#which seems like a whole other thing in itself

[suicidal-socialist]

Blaming individual people is often, though not always, reasonable in actually individual matters they have (almost) total control of, e.g. my decision to go for "just one more YT video" last night - there was no external force influencing my decision in any way, besides the character of the options, which is necessarily a given.

Even then, there's an argument to be made about general alienation and the inevitable longing for some sort of meaning and joy, or at least fun and distraction. But the influence of this factor is one of a general background character, a weak though constant one, thus pretty manageable, unless one tries to find happiness, to go beyond the reasonable life expectation of a fair dose apathy and calm boredom, which would be the silliest of endeavors indeed

However, when there is definitely an influence from the side, which one must fight against, the blame properly lies on them both in proportion to their relative strengths. The strength of the individual in this struggle being the more easily and reasonably changeable compotent, an influence on their will - indifferently of the degree of ontological freedom one attributes to it - is appropriate for there is oftentimes no possible alternative solution, and only in some of these cases it is a reasonable one

This is the case of one or few individuals, which can simultaneously be influenced, in one way or another, by your call to action. Only such a factor that can simultaneously affect the whole or a large part of the group, whose action is being examined, is to be taken seriously. Such factors come from structured institutions, general situations (e.g. a war or a general jump of prices) and the public, social media propaganda and such belonging to the last type, being but one of many. Moreover, in this situation it is one against the many, including even itself - for the support of the Dems was by no means unanimous, with a fair deal of direct opposition.

To blame the people in this case is pointless, as it would imply the addressing to them with a demand of a *simultaneous* burst of will, sufficient to tip the scales against so many factors, without any factor that could realistically cause such an exatlation. It would be akin to a daily complaint that the day before they didn't rise up against the ruling class and was it away with a glorious wave of revolution - it would be demanding not necessarily the impossible, but definitely the unreasonable

But blaming the institutions - or at least not immediately scapegoating the people with no further analysis - allows us a more workable picture than "the people are bad and did a bad thing", at least a more proper understanding of the matter at hand

It fails to give a singular correct, simple and definitive plan of action, while the other one demands only complaining, but it does give at least the material for an actually worthwhile one

I know not why I took the time to type this stretched-out passage, I only know that this question didn't visit me before the halfway point, at which abandoning it would seem like a waste of... something

Gotta admit the headline is a banger.

[lavender-twilight23]

HELLA UNPOPULAR X-MEN OPINION THAT I KNOW THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WILL DISAGREE WITH BUT WHO CARES I WANNA TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY:

I like X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

OKAY OKAY THERE I SAID IT DON’T SMITE ME WITH FIRE HEAR ME OUT–

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is definitely the weakest of the prequel trilogy, and definitely one of the weaker X-Men movies ever, if not THE weakest. It does A LOT of things wrong.

THAT BEING SAID.

I still enjoy it. If I put it on, I will enjoy it. Do I think it struggles in certain areas? Oh, hell yes. But there are highs and lows. The lows are very, VERY low, but the highs are quite high, and I think they deserve some attention.

But I do want to talk about some of the moments in X-Men: Dark Phoenix that I genuinely like, because so many people hate on this movie, which I completely understand, but I do think it has moments/scenes that make it redeemable, and I want to bring attention to the parts that I genuinely like, no matter how controversial the movie itself is.

Dark Phoenix is hated on by so many, so sometimes, I feel like I forget that there are moments of this movie that shine, and I want to brush off the dust on a film that has been buried by the scrutiny of so many and I want to list the reasons why I like it.

I’ve seen it mentioned before somewhere on the internet that the prequel series should’ve ended with X-Men: Apocalypse. Should it have? Maybe. But Dark Phoenix is a movie that exists, and there are certain moments/scenes that I’m glad we got, that we got ONLY because this movie exists.

Again, I know this movie has flaws. GIANT flaws. It struggles and falls flat in SO many areas, and I do see that, but I think that sometimes, even in movies that are looked down as being really really bad…sometimes their good moments get shoved under the rug.

Anyways, with all that being said, written in chronological order, here are The High Points In X-Men: Dark Phoenix!

This post (more like essay) ended up being long as shit so I put this thing here 😆

- The flashback of Charles meeting Jean

I think this scene honestly is adorable, not only because we see the beginning of a father/daughter relationship in blossom, but we get Charles in his Apocalypse era (long hair???) and then also we get to see how he approaches kids with trauma related to their powers and it reminds us WHY he’s doing what he’s doing in the first place, WHY he’s in this business to begin with. This is what he’s wanted to do forever. And to watch/listen to him in this scene, he uses specific language and acts in a certain way because he KNOWS he’s talking to a child, a child that has just been through a trauma. Yes, we see Charles lie about her parents’ deaths, which I’ll get to later, but speaking to Charles taking to child Jean– he says things like “yep,” “amazing,” “really cool,” things that he doesn’t normally say. He’s trying to relate to her and going down to her level to try and seem approachable, I think.

A little detail that I noticed the other day that I love that isn’t called attention to at all and is kind of in the background is that when Charles approaches Jean to give her the pen, he wheels forward, and out of frame, he locks his wheelchair in place. It’s such a tiny, subtle detail that’s easy to miss, but for some reason it just makes me really happy.

The pen metaphor is really nice and gets Jean to let her walls down and genuinely listen to him. Charles is incredibly gentle with her.

This is the beginning of a beautiful father/daughter relationship that we see so little of.

And one last thing about this scene– well, it’s less about this scene and more about their relationship as a whole. Assuming that Jean is nine or ten, maybe eleven here, and to know that Jean is in her early 20s in the present-day Dark Phoenix storyline, Charles has been by her side, raising her, nurturing her for HALF OF HER LIFE. Picturing that, even though it’s never explicitly said, I think they very much would’ve become pretty much father and daughter in that way, Jean needing that from Charles, and Charles maybe seeing something in Jean and getting closer with her than any of the other students, in a much deeper way than just having similar powers. They are so close, and I would’ve loved to see more of that.

- “You think can fix me too.”

- “No. No, because you are not broken.”

This exchange is beautiful. Okay, yes, I know that Charles is still technically keeping up that lie that both her parents are dead, but I’ll dive deeper into that later. I think that Charles genuinely believes what he says. And even later on, when he’s seen as the ‘villain,’ I think he’s always thought that Jean wasn’t broken. His entire job is taking in mutant children and nurturing them, caring for them in a way that maybe their parents or families didn’t, or are not willing to due to their mutant gifts. Anyways, I think this shows a lot about Charles and the gentle touch that he has, emotionally, in order to connect with his students, many of which probably have been in similar situations as Jean.

- THIS SHOT. Interstellar vibes??

- Charles checking up on Jean after the space mission 🥹

- Jean’s Phoenix eyes and the glowing cracks in her face are actually really cool, like she’s a volcano with lava hidden under the cracks. I think it’s a really cool visual.

- After Jean has the blast of power in the party, Charles IMMEDIATELY senses it and leaves his event.

- The way the Cerebro projection looks in this movie I find VERY cool and visually stunning, like the memories are writhing in smoke. It’s a super cool visual.

- When Scott is trying to get Jean not to leave and Jean touches the side of his head, she hesitates and pulls her hand away just slightly, as if she’s afraid to touch him for fear of hurting him again. The details kill me.

- When Hank is yelling at Charles, Charles doesn’t answer and he reaches for the alcohol to get himself another drink.

Despite the fact that I don’t really like the scene (and despite the fact that there’s a continuity error with which arm is being outstretched lol), despite all that, I like that THAT detail is consistent with what we saw from him in Days of Future Past, in which he would use alcohol, among other things, to dull the pain of his reality. When Hank is yelling at him, his immediate response is to avoid the conversation and to go to alcohol, which is what Charles did with the serum and alcohol multiple times in Days of Future Past, and it’s implied that he did that many, many times throughout the decade that we don’t see leading up to DOFP.

- Another thing– addressing Charles and his mistake with Jean and his lie, I plan to do a large post, a character analysis/study, if you will, of this in the future, but my biggest X-Men headcanon that’s only a headcanon because it’s not explicitly said but I 100% think it’s true is that Charles has a VERY strong savior complex that is consistent throughout the entirety of the prequels. Again, I’m gonna do a whole post outlining his savior complex, the moment that it started, and every moment in which he falls prey to it, but what he does regarding Jean and her parents’ fates lines up with that. So even though I don’t like how the movie treats Charles in relation to his mistake, his choice to lie to her to protect her is very consistent with what we’ve seen of his character up until this point, so despite the treatment of his mistake in the movie, the fact that he kept up that lie to ‘save her’ is very in-character for him based on what we’ve seen from him in the past.

- Erik. ERIK. JUST ERIK.

Okay, more about Erik: The whole scene with Jean and Erik in which Jean asks Erik about how to stop hurting people reveals a lot about Erik as a character. We get a lot of his backstory and trauma summed up in Erik’s own words, and we see his growth as a character, both how he’s changed AND how he’s stayed the same, with how he gets aggressive and confrontational with her later. His anger and pain is still in there, but he’s found peace, or at least some form of comfort/stability in his life here in Genosha. Another reason why I like Erik’s explanation of his trauma and his past is that I explored that a bit in a bigger fanfiction of mine, and then I rewatched this scene a bit later after finishing the fic, and realized that what I had Erik do/think in my fanfiction was, at certain points, almost word for word what Erik says in this scene, so it was just very affirming to hear Erik in canon saying what I essentially lay out in my fanfiction. It was just nice to see that my portrayal of him in my fanfiction lined up so perfectly with canon. Anyways, moving on:

- Erik donning the helmet from First Class that he apparently kept throughout all these years!

- Scott’s F bomb! 🤣

- In the train when they’re being taken to the containment center, I find it HILARIOUS that they chained up Charles’ legs. Liiiiike what, do they think he’s gonna just stand up and WALK out?? 🤣

- Hanz Zimmer’s score???? Okay, uhhh, YES??? Despite the fact that I’m biased for Henry Jackman’s score from First Class, Hanz Zimmer always has my respect.

- The seamless transition from Hank’s human form into his beast form!

- Okay okay, THE TRAIN FIGHT SEQUENCE?? YES??? We get everybody working together, Hank going ACTUAL beast mode, Erik being an absolute BadAss MotherFucker and fighting with his powers, using it so creatively, stabbing metal bars into people, crushing the train like a BADASS, then turning around and tossing it so nonchalantly behind him??? Kurt being ruthless for once?

- Before the Paris Proposal, before Erik even shows up on screen, Charles senses him and his expression is like “wait are you fucking serious– THIS GUY??? What is ERIK doing here????”

- Erik leaning forward, staring into the distance, then, “A long time ago, you saved my life. Then you offered me a home. I’d like to do the same for you.” 🥹 I’M FUCKING TEARING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIBRARY AT MY COLLEGE, FUCKING HELL, I LOVE THESE TWO

- And I just realized that Erik pulled the two chess pieces out from his pockets, not from inside the chess board, which means that he’d prepared to play with him before he even sat down and before he asked Charles if he even WANTED to play. He had both the game pieces ready, one in each of his pockets. 🥹

- THEIR LOOKS???? GAZING INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES???? THE WAY ERIK LOOKS AT HIM????? That is not the look of a straight man. These guys are in LOVE. Also, Erik literally asks him to move in with him. THAT. 👏🏻 IS. 👏🏻 NOT. 👏🏻 IMPLIED. 👏🏻 “Then you offered me a home, I’d like to do the same for you.” UHHH OKAY, ERIK, YOU MAY AS WELL HAVE JUST WRITTEN THAT ON AN INVITATION CARD.

~~~

Anyways, so there we go. Those are what I think are the high points in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, and I will say that if I were to put this movie on in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, I would stay and watch the whole thing! Despite its glaring flaws, I think it is enjoyable and I personally enjoy watching it, even if just for the high points I mentioned.

I may or may not have spent upwards of 3 hours on this post, writing it in the Notes app, making the GIFs, then converting the ones that were too big of files. Really short posts? Huh? What are they?? 🤣 Nah, if I’m doing a long analysis/study post, you bet I’m writing like a fking essay or some shit 😜

If you’ve made it to the end, thank you thank you! I don’t really like doing really small posts myself, so most of my posts will be either medium length, long, or very long, typically being scene analyses, character analyses, mentioning a detail or talking about a headcanon I have. But this is probably my longest post yet? But the post I’ll write about Charles’ savior complex sometime soon will probably rival this one. But anyways, that’s that! If anybody wants to chat more about my X-Men opinions or head canons or any fun shit like that, you can comment on this post or use the Ask feature on my profile. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But that’s that! Til next time y’all :)

Gifs made by me in Canva :)

[muninnhuginn]

also throwing out a few wild thoughts here after watching the new ep:

why is everyone so weird when hearing cwm's name? as we've seen cwm's thing here seems to be that he 'wants to do better by these kids' (let's ignore the safeguarding issues about saying he wants to be their friends when a teacher a sec). so, speculation: cwm deliberately takes the fall for the actual arsonist who'll likely be either xia fei or wang qing?

and yeah as everyone has picked up on cxs knows way too much to survive this loop - not sure how they're gonna play his death or if they'll specifically tie it up to s2 finale but only a week to go now

lu guang is the subtlest wdym. 'yeah like if we high five we can probably share powers' bestie what. (on a related note, his bit about 'powers are just like traits' vibed really mob psycho to me. I wonder if it's what past cxs 'taught' him about his powers after he'd grown up thinking of them in a less positive way)

said this already in another post but "what's the point in waiting if there's no hope?" is definitely a thematic string to pull on

cheng xiaoshi gets the speech/verbal understanding language module of whoever he possesses but not the written understanding. this is pure trivia, but still interesting to know. we know from his later interaction with vein that he sure doesn't retain the language knowledge after the fact

lu guang and cheng xiaoshi losing connection again during the dive. the show always make a point of highlighting when this happens. was trying to figure out if any other powers could be interfering here as happened with the twins, but touch-wise at least, it seems... unlikely? (though can't rule out other power interference entirely) but if anything, the way lu guang was sweating when we got the focus back to him after the connection rejoined makes it seem like this was an issue on his end (one which ig resulted in cxs having to improvise and therefore get caught from a show perspective). lu guang being ill affecting his powers tracks with what he said pre-twins dive in s2 though. even though the connection itself was likely lost due to the twins, he was still struggling to see everything that happened in the photo before that. I wonder if we'll return to this as a plot point at any point, the idea that lu guang being ill or injured can mess with his powers - there was a post the other day (I think by @ sunslants) about it being neat if lu guang fainted in yingdu because his whole body is giving out under this power, and whilst idk how *likely* that is in canon, it'd definitely add a new deadline to things, if lu guang has to resolve everything before his whole body just gives out

oh yeah seems like vein knows whatever it is that xia fei also knows about the arson. not super surprising but potential motive forming ig?

cheng xiaoshi getting out his feelings to his dad in the form of wang qing was very good but the whole time lu guang was like "yeah sorry I didn't give you a heads up" I was there head in hands like "lu guang. please. this is your MO at this point"

still no answer about cxs' mum and why she followed after cwm then *also* vanished (tbh even the fact cwm up and went full no contact with cxs has me like ??? but I can't tell if we're meant to just let that be or question it further). it feels like there's way more to this, but hard to see how that plus everything else is getting resolved in the one episode we have left

"You're a total control freak" "That's because of you." Lu Guang....

Basketball halo'd Lu Guang when he asked Cheng Xiaoshi to do ibuprofen together....

Cheng Xiaoshi wanting to get revenge on the bullies and Lu Guang instantly responding along the lines of "well, hey, they're all gonna die soon" cracked me up. Was probably meant to be more of an "oof" but. I laughed.

[georgegraphys]

The GPDA director role (and the GPDA union itself as a whole) is such an underrated thing because it is often still misunderstood by people and people actually think such a job is easy to handle.

I always find it concerning how some people continously dismiss George's statements or denounce his feelings like when he just shared how he did not expect being a GPDA director could be this political. Many said it's just him chickening out or him being "all talks no walks" when (IMO) it is actually alright to acknowledge how hard things can be and by means "political" is the way the Sulayem-led FIA has been operating. Quoting him directly, "I don't really understand any of this side of the sport. And it was more from a sporting perspective and safety perspective that I wanted to get my hands dirty with. Whereas, now, it seems all we're talking about is the politics of the sport. (...) But I think what it's raised [is that] all the drives are united, that solely we want the best for the sport. We want transparency. And we want to help the FIA and as simple as that"

In that statement, he did not mention a single thing about the job being tiring or burdensome nor he ever tries to humbly brag or act like a martyr by bringing up anything about doing more than other drivers in the job. I don't get the constant glorification of "suffering" in the world of Formula One where if one complains then it means they are weak and "not cut out for it" because "rEaL mEn NEVER complains and this is the pInNacLe of motorsport". This isn't the 1950s anymore. Get over those ways of thinking, won't you? Sometimes people all want drivers to be transparent with their feelings and thoughts but the moment they say things like this or (in George's case) things close to that, people get mad and try to denounce their feelings here and there.

In my opinion, George has all the rights in the world if he wanted to say the GPDA job is "tiring" or "stressful" because that IS the reality of the job especially with the current Sulayem-led FIA. Denouncing his heavy roles, thoughts, opinions, and effort while constantly expecting more of him is ridiculous. I cannot stress how much "weight" he has on his shoulder on top of racing for his own and his team, the endless (±90) schedules he does in a span of less than 11 months between races and his own breaks, the GPDA role, and much much more that I probably couldn't mention as I am merely an observer of his actions through the media, which is probably only 10% of the actual reality.

It's not about him "chickening out" or "running away from his responsibility". It's about how people should have a better understanding of the internal and external role that George held as a GPDA director and as his own person, as a driver. This glorification of "suffering" in the world of Formula One where one couldn't complain just because they are paid hundreds of dollars per week and that they are "real tough men" is weird. How do you demand and "encourage" for a "real, no gimmick, no DTS drama" Formula One while at the same time denouncing every ounce of reality every time it comes out from the drivers themselves? I feel like some people just want the GPDA to be more involved in the FIA political drama just for the sake of their thirst for fights and teas rather than THE actual GPDA advocacy for safety and sporting protocols because every time the GPDA actually does it's job (advocating for safety in F1) a lot of people complains about how "F1 has became soft" and how it "ruins the essence" of F1.

[clancyreinhart]

Ok, so, here's the thing about biblical cherry-picking on both side:

There is one side that claims that the Bible is the literal Word of God, the direct will of the Almighty, and must be obeyed in full and any deviation will result in an eternity in Actual Hell, which they believe in, according to their own claims. And yet, they choose to focus only on the parts that serve their goals (goals which mostly seem to be power and control). This creates an apparent hypocrisy between the claim that all of the Bible must be obeyed, and the refusal to obey the parts they don't like.

There is a second side which claims the Bible was written and edited by humans, and while parts of it can serve as guidelines for how to be a better person, other parts are products of the places and people's of their creation, and do not serve for the betterment of the self or the world. They claim they must evaluate the text of this book, and choose what parts are compatible with their overall goal. They don't need to justify why "Don't Kill People" and "Be Kind" are part of the philosophy and "How to Take Slaves" and "Don't Eat Pork" aren't because they never claimed the book itself was the point.

People whose whole argument hinges on the idea that everyone should be doing everything their book says, who don't do all the things their books says, are hypocrites and should be called out as such. Explaining away God's Word shouldn't be acceptable for the "Obey All of God's Word" people.

The issue with “wow do conservatives even read the Bible and how Jesus said to love the poor” is that it any conservative Christian can just as easily ignore/explain away those passages just as easily as a progressive Christian can ignore/explain away all the passages against homosexuality, saying women must be subservient to men etc

[beardedhandstoadshark]

I need a new niche interest to obsess over and I’m not able to pick. Can you infodump about your own hyperfixations so I can adopt one of them?

Just to ask something here, because between the last ask about hyperfixations and this one I found out that’s actually strictly an adhd term, right? Cuz regardless of suspicions I kinda don’t really have an official diagnosis or anything, so answering this ask As Is seems a bit like indirectly pretending I do, which seems?? Kinda mean to lead you on like that?? So, yeah. Just wanted to clarify/apologize/make sure everything’s cool and comfy here

But anyways, infodumping! I mean, there’s the usual, the videogames, kirby, pokemon, Zelda, minecraft, etrian odyssey- but those are like half this blog anyways and minus the last one not very niche so I kinda doubt they’re gonna be interesting. Uhhhhhhh if the following isn‘t doing it for you please tell me and I‘ll try to find something else, but otherwise

DID YOU KNOW CUCUMBERS ARE CACTI!?

Well not really. But I’m growing some right now and a) their leaves a *gigantic* and b) they’re very fuzzy but also kinda rough because of their hairs, while their stems are full on prickly- I’m guessing it’s a safety mechanism because the cucumbers grow very close to the stems so it makes sense, but having tiny plant-glass shards in your hand still hurts lol. Also depending on the sort, the cucumbers themselves can also have actual spikes. Their flowers are really pretty, they’re big and yellow with 5 leaves, kinda remind me of hibiscuses without the middle thingy. There’s usually separated male and female flowers (unlike tomatoes or peppers) but some variations are bred to only produce female flowers that pollinate themselves, and when they need the male ones for their seeds they make the plants grow those by using silver-ions, which sounds kinda metal ngl (pun absolutely intended). Also their tendrils? Twines? Are super strong for how tiny they are compared to the plant, if they feel something climbable they really latch on to that and don’t let go. They’re actually touch sensitive, kinda like Venus fly traps. Not as instantaneous though lol, it does take a bit of time.

I’ve also got two begonias that I saved from getting thrown into the trash, and apparently their flowers are edible…?? They are really pretty though. And change colors depending on sunlight! They’re apparently supposed to be sitting in half-shadows but mine are taking the sunlight pretty well and turns out if they get a lot, the plant gets redder- not just the flowers but also the leaves and the stems! They’re also male-female separated, with the male ones having differently shaped leaves (and I think I also counted 5 instead of 4?) that’re on top of a capsule holding the seeds, which are microscopically small! You can barely see them and gotta "plant“ them by brushing them like super fine sand. Also apparently another way of growing new ones is by just. Breaking off a branch and sticking it in the mud? Which is?? Super weird??? Because these guys are very fleshy and on normal difficulty, while the only other plant I know you can clone like that is my bow hemps.

And those guys are basically indestructible. Like, normally that credit goes to cacti but those need light. Meanwhile my big guy‘s been hanging out in my no-light-after-11am-room all this time and doing great. They only need water once a week normally but I forgot yet because it’s been sitting in shadows this guys been groovin though 3 weeks. There’s even a tiny baby plant growing! They only grow a single flower per cluster so the main way of getting more is by either chopping said babies away from the mother cluster, or by chopping leaves horizontally so you get stripes, and sticking those in soil. Apparently it can take months until something grows, though. Also when you use this method with the sort that has yellow stripes on the side, it‘ll lose those stripes? Even though the leaf stripe (and therefore the genes) has that yellow in it? Couldn’t find why that happens yet, but it’s interesting. The only way to really screw up with them is either bugs in the soil (though they can tank those too to some degree), or getting too much. Nutrients, but mostly water. It’s better to use pots that‘re a bit tighter and also have holes underneath because the biggest threat is rot, either root or stem rot. That’s also why you shouldn’t give them (or any plants that grow in this circle form) water from above, because it’ll get stuck inside the center and cause rot. It’s better to fill something up with water and put the pot inside, that way you also don’t risk giving them too much water and having it soak your entire floor/desk/etc. Also pots with holes are just better in general because all flowers got the same "too much water = drowned roots“ problem. (Except for my begonias for some reason which frequently get their entire soil drowned and still grow like nothing - even though they’re supposed to take it especially bad?? Not complaining though, just confused)

And tomatoes are berries which makes a lot of sense if you think about it but also feels horribly wrong since they’re neither sweet nor sour

[transmascutena]

people talk about miki's shirtless touga fantasy from episode 5 somewhat often, but i didn't realize that it's pretty much directly paralleled in episode 36, except with touga thinking about akio and utena, rather than miki thinking about touga and anthy (and kozue by extension). and the parallel makes a lot of sense since the two situations are similar in many ways. miki and touga are both being convinced to duel to possess someone (thinking they are actually protecting them) to make sure they (utena and anthy repsectively) won't "belong" to someone else. and like he does in many other ways during the first arc, touga is playing at akio's role in that scene, only to realize he's a victim of it too towards the end of the show.

[squorttle-pox]

idk if it means anything really, but i think it's interesting how after all their time together as a couple in a christianity-adjacent world, lucifer and lilith only had one (1) child, and it was only 200 years ago at that

[under-clouds-and-stars]

yeah, the ADF has several lines that are too reminiscent of prior pseudo-nationalist/revisionist rhetoric for comfort. hinting at the idea that germans are singularly guilted and down-trodden on the world stage and need to have a cultural reawakening to how great their history is bound to lead to a nationalist mindset. much of the emphasis put upon the holocaust in german society didn't come from outside influence, but by the next generation of germans upon reaching adulthood in the 60s-70s, and realizing how little they had been told about anything by their parents. i cannot speak to the way its presented in germany today, i've never been there, but the arguments used by some prominent afd members are nothing new in the "revitalization" of the holocaust legacy. the holocaust-in terms of the complacency needed and the industrial-ilke manner that it was carried out with-was entirely unique, and should never be forgotten.

i don't know tons about the adf in-depth, but they seem populist, which is a bad sign in and of itself. whatever legitimate concerns they have about immigration (and yes, there are plenty. islamic cultures have values that are absolutely contradictory to ones held in a modern-day germany, and so massive amounts of people from these cultures permanently moving in, without taking their troubling views into account, poses huge problems for the maintaining of civil rights, especially of women and jews) their rhetoric is worrying. undoubtedly several members of it have been outspokenly revisionist and have blown actual anti-semitic/racist dog whistles. if i were german, i would not vote for them. but i don't think that everyone voting for this party is a bona-fide white supremacist either, though; many people vote out of anxiety over what they see immediately around them and do not think in the long-term. that's just my view of it as a non-european, can't do any better than that.

for a man so obnoxious as to make holocaust jokes after being accused of nazism, him showing up on stream for the afd could be anything from just another show of how edgy-controversial he is, or genuinely buying into revisionist rhetoric. i don't claim to know his motivations for doing it, and i hope for everyone's sake he doesn't hold racist views in his heart. also, i dont see why an american should weigh in on german politics like that. i would certainly be pissed if some rich german phoned in to try and influence US politics, so i hate it on that principal alone

considering that he is an avid and vocal supporter of israel (reportedly even censoring tweets that referred to "de-colonization" of Gaza, which is definitely an overreach of his power) nazism would be a weird stance to take. whatever your view on israel and its actions, his insistence that the destruction in gaza is justified in order save israelis from genocide, and pouring tons of cash into the campaign of a pro-israel president, cannot be squared with him secretly hating jews and being a nazi. you can argue its all a front, but he's certainly put his money where his mouth is. he don't seem thoughtful enough to be playing 4-d chess or anything.

also, jic, i am aware that there was a movement among the nazis in pre-war germany to get european jews to immigrate to israel. because they hated them and didn't want them there. if millions of european jews had done so back then, do you think the nazis would've shed a single freaking tear about them being killed after the fact. the motivations behind these two positions are completely opposed, and i hate how often this is brought up because its disingenuous.

here's the thing. i do not argue that the video above does not look bad. it does. what i argue is that it is dishonest and unfair to paint anyone who has any doubt that he meant to do a nazi salute as a brainwashed idiot, shill, or a nazi. by and large that is what people on this site and others are saying, the insistence that everyone in that room knowingly and whole-heartedly applauded a sieg heil is ludicrous. side note, USA-only politics i know, but the whole freaking media circuit and the former VP tried to act like they had just noticed that biden was mentally impaired after his incomprehensible debate with trump went viral, when conservatives had been pointing it out for years. i didn't see progressive leftist-twitter going nuts and quoting 1984 over that.

i'm done spending my time on this fiasco. from a cursory at your blog and replies, we are so different we will never agree on a single point. you would consider me a "christofascist" i guarantee it. case in point: i first read "AFD" as "ADF" looked up the "Alliance Defending Freedom" and went "well, i gotta say; at first glance they seem pretty alright to me

make of that what you will ig

USA... Elon Musk just did the sieg heil (nazi salut to Hitler)

[ahalliance]

how do i turn qantoine’s spontaneous marriage proposal to qetoiles into evidence of his early-days fear of qfrench drifing away and keeping secrets from one another

[bmpmp3]

everyone on earth probably has a hypothetical farming sim in their mind's eye that they daydream about on occasion because of the unfortunate situation that despite there being like a thousand farming games released every minute only like 4 of them are any good. and i think this is fun, i think its good to keep the imagination alive. if i made a farming sim i would bring back rival marriages from the old friends of mineral town. i want to steal someones wife.

[hellenhighwater]

This is SO fair and the books aren't consistent enough for a super clear answer; which always confused me. Like, later books is more of an immersive "this is Woodland Creature world and always has been" but the first book has obvious indications of human life--a horse cart, a seemingly-human scale farmhouse with barn cats, frequent metaphors describing human-domesticated animals that don't otherwise appear in the books. (A line about a fox in a henhouse comes to mind.) So in the first book it seems more like there's just a hip-high stone abbey in the woods somewhere that you might stumble into on accident, with rats and mice waging brutal warfare with siege towers that you could kick over. That kind of stuff slowly disappears in later books.

But also in the same book there's descriptions of rats falling to their death off the Abbey walls, which just...doesn't work with real rats, they'd absolutely survive that. And the abbey itself seems to be too massive to have been built by real-scale woodland animals, even at their own scale.

Having decided to just solve this in my own head, I feel that the Redwall mice are probably about the size of cats, with other animals scaling up until you have miniature-pony sized badgers. Kind of like the animals in the Narnia movies. Because that way they're big enough to do some of the things they're described as doing while also still being small enough for a single very large fish to be a whole feast.

I'm building my stuff to scale with real mice, which really drives home that the Redwall mice...aren't.

Just picture little mouses in there...

[zestyzigzagoon]

So, a lot of the research being put into this fic doesn't actually end up in the final product- it's just background stuff that's good for me to know, like the history of westward expansion and the cultures that modern cowboy pastiche is profiting off of. I like knowing the sociohistorical context of what I'm riffing off of. But in some of the more practical parts of my research, I have found a need to specify 'western riding' or 'horse' or 'cowboy' at the end of my searches. The reason being, if you look up enough things like chaps and whips and crops and rope *without* specifying, the google algorithm starts to get a really specific idea about who you are and what it is that you're using these things for 😭

[fragmentedblade]

I called it, Ruan Mei is deranged and shady as hell

[wheelercore]

Theory with no coherent proof on my part: brenner only visibly ages rapidly when a portal is open.

[r0semultiverse]

I don’t know, me personally, I just think two adults playing pretend & pretending being gross together with full open communication & consent between them is harmless, but maybe that’s just me.