need to be taken away, the large companies need to be broken up but governments are incompetent

Stranger: I don't trust them to do it well

You: mhm it actually reminds me of south korea actually

Stranger: I mean there are a few senators in the states that I think have the moral fortitude to do so, but I don't know

You: countries are loathe to break up companies that they're proud of basically

Stranger: Yep

You: like samsung in south korea lol?

Stranger: They wouldn't break them up

Stranger: It would do serious damage to the economy and blah blah blah

You: their revenue was like 20% of the entire country's gdp

Stranger: Yep it's a difficult argument

Stranger: And I can understand why you wouldnt

Stranger: That 20% could drop to below 1%

You: anyhow it is getting kind of late

You: it was nice talking to you

You: and you should sleep ^^

Stranger: Likewise! :) I needed to move my sleep schedule for a 24 hour race on the weekend anyway, sp thank you for occuping my time and mind :)

You: goodnight!

Stranger: I'm glad to have met another willing to talk, take care my good friend

You have disconnected.

#omegle #identity politics #blm #foreign policy #trump #china #anti-semitism #tech #internet privacy #censorship #first ammendment #freedom of speech #political correctness #politics

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gofancyninjaworld · 5 years ago

Text

The World of Heroes, Part 3: The Association

With great thanks to @scumerage for giving me the necessary framing.

So, welcome to Part 3 of me geeking way too much about heroes and One Punch Man. In Part 1, I talked about the challenge of being a hero. In Part 2, I took a step backwards and looked at what heroes were in the context of OPM. This part, I’m going to build on them and write about the world of the pro-hero.

No one has ever needed especial qualifications to be a hero, neither in the real world nor in that of OPM. Heroes arise from anywhere depending on the situation. The idea of someone paid to be a hero seems rather weird the more you think about it.

A: Why a Hero Association?

We can’t understand the Hero Association unless we take the time to really appreciate why it came to exist. The Hero Association was born out of desperation. Specifically, mysterious beings had been appearing with increasing frequency in the world going back at least twenty years -- and back when Saitama was in middle school, it’d already gotten severe enough a problem that there were calls for the government to set up a specialist force to deal with the problem.

Calls that went unheeded.

For years.

Until Agoni had that epiphany that his grandson having the luck of being saved by a random stranger didn’t have to be luck. So he got the buy in of both politicians and business people and set up a Hero Association to organise heroes and save people (not necessarily the same thing). The Hero Association is 100% donation funded, no taxes.

Like a beacon of hope rising out of a sea of tragedy, the Hero Association’s main building stands.

B: Why be a Pro-Hero?

The key thing that I’m going to bold is that the Hero Association ORGANISES heroes. It does not train them, taking only ‘battle ready’ people. It does not worry about developing them. You have to already be a hero. Wannabes need not apply.

This fact has many important implications.

First, there is a right time to join the Hero Association: when the hero work you are already doing has come to take up so much of your time that it is interfering with your ability to make a living. The undying gratitude of the person you saved may be priceless, but it doesn’t pay the rent, nor the hospital bills you incurred. Come to the Hero Association at that time and it’s a fantastic deal. It will reliably pay you every month. It will pay your medical bills. It will record and recognise your activities. It will indemnify you against the damage that you do during the course of your work. If you’re not in Class C, it will help you with equipment. It may even put money aside for the pension you’ll need much sooner than you think.

Second, the Hero Association may not train, but it also does not constrain. As discussed in earlier parts, the sort of person who becomes a hero is someone who doesn’t fear standing out or going against the flow -- they’re independent minded and often more than a little eccentric. The HA’s attitude allows for the weird and wonderful heroes we see to thrive. No prescription of how to do your heroism. No uniforms. Out of Class C, no expectations of minimum activity.

However, while the Hero Association has broad standards, those standards are NOT LOW. Every profession that carries authority over others from teaching to the police has a perennial problem of how to spot and weed out those attracted to it for power tripping purposes, the narcissists, the sociopaths, the sadists, the abusers, and the plain evil. The Hero Association’s pro-heroes are remarkably good -- far better than the general population. There’s a certain amount of nonsense the HA will put up with from super-useful heroes but we’re seeing that even there, they have limits. I don’t know what combination of selection criteria and the demands of the job that create this, but it works.

And there’s a logic to it: hero work, doing good hero work consistently is far too tough for people who don’t have both a serious moral core and a desire to be pro-social to last. The manga expansion has been at great pains to examine the different avenues available to people with the power to be pro-heroes but not the moral core and/or social drive -- regular law-abiding civilians doing whatever the hell they want to. Sportspeople. Criminals. Mercenaries. Vigilantes. Conversely, we’ve also been shown at least one person with the morals, but not the strength -- that person made an exceptional police officer.

With great power comes no obligation -- your life is your own

It’s not a perfect model, and its shortcomings are becoming clearer -- which I’ll discuss in a bit -- but it does do its job of supporting exceptional and highly individual heroes to dedicate themselves fully to their self-appointed work. And they’re good at drawing from society at large: a non comprehensive list of former (and current) professions of pro-heroes includes actor, circus performer, construction worker, salaryman, manager, swordsmen, professional martial artists, hunter, trapper, perfumier, farmer, athletes, body builders, ninjas, ballerinas...the list goes on.

C. Classes and Ranks

Deploying heroes means sorting heroes so as to use them in the best way possible. There are no size limits to any of the classes -- as many as fit the requirements of a class will be in it. The HA is always recruiting.

Class C is the threshing floor, where heroes start if there’s no compelling reason to recommend that they start elsewhere -- or if they have their doubts. The combination of low pay and the expectation of weekly results means that there’s no opportunity to work half-heartedly. It quickly discourages the lazy, those who aren’t strongly self-motivated, those lacking in initiative, those expecting quick recognition, the ones who simply cannot work with others, the ones who won’t take lawful orders and the plain incompetent. Expectations are relatively low. Stopping small time criminals, being helpful to people and being willing/able to work with others to take care of monsters will see you in good standing. Getting out of Class C seems to be dependent on showing that you can be relied on to single-handedly kill monsters (any damn kind) OR by being promoted to C Class Rank 1. The majority of heroes have done at least a short stint in Class C, including many current Class S heroes.

It’s hard to survive on your own in Class C

If a hero is inclined to be lazy, Class B is where to be. No formal quota, no formal expectation of being drafted to help with an escalating situation (like Class A and S heroes), semi-decent pay, help with equipment design/maintenance, its lower reaches are quite a safe place to coast. When a Class B hero does work, the expectation on them is that they be entrusted to handle a wolf-level threat on their own and if Don Pacino is typical of the sort of criminal that gets a B Class bounty, heavily-armed gangs are fair game. The challenge of Class B is the Blizzard Group -- if you work close to or in Z-City, and are ambitious, Fubuki will come knocking sooner or later. It's a problem that the Hero Association knows about and chooses to do nothing about, seeing it as just another test ambitious heroes have to negotiate.

It’s a shame that Class B is so dominated by the Blizzard Group that it’s difficult to find pictures of just Class B heroes that’s not them. And yet we know nearly none of them...

Class A is the where the main backbone of the Hero Association lies. That this is shifting of late doesn’t negate the fact that most monsters are threat level tiger or below. For the vast majority of threats, Class A is where the buck stops. The roughly forty members of this class are the highest class of heroes you could still consider ‘normal’ human beings. Highly visible, hard-working and with high expectations placed on them, A-Class heroes are what other heroes aspire to be. There may be no formal tutelage system in the Hero Association, but Class A heroes take turns to orient new recruits as to the rules and expectations of being a pro-hero.

Class A comes across as a group whose members are just as comfortable on their own as in working with others.

Class S is... well, it is special. Unlike the other classes, a hero cannot be promoted to Class S: it is by direct invitation only. And that invitation is on battle record, battle record, and battle record alone. Only the demonstrated ability to single-handedly slay a threat-level demon monster or more will elicit that invitation. By staying at Class A Rank 1, Amai Mask closes off the possibility that a hero who doesn’t meet those requirements can nevertheless request a promotion interview and talk or network their way in. Why so persnickety? Because these heroes are the In Case of Emergency heroes: when the shit really hits the fan, that’s when they step up. With so few of them, a single S-Class hero can easily be all that stands between tens of thousands of people and a horrible death with no back up available for hours. We’ve seen a lot more of them than the average person in the story does because the story is set precisely in the midst of several extreme emergencies.

They may be the most powerful heroes, but they don’t have the best reputation amongst other heroes. Even between themselves -- they’re amazingly fractious and Flashy Flash’s summation of his colleagues is particularly scathing:

The other Class S heroes are useless. They’re either stubborn or hide their own identity, weirdos, children and old people. (from webcomic chapter 112)

Getting this many Class S heroes in the same place at the same time is like pulling teeth

What about ranks? Within classes heroes have ranks, but they don’t directly correspond to battle power, have little to do with seniority, and are absolutely not measures of hierarchy within a class. What they are are measures of a given hero’s perceived utility to the Hero Association. Ranks give heroes something to measure themselves by, act as a tangible measure of progress, are something that does correlate to how well a hero gets paid within the class and of course, they bring feel superior points. If a hero is minded to climb classes, Rank 1 of the class below is the ticket to apply for promotion.

What’s very fair about the ranking system is that it’s assessed weekly. No matter where a hero starts out, week by week, they cannot help but build an actual track record. The Hero Association isn’t slow to reward good heroes with promotions -- it’s why even the Saitama who won’t report his work and claims to cheat is rising so fast that other heroes keep attacking him. What’s troublesome about it is that it’s a points based system, whereby points can be divided between heroes... which opens the door to some underhanded shenanigans.

Wrapping up

The Hero Association has solved a very troublesome problem: how to reliably hire a hero? Precisely because anyone can be moved to acts of heroism, people have been saved by a random assemblage of other people, only a few of whom would ever think of doing it regularly. What they have done in short is to give those people basic security and protection and otherwise let them get on with doing what they do.

What’s been good about their approach is that they’ve effectively captured lightning in a bottle, bringing together some exceptional people, and deploying them in a way that balanced their needs for individuality with the benefit of collective action. Until recently, it’s a model that has worked. What’s been bad about it…. Ah, that will wait until the last part of this series.

#OPM #meta #world building #Hero Association #heroes #it's an interesting model #but this piece is long enough

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shelikesthosefunnypeople · 4 years ago

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Pls explain more abt the ancient history thing b I’m very interested

Hello anon!

I know this was sent in months ago and I should have replied to it then but I’m a master procrastinator and life has been strange (before coronavirus kicked off I was in the middle of preparing for exams). Anyway, I’m happy to answer this.

I made a post in the distant past, basically saying that I think there is a view that history before 1800 is somehow less intellectual and that this is rooted in sexism. That post is here. Allow me to explain and please bare in mind that this is all just my opinion and is based off my experiences.

Apologies for the length.

Firstly, I love history. I’m a complete geek for it. I think it’s important, interesting and with a bit of luck I’ll be studying it at university soon. Therefore, this isn’t a post where I try to claim that actually history before 1800 is superior... because that’s just dumb. History is history and while historians can have personal preferences over which period they find most interesting, that doesn’t make that period “better” than any others. Literally. I mean, everything leading up to the present day didn’t happen in isolated, distinct boxes and all of it is useful to understanding how modern society has developed.

It makes sense that there is a general interest in “modern history”. After all, it is interesting and we have more information about it thanks to technological developments. The 20th century was a time of massive change if you compare 1900 to 2000 - although, I’m sure it’s easy for us to see the difference, seeing as the 20th century wasn’t so long ago in the grand scheme of things and many people who are alive today lived through a part of it. I’m sure people living in the early part of any century probably thought (if they had access to history) that the start and end of the previous century were hugely different. Nevertheless, I agree that the 20th century is quite profound in this respect, at least at the moment. In 100 years, who knows?

The 19th century also offers us a lot more remnants than its predecessors and I think culturally is still viewed as important. Some people have a rose tinted view of the 19th century. In Britain, I’d say it is seen by those of a certain political persuasion (check out Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg) as a time of peak Britishness(TM) and nationalistic pride... although that narrative is simplistic and disregards the suffering of the colonies and indeed the working classes of Britain, who had to prop up all this “greatness”. Anyway, I’m sure if you found a stuffy 19th century bloke, he would tell you how his society’s morality has gone to complete shambles and that he yearns for a bygone era that only really exists in his mind. I guess that’s just what some people always do. Conservatives, eh?

I’ll actually get to the point now.

At my college, there were two history courses available: modern (involving subjects such as the Russian Revolution and Britain from about 1950-2007) and pre-modern (involving subjects such as the crusades and the English Reformation). I took the latter course and was in a class of 18, where there were 13 girls and 5 boys. Generally, the modern history classes were weighted in the opposite way, which simply suggests that at my particular college with my particular year group, boys had a preference for modern history and girls for pre-modern. I would argue that this preference appears to be more widespread in general, but that’s not definite.

The fact that this difference existed is not the problem. The problem is what people perceived this difference to mean.

I was told by a boy (not a nice boy, so not a representation of everyone) who was studying history that the course I was taking was “the gay version”. That, of course, is a puerile insult for 2020 and highlights his maturity level - all history is very, very gay and if you take issue with that then I don’t know what to tell you. Get your head out of your arse, maybe? But anyway... why did he feel superior about studying a different bit of history?

It wasn’t just him. A (male) teacher once told me that the history course I had chosen wasn’t as useful as the other one and that the only use it had was that I could apply transferable essay writing skills to my other subjects. Which was bollocks, might I add. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t a history teacher.

So, where were these views coming from? Why was the English Reformation - which was basically 16th century Brexit - seen as lesser than the Russian Revolution? The obvious argument one could make is that events that have happened more recently are more important and have more of an impact today. However, without the events of the years before them, would these events have happened either? Does the Church of England not still exist? Do we not have a statue of Richard the Lionheart in Westminster (because we like giving statues to tossers, apparently)?

In my opinion, the answer to this odd hierarchy of time periods lies in gender socialisation and the propensity of people to view history in the same way they view fiction. We know that the traditional male/female gender socialisation patterns are different: boys are socialised to be “tough”, “leaders”, “aggressive” etc. whilst girls are socialised to be “submissive”, “friendly”, “polite” etc. This is hopefully changing now but inbuilt, subconscious biases about the genders and what quantifies masculinity and femininity are still around. There is the stereotype of boys being interested in war due to the toys they were given to play with. Surprise, surprise - warfare in the 20th century alone was vastly different to anything that had come before it and, as I said, due to technology we have more archived about it. I’m not suggesting that only boys are interested in historical war - again, that’s a stereotype. Anyone can be interested in war, 20th century or otherwise. Despite this, I’m not going to pretend there still aren’t those guys who get waaaay into warfare and that their interest and knowledge in history is largely confined to that subject.

And that’s fine! You know, as long as you don’t start worshipping Hitler or anything equally creepy. People aren’t experts on every little bit of history and are allowed to have stereotypical interests.

Yet, that still doesn’t explain completely why “modern history” is viewed as more intellectual, just because maybe it appeals slightly more to men (apart from the obvious that anything men like is viewed as superior in some way).

As historical societies are notably different to our own - especially on the surface - and because there is so much historical fiction that seeks to romanticise it, it is not massively surprising that many people do see history as an extension to fiction. It’s gone, we live in the now, lots of people don’t even believe history matters. The fantasy genre has a habit of adopting historical (often medieval) settings for its tales. It’s an obvious example but Game of Thrones was a retelling of the Wars of the Roses, amongst other things. I think when fantasy is applied to history it makes it seem even less real than it may already and this can lead to it being taken less seriously (though please do watch Horrible Histories or Blackadder and take the piss out of all time periods because humans of every age have been fallible). Of course, it is far easier to romanticise and play around with times that are further from our own because they are further detached and therefore more fantastical. This plays into post-1800 being seen as more “real” and “intellectual”.

Some men who wish to keep women out of the historical circle accuse them of only being interested in history because of “romance” or “fancy dresses” - princesses and knights and fairytales. This is more a low down problem with internet trolls than actual, published historians but the issue still stands. If you view “pre-modern” history through this veil of fiction then it must seem rather childish compared to the stark brutality of the World Wars and the political rise of the New Right in the West. However, conversely, it could also be argued that the nationalism and legend attached to recent warfare makes it equally comparable to a story. Not a happy story but then, Game of Thrones isn’t a happy story either.

I don’t think anyone serious about history actually believes that the romantic, fantastical elements attached to any historical periods are 100% true. Hopefully, most people don’t see them as proof that being interested in a certain period makes you better than someone who is interested in another period. Any period can be romanticised, including the “modern” one - Titanic, anyone? Not to mention the frilly view we have of the Victorians (although that’s not silly because of the Britishness(TM), remember). Actually, using history in fiction and even making fiction about history isn’t even a bad thing and I certainly encourage it. I just think that the truth shouldn’t be conveniently forgotten by those with weird superiority complexes who think that because The Tudors was all about love trysts and fine clothing, the entire period is “girly” and a write off.

What am I saying amongst this rambling mess? The next time you see a girl going through her Ancient Egypt phase, don’t roll your eyes. Not if you wouldn’t do the same when you see a boy with an interest in WW2 tanks. Whichever way people come to their interest in the past is valid (apart from the creepy fascist worshipping I mentioned). A lot of things in our world are gendered when they shouldn’t be; history should be equally open to all and although there is a focus on the past 200 years (just look at the uni modules on offer), that doesn’t mean that if you are interested in the years before, your interest isn’t valid enough.

I hope I’ve managed to explain myself properly and have gotten through how gender plays into this sufficiently. I know this is a very niche thing to have an opinion on and I’d like to stress again that this is just my opinion and you are free to disagree with me. That said, if you send me hate then don’t expect a proper response.

Thanks for the ask!

#history #modern history #sexism #little bit of #homophobia #random ramblings #ask #anon #sorry that got a bit long #watch me badly articulate thoughts

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