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saintsenara · 7 months ago

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I come to you with this question because, having read all your other metas, I think you'd be the right person to ask. Id love to know what you think about Regulus because I have a very hard time understanding his character. Partly because of fanon characterization of him makes him seem like some secret rebel against Voldemort and partly because I just can't really understand any of his motivations. But regardless, I think what we know about him in canon is so interesting - i just can piece it all together. I'd love to know what you think!

(Sorry for the longish ask)

thank you very much for the ask, @hauntingpercival! regulus is a character i also find a bit of a mystery, and so thinking through this answer was really fun.

i'll start by being clear that i'm certainly not a regulus fan. by which i not only mean that i don't vibe with the fanon!regulus of the marauders fandom, who is essentially an original character - and you can read my views on jegulus here... [spoiler alert: i do not back it] - but that when he appears in my own writing in ways i'd like to hope feel influenced by his canon form, i always find myself focusing on aspects of his character which are rather unlikeable.

there is a little bit of a discourse-y reason for this, which will be pertinent to the rest of this answer...

i really don't like the sort of "omg aristocracy is so hot and sexy and interesting" tropes which are so prevalent in writing around the black family. this is firstly because i don't think that aristocracy is in any way these things - and i find it distasteful to imply otherwise - which is because i'm a prole who lives somewhere still bearing the scars of british colonisation who also went to the sort of university where one sometimes encountered aristocrats and they were all cringe and unbearable.

but it's also because it's not - and i will genuinely die on this hill - an accurate reflection of how the blacks are presented in canon. not only does it take sirius' comment that his parents considered themselves "practically royal" to be a statement of fact [sirius is quite clearly taking the piss out of his parents' pretensions], but it also misses that the purpose sirius' discussion of orion and walburga's politics serves in the narrative of order of the phoenix is to show how mainstream their blood-supremacist views were.

sirius tells us that his parents were not death eaters, but that they nonetheless thought voldemort's overtly sectarian political aims were correct. in this, they hold the political views order of the phoenix emphasises belong to cornelius fudge - unimaginative, deferential to the class system, casually prejudiced, and so on. orion and walburga function as a way of showing us just how entrenched the death eaters' manifesto is, how close voldemort came to winning the first war, and what an uphill struggle the order faces to unravel the roots blood-supremacy has in the wizarding world.

[and they also show that the baffling vibes of grimmauld place - while these are made worse by it being three different gothic literature tropes in a trenchcoat - are wizarding norms, rather than evidence that the blacks were uniquely immersed in dark magic. the decor at grimmauld place - and the family's collection of dark artefacts - is the same as that found in malfoy manor, even at a time when lucius malfoy is considered eminently socially respectable. this is a point we will come back to...]

i think, then, that it's crucial to approach regulus not as a swaggering aristocrat, but as someone from an upper-class background which - while still posh, rich, inferring enormous social capital, well-connected - was unremarkable within the circles in which he moved.

by which i mean that hogwarts is based on real-world institutions - britain's elite boarding schools - which are so exclusive and expensive to attend that the student body are from a class-background which seems inhumanly exclusive, affluent, and powerful from an outsider perspective [i.e. from the perspective of someone from the majority middle- and working-classes] but which seems completely normal within the student body itself.

[i.e. nobody at eton with princes william and harry will have been astonished to have been at school with a royal, because they will have been familiar with their social circles, cultural experiences, level of wealth, and expectation of knowing someone with considerable social influence from childhood.]

while hogwarts appears to be a state-funded school [although it also expects an enormous amount of financial investment on the part of parents - such as buying all the textbooks], the fact that its real-world parallels are so elite [and, therefore, come with a specific "look" in the british cultural imagination] means that the student body is incredibly well-heeled and working-class students stand out enormously in a way very rich students do not. hogwarts also exists - like real-world elite schools and universities - as a way of propping up the status quo of the class system by which the wizarding world functions. its pupils have an expectation of procuring jobs in the civil service and other influential professions - using not only connections established at school but connections they possess through their [male] relatives. many hogwarts students we meet in canon are related to someone who occupies an elite position in the wizarding executive or is otherwise socio-politically influential.

at school, then, regulus would have been completely, perfectly average in terms of social position. i also like the idea of him as perfectly average in terms of intellect - and as a good, but not exceptional, seeker. this provides a really interesting point of contrast with sirius, who - while he's also not socially unusual in terms of class [and i will never vibe with tropes like him being followed by whispers going "omg, he's a black, that means he's important"] - stands out in that he's the first black in generations not to be in slytherin, that he's precociously intelligent, and that he - and the rest of the marauders - are class clowns and show-offs.

and i like the idea that this would give regulus a desire to stand out - to be considered the most important person in the whole school. we can get a hint of this in canon - the picture of sirius and his friends harry sees in deathly hallows is immediately contrasted with a picture of regulus sitting in the seeker's position in the team photo. the seeker who acts alone.

and i think this desire for notoriety is what drives him to sign up to become a death eater - that he decides he's sick of having parents with the perfectly normal level of social influence and a brother who is more popular than him, and that he thinks that he's cleverer and more worthy of attention than everyone else in the castle and the world better start showing it.

[and i've never bought - i'm afraid - the idea that he and sirius are close. it's clear from canon that regulus had no issue being thought of as "a much better son" than sirius, and that he colluded with his parents against him. sirius can love him - and miss him, and regret how they were never able to repair their relationship - but i don't think this means that he feels he's lost a bestie.]

that he holds sincere blood-supremacist views is a given - because within the world in which he lives, these are completely normal and held completely casually [i.e. that slughorn is shocked lily could be muggleborn because she's clever]. the more virulent expression of these views - saying "mudblood", etc. - is clearly considered ill-mannered, but not something which might have any real impact on one's social standing [draco malfoy uses the term with impunity while at school, and nobody ever considers that informing a teacher of this would result in him being punished; equally, nobody from the crowd who witness the event reports snape for calling lily a mudblood].

and so i think it's clear that he becomes interested in joining the death eaters - and starts putting together his terrorism pinterest board - because his mainstream belief that being pureblood is better crashes into his desire to be special to form a conviction that riding the coattails of voldemort's ostentatious malevolence is the way he can become famous.

[in this, he is very like snape.]

my assumption is that regulus is one academic year below sirius, meaning that he was born in 1960-1961. my assumption is also that he receives his dark mark while still at school - probably at some point in his newt years [so the academic years 1977-1978 and 1978-1979].

the standard view - expressed vehemently by various order members in half-blood prince - is that voldemort has no interest in death eaters who are still at school.

the order is wrong about this, obviously - not only when it comes to their refusal to accept that harry's right about draco malfoy being marked, but also in the fact that several of the death eaters who are very young at the end of the first war, barty crouch jr. [who is still young enough to be described as a "boy" in 1982 at the earliest], chief among them, must have been taken on by voldemort prior to graduating.

but it seems fair to say that admitting teenagers into his inner circle is unusual for voldemort, especially when those teenagers don't really offer him anything useful. crouch, for example, could be put to work informing on his father's movements. regulus is - as i've said - just ordinary.

and so my view has always been that regulus is marked by voldemort as a favour to bellatrix. i think this partially because i'm bellamort trash, partially because i think it's a nice narrative parallel between regulus and draco [who are very similar] to have bellatrix be responsible for regulus' recruitment when she's canonically vociferously in favour of draco's, and partially because realising that voldemort thinks of him as just some guy who warrants [essentially] a pity dark mark would be a big blow to regulus' conviction that joining the death eaters would make him impressive.

[i also think regulus is recruited before 1978 because i think there has to be a shift in voldemort's modus operandi at about this point, in order for the fact that sirius says that his parents got cold feet about what the dark lord was prepared to do after regulus became a death eater to make sense. my view has always been that voldemort's violence prior to c.1978 overwhelmingly targets state institutions and people connected to them and/or people with known anti-voldemort political views, meaning that ordinary citizens can regard these people being killed or injured as reasonable risks of their jobs and/or behaviour. and then that after c.1978, the dark lord begins targeting civilians - including upper-class pureblood civilians - indiscriminately, which makes his casual supporters start to waver a bit.]

so, let's suppose that regulus leaves hogwarts in june 1979 and finds himself expected to participate as a full death eater, after having been let off all the dirty work by virtue of being at school...

as i've said, regulus has an enormous number of narrative parallels with draco malfoy. and i think that the best way to think about him is to write him as sharing draco's canonical attitude to voldemort's cause - that he believes whole-heartedly in the message of blood-supremacy the dark lord promotes and that he has no problem with people he considers subhuman [mudbloods and blood-traitors] or unimportant [faceless families massacred in their own homes] being subjected to violence in the name of that message, but that he lacks the character traits necessary to perform that violence himself, to see it done to people he likes, or to witness what it actually involves versus the image he has of it in his head.

and so i imagine he starts struggling pretty quickly with the fact that being a death eater isn't quite as easy as he thought it would be when he was making voldemort fancams on tiktok. and that part of the reason he's primed to turn against the dark lord is because of the tension he feels warring within him at the fact that he's still a blood-supremacist, still desperate to be important, and yet growing disenchanted.

i don't however, think this is why he does what he does... so let's get into that:

why does regulus turn against voldemort?

let's be clear about one thing - regulus turning against voldemort has nothing to do with him having some sort of damascene conversion against blood-supremacy.

[or, at least, that's what i think.]

the outline of regulus' defection that we get in canon goes as follows:

voldemort asks someone to lend him a house elf. we know that regulus volunteers kreacher, because he told kreacher so - and so i imagine voldemort mentions at a meeting that he wants to procure an elf [although, of course, he doesn't elaborate on why] and regulus immediately jumps up and says "pick me, my lord" because he sees this as an opportunity to get voldemort to finally notice him.

his assumption must be that voldemort will use kreacher for a purpose which is considered normal in wizarding society - i.e. that he will require him to do something akin to domestic service, perhaps preparing potions ingredients.

it evidently does not occur to him that voldemort would transgress this social boundary and harm kreacher. not - to be clear - because i think that regulus was some kind of abolitionist legend, but because we see several characters express the view in goblet of fire that how barty crouch sr. treats winky is his own business, and that it is impolite for respectable wizards to comment on how anyone else treats his slave. this sort of social behaviour will have a second part - that it is impolite for respectable wizards to treat anyone else's slave in a way which goes beyond what wizarding slaveowners see as normal.

or: that it's fine to be lent a slave to serve you, but very much not fine to nearly kill that slave [someone else's property!] for your own gain.

kreacher informs regulus what voldemort asked of him, which makes regulus suspicious about what the object voldemort deposited in the cave was. regulus then decides to investigate.

kreacher tells us that regulus goes away for an indeterminate period of time and then returns to grimmauld place "disturbed in his mind".

dumbledore claims in half-blood prince that voldemort appears not to wear or display the objects the horcruxes are made from after he turns them into horcruxes. i think we can agree with this or not without it affecting the story - i quite like the idea that voldemort doesn't make the locket until the later 1970s [maybe after the murder of dorcas meadowes, the only person in the first war other than james and lily to have canonically been killed by him personally], but we can also say that he might have worn or displayed it when it was already a horcrux. certainly, regulus must have seen the locket - either on voldemort or somewhere in his lair - and, after kreacher tells him what happened, he goes to see if it's still there.

when he discovers it isn't, he comes to an important conclusion. one which requires a little detour...

how does regulus know what a horcrux is?

i complained at the start of this answer about the black family being portrayed as unusually immersed in the dark arts - rather than some sort of familiarity with the dark arts being perfectly normal for people of their social class.

and i am sure that you might think I'm about to have to eat my words, since i'm not going to try and deny that regulus was able to identify a horcrux all by himself...

but, actually, i'm just chucking malevolently at the opportunity to clamber onto my soapbox and say:

horcruxes are canonically not magic which only a handful of people know about. where voldemort goes beyond the theory of horcruxes which a wizard of regulus' class-background would be familiar with is that he makes seven.

this doesn't mean - to be clear - that i think it was ever common to make a horcrux [i don't think the wizarding world is quite that lawless...], but that it was reasonable to know they exist, in the way that we might have some general understanding of something macabre - like techniques for disposing of a body - which would enable us to suspect if we saw a neighbour behaving strangely while doing one of those things...

after all, slughorn can suggest [even if he doesn't believe this is what he wants to do] that voldemort could justify his interest in horcruxes by using the excuse that he's working on a project for defence against the dark arts.

that harry, ron, and hermione don't know about them is a result of a combination of their own lack of interest in the theory of the dark arts, the information blackout instituted by dumbledore at some point after voldemort graduates [and my theory as to why dumbledore hates horcruxes even in the forties? grindelwald made one - hence why dumbledore is so hopeful at king's cross that the rumours of his repentance might have been true...], and the fact that they don't discuss their mission with anyone [tonks, kingsley, and moody, who literally have to specialise in dark objects as part of their jobs, would one hundo have known what a horcrux was].

[what they would not have known is what voldemort's horcruxes were likely to be made of and where they were likely to be. it's this - rather than the idea that horcruxes are completely unknowable magic - that is why it has to be harry in charge of hunting them down: he's the only person in the series who knows voldemort well enough to realise that, for example, he'd have hidden one in gringotts because of his jealousy at being excluded from this pillar of wizarding normality.]

so, regulus has a little rummage, works out the locket has disappeared, and has no trouble - especially because voldemort mentions in goblet of fire that he'd told his death eaters he couldn't die [which regulus might not have thought was him speaking literally] prior to 1981 - guessing what it's being used for.

and so, regulus turns against voldemort.

and i think that he does this because the horcrux makes it impossible for him to pretend any longer that voldemort's aims are - when the ministry is forced to the negotiating table by his paramilitary activities - an oligarchy in which upper-class pureblood families benefit and muggleborns and blood-traitors become second-class citizens, but which doesn't deviate too much in terms of its overwhelming norms from the way wizarding society functioned at that time. instead, he is confronted with the undeniable fact that voldemort intends to reign forever as an immortal absolute monarch, and that he has never had any intention of elevating regulus and people like him to the positions of importance he so craved.

[we see something similar happen to draco, whose increasing fear of voldemort throughout half-blood prince and deathly hallows is clearly driven by him realising that voldemort isn't joking when he says that he'll kill him and his parents unless he obeys orders, but is joking when he says he'll be considered a valuable servant should he manage to kill dumbledore...]

and so his death - and his threat to destroy the horcrux - is a repudiation of his beliefs. but, specifically, it is a repudiation of his conviction that voldemort was a primarily political figure who would act as a champion of the pureblood class-system. it's him recognising that voldemort would not stop with a takeover of the ministry - he would kill and kill forever, concerned only with how much further he could venture beyond the norms of magic.

#asks answered #asenora meta #regulus black

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frozenjokes · 5 months ago

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After years of thinking... I finally want to know what is CUBGUY and his boyfriend's MBTI aka the 16 personalities

You’ve opened Pandora’s box with this one my man because I am a psych major that HATES personality tests however that did not stop me from taking the test three times (this one which I hate specifically because the commercialization of personality tests to measure worth is evil BECAUSE THEY DONT WORK. THEY ARE NOT A GOOD MEASURE OF PERSONALITY OR WORTH AND HAVING TO TAKE THIS FUCKING FOR LITERALY JOB APPLICATIONS INSTEAD OF IT JUST BEING A FUN THING TODO IN YOUR FREE TIME IS FUCKING AURYRHEUSHDHUDUSHDJSHSJAHSUSUSJ KILLING BITING MAIMING GRAGAGSHGEHWDGSHHS I HATE. HER.) anyway. I can be normal about this subject I promise.

normal elsa: haha hey guys! I took the personality test for my ocs! yippeee!!! from left to right we have Cub, Scar, and Grian. thanks for the ask! this was fun!

but it’s not about having fun is it

so anyway I took notes. So you may have noticed some things don’t look quite right here. I mean, Cub looks fine! That’s pretty accurate even! Scar too, look at him go! … wait a minute. Grian’s not nice!!!! Or poetic!!!!!!! Is altruism even real????????????? (It is and I feel strongly about this but altruistic as an adjective to describe a person i believe is doing a disservice to the definition because what they MEAN is ‘selfless’ not altruistic but while we’re on the topic of selflessness Grian is fucking NOT)

So why did this happen. I don’t really care that the personality test got someone wrong, but I am interested in Why that happened, and why a test like this will never get a character like Grian correct.

Put simply, the answer is that this test wants to make you Feel Good. Now, having fun isn’t a crime and oftentimes personality tests are there to have fun, but the danger of something like this is that the MBTI isn’t presented as a low stakes fun activity, it’s presented as fact. Look. This is you! This is a good, objective measure of your personality, aren’t you great? You’re awesome :)! Here’s a list of vague-enough sentiments that probably apply to you based on the questions we asked. Yippee! its a really clever and extremely affective trick.

While the little blurb for Scar describes him relatively well, nearly every description of his ‘personality’ besides extroversion read pretty inaccurately, and that’s because the focus is so positive. The thing is, Grian and Scar are largely very self serving people (/neutral tone). They are often more worried about themselves than others, they’re impulsive, and that’s not all they are, but it’s pretty impossible to get at someone’s actual personality without recognizing what makes people flawed.

The closest I think the MBTI test gets to probing at this idea of potential selfishness are questions that are meant to test thinking versus feeling. Do you consider someone’s sensitivities in if they conflict with reason? Are you more concerned with facts or emotion? Logos versus pathos. That kinda stuff. But ultimately the MBTI test doesn’t really care about selfishness, it doesn’t care about flaws, it just cares about making you feel good baybe! So these neutral questions don’t really come back in any meaningful way. The MBTI is concerned about making caricatures of people, not accurately measuring their personality and that Matters because its so often treated as scientific, at least good enough to be used in consideration for jobs and work and school and all sorts of stuff.

And I could go on but the problem with modern personality tests goes so so so much deeper, even in more controlled, more science oriented fields like psychiatry. The system for diagnosing personality disorders is somewhat similar to a personality tests are at the very least aided by them, falling on a straight lined spectrum of Openness, Consciousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. But this system Sucks and everyone knows it sucks because comorbidity between clusters (A, B, C) of personality disorders is Insanely High. I wish I had the exact percentages, but I can’t quite find the information I’m looking for, but the point is that if the rate of comorbidity between different disorders is So High, how do you know these disorders are correctly defined at all? If a person more often than not has Disorder A and Disorder B at the same time, who’s to say they’re all that different at all? In general, a lot of the criteria for diagnosing a personality disorders is Really similar, so in general it’s a section of the DSM that needs a pretty massive overhaul.

I don’t envy personality psychologists man their job is Tough (and in my opinion, kind of impossible. there’s too many roadblocks in making an objective test. It is. Eugh.)

TLDR: the MBTI test is about as decisive as a fortune cookie and it literally can’t be anything more because then you would realize its lying to you. amen

#cubscarian hotguy au #grian #gtws #goodtimeswithscar #cubfan135 #personality quiz #16 personalities #mbti types #mbti personality types #mbti #psychology #psych

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bat2pony · 2 months ago

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I finished the first two episodes in season 8 of FiM. Oh my gosh??? They were so well written??? (School Daze, part 1 and 2).

I genuinely enjoyed these so much. I loved the commentary on very real issues that our society faces. The most obvious one was racism, with Chancellor Neigh Say making comments like ��go back to your kind” and “these creatures”. This was written in an impactful way that resonated with me.

The Chancellor was allowing his stereotypes and prejudice to rule people as a threat, which is something every kind of minority can relate to. In one scene, Princess Celestia tells the Chancellor that, at one point in pre-equestrian history, the different kinds of ponies also treated each other the same way. They fought because of their differences, instead of allowing themselves to embrace them and coexist with one another regardless. The way that the writers addressed this was written effectively and in a realistic way. Especially when the students got into a fight. They were raised on stereotypes, and they had to de-program their brains to see that their differences didn’t have to be barriers to friendship. Literally the best kids show ever.

I’m gonna be honest, when I first heard about the whole Twilight-opening-a-school-of-friendship thing, I was skeptical. After all, doesn’t treating friendship like lectures take the value out of it? BUT THEY ADDRESSED THIS!! In fact, it was heavily based around exactly that. It’s such a good parallel to the effects of the American public education system (I can’t speak on private schools and other country’s policies since I haven’t experienced or educated myself on the topic). The students spent hours going from class to class, sitting through lecture after lecture. They got bored, antsy, frustrated, but most importantly, they didn’t learn anything! Because that isn’t an effective way to educate people, especially children with tons of energy. This is so so accurate to my experience in school, where I succeeded by putting in minimal effort. Showing my teachers what they wanted without actually caring about my education. Guys I love this show.

Also. This parallel. My heart. My itty bitty little pony filled heart.

#my little pony #mlp fandom #mlp fim #mlp g4 #mlp #mlp gen 4 #friendship is magic #my little pony friendship is magic #twilight sparkle #school of friendship #applejack mlp #mlp mane 6 #mane six #mlp mane six #changelings #thorax the changelling #episode review #show review #cartoon

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 1 year ago

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Hi hi! I love how in depth and detailed you are when making/creating characters, or even when talking about other characters.

but I was curious, I wanted to be more inclusive/have more representation of PoC with my art works. But I do not know where to begin, or how to properly do research especially with how to research history and find accurate articles or so on.

Which I was curious on if you have any tips or pointers on how to do this/do my homework correctly?

THANKS!! OOOOhhhh I love research! And for a recent Spidersona, I had to do something like this. So here's the process I use to say things that kinda sorta make sense sometimes

How to Learn Any Topic RIGHT NOW- (kinda)

[A slightly LONG length post where I talk about my biggest resource and my number one tactic for sounding like you know your shit in an hour or less. Plus a list of educational Youtubers]

In High School, I mastered an art. The Art of 'Skyrim Speech 100'. The way to sound like you know what you're talking about, and form a pretty solid foundation of information in one sitting.

I am DEADASS CONVINCED that I have it boiled down to a very specific scientific formula. I got this I okay. I gotchu I swear I'm bout to have you like this im so deadass -

For me personally, the best resource is YouTube. One Website - Three Videos. And you're GOOD.

I have ADHD so - huge attention issues, so videos are a go to for me.

But I also really appreciate seeing the person explaining things to me. Finding good websites can be HARD, especially nowadays where a lot of websites might not even be written by humans, just clobbered together by AI.

For me, YouTube lets me see the person behind the channel, and it's a lot easier for me to vet the information if it's coming from one person who is open about their identity/certifications.

If their whole channel is dedicated to one thing, you can usually tell when they're very dedicated/educated on a topic, and I feel a lot more comfortable listening to them. Rather than reading random websites with writers I don't know/can't see.

Longform Youtube can be SO GOOD.

I'm gonna list some at the bottom - but you can find channels on everything. From architecture, to historical dress, to subway systems, entire cultures, etc.

In recent years Youtube has made a big push for longform content - so I recommend checking out videos that are 15 minutes OR MORE.

Not only is that enough time to go in depth, but because it's a video - the information is fed to you in a linear fashion. It's a lot more conversational and visual than reading a website.

If you hear something and need to remember, you can always go back. It can be hard to go back to a webpage and find the exact line, but videos are a bit easier.

Tips:

Try for find Youtubers that focus on ONE topic - or creators who go in depth about a wide array of interesting things (like Tom Scott or Anthony Padilla). Look for Doctors and Professors - A lot of educational professionals have youtube channels now. And they'll usually be upfront about it, searching things like 'History Professor explains X' or 'Doctor explains Y'. TEDTalks are good for this too. Look for people who are, or have the thing you're representing - If you're writing for a disability, it's always good to watch a video about the day in the life of someone with it - mental illnesses too. And there are a lot of great youtubers that easily break down things like cultural practices - or the issues they face because of their identity. Look for news channels. Watch current events. Vice, BBC, Channel 4, and have a lot of good current news, and they're posting videos every day. These videos show real life conditions while explaining it all, and they're really helpful for knowing about current political/cultural topics. DOCUMENTARIES!!!! - There is a documentary on anything. You can quote them in academics, and unlike movies, people post them on YouTube ALL the time, and people make them all the time. If you need to know about something, DOCUMENTARY.

I love using videos for everything, and below is how I use them:

I have a method that usually helps me sound like I'm super knowledgeable - By casting a very wide and very specific net over any topic. By narrowing any topic down to three parts, you can learn about 40% of a topic, but sound like you know 80%.

How to Teach Yourself Any Topic (in an hour and some change)

Three step method.

Watch three longform videos (15+ mins) about the topic. Each video about something slightly different.

The first video is about The History. This teaches us about the background of the topic. The second video is about The Expert Opinion. This teaches us about the reality of the topic. The third video is about a Random Topic inside of the main topic. This is to make us sound smart (in school)/add details or inspiration (while making characters).

Watch a fifteen minute video about each of these things, and in less than an hour, you'll have a pretty solid foundation of what it is, where it came from, and random (but surprisingly useful) details.

And when I say random I MEAN RANDOM. Can be anything - the niche, the better.

I'll give an example below with real search results and videos.

[I also give tips on how to search by topic (culture, religion, time period, etc) - as well as a list of educational BUT FUN Youtubers]

Example: I wanna make a Victorian Era Spider-woman.

The History Video - I watch a video about the general era, or what it was like being a woman in that time. I searched: Women in Victorian Era I found a real video titled: The Daily Life of a Victorian Lady

The Expert Opinion - I wanted to design her outfit accurately, so I looked for a Dress Historian's opinion on 1880's outfits I searched: Victorian Era Fashion I found a real channel: Bernadetta Banner (a channel all about recreating historical dresses - by a Broadway costume designer.)

The Random Topic - I don't know much about the Victorian Era..but I know theres two topics people always relate to the era - Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. I chose Sherlock. Sooooo, I watched a video about whether BBC sherlock was better than Downy Sherlock. Why? Because in 15 minutes it tells me about the show, the movie, AND the book - ALSO while teaching about the time period. I searched: BBC Sherlock vs Book I found a real video titled: Sherlock vs Sherlock - Which Iteration is Superior.

So after three 15-20 minute videos I know the history, the facts, and some random niche details of a topic.

Do I know everything about it? Not at all! But doing that, usually you can probably get through a conversation without freaking out too much.

By doing all that - I now know enough about the Victorian Era. From those videos I can accurately write an average Victorian woman, design her outfit accurate to the era, and also infuse some Victorian literature influence into her story.

All in an hour.

It works for other people character's too. Watching a video on the 70's, a video on the Punk Movement, and then a video of lets say a video about the band Ramones

Methods:

Some ideas for different topics:

If you want to show a character from a different time period -

If you're trying to write a character like Hobie, first watch a video about the history of the period - to understand when they were living. Then watch a video on their style/subculture - like the Punk movement. Then pick a specific band/media from the era and watch a video on it.

Sidebar: This is actually how I made Diane! I have little to no idea about the 70's outside of Punk. So searched up the history of 70's Disco, a video by Glamour about 1970's fashion, and I only knew one or two Disco singers (Donna Summer & Diana Ross) - so I chose Diana Ross. Diana is the direct inspiration for Diane's name and big hair. I never reference Diana, but it helps Diane fit the Disco theme, by emulating one of THE disco queens.

If you want to show a character from a different country -

Like India for example, a good place to start is watching a video about the history of India, then watching a vlog from someone in India (in the area you're thinking of), then watch a video about Indian fashion, or indian street food, or indian family traditions - so you can sprinkle those details into the story or conversation. Then you can build from there. Big tip: If they're from the city watch a video about the city's transit/subway system if they have one. It's a VERY fast way to learn the city, and make it sound like they actually live there, even if you're just name dropping stations and town squares.

If you want to show a character with a mental illness, disability or condition -

Start off by searching the background of the condition. Have a doctor break down what it is, how it effects the body, the mind, or both. Then watch a video of an average person with the condition, and their experience day to day. Then try and find a specific advocate, celebrity, or influence who goes into depth about it and how they empower themselves.

If you want to show someone from a different religion -

Watch a video about the beliefs of the religion, then the history of the religion, then a video of someone who practices the religion.

ETC-

Now disclaimer, this won't make you actually know everything about the topic - but at the very least, you'll probably be using the terms and words right. And you might be able to think up your own thought from there.

I used this ALL THROUGH High School.

If I know next class is about Marie Antoinette - yeah sure lemme go run and learn about her life history, her fashion taste, and the architecture of the Palace of Versailles in an hour.

Now I can talk about her childhood, personality, and where she lived.

The Great Gatsby? Never read it and I never will. The movie? NEVER SEEN IT. I searched up the history/inspiration of the author, watched a video on the book's plot and symbolism, then watched a video on the book vs the movie.

From there I kinda understood what the book was about, why the author might have written it, the symbolic ho-ha, and the extra details as if I watched the movie too.

And from there I could formulate whether I think the symbolism matters to our modern day society and why the director changed small details from the book, and etc, etc.

It was enough for me to bullshit and say words and usually people are like 'yeah you seem to be making sense' lol

HELL throw in ANOTHER video about the lives of women in the 1920's and I could probably bullshit an argument on how the Great Gatsby reflects gender roles in the Flapper Era. Like gun to my head I could probably come up with something im so deadass

HEY IM NOT SAYING SLACK OFF IN SCHOOL OKAY - DO NOT THIS IS JUST MY TESTIMONIAL - USE THIS TO LEARN TOPICS NOT BOOKS ITS A GREAT TOOL

Also disclaimer: use this for good don't be walking around like you Know Know Shit cause someone might check you and then i cant help you this is just a way to understand the basis of topics and be able to form thoughts and hold conversations about them or use them in your art and writing.

Plus it's a great way to gather strong resources for your art and writing.

It's a lot easier to show characters in a natural accurate way when you've curated a very rounded understanding of the topic or era - not just in an educational historical sense.

For the purposes of character creation, essays, sounding like you know anything in conversations - this does help. And you do start absorbing stuff. It's just about breaking the topic down, and learning about it in blocks.

If you understand the history, you can understand the now, and if you understand the now, you can understand the nuance. Like that.

I hope this helped! And because tis customary here, take this photo of Hobart Brown and go forth

And because I cannot send you off into the wild with no place to start here are some of my favorite youtubers that are actually FUN - here's a list.

Bye.

Youtube Channels

Bernadette Banner - Historical Clothing Expert specializing in Edwardian - Victorian

RMTransit - Videos about subway systems, buses, and public transit across the world. VERY quick way to realistically learn about a city

Anthony Padilla - Has lots of 'I Spent a Day With-' videos, where he sits down with people. Has videos ranging on things from Dipolar Disorder and ADHD to things like Asexuality and Ex-Mormons. Good for getting multiple honest experiences of people.

ReligionForBreakfast - Simple approachable videos about religions, their histories and beliefs. Made by a doctor of Religious Studies

Cognito - VERY good historical, cultural, and geographical videos, all cutely animated

Tasting History with Max Miller - Historically accurate cooking videos with really cool stories and histories to match

Vice News - Very good, very vetted Left-leaning news source. Vice and Vice News are two different things. Vice News is really good for current events videos on things like conflicts in countries.

Johnny Haris - slightly longer explainer videos about countries, geography, history, and weird quirks

Vox - Short detailed explainers about....anything really.

Weird History - .....It's history that's weird

Absolute History - Longer Documentaries about History, mainly the 1900's

CrowsEyeProductions - Really good Historical Fashion videos of 1400-2000's

Morgon Donner - ANOTHER Historical Fashion channel (they're really interesting yall) that focuses more on Medieval era

J.J McCullough - REALLY good videos about culture in general, as well as geography videos full of full interesting facts (did you know Nepal is the only country with a flag not four sided?) He also has some spicy takes on Canadian and Quebec politics that are interesting to me as an American but ????

Kati Moron - A therapist who makes videos about the experiences of mental illnesses and their treatment

Dr. Tracey Marks - A Doctor who makes short videos explaining the symptoms and experiences of neurodivergences and mental illnesses

#no proofread #Writing #fanfic writing #oc #spidersonas #spidersona #studyblr #study motivation #writing advice

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sophieinwonderland · 11 months ago

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r/FakeDisorderCringe doesn't know what biblical canon is, atheists are offended by saying God is plural, and other people casually throwing out some blasphemies and ableism!

👎

For uncreative title.

Atheists Pretending To Be Deeply Offended...

So, let me guess, you're not actually Christian are you?

Those guys sure aren't.

So weird how people pretend to be offended over a religion they aren't even a part of.

(Let's be real though, that's most of the tulpa discourse.)

Oh... you considered converting.

That clearly gives you a say in this conversation. /s

Meanwhile, my host actually lived the religion. He was Christian through his teenage years, and as a child helped his mom teach Sunday School and went to sleep every night on a Noah's Ark pillow.

Sorry, I distracted from your point. We're thieves stealing from a religion. 🙄

Okay, let's talk "canon!"

I just... I LOVE this whole conversation! 🤣

THIS is actual cringe.

Does anyone see the issue here?

I'll let u/AdSuccessful3533 spell it out. Possibly the only person with sense in the thread.

It's not just Catholic Canon either, but Biblical Canon! Like, there's a whole Wikipedia article on it!

The sheer self-righteous ignorance of r/Fakerdisordercringe (and r/systemscringe) never ceases to amaze me.

All of these people so bent out of shape over the use of "canon" to describe biblical text as if that's not been in use for hundreds of years!

"Something a middle schooler would say."

The Heresies!

That's correct. This is NOT the modalism heresy.

Modalism suggests God is a single unified being who reveals himself in different forms. God being plural would mean that God is three beings in one. This is completely in-line with the views of Trinitarianism.

An example of the modalism heresy would be more like this...

Comparing God to Optimus Prime, arguing that they're just different forms like Optimus Prime in a truck form vs him in a robot form, is modalism.

But if modalism isn't enough, we've got some tritheism too!

Besides the tritheism... it's really hard to take people who are calling tulpas appropriative seriously when they don't even know basic facts about the most popular religion in the world.

Also, the part about System not being a term for a person with DID is technically correct. System is, rather, the term used for the total collection of all the alters. But it is very much a term used by psychologists and it's accurate to refer to the Trinity as a system in this way.

Also, if the Tritheism bothers you, don't worry! We're going to go right back to modalism.

The H2O metaphor is controversial for the same reason as comparing God to Optimus Prime. It suggests God is simply changing form to become these different things.

Miscellaneous

Can you show me that rabbit hole?

I'm the one who Tweeted that, and have NEVER been on the OSDD sub.

Who do you think I am?

No... it definitely doesn't sound right. Religion shouldn't just be a thing for neurotypicals.

If one believes in God, then surely God made all people, including those of us who have mental illnesses. Why should Christianity and biblical references be kept away from people with mental illness other than ableism?

I mean, if by in peace, you mean without endogenic systems, then no. You can't.

We're here and we aren't going away. Ever.

And we exist in all spaces, including in your churches and your religious communities. And Christian systems shouldn't be expected to hide who they are because our existence bothers bigots like you.

We're going to share this world, and we're going to share spaces. And that includes churches and religious spaces too. Deal with it. 🤷‍♀️

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank everyone at r/fakedisordercringe for giving me the free material. For a subreddit that's designed to laugh at people for supposed "cringe," you all sure are a goldmine for it! 😜

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transmascutena · 10 months ago

Note

I think it's interesting how one of the healthiest relationships in the show is Wakaba and Utena's friendship. Obviously, it has its flaws and tensions. But those tensions arise directly from the concept of being "special," from Wakaba dealing with their sense of inferiority towards Utena, who actively puts their sense of self-worth in winning these duels to keep Anthy at their side (a noble Prince...) People talk about Tatsuya being rejected as a Black Rose duelist a lot, but it's so notable that he's rejected because he's just...a more emotionally mature, less toxic person. Yeah, his heart is broken, but there is something decidedly human and mundane about how he approaches the conflict by asking, "What's wrong with me?" He sees him and Wakaba as two equals, he doesn't put their love conflicts on a pedestal, and he wants genuine solutions and hopes to confront his own flaws to understand why Wakaba rejected him.

Literally no one else is doing it like him.

A key theme in this show is critique of the nuclear family, but an extension of that theme is how said family unit breeds deep dysfunction into the characters' lives. The lack of communal infrastructure means characters are constantly putting their eggs in one basket. Everyone wants to return to their past because Ohtori and the patriarchal system doesn't offer chances to form new connections outside of the ones born of your trauma/childhood. Their lives are defined by their suffering. I view Wakaba and Utena's relationship as so important BECAUSE of how mundane it is, these 2 people met and they became friends and they eat bentos together and Wakaba views herself as non-special, but she doesn't realize how severely fucked up and lonely all the special people are.

I could go on. I want to write essays about this anime, for real. But it's something that struck me as I watch the show for the first time.

one of the reasons i find utena and wakaba's friendship so interesting and appealing is the fact that it and its issues are so mundane in the middle of all melodrama of the duels and the student council relationships and all of those things. their flaws feel very real for a teenage friendship, and they're all things i can personally relate to on some level. they obviously genuinely care about each other, but their friendships suffers from them not truly understanding each other, mostly because of their own lacking communication (utena doesn't tell wakaba any of the weird things going on in her life, probably out of some desire to protect her from it, and wakaba doesn't tell utena how upset that makes her, and ends up resenting her.) and it's completely accurate what you said about the tragedy of wakaba wanting to be special like utena is, but not realizing that said "specialness" comes at the cost of abuse and trauma. ohtori (akio) purposefully obfuscates that abuse to make it seem like something you should want. trying to disguise grooming as romance, etc. etc. the beauty of the rose hides its thorns and all that.

i'm not sure i'd call it the healthiest relationship in the show (although the bar is so low that it probably is by default) but it's important that the ways in which it is harmful are so normal. who hasn't ever been bad at communicating their feelings to people they care about? who hasn't kept secrets that they probably shouldn't? who hasn't grown apart from a middle school friend once new things started happening in their life? i'd argue that the flaws in the show's other relationships are also pretty normal when you strip away the layers of metaphor and symbolism from them (in the sense that abuse is exceedingly common.) but utena and wakaba's friendship exists almost entirely outside of that, which makes it stand out.

#i will say that i do not personally think tatsuya is really more mature than the other black rose duelists.#just that the ways in which he blames himself/wakaba aren't very useful for manipulating him. but i didn't really want to get into that her #thank you for the ask i really appreciate it :)#revolutionary girl utena #analysis #utena and wakaba #asks #m

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moongothic · 1 year ago

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Yeah hello hi I've been falling deep into the Crocodad Rabbithole and my brain is being consumed by small crocodile-shaped worms

So I've done what any reasonable person would do, I went back to rewatch some scenes from Alabasta and Marinford to psychoanalyze Crocodile and try to figure out what the fuck his deal is because genuinely the more I think about it the more questions I have and the more I want answers. And because I'm deranged I need to write all my thoughts down into an incoherent essay and release it into the world

So please, come along with me while and let's be Extremely Normal About Sir Crocodile Together and speculate about his ~Secret Past~

Quick note, my quickest access to some of these episodes is either through unsubbed episodes (not bothering with getting screenshots since there's no subs, also my Japanese is plenty good enough to not need it here) or through Ancient, Questionable Fansubs so don't get too hung up on the phrasing in the subbed screenshots- like they're not entirely inaccurate but y'know

The reason I want to do this is just that... Like I've been a fan of OP since 2008, when I was in middle school. I don't think I ever really tried to think deeper about this series in general at that time, because I was a kid. For a long time to me Crocodile had just been Some Greedy Asshole who tried to take over a country to obtain a tool of mass destruction and IDK destroy the world? Just a very classic Bad Guy McVillianMan, because I had not bothered to think about his character and question anything before.

But now I have brainworms due to the Crocodad Theory, and this is fucking One Piece, you never fucking know how deep a rabbithole can go with this bloody series. So let's go, let's try to figure out what the fuck is Crocodile's deal, because I need to get these brainworms out of my fucking system

I just want to start with this one quick throw-away line because it's kind of a sidenote. Also like. This is such a funny fucking thing for Crocodile to say if he is Luffy's dad. Like.

That's so fucking funny if he's Luffy's dad holy shit

But what really gets me here is that like... Like while I'm like 70% sure Crocodile is trans, there's still a part of me that's like "there's no fucking way Crocodad is real". Let alone, this be some kind of a hint Oda planted to suggest that this early on. Like it sounds absurd. And yet at this point in One Piece, Oda had already started planning out and laying out the groundwork for so many lore and plot-relevant concepts, ranging from shit like everything about Robin, the Poneglyphs, the Ancient Weapons etc. He had already started the "Prince Sanji ARG" (aka dropping the tiniest fucking hints to Sanji's Hidden Backstory that people were able to pick up on and make accurate predictions with about Sanji's backstory). There's fucking Laboon, and about a bajillion other things. And possibly most importantly, by this point Oda had already revealed both Luffy's father and grandfather to the readers, not to mention he even introduced Ace and vaguely hinted at Sabo! It's not like Oda had everything perfectly planned out from the very begining, that is objectively not the case at all. But it also literally would not be unlike Oda to drop hints to a character's backstory like this. He has been doing that for years, and had already started by the time we met Crocodile. Like it feels insane and yet it's perfectly plausible. And if he had Luffy's dad, grandfather and two siblings planned out in his head already at this point, it should not be that much of a stretch to believe that Oda knows and no doubt has known for the past two decades who Luffy's mom is (regardless of if that's Crocodile or not)

All this to say. Crocodile's comment about what Cobra said to Vivi when they reunited is a funny, sarcastic comment. But it would take a whole new meaning if Crocodad was real. Because it really would be perfectly normal if he did/had wondered what he would say to his long lost child if they were ever reunited. And really that just makes his roast turn sad.

Anyways

In Alabasta, we do get a very clear image that Crocodile does not like the World Government, not just because he's a Big Meanie Pirate who wants to conquer the world, but because he does seem to look down on how the Marines + World Government do their "justice" (which, y'know, knowing what we know now about the Government. Fair. That's entirely fair.)

He also dislikes Vivi's "idealism" of wanting to save everyone without bloodshed or anyone losing their lives (especially for her sake)

We learn that he is a broken man with broken dreams. Also he seems to be aware where he (supposedy) belongs in the Grand Line's power hierarchy, as in, he needs Pluton because he knows he's not strong enough in combat that he could take down anyone, let alone the World Government by himself (though he would still make a beeline for Whitebeard's head the second he saw him at Marinford, which, y'know, bold move)

And of course, we learn in Impel Down that Crocodile and Iva-chan have some beef. We can not say for 100% sure what that beef is (like the theory he's trans is very obvious and plausible, but until Oda spills the beans we won't know for a fact what the beef is), but we know that they knew each other. And if Crocodile knew Iva-chan, a high-ranking founding member of the Revolutionary Army, then it is genuinely plausible that Crocodile could also have known Dragon and/or been a member of the Revolutionary Army as well.

Since overthrowing the World Nobles and the Government are the Revolutionary Army's goal, the fact that they're trying to obtain weapons and people for their cause etc, Crocodile's view of the Government and his "Operation Utopia" does kind of align with the Revolutionary Army's

But we did also learn from Iva that "Crocoboy" isn't quite trustworthy. Needless to say, even if Croc used to be a part of the Army, he most certainly left YEARS ago, and clearly not on good terms.

Also, an interesting note, is that at Marineford when Luffy and co finally arrive at the battlefield (episode 466, 17:25 minutes in), when Garp spots the group, he makes a specific comment about Crocodile being there together with the revolutionaries and the prison escapees, believing they can't all be here to fight for the same cause. Which is an interesting thing for him to point out specifically. Like Jinbei was another powerful person who entered that battlefield at the same time, and while Jinbei did clarify to Sengoku that he's quitting being a Shichibukai and was there to save Ace, it's still maybe a little odd Garp didn't think it was worth mentioning that Jinbei had also "allied" with the prison escapees and the revolutionaries to enter the battlefield. Like it was Crocodile only whom he thought needed to be pointed out. I don't think Garp's comment adds at all to Crocodad because it would frankly make little to no sense (like we're all assuming Crocodile didn't know Dragon's lastname, which is why he never realized Luffy was his son (despite knowing Luffy's lastname), but if Crocodile knew Garp was Dragon's father then surely he'd realize Dragon's lastname would be Monkey, right), but it could maybe add to the idea that Crocodile might've been a part of the Revolutionary Army in the past, as Garp could be aware of something like that, thus he'd be puzzled by Crocodile's presencee. Point is, it's an interesting comment, make of it what you will

EDIT 2: Ended up going back to reread parts of Marineford and turns out ^that^ was an anime-only addition from Toei. Like Garp does make a comment about how these people probs aren't at the battlefield for the same reasons but did not specifically point out Crocodile or anything. So. I wasted enough time adding these paragraphs to the post, I ain't deleting 'em. But y'know.

EDIT: Minor addition, because I just remembered how Crocodile really went like out of his way to taunt Vivi about how she "can't stop the rebellion" and save her people. Which, y'know, is a perfectly normal Villian Thing To Do. But we know Crocodile does not think fondly of the World Nobles just like he dislikes the Government. Even if Cobra was a "good monarch" who genuinely cared for his people, he was still a king, and the Nefertari family and the Kingdom of Alabasta were a part of the World Government. The thing Crocodile specifically wanted to destroy. And this is just another one of those "surely that wasn't somekinda foreshadowing" but god fucking dammit what if Crocodile telling a(n unknowing) representative of the World Government that she can't stop "the rebellion", or the revolution if I may, (regardless of if he's allied with them or not) was actually meant to be like foreshadowing. Oda I swear to fucking god---

Anyway, so, Crocodile might've been a part of the Revolutionary Army at one point (the army was formed after the Ohara Incident 22 years ago, and for Crocodad Theorizing, Luffy was born 19 years ago), but if he did he must have left on bad terms for unknown reasons, and we can tell that although his goals in general could vaguely match that of the Revolutionaries, his methods most certainly don't.

Whether or not his methods and his worldview tie to his leaving the Army is unknown. Because we don't really know when and how his worldview was formed.

Like did Crocodile leave the Army because he became a cynical asshole who was willing to make any kind of sacrifice for his goals (thus he no longer fit in with the rest of the Revolutionary Army), realized he was far too weak to ever become Pirate King and thus decided to go looking for Pluton? Or did Crocodile suggest to the Army they should try to obtain an Ancient Weapon to keep casulties to a minimum (still in line with the Army), only ending up getting kicked out (big weapon bad), and soon realizing he had no chance at making a change in the world without "cracking a few eggs"?

Like it doesn't nececarily make a massive difference,, since the end result is still the same, but it does kind of affect the context and how one might view him, right

Of course, there's then the Forbidden Third Option, that Crocodile left due to

Gender issues (internalized shame of being trans and not having it in him to stay around people who had known him)

Postpartum depression

Dragon just divorced Crocodile either due to being straight (in a sad, accepting way) or due to being simply unaccepting and frankly homophobic, regardless, Crocodile leaves with a broken heart

Something else and/or a combo of the above, really, we could speculate endlessly here about what could've happened

(Though I will say that Crocodile's '"trust issues"' and how he views people as disposable could like. I dunno. Be explained if he had gone through some heartbreak and was left permanently unable to open up to people, let alone trust anyone)

I dunno, there's a lot of options, a lot of things to considder.

But there is one more thing that I do want to note on as it could potentially debunk the Crocodad Theory entirely.

It's that Iva-chan didn't know Dragon had a son.

(Episode 441, 9:50 minutes) By which I mean, Iva-chan wasn't shocked to find out Luffy was Dragon's son, rather, they were shocked there was a son to begin with. (To the point they thought Ace was also Dragon's son until Luffy cleared it up for them later) While it's not a massive leap to believe that Crocodile and Dragon knew each other (since Crocodile knew Iva-chan), nor is it a massive leap to believe that Iva-chan transed Crocodile's gender after having Luffy... It does become a bit of a leap to believe Iva-chan didn't know about Dragon having a child with Crocodile before giving Croc the Magic HRT. Like if they had a relationship that resulted in a baby and a divorce, how did Iva not know about any of it, especially when it's more than likely that Iva could not have transitioned Crocodile until after the baby was born (let's not think about how Iva-chan's powers would work on a pregnant person too much)

We do also get this flashback (in episode 441, immidiately after Luffy reveals his dad's identity to Iva) where Iva-chan questions Dragon about how he always stares out towards East Blue when the wind blows, wondering if Dragon has family out there whom he's thinking about (Dragon refusing to comment on it). This does very much confirm that regardless of who Dragon had Luffy with, Iva has no fucking clue who, where and how any of that happened. And althought I personally feel like Iva not knowing would debunk Crocodad, if Crocodile still somehow was Luffy's dad, Iva-chan would canonically not know about it. If Iva didn't know Dragon had a relationship that resulted in a baby, then regardless of if Iva even knew Crocodile got pregnant once, they would not be able to connect those dots.

Now let's be clear, there's many potential scenarios where Crocodad could still be real, scenarios that could explain why and how Iva-chan didn't know about Luffy nor about Dragon and Crocodile having a relationship*. Like it would not be difficult at all to come up with an explanation for it. But in my mind, I feel like the more you have to figure out and explain how the theory could still be plausible, the less plausible it actually feels. Like the more I need to go out of my way to explain it, the more forced it seems.

*(For example, maybe the two kept their relationship a secret, and when Crocodile got pregnant he """left on a mission""" that happened to take like 4-10 months, during the time realizing he was trans. Once the baby had arrived he returned the baby to Dragon in secret for him to deal with, got a divorce for one reason or another*, and sought out Iva-chan to start a new life, Iva thus never found out about anything, just knew that Crocodile left one day after coming out. Like that's one plausible scenario.)

*Hey remember the potential Forbidden Reasons to why Crocodile might've left the Army? What if it was Dragon's and/or Crocodile's idea? Remember how when Jinbei is trying to escape Marinford with the unconcious Luffy, Crocodile tells Jinbei to do better job at "protecting those he wants to protect", a line that felt really sudden and odd coming from Crocodile of all people? What if the two knew their child would be in grave danger if he was ever raised within the army (absolutely not a place for a baby)? What if they knew their baby would become a target for the World Government to hunt, much like Roger's lost child was, if the Government found out Dragon had a baby? What if they wanted to make sure nothing bad ever happened to their baby and were willing to do anything to protect the baby? Even if it meant they'd never see their child grow up? Even if it meant hiding your child from your best friend, pretending to have a horrible fallout with them and transing your gender because Oda doesn't know what gender dysphoria is? Just so nobody would ever find out you had a child?

Mind you. I do not want anybody to think this is an actual argument for Crocodad. Like I could write a dozen different fanfics about how Crocodile could be Luffy's other dad, and they would all be just as much pure speculation with nothing to support them as the above suggestions. It is an example of what could have happened, and a deeply interesting thought, but it is just a theory at best.

In the end, it doesn't really matter though, because until the day Oda reveals Luffy's mom and/or Crocodile's backstory to us, we will truly never know for sure What The Fuck Crocodile's Deal Is

And I'll be just stuck with these brainworms, making myself sad by thinking about sad scenarios where Crocodad could be real, because truly, if it's canon, ain't no way it won't be sad

EDIT 3: Originally I thought it'd be good enough if I just rewatched some parts here and there, but in the end I just fucking absolutely caved the fuck in and went and reread The Good Parts of Marineford. Mainly because I knew I was forgetting things and Toei adding/changing things can affect a character reading. Also it was just going to be easier to go through the manga and literally just all of Crocodile's scenes into an image folder for easier browsing, mainly because there's so much shit that happens between those scattered scenes it can be hard to like focus on one thing (especially if you're trying to specifically FIND those scattered scenes and appearances)

So yeah. Coming back a few days later to add shit to this god forsaken post. I need help

Actually changed my mind and made a separate post to continue this nonsense, enjoy

#Moon posting #One Piece #Sir Crocodile #I am being so very normal about Crocodile #So SO very normal #I'm sorry this is so fucking incoherent I just can not form a coherent thought about this for the life of me #Also sorry I had to use random OP reaction pics. This was a long ass post and I desperately needed to break up the text walls somehow #For the record while I doubt Crocodad is real I am 100000% emotionally invested in it and WANT it to be real #I'm just not convinced Oda can write a trans character this fucking nuanced #And I think I'd prefer Crocodad not being real over Crocodad being real but Stupid and/or Transphobic #Which fucking sucks because genuinely. Crocodad easily has the potential to be the one of the most tragic backstories in the series #But I don't trust Oda. And that's why I'm so doubtful above all else #Anyway yeah Crocodile has made me completely deranged someone please help #My brain needs to be vacuumed or something to get rid of the worms #OP Meta

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bethelighthalazia · 5 months ago

Text

HALA Prologue - Rescued…?

Summary: Kim Hwa Young, a young woman who is connected to the 'Black Pirates' got saved from the most prestigious academy of Strictland. Now, she´ll have to adapt to life outside of the academy and learn to feel and remember again. Will this be an easy thing? Will she be alright with the help of her friends? Will she remember that two of them were much more important to her than friends?

Genre: adventure, fluff, angst

Pairing: UniverseZ!Mingi x fem!OC (Kim Hwa Young)

Additional Characters: ATEEZ members

Word Count: 836

Warnings: angst, fluff, violence, injuries, trauma

Networks: @mirohs-aurora-society

Notes: This series plays in the Universe Z and with HalAteez lore, please don´t be upet if I do not get it all 100%accurate to how you interpret the lore of Ateez. This is purely MY interpretation and therefore more of an AU probably.

additional links: << prev masterlist next >>

© by bethelighthalazia. Do not repost, copy or translate. Unless stated otherwise, those works are mine and born from my own ideas. I don't have any claim on the mentioned real existing Idols whatsoever.

The Prestige academy. An intimidatingly quiet and clean place, not like one would imagine an academy or school to be like. Ever since the government declared emotions to be a human disease, they have slowly but surely turned everyone into emotionless shells. Strictland, a world where human emotions were forbidden, run by a government who wants to rule and suppress rather than to protect their people. And in this emotionless world, a revolutionary group had risen. The black pirates, the rebellion, formed around a group of 8 young men who somehow escaped the brainwashing of the government and are now trying to free humanity of the dictatorship of the android guardians.

The city was eerily quiet this morning when eight men were on their way to the infamous prestige academy, knowing that one specific person was still trapped in there, one person they had to free, for the sake of their captain. With the wave of his hand, Hongjoong, the captain of the group, gestures to the other seven to take their positions, fully aware that, if they were to be captured, everything would fail. Jongho, the youngest, was sent up to the roof, to make sure that the speakers would work properly, while Yeosang and Mingi were stationed in the van just outside of the academy. San and Seonghwa were tasked with distracting the guards, so that Wooyoung, Yunho and Hongjoong could infiltrate the building and find their target. Well, and the three of them were to haywire the brainwashing machines and connect them to a recording of their music. Music and arts were some of the things that the government banned, so the black pirates had decided to fight the system with just that.

Inside of the Academy, Yunho split up from Hongjoong and Wooyoung, he was the one who had stolen and memorized the blueprints of this place prior to this mission. He's usually the gentle giant of the group, the golden retriever, but today, Yunho was fully focused on his task, following the hallways to the room where they are certain that she is held captive. When he pushed open a double door made of heavy iron, he froze in his tracks. They had planned everything, San probably was running and being followed by the guardians right now, so they all had enough time to fulfill their tasks, but what they had not anticipated was the sight in front of Yunho. It seems like they have waited for the group to attack, it was too easy, something was…odd.

There she was, not locked up in a cage or anything like they had thought though. A young woman, dressed entirely in white, her eyes without any emotion or sign of recognizing him, was sitting in the middle of an empty room. The chair didn't seem very comfortable, Wires and tubes connected to her body in various places, yet it didn't seem to bother the young woman either. “Shit, please don´t tell me-” Yunho hissed quietly, taking slow steps towards the middle of the room, head tilted as he watched every one of the young woman‘s reactions. Why didn't she react at all? Did they hurt her? Made her forget or alter her memories of them? Thoughts crossed his mind, which he pushed away as soon as they came up. “Unauthorized individual spotted, alarm init-” Before the automatic voice could finish, Yunho heard a crackling noise from the speakers, followed by a very familiar chuckle and his heart beat faster. They did it, they hacked into the system. However, the moment Yunho heard the chuckle, there was another sound, this time coming from the young woman on the chair. A quiet gasp, followed by a sigh and a fwhump quickly caught his attention, the young man's eyes widened in shock. “Hurry up everyone, they knew we´re coming!” The captain's voice echoed from all speakers in the building and Yunho moved swiftly, hurrying to remove the wires and tubes that were attached to the unconscious woman and picking her up. Throwing her over his shoulder, Yunho then ran, hoping that the others were able to distract the guards and, to his relief, he managed to flee and reach the van outside without any problems.

“Hurry!” Mingi called out, one hand reaching for his best friend as the van got started already, the others had reached it before Yunho as it seems. Grabbing Mingi´s hand, the tall man jumped in, making sure to not hurt the young woman while doing so and, when the doors closed behind them, he laid her on the van´s floor. “You alright, Yunho?” The captain asked from the front of the van, freezing in place the moment he saw the young woman, his heart dropping heavily. “I´m good, drive faster hyung! We have to get her to the base, there were wires and tubes an-” Without letting the older one finish, Yeosang accelerated the car and not much later, they arrived at their base, an empty building in the town's outskirts.

taglist: @mingis-mizu, @tinyelfperson, @hotteokkay, @minkilicious, @bunnliix,

@gong-fourz, @yeosangiess, @dinossaurz, @scuzmunkie, @h3arteyes4mingi

@vnessalau

(if you want to be added to a taglist, follow the taglist-link in my pinned post)

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super-hero-confessions · 3 months ago

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Homelander and Vought are a lesson about how modern society raises people, in especially but not limited to religious fundamentalism and America.

You are not a person, you are product and profit margin for capitalism and billionaires.

Children go to school not to learn what will help them in life, but to be properly trained for the common 9 to 5.

You do not have a right to life, you must pay for it and take on unpayable debts for it if need be.

You must work yourself to the bone to survive, but mostly to make money for someone else.

You must obey the rules and people that leave you at a disadvantage and abuse you, for they are your makers and we must not bite the hand that feeds.

You must not want change such or to break free of this psychological dependence on them because one day, someday though statistically unlikely it may be, you too may be able to profit off of and control others as is the way.

Is it?

I once heard something along the lines that the way we treat our livestock is reflective of the way we treat people in society, and it's true.

We are just fodder to fuel a broken machine, we already don't matter.

If someone dies through this system, we are told to look the other way and move on.

It's only when it becomes personal that we are forced to face this and unable to move on or go back from our own disillusionment.

Still we are nothing more than statistics and told to allow whatever corporation responsible to continue to profit off us, whether through our lives or our deaths because we don't matter and we never have.

If a cubicle is a marker for success in the average person, does that mean it's the same for a chicken?

Homelander is reflective of the average person in a society that is built to use, abuse, and toss us for the sake of short term profit at the expense of the individual.

This is why so many people relate to him, the drive to explode or escape is a real thing.

Vought is reflective of real life corporations such as Big Pharma that use, abuse, and toss us for the sake of short term profit at the expense of the individual.

If we took just a second to look at them, we'd realize just how little we matter to them and that these seemingly cartoonishly evil portrayals of them aren't actually cartoonish at all.

They are accurate.

It hurts but it's true, corporations and especially right wing pundits and politicians which support those corporations do not give a fuck about you.

We're just useful to them.

The revelations about Homelander's past and how not a single scientist saw him as a person or thought about what they were doing to him and the long term consequences of their actions is so painfully realistic.

We have real world examples not just in the past with basic repeated history of monarchs and revolutions or all the experiments performed on innocent children in more recent history, but in the modern day as well.

People don't matter as much as profits in the short term, so of course long term consequences are irrelevant.

Of course what Homelander did in the future didn't matter to them as long as they could profit in the short term, ideally someone else would have to clean up the mess.

That's just the way the world works, it's all just normal.

Isn't it?

We still haven't learned this lesson and it always starts the same way and always leads to the same result.

In truth, Homelander and Vought are actually a brilliantly presented if very direct example of humanity's greatest foil.

The lesson we always fail to learn.

#confession #rant #the boys

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heavensmockery · 2 months ago

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Uncanny.

An essay to approach the horror behind the unnatural and distorted

A while ago, a group of medical students visited an exhibition. The exhibition was supposed to educate about what is inside our bodies. form , color, texture of organs, bones, fascia or our nervous systems. veins. A necessary part to learn in med school. Especially anatomy

But as it was an art exhibition at the same time it left some of the student with an uneasy and disturbed state of mind and some were also put them in a state of shock for hours after the visit.

A quick breakdown of the exhibition:

ROOM A: In the middle of the room there was a skeleton spine , hung on the ceiling ike decoration, but instead of the already familiar accurate spine, it was ..long. More like taken from an already extinct species.

ROOM B: On a pillar, we can see a long tall ..thing, with something that must have been skin with strings like the spin was tied to it to hold it open so we can see the organs. There must have been no deeper meaning to this rather than a creative approach to anatomy

ROOM C: All across the room were met with a nervous system. It seemed more like a cable system with flickers to signalize nervous impulses.

ROOM D: A very noisy room with a pumping heart in the middle of it. Veins spreading from it like a spider web. A visualization of the circular system.

ROOM E: (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) . It looked like a disease. What is this?

Many may now wonder what exactly would have been in Room E. If the room E was even real. People are eager to analyze. Find meaning in art and mostly , try to find something from our day to day life. People crave comprehensive content.

Now with this totally not made up exhibition we can see, People find things like this disturbing But why? Nothing seems unnatural here, its all organs and veins. Simply answered: These human and biological things have been put in a position, explored in a way which just shouldnt be.

Other example: Some people find it gross and disgusting when for example a limb , that has been broken, points in a way which isnt possible in a healthy body. Our when someone rolls his eyes over. Even if twisted limbs and eyerolling could be caught as creepy or disturbing because they became common tropes in horror media.

Another common fear factor is the classic distorted face in horror films. The wide open eyes, the jaw drop beyond natural. The expression unclear to read. Is it the stare into our soul ? the way no jaw could drop this deep down , hanging there like loose skin.

All of these factors disturb people, they find this gross, creepy, or...uncanny..unnatural. The unnatural way of things make us want to run. Because we dont understand it with the biology we learnt. With our understanding of the world.

And then. There are movements. Twitching. Unnatural movements. like some bug in distress. Have you ever seen that?

Youre at home. Theres an insect at your window. Buzz. Buzz. It cannot get out. Its not able to get out. It moves rapidly before it sits down. Imagine if a LIMB did that. The mere thought is enough.

All of the described scenarios are somwhat a description of what some people saw on TV. With all the knowledge they were not supposed to see that. For some , these imagery, these movements, the bare exposure to the insides are enough. But the thing surely wasnt human nor biologically possibly, nor... how do you even describe that?

The thing with people craving comprehension is that scenarios like this just..arent explainable through science , nothing comforting about a distorted unnatural being.

#the boiled one phenomenon #writers on tumblr #writing #tw gore #gore tw #tw disturbing #tw body horror #body horror tw #the boiled one #phen 228 #essay #story writing?#This “essay” left me deeply uneasy #not gonna lie. But its fun to try writing like this

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dysphoric-culture-is · 1 year ago

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Not dysphoric culture, sorry, but does mod have any tips on socially transitioning, especially in school? I’m not even out yet, but I like to make plans for what I’m gonna do to make me feel less stuck in the closet, but I’ve only ever really thought about medical transition and don’t really know how to go about socially transitioning. (Afab, nonbinary, want to be perceived as neutral/masculine, if that’s any help)

Don’t apologize anon, mod is here to (try) to give advice!

Mod actually came out at school a couple of years ago (a conservative middle/high school where mod was one of the first publicly out not binary people) so. Here is some stuff.

Support:

Find a good friend group, and ideally also a decent guidance counselor who will not out you before you’re ready

Some fake friends will continue to misgender and deadname you. If this continues for months on end and you keep reminding them, they may not be a real friend

Meet other queer and trans people in your school! Join a GSA/acceptance club if there’s one! Find a trans person in your school that’s older than you and ask them for advice!!

Older trans people in your school can sometimes help you buy gender-affirming products (ex: if they can have it shipped to their house and can use their card, and then you pay them back in cash, for safety reasons etc) or queer merch.

If you want your name and gender marker to be changed in the school’s system you often have to go through the guidance department. Depending on where you live you do not need parental consent for this and do not let the guidance department bully you into it. You shouldn't need a court order either

Google classroom/digitization of education has made life harder for trans students because you will see the wrong name and pronouns listed everywhere. Schools with ID cards have this problem but worse because even if you cover up the name with a sticker, whenever your ID is scanned it will out you. Some places even require students to scan IDs to use the bathroom- a double nightmare for trans students.

Student pictures are cringe. Try to dress as gender-affirming as possible for picture day and remember that you’re likely only being photographed from the shoulders up (chest dysphoria = not your biggest problem)

Not all school systems have a nonbinary marker. Mod’s school pretended not to have one and it took some digging and anxious waiting to get one (mod has since gotten it, is one of the first students in the school’s history to have one, and is spreading resources to other trans and nonbinary students in the school community). For you anon if you can’t get an X/O/N/etc marker you can get a M, which may not be completely accurate but it might make you less dysphoric as compared to a F

Yearbooks might have pre-transition photos of you or even elementary school photos of you so try to speak to someone on the yearbook committee/club about it. Senior year in general can be a nightmare if you’re trans/nb because so many pictures are taken of you and a lot of old photos/letters are dug up

The uncomfortable stuff:

You need to use the bathroom especially if you do after-school activities. This is non-negotiable and far too many trans people (especially transmascs + nonbinary people who were AFAB) get UTIs by avoiding the bathroom all day. Using a public bathroom may be dysphoria inducing but having to see a urologist/gynecologist is much worse. But it’s true that school bathrooms suck! Find one that is the least suck-y (clean, not used very often, ideally gender-neutral) and try to use that one. Not all schools have a gender neutral bathroom, and the ones that do may only have one dirty, single-person bathroom for the entire school (like mod’s). For your case specifically anon if you feel you pass well enough/don’t pass but have enough support at school you can try to use the men’s room. The thing about using the men’s restroom is you have to walk in with confidence (fake confidence is okay too!) and act unbothered.

Mod has never heard of a gender-neutral school locker room, at least below the college level, ever. The good thing is that a lot of students no longer have to change for gym, or that some schools will give nonbinary students the option of changing in the gender neutral bathroom instead. (At mod’s school, their ‘nonbinary inclusive’ policy [which likely did not exist until mod asked about it] is that nonbinary students can choose which gendered locker room they’d like to use! How very inclusive and totally not avoiding the problem! [sarcasm]) You can ask a gym teacher to keep your bag in their office or leave your bag in the gym to avoid the locker rooms.

Your peers:

They might be transphobic, they might be supportive, or they might just not care. Either way they will probably misgender you purely because they knew you pre-transition. Mod has people in school that mod went to elementary school with and many of them are literally the worst. It's a horrible feeling to know that some people will always see you as [deadname and what your AGAB was] even if you 'pass' or correct people. But unless you transfer to another school there is nothing you can do about that.

Just find people who support you, ideally fellow trans people, and ignore those guys.

Transitioning:

You've probably seen a bunch of tips for gender presentation and might have done some already. For masculine/masc-leaning neutral some are: men's clothing, shorter hair, makeup to contour, binding/packing, layered clothing, etc. Some behavioral changes are voice training (do not rely only on T to change your voice if that's your plan!), taking on more masculine speech patterns, walking more confidently, exercising (target certain areas to create a more masculine shape), etc.

The actual coming out part:

Coming out is scary. Friends can encourage you, but you also have to come out to them first.

Most teachers mod has talked to about being queer have been at least polite/tolerant about it. There hasn’t been any outright hostility, but there has been more subtle transphobia. And mod uses neopronouns in a conservative place! The only major issue was when mod sent a teacher an email about mod’s pronouns + nb inclusive curriculum and he sent the email to the principal without asking (wild stuff. He agreed to use they/them for mod, but also denied taking responsibility for his curriculum excluding queer people).

If you want to come out at school but not at home, you can email/talk to your teachers in person and tell them to call you ___ in school and your deadname/wrong pronouns in front of your parents. Some counselors will email your teachers for you if you’re scared of your parents reading your emails/searching your device

You can write your chosen name almost wherever you want! You do not need it changed it the system to use it and especially if you’re writing on paper you can use it.

You are your biggest advocate! You need to get really good at standing up for yourself. Catering to or being nice to transphobes will usually not help you. You will probably need to push people: 'my pronouns are ____' not 'I prefer ____', 'what is the policy on nonbinary students, and if one doesn't exist how are we going to make one' not 'is there a nonbinary policy', 'I will wear the _____ uniform' not 'is it ok for trans people to wear the _____ uniform', 'call me ____' not 'um I have a preferred name and it's ____ is that okay', 'how will you make room for me' not 'can you make room for me' etc. It is not rude to be assertive! Transphobes will call you rude for simply existing in a way they don't like. Make sure to be clear about what you need and don't give them room to evade your requests. Nonbinary students who will come to your school several years from now will thank you.

It’s good that you’re planning ahead for coming out anon because that can make it less overwhelming, but overthinking can also really get you. If planning your coming out (which may or may not happen soon) starts to only stress you out and not give you any joy then you maybe need to take a break.

There's a lot more stuff but this is just a general overview so if you have more specific questions please send in another ask! Good luck anon!

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intersex-support · 4 months ago

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Hello! I have a question: Would it be okay for me to describe myself as questioning intersex if I suspect I may have an intersex condition but haven't been able to see anyone about it?

I was assigned female at birth, but I've experienced a lot of anomalies since I began puberty, such as very inconsistent periods (around 2-3 a year, which are always very short), proper visible hair above my lips (along with beard hair, but it's a lot thinner and much harder to notice), and external body changes such as widening hips never occurred. A lot of "female" clothes don't fit correctly, and I've always had much better luck with anything from the men's department. I can't wear a dress without constantly getting misgendered, and misgendering is something I've dealt with all my life honestly (much worse when I was still in school, but I still encounter it).

I've never known what could cause it, although I'm aware I have some medical history when I was an infant (although I don't really know what for). This is something I've wanted to find out more about, but my (cishet male) doctor has never taken me seriously, dismissing all my concerns. I'm hopefully moving GPs soon, but the waiting list there is long and I don't know when I'll see someone considering it's not urgent. So, is it okay for me to describe myself as questioning intersex and interact with the community in the meanwhile?

Hi anon!

This is just my personal opinion--other intersex people might disagree and are allowed to disagree.

I personally think it's okay for people who are questioning being intersex to say that they're questioning intersex/suspecting being intersex /on the intersex diagnosis journey etc etc etc. However, I do think that people who are questioning intersex should be sure that they are being considerate in intersex community spaces, being honest and not misrepresenting themself, and being careful not to talk over people or overstep boundaries.

I think it's really important to there to be places that people who are questioning intersex to find accurate information, and to get support on navigating a very complicated and biased medical system. And in truth, there is just so few information and resources out there that if questioning intersex people want that type of advice, information, and support, of course they're going to come to intersex community spaces and look there! And I feel pretty strongly that part of intersex justice is figuring out ways to get medical power into the hands of intersex people--part of that comes from giving our communities the tools they need to discover that they might be intersex. So that's why I think it's important for there to be spaces welcoming of intersex people, and why I think it's okay for people to express that they're questioning.

That being said, I also understand why there are other intersex people who don't always want every space to be one that's completely open. I think it's important for questioning people not to speak over other intersex people, not to position themself as an authority in subjects that they're just starting to learn about, not overtake all conversations to be about questioning or the diagnosis process, and not overstep peoples specific boundaries in terms of joining specific groups, such as ones that are specifically for people who've survived IGM if they haven't experienced that. (all real examples of things i've seen.) In general, I think most intersex people will be really welcoming to questioning people as long as you're just honest about what you're experiences and show up as your authentic self, rather than trying to mislead people or represent something that isn't true about your experience.

So long story short, I think it's totally okay as long as you're considerate when interacting in intersex spaces! Feel free to check out more of the resources on this page for information to help you on your questioning process, and good luck!

#asks #questioning intersex #i think something else that is sort of different about questioning intersex vs other LGBTQ identities is that #questioning is also sort of like diagnosis process. whether self or otherwise. and so questioning intersex #is just a bit of a different dynamic in terms of what that process looks like. compared to other LGBTQ identities where it's just like.#a lot more based on your own autonomy if that makes sense

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qqueenofhades · 1 year ago

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so how do you think it would be best for American leftists to label ourselves, if not socialist? i've always seen socialism as one of the more palatable terms for leftism. i agree that meeting people where they are + responding thoughtfully and compassionately to their concerns is essential, but i also think we need to use the terms which accurately describe us, and *show* through our community building and efforts that dictators like Castro and Stalin do not represent us

Frankly -- and this is never going to actually happen, but I can dream -- I honestly wish the left would just abandon the word "socialism" altogether. It's never going to be palatable in the American context, there's never going to be a moment where you can just use it and have people immediately know what you mean and/or that you mean the "good" kind of socialism and not the "bad," and it's heretofore been one of the most effective cudgels for the right-wing noise machine to hit us with. Maybe when the older generations all die out, we might have a shot at rehabilitating it, but not until then, and definitely not with the way things are going right now. I'd say that the left can keep it to use among themselves if they have to, but since the one thing that leftists love to do is attack other leftists for being Insufficiently Pure, I'm not even sure it has any use in that regard. It's become an empty signifier and it has, so far as I can see, no real critical use (a bit like "feudalism" to a medieval historian, but never mind that).

Besides, what are we actually saying with the word "socialism," and in some way that we can't rephrase and say more effectively? I would define the progressive/left-wing Democratic agenda as focused on achieving economic and racial justice, protections for women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, abortion rights, workers, etc., reforming or otherwise significantly changing the late-stage capitalist system, fighting climate change and promoting green initiatives, and other similar policies. How exactly does the word "socialism" signify any of that, and why is it necessary that we keep it? Especially when it's been proven that this does not help us win elections and drives away the Mushy Middle voters that we have to convince to vote for us long enough to actually keep a Democratic administration/Congress in power to make changes, rather than seesawing back to the GOP every few years and putting us even more miserably behind the 8-ball?

This doesn't mean we should BE Mushy Middlemen ourselves, or aspire for some milquetoast centrism that solves nothing and pleases no one, but rather we need to figure out how to make Middle America embrace our policies as they are and how to make them attractive in that context. I think Biden did this very well with his re-election video, where he cast the Democrats as the party of freedom. This is the most American word you can possibly think of, and Americans are predisposed to like anything associated with that word. Heretofore the GOP has had a total stranglehold on it, and defined it very narrowly as military triumphalism and personal freedom to be a dick to everyone you encounter and do whatever you want while trampling over the rights of others. But that's obviously a wildly hypocritical and distorted version of "freedom," in the most Orwellian sense imaginable, and the Democrats actually are the party of freedom: freedom to live your life how you choose, freedom to make choices about your own body, freedom to let your kids be who they want and learn the truth and not get murdered in school, freedom to not live in an authoritarian repressive fascist theocracy. For way too long, Democrats have just meekly ceded the "freedom" word to Republicans, who have shit all over it and made it meaningless the way they have with everything else, and that's a major error.

Likewise, "justice" is another word that the Republicans have appropriated to mean "locking up black people for anything we want and mindlessly worshiping cops," but which Democrats need to get into reclaiming. Everybody can see for themselves how wildly corrupt and unjust the GOP-packed federal judiciary and SCOTUS is (with scandal-a-day Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Federalist Society monsters). The Democrats have a golden opportunity to -- accurately -- cast themselves as the party of justice: economic, racial, climate, gender, etc etc. It's already been proven that "defund the police" is a bad message, so don't SAY that. But talk about an overall scheme of achieving justice, and Middle America likes that! They like to see themselves as generally fair and supporting people who "play by the rules." Yes, of course the law is by nature unjust, but we can still make that messaging work to our advantage to get them to support us.

Basically, I want to see leftists and Democrats alike use the language that the country is predisposed to like: words like justice, freedom, fairness, equality, etc. It's harder to smear somebody as a nasty anti-American socialist (not, of course, that the right wing won't try) if they're talking about those things, especially freedom, and especially in a left/liberal context as the GOP becomes ever more paranoid, fascist, and authoritarian. Besides, they know they're in the minority. Abortion bans aren't popular (they really, REALLY aren't popular). Book bans aren't popular. Attacks on women, LGBTQ+ rights, and trans kids aren't popular. Election denialism and attempted coups aren't popular. Endless and unrestricted assault weapons aren't popular. Yes, a fringe part of this country is awfully and irredeemably poisoned by theocratic fascist white supremacy, but they're still not the majority, and we don't need to act like they are, or write off everybody who's not a Terminally Online Leftist as impossible to ever reach or convince. That just provides a convenient excuse for not doing any work and just letting things get worse.

So like... the Democrats and the leftists alike need to lean into these words and stop letting Republicans monopolize them with their idiot and hypocritical definitions. They also need to reckon with the fact that for a not-insignificant portion of visible and vocal tankie-leftists, they DO want to emulate Castro and Stalin, or at the very least, not care at all about the historical baggage that comes with those names. They feel that any terrible dictator was secretly good if they were a) anti-American and b) describable as "leftist" in some vague and overarching sense of the word, and that's sure as hell not going to convince John and Jane Q. NiceIowaCouple to like them. It sure as hell doesn't convince ME to like them, and I'm already a leftist/liberal who has never voted for a Republican in my life. And because we are at such a dangerous moment where we've escaped fascism but it's still trying with all its might to come back, we really, really can't afford this. It's stupid and it's useless and it's just mean.

Anyway: I want people to stop f'n using the word "socialism," especially since most of them couldn't actually define what it means, what it has meant in the past, or why any benefits outweigh the clear and obvious costs. Start talking about justice, freedom, and fairness instead, show how those things can be improved with Democrats/progressives/liberals in charge instead of Republicans, and then act accordingly. I think that might work better.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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