#you'll blame leftists

[jackieandelorashouldabeencanon]

And what do you think the cop cities being built by Democrats across the country are for? Fun and games?

The Democrats are funding the militarization of police to squash civilian dissent just as much as Republicans. Kamala Harris plans to continue this practice. The Democrats are still locking kids in cages, and with Kamala saying she wants to "strengthen the border" that will only get worse. When people even make it across the border alive, because again. Increased militarization of police force (including border patrol).

Those same police are already being used against houseless people, who are being jailed for seeking shelter and then forced into slave labor. That's going to get worse no matter who we vote in, and 60% of the US population is one emergency away from losing their home.

Are you guys not paying attention or really fucking stupid or do you just not think you'll be affected? Or do you just not fucking care about anyone but yourself?

Don't answer that. I know already.

So my question is--what are you going to do when you are wrong?

"don't vote for Harris or you're supporting genocide" "voting blue is still voting for fascists" Then what else do you expect us to do?

Here are some options y'all seem to insist on and why they're fucking stupid:

Vote Third Party :: Until we have ranked-choice voting (and probably even if we did have ranked-choice voting), it is practically impossible to make a 3rd-party candidate viable. There's not enough of the population that's far enough from moderate to give up their "safe" blue vote for some "revolutionary."

Don't Vote At All :: I'd prefer to pick my enemy. If I'm going to be working in spite of the government, or even against it in some ways, I'd rather the people I'm working against not already be targeting me for being queer, for example. If my options are "bad" or "much, much worse" I'm gonna pick "bad" and try to improve things from there.

Violent Revolution :: It's a cosplay power fantasy in the same vein as the Right-wingers looking for a reason to shoot protesters. Assuming you even have enough people organized and enough firepower to pull that off in the first place…have you prepared a plan to keep the innocents alive and safe? Are you sure you can keep supply chains for food and medicines intact? Are you sure there will be resources available for the disabled, the scared, the young and old, those who won't be able to fight and still need to be taken care of? Turns out revolution is ugly and causes a lot of undue collateral damage. Are the lives "saved" really going to outweigh those whose lives will be upended and destroyed? It's not like a newly-toppled, unorganized country will be able to do anything about Israel/Gaza, so you're just hurting and killing far more people than you're saving.

As for the power you do have to better things (and make Leftism more viable as a political stance in the US)?

Work at the level of your local government. If you're in a small enough town or neighborhood and think you have what it takes, run for local office. Be a local face of the left wing; you're far more likely to sway a small town to your views than the whole country, and each small town with a socialist-leaning government is a dot on the map for larger-scale viability, and you can help keep your community safe while trying to build up in scale.

Build community so we can keep each other safe if worse does come to worst. Push mutual aid initiatives, help at food banks, grow produce to donate to those in need, apply to work at your local free clinic, empower local businesses whenever possible so that if there is a socioeconomic collapse, you and those you love aren't left completely without resources.

Protest, and make it disruptive. You can be disruptive without being violent: graffiti, blocking roads, encampments, sit-ins, to name a few examples. Create inconveniences so it gets people's attention whether they like it or not.

Above all, FUCKING VOTE BLUE. You're choosing your enemy. You get to help decide if the government we're working in spite of is run by milquetoast neoliberal war hawks who do, on some rare occasions, actually make things marginally better…or full-tilt Christo-fascists who want to kill some of us for kissing people with the same genitals as us. There aren't any other options that are going to be picked. It sucks, but at the bare minimum we can pick the option that isn't going to actively murder us while we try to build up viability for a candidate who won't sell out brown people to an ethnostate.

If you aren't doing at least one of the things above, then don't lecture me about how I keep myself and my community safe. I'd love to see a United States (or some future iteration of it) that acknowledges the sovereign rights of indigenous peoples, that doesn't fund genocide, that provides healthcare as a basic human right, that doesn't meddle in every other country's business. But if we are to see that, let alone help that happen, we need to survive this next presidential administration.

[gothamhappiness]

Behind the masks (mayor!reader x Bruce Wayne) - Part 1

Hi everyone, I got this little idea of reader becoming the new Mayor of Gotham, and as you start working with Batman, you fall for each other. This is going to be a two part story with a gender neutral reader, hope you'll enjoy <3

Warnings: no proof reading, you're a leftist (don't know if it needs to be in the warnings, but basically you just want the inhabitants of Gotham to be healthy and happy), you dislike Bruce Wayne quite a lot (you're uneasy in his presence), but you really love Batman, mentions of kissing Batman, mentions of having sex with Batman (he's a little bit submissive), a little bit of angst as you don't think you can get more than a work + sexual relationship with Batman

You were the new mayor of Gotham. 

You didn’t really believe this happened, that you got elected, that you were now at the head of this rotten city. Your whole campaign has been around cleaning Gotham from its corruption and helping the poor people. You had been treated as a leftist and you had been proud of it. You were there to help your citizens, you were ready to fight for them, you were ready to help Gotham become a good place to live in.

You knew it was going to be hard and maybe a little bit bloody. But you were determined. You felt like it was your calling and now you were elected, you were on a mission. It was your duty to save Gotham from the darkness. You knew you wouldn’t be able to do it on your own, but you trusted your people: some of them showed more than once that they were ready to fight for Gotham too. Batman and his vigilantes, as well as Jim Gordon, were the first people you thought about. You were certain everything was possible.

You would make everything possible.

During the campaign, Bruce Wayne quickly offered you some money. You refused at first, because you weren’t too sure you could trust this himbo of a man. And last time he founded a campaign, Harvey Dent turned into a villain - which you didn’t want to happen to you as well. Plus, even if Bruce Wayne was known for his charity events and for trying his best for the city, you were feeling uneasy around such a rich man. Something always seemed fake about him and you didn’t particularly want to be linked to him. 

However when the mayor in place started to find ways to destroy all the funds you got, you had to accept Bruce Wayne’s offer. You hated it but you didn't have the choice anymore. Your campaign director had been exasperated when you told him you had refused the help of Bruce Wayne. And when all your funds disappeared, he blamed you for not having taken what the richest man of the city offered. You told him you could try to accept now, but he wasn’t too sure Bruce Wayne would accept. You still decided to give it a shot.

You remembered how you came to the Wayne manor, feeling pretty awkward in such a place. You remembered how you felt so small there, because you weren’t coming from a very rich place yourself. You were from the low middle class, just enough to get an education and knowing how to talk to be listened to. 

The butler, Alfred, you believed he was called, answered the door and very politely asked you to come inside, and told you that his Master Bruce was waiting for you in his office. You thanked him before following the man through the manor. 

Alfred knocked at a door and opened it for you before announcing you to Bruce Wayne. You were feeling even more uncomfortable, but you tried to remind yourself that you were putting yourself in this position for your city, for your people.

Bruce Wayne probably noticed how tense you were as he got up to shake hands with you as he gently smiled at you. He offered you a seat. You didn’t want to do any small talk or to stay any longer than necessary so you quickly went to the subject of your visit.

“Mr. Wayne, thank you so much for accepting to receive me so quickly." you said

“It’s no problem, I understand that I could help you?” he asked you, and for a moment you wondered if he was playing dumb or if he really was

“I know I turned down your offer to fund my campaign but… I’m afraid Mr. Hill isn’t playing fair, and I can’t really refuse your money anymore, if you’re still up to help me on that front of course. I would totally understand if you changed your mind…” you told him, pushing away your shame and proud as far as possible from you

“Of course I’m still up to help you. I’m glad when my money can serve Gotham.” he replied and you relaxed

“Thank you so much for making things that easy for me.” you said as you leaned into your seat

“Very good speech you gave last night, by the way.” Bruce Wayne shot you another smile as he signed up the biggest check you ever received in your whole life

“Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Wayne.” you whispered, quite stunned by all the zeroes he added, before it started worrying you: “Should I expect you to ask me for a favor one day?” you wondered and Bruce had seemed a little bit surprised for an instant before shaking his head

“I just want Gotham cleaned. And you seem eager and ready to do so” he shrugged “I can host a gala for you by the way” he offered “Anything that could help your campaign”

“That’s very kind of you, I’ll let you know about it” you had politely replied, hoping you wouldn’t need to accept this new offer as you didn’t particularly enjoy that kind of event and you didn’t want to have to spend more time with Bruce “Brucie” Wayne. “I hope to see you at my victory speech” you smiled, trying to be polite

“I’ll be there” Bruce Wayne simply nodded and you didn’t want to enjoy how certain he seemed to be.

Certain you were going to win.

You kept politely talking to one another for a few more instants, before you softly told him you had to go. You thanked him again and he actually guided you back to the front door of the manor.

You left the manor and as you got inside your car, you had to pinch yourself to make sure that none of this was a dream. 

You were a little bit astonished by how things went. Brucie Wayne acted a lot different than usual: he didn’t flirt with you, he didn’t try to seem to be ongoing and nice. He seemed even normal for a rich guy. You had the feeling he was more than just an himbo, after all he was taking an interest in politics? But you still didn’t trust him and you hoped you wouldn’t need to see him too often. Something about him was making you feel apprehensive, like when you look at an illusion and you can’t determine what is behind it.

Truth to be told, Bruce Wayne really liked you. He really thought you could be a good mayor. Jim Gordon thought the same and they both hoped someone was finally going to be on their side to make Gotham a good place.

Bruce Wayne stayed true to his words and as you were giving your victory speech, you spotted him in the crowd with his butler. He applauded for you, and when journalists asked him if he voted for you, he quickly said that yes. You hated how it helped your popularity and how everyone was even more eager to work with you as a mayor. You still had to send him a little message to thank him for his support.

You did your best to forget about him as you quickly started to work once you got elected. You truly became an ally of Jim Gordon. You started to clean up the GCPD from any rotten apples, and you did the same among the justice of Gotham. Of course, you quickly started to get a lot of enemies. You spent sleepless nights and you were walking on a thin line: with all the people you had to fire, you were clearly understaffed. But you had to do it, and you knew it was the right path. At the same time, you were working on an education plan for the poorest neighbourhoods of Gotham. You were certain that when people would escape poverty, they wouldn't need to work as goons, and criminality would drop.

Jim still warned you about the fact that before you reached this goal, you would need more police officers, or other kinds of help… You quickly understood what he meant and the next day you publicly declared that Batman and the vigilantes working with him were allies of Gotham, that the GCPD wouldn’t attack them anymore and that the city was eager to work with them.

Bruce was watching the news and he was quite pleasantly surprised by such decisions. It would indeed make things so much easier. He was quite eager to work with you.

After that, Jim offered to organise a meeting with Batman in the flesh so the three of you could agree on the better plan for cleaning up Gotham. 

You didn’t hesitate. You had always believed Batman was a light in Gotham. Of course, you weren’t always in agreement with how he acted, but you also knew that without him, the City would have gone even crazier.

You were a little bit stressed out before meeting the Dark Knight. You weren’t too sure how to act around him. But once he appeared in front of you, you relaxed. You felt safe and talking with him felt natural.

It was strange how Batman and you instantly enjoyed each other. You easily understood each other, and you were seeing Gotham and its corruption the same way. You often had meetings with him, sometimes even without Jim. When it was happening, it was almost looking like a working date.

Or just a date.

You didn’t want to admit it but Batman was attractive: he was a big and powerful man, he was a genius too. More than once, when it was just the two of you, he cracked some pretty cynical jokes that never failed to make you laugh. 

He also gave you a device to call him or the other vigilantes in case you would be in danger. You were becoming a target, and you were grateful a man like Batman was looking after you, or you knew you would get killed pretty soon. But, few months after your election, you still haven't needed to call for him because whenever something was going on in the city, he was sending one of the people working with him to you, so they could protect you.

You were quite friendly with all the vigilantes of Gotham and they seemed to like you quite a lot as well. It was a nice change for them that someone was so openly thankful for their work and to be offered food and water whenever they arrived to look after you. You even bandaged Robin one night he showed up injured but with the clear determination to protect you. You had argued with the kid for a while before he let you check on him. Batman personally thanked you for that the night after and you shrugged it off

“You look after me, I look after you all, it seems like a fair deal to me”

The first night you kissed Batman, you got worried it would make things awkward between the two of you. You didn’t know why you acted on your fantasy, but you didn’t regret it, as the man quickly answered the kiss. He sat you on your desk and cupped your face. You smiled against his lips: you clearly weren’t the only one who had wanted this.

The first time you had sex, Batman went down on you. You had been a little bit surprised that the Dark Knight was actually a little bit submissive, but you enjoyed to hold onto the pointed ears of his mask to ride his mouth. He had left you satisfied like you had never been before. Was the man really skilled no matter what he was doing? You wouldn’t complain about it.

You adored Batman, and you enjoyed working with him and having this physical relationship with him, but you didn’t really hope for anything more. You were already happy with that, even if a little voice inside your head told you that you could have so much more. You could become his partner, you could start a romantic relationship too. And you would have been the happiest person on Earth, because he was truly illuminating your nights and helping you go through all the mess Gotham could be.

But he was a masked man and you didn’t really think he would want more or to put his secret identity at risk. You were aware that something changed though, because the other vigilantes seemed a lot more careful when it was about you. After all, they knew their mentor and father was in love with you.

You were taking a break from work, reading a newspaper talking about the fact that Bruce Wayne hadn’t been seen with any girls or boys lately. Actually, it appeared that Brucie wasn’t flirting or hitting on anyone at galas. Everyone was wondering if he wasn’t secretly seeing someone but so far the paparazzi hadn’t found anything.

“I didn’t know you cared about Bruce Wayne?” a voice asked from behind you and you jumped before groaning as you realised that Batman had appeared out of nowhere

“Bat” you gave him a warning look “We talked about it” you reminded him as you turned your seat to face him

“Sorry, mayor” he apologised but you saw the ghost of a smile on his lips

“And no I don’t care about Bruce Wayne, but that’s all the media are talking about lately.” you replied to his question “But you know him, don’t you? Is he too in love to fuck with anyone else?” you teased

“I don’t know his sexual life” Batman sternly replied and you hummed “But you know him too, don't you?” he asked but he seemed to already know the answer

“He just gave me money for my campaign.” you shrugged

“And you didn’t try to know more about him? It’s always useful to have rich people on your side” Batman tried and you were wondering what was happening with Batman

“No. He feels too… unreal and that scares me off.” you finally said

“Unreal?” Batman seemed genuinely surprised

“I mean you feel unreal sometimes too, but you feel fuller too. I’m uneasy around Bruce Wayne because… well I don’t know, it’s like a perfect mask and because he’s super hot, no one tries to find out what’s really behind all of it. I guess you’re also wearing a mask, but you’ve got a real personality” you tried to explain “Anyways, we’re not here to…”

“You’re smart” Batman cut you off and you arched an eyebrow at that “But you never wonder what's behind the masks?” he asked again and you were really curious about where this conversation was leading

“I don’t want to be near Bruce Wayne. And as for you… I don’t know. We’re working well together, the sex is good too. I guess I’m always afraid to ask for too much, because I don’t want things to get ruined between us because I’ve been too greedy” you sincerely replied

“Would you do me a favor?” he suddenly asked and you nodded “Bruce Wayne is going to invite you to one of his galas and I need you to go there, and I need you to talk with him. And then you’ll tell me if you’re still scared to look beneath the mask”

--

Part 2

--

Taglist for all my work <3

@blublock404

@wind-canoe

@silverklaus

@couldeatthatgirlforlunch

@tatsuri-zomushiki

@navs-bhat

@randomnamedmira

@winterhi09

@murkyponds

@qardasngan

Taglist for Bruce Wayne <3

@alishii

[velvetvexations]

@becoming-never-being

I'm not anti-communist. I'm not communist, but I'm not anti-communist, and I vigorously support those that are trying to implement it without praising and white-washing genocide, like what's happening in East Turkestan.

How much time someone spends at a gun range is a completely mundane question that is not illegal to answer. The simple fact is that for all you talk about violent revolution being the only answer, literally none of you are willing to actually do anything like that. "If told you I'd have to kill you" is dumb when a guy tries to imply to a girl at a bar he's a secret agent and it's a bad excuse for not being able to discuss literally anything about what you're actually doing to make your preferred political system a reality. You will never, given a hundred million years, do half as much as a concert, and I don't even think the concert achieves much of anything to begin with, just more than literally nothing.

Imagine taking the military's side against student protestors lol. You must love what's happening to Palestinian activists in the US, eh? I assume you support the physical and cultural annihilations of Muslims given your support of China, so it all fits.

What a bizarre attitude to have. It's inconceivable to me that you must only lionize historical revolutions based on if they succeeded or not. This is especially strange given how, like, the USSR collapsed into a kleptocracy to the point that a big part of sanctions against them over Ukraine was taking away their personal yachts. The Soviet Union objectively failed as hard as it's possible to fail, the whole 'we will bury you' thing fell flat on it's ass. And even if you wanted to blame that on the US or whatever, well, okay, then I guess the Hungarian revolution also gets a pass because it had enemies working against it, and really "student protestors lose against a hyper-militarized foreign country invading it" seems like the better excuse of the two.

On the contrary, I object to all imperialism, which makes contrarians who write love letters to the imperialism of non-American countries feel hurt and betrayed while I continue trying to make the entire world a better place and not just use the crimes of my country as a grift.

You can call me a transphobic trans woman if you like, but I'm red because I call out things actual transphobes say, such as:

If you need any other points on transfeminism or leftist organizing let me know, I do my best to educate you troglodytes for the sake of bettering yourselves because I truly believe that with a lot of hard work you're capable of digging out that tiny shred of humanity in you and slowly building yourself into someone who deserves better than to be spat on when people pass you in the street. If not I'm afraid that when the revolution does come and society has been successfully collectivized the only job assignment you'll be fit for is licking the dog piss off of fire hydrants.

[is-the-fire-real]

Hello! I've recently realized (through blogs like yours) that I've been casually absorbing a lot of antisemitism, and I've been trying to learn more so as to counteract it, at least in my own head. I've seen the horseshoe theory mentioned a few times, but never explained what it actually is. Would you be able to link me to some reading on the subject? Regardless of whether you answer, I'd like to say thank you for your time, and I'm glad you exist!

Hello there! Thank you for stopping by and for asking important questions like this. It's very difficult to admit to, and confront, the bad messages we've absorbed from society. The cool thing is that you'll have some difficult work at first, but it gets way easier with time. You are going to be fine so long as you persevere.

I will let you know that I'm not an expert in anything--I only ever graduated high school in the US! So I can tell you what horseshoe theory is thanks to a lot of auto-didactic reading on the subject, but I don't have sources in front of me. I invite anybody in Jumblr to tweak or correct anything I'm about to say.

"Horseshoe theory" isn't just about antisemitism, but about extremism--but we'll come back to antisemitism. It is summarized by the image of the horseshoe: the two ends of the horseshoe should, by all rights, be far away from each other--they're the opposite ends! But when you look at a horseshoe, the two end points are very close to each other. Closer to each other than either one, on its own, is to the middle.

When one maps out political or social beliefs, it is common to place them on an X/Y axis, or a straight line. One extremist position takes up the X, the opposite takes up the Y, and the moderate position marks the center. This gives the impression that both forms of extremism are naturally opposed to each other, and are farther from each other than they are the middle.

Horseshoe theory suggests that this X/Y axis is inadequate. What we see in actual human behavior is that extremists have more in common with other extremists than they do with moderates, even if their beliefs appear to contradict.

So, take an X/Y axis about leftism. One end is marked "anarchism", one end is marked "authoritarian communism", and the middle is marked "liberalism". One would think that anarchists would be the polar opposite of authoritarian communists, and that anarchists and ACs would fight to get liberals on their respective sides--since liberals are closer to them than they are to each other. But we don't see that. We see anarchists and ACs spatting online about who is the Real Leftist, but in real life, regarding real-world action, both groups agree that their real enemies are not each other, but liberals.

This is because, while both groups have very different ideas about how leftism should be implemented, they agree on the most immediate "problem" of overthrowing liberal democracy.

The meme on the left is that liberals will invariably ally with fascists, so don't trust liberals. The reality, over and over again, is that leftists ally with fascists and try to undermine liberals. They do this because they all agree that modern democracy, the greatest achievement of liberalism, must be destroyed in order for their preferred replacement utopia to arise.

I saw this, among many, many other examples, when leftists voted for Trump, or voted for Stein or Sanders knowing it would lead to Trump's election. Leftists joined right-wingers in going to liberal blogs and laughing at them on election night 2016; both groups openly salivating at the suffering they saw, both groups opining on the future collapse of democracy, both agreeing with each other. I saw it also during the 2004 election, when I ran a couple of LiveJournals that talked about politics--I had both leftists and right-wingers mocking my pain at that electoral loss, both blaming me for being gay and asking for rights at The Wrong Time, both agreeing with each other.

This is obvious in a variety of extremist belief systems, which is why I didn't even restrain it to politics. Flat Earthers largely do not agree with one another on a flat-earth map or model; they don't agree on whether or not they are Christians; they don't agree on what it would take to prove or disprove their ideas. They constantly infight over these details. But these are all window-dressing. It's tiny details they battle it out over, because the point of Flat Earth is to create a massive conspiracy among politicians, scientists, militaries, and religions to Suppress The Truth and Dupe The Masses. In that, all the extremists are closer to each other than they are to those who accept the globe earth as fact.

The phrase folks throw around on Jumblr, which I agree with, is that "the forge that bends the horseshoe is antisemitism". In less illustrative language, the thing on which all extremists agree is that the Jews are responsible for their pet conspiracy.

Leftists often misattribute a saying to Marx: "antisemitism is the socialism of fools". In this view, socialism teaches the exact structure of most baseline antisemitic beliefs. A semi-secret group of bloodsuckers hoarding all the wealth, puppeting and manipulating world events from behind the scenes, sneaking and sliming their way into Real Power--the power no one ever sees? Yeah, those are all antisemitic canards. But leftists thought they could avoid falling for antisemitism by simply putting words like "the wealthy" or "landlords" and "the bourgeois" in place of "the Jews", and that they'd be fine.

I would argue the last year (and many other years, but that's beside the point) has proven that they are not fine. It turns out that when you have an entire belief system based on Jew Hating Without Jews, it's extremely easy to start hating Jews! All you have to do is redefine your terms so that "the wealthy", "landlords", or "the bourgeois" are the Jews.

A specific example, and one I've discussed recently: the term "Zionist". Not what it means, but how it is used and what it is understood to mean.

Far-right extremist antisemites have used "Zionist" to mean "Jew" for decades. And they have tried, for decades, to make alliances. They have done this by saying things that sound good to leftists, but which give the right-wingers plausible deniability regarding their antisemitism (what we call "dogwhistling"). This bait did not work on liberals. It did work on leftists. And now, we see that liberals generally use "Jewish" to mean "Jewish" and "Zionist" to mean "Zionist", but that leftists use "Jewish" to mean "Jew I like" and "Zionist" to mean "Jew I want to kill".

Once again, leftists agree with Nazis and the extreme right. Once again, leftists make it clear by word and deed that they care more about the socialism of fools than they do about socialism. Once again, they validate that Hating Jews Without Jews only lasts until there's any reason whatsoever to plug Jews back into the system of hate, and then...

This is the hypothesis of horseshoe theory as I understand it. Again, if anyone has corrections or scholarly sources they'd like to share, please do so! I like to learn and I am often inside my own head, so I admit that I could be wrong in some details or missing nuance.

[utilitycaster]

different anon, but the "theist DNI" ask was hilarious to me because I am still reeling from the post and especially OP going "the gods aren't really gods (because they're not omnipotent but just really powerful)" in it and then in the replies doubling down on the standpoint of "gods aren't real" - apparently just over the bank, basically conflating real world and Exandria in one fell swoop with this Universal Truth(tm) - because of course they can't produce any analysis of worth. they refuse to engage with basic tenets of the setting that do not fit their particular worldview. it really time and again comes back to people being unable to engage with religious concepts beyond a very superficial and milque-toast "Christianity evil, actually"

Yeah, this is true for like...a lot of the people claiming Campaign 3 is Great and we are all Not Leftist nor Intellectual Enough nor Capable of Parsing Black and White Morality; they say that and then they make and reblog posts with messages like "well you see the Good Brown People who were Colonized will Always be radicalized solely in the name of their own liberation haha don't look at any historical events from the last century", and in the end I do think it is all mostly in the name of trying to support the conclusion that killing the gods is definitely the right answer, and trying to work backwards from there to make the text fit.

I really didn't address the point that their arguments about the gods not being "real gods" were absolutely nonsensical (pro-tip: in a media analysis you can't just reference other works of fiction nor, if any of these ignoramuses did, literary and/or political theory, without actually analyzing them and drawing comparisons in the service of a thesis; "gods in this work are different than the gods in Exandria" is not actually a meaningful statement given that it's like yes Runescape and Exandria are two entirely different settings, things are different) but as always, follow the thread and the implications and you'll find the problems: so if the problem is that the gods are powerful but not all powerful, or don't admit they're not all powerful...does that mean they're ok? If they had given Ashton and Imogen what they wanted, would that mean that killing the titans and Aeor was totally fine? Is your argument that the gods are a colonizing force because they are from outside of Exandria and because they (with the people of Exandria) killed the titans (but the people of Exandria are ok for doing this for reasons of [crickets]) or is your argument that they are a colonizing force bc they didn't kiss your blorbo so sweetly on the head and tell them everything they were doing was good and correct? Because this really is leaning towards the latter. It is, again, an individual grievance falsely claimed to be a system of oppression.

And that's really the key. We are looking at a party with a lot of valid personal traumas, but virtually nothing in the way of in-world systemic oppression, and I do not think it is a coincidence that this party has a unique appeal for a group of people who are overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly from financially stable upbringings, overwhelmingly from wealthy Western countries, and overwhelmingly people who were raised Christian, left the religion, became some kind of dullard nihilist who labors under the misapprehension that this makes them leftist, and really, really fucking hate being reminded that they are not, in fact, remotely close to being Christianity's greatest victims. It has a unique appeal for people who are obsessed with painting themselves as powerless to enact change - who, as I said in earlier tags and also like a billion posts dating back to at least early 2023, fetishize and glorify a lack of agency - because then haha you can't blame them! they can't do anything! I think they're REALLY mad, actually, that one of the most prominent critiques of Campaign 3 has become "this indecision and inaction and endless waffling is actually insufferable" because that drives a spike through the idea that you can evade judgment through doing nothing, despite this being like, one of the most basic ethical concepts. And again just as I don't think the CR cast is doing THAT message on purpose any more so than a (horrendously flawed to the point of failure) anticolonialism message, I just think that the mismatch of plot and character and the multitude of issues in the execution have unintentionally presented themselves in this manner.

Anyway yeah this inability to consider the idea that maybe Bells Hells have a wildly limited viewpoint and so do you is superficial, it's self-obsessed, and it's so goddamn banal.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

"it was all inevitable, anyway! Everything Trump has done would have happened!"

Great bed time story. You want your binky and your blanky and your stuffie to go to sleep you fucking baby.

It wasn't inevitable; you've just run of out excuses to justify why you fucked all of us for your stupid fucking moral superiority.

"But the third party votes weren't enough for Kamala to win!"

True. So this one also goes out to all the non-voting fucksticks who thought that not voting was the true act of resistance that would bring about the grand leftist overthrow of the government. Tell me, when your grand leftist overthrow happens, you gonna murder people out loud like Stalin or very quietly like Mao? Because, frankly, that's all you want. The chance to be the fucking fascist in charge.

Go to sleep, baby. Maybe tomorrow you'll wake up to a shitty diaper you can blame on a fucking ghost.

[tobiasdrake]

As we unpack the devastating effects of this election, I think an important piece of context to look at is the popular vote. The popular vote means nothing in terms of electing Presidents due to the electoral college. However, it does serve as a useful yardstick for the political temperature of campaigns relative to one another.

A thing that needs to be understood about this election is that the Trump campaign did not win the election. The Harris campaign lost the election.

Trump's numbers aren't any better than they were in 2016. There was not a massive wave of right-wing sentiment that washed over the country this year and turned voters against the left.

The reason we lost is because over 10 million voters who turned out for Biden stayed home this year. The Right didn't rise; It stayed right where it was, while the Left collapsed in on itself.

So, the question we need to ask ourselves as we move forward is, what do we take away from this? It isn't about what Trump did right. Trump went out there and was Trump, and appealed to the same number of people, and didn't appeal to the same number of people, and that's all the same. Trump did Trump and took home Trump numbers. MAGA did as MAGA does, doing no better or worse than MAGA's ever done.

So the question we need to ask ourselves and our party is, what did we do wrong?

There's a lot of answers floating out there. Many contradictory.

Personally, it's my opinion that the Harris campaign stamping down on the "They're weird" and "They're fascists" language and instead trying to appeal to moderate Republicans wound up alienating the Left.

Trading Leftist votes for the Moderate Right is never a good move for a Democrat to make, because you'll never be conservative enough for conservatives. They already have a candidate they like. You'll never win enough conservative votes to offset the liberal votes you're losing with that approach.

It sucks, it absolutely sucks, that "Liberals have to fall in love while conservatives fall in line" but that's how it is. That's the political atmosphere, and Democrats need to operate with the understanding that the Left won't show up if they don't like their candidate. The Left's votes cannot be taken for granted. They will let the fascist win if they don't like their candidate.

Note that I don't specify any particular flavor of Left there. I don't know who didn't show up. I don't care who didn't show up. I'm not interested in the conversation, "Who do we blame for this?" That's unproductive. The conversation I want to have is, "What do we learn from this?"

And my takeaway is that if you want the Left to get in gear and show up to vote, you can't be saying things like "I want to have a Republican in my cabinet" or going on Fox News to let them scream at you and palling around with Liz Cheney.

I think we can safely put to bed the idea that policy matters in an election. It's an optics game. Low-info voters decide their candidate based on vibes, and not on anything substantive. The issues don't actually matter. Again, that sucks, but that is the political atmosphere today, and we won't win if we don't know how to play the game.

With that in mind, the President needs to be the President of all Americans. But the Democratic candidate needs to look like the candidate of the Left. Or else the Left won't vote.

But that's just my assessment. Maybe I'm way off-base. Bernie Sanders has always run populist campaigns around being the candidate of the Left, and he's never even won a presidential primary. That approach has always failed to sufficiently court the Left's votes, which doesn't scream "winning strategy" once the Center and Right get to add their voices to the mix.

So. IDK. I don't know where we go from here.

I just want us all to be having the right conversations.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

The reason tankies tend to be on the side of the terrorists is the same reason they tend to completely ignore the atrocities committed by Mao and Stalin. They have a very black and white view of the world, and thus acknowledging that both Israel's government is harming Palestinians, AND that Hamas is a terrorist organization murdering Jews and harming Palestinians is complicated.

You see this much more clearly in the terrorist attack on Hindus. It's even more inarguable that this attack was based on religious and ethnic hatred, however, because Hindu Nationalism HAS lead to persecution against muslims in much of India (and is a major reason behind the existence of Pakistan), clearly the terrorists could not be committing atrocities.

In this mindset, if it's for the purpose of a cause determined to be just, then anything done in its name must be beneficial.

The mass starvation of Ukraine was just because it was furthering the goal of righteous communism, however, the mass starvation of India was unjust because it was furthering the goal of of the Evil Capitalism.

(Interestingly, this is both identical and the inverse of many capitalism's apologists mindsets, who would justify England's colonization while condemning the Soviet Union)

On a surface level, they often blend into leftist spaces, because the average person views them on the correct side for many current issues. They are queer affirming, anti bigotry, and sure they hate Israel, but that's clearly a genocide, right?

Then this event happens, and they make excuses for it as well, because they have decided that guruella warfare is a pure and righteuous ideal, and thus murdering people based on their religion in an open and unapologetic terrorist attack is justified.

I hope that, though I know many spaces didn't care about the jews, they realize this attack is so unjustifiable that they can root out these tankies before they cause even more harm. Perhaps this can even be an eye opener for some people, that they may start to doubt what they have been taught.

.

The reason I bring this up is because a lot of the younger tankies are absolutely just trying to rebel against American social injustices, but are being lead along by another cult. Particularly this happens to teens breaking free of Christonationalism, which is why you'll notice many of these talking points being identical, but inversed, of ones by that movement.

I may doubt, but as someone who broke out of similar indoctrination, I must hope that these, often times children and young teens, are able to find information like I did and break free. Many of my friends who were raised in similar circumstances have stories of the many, many internet groups who prey upon them. From TERFs to Tankies, they don't want to encourage critical thinking on their own group. The world needs to be black and white, a victim and an aggresor. And that is incredibly hard to do.

By running this blog, you are assisting people to break free of that thought and forcing others to think critically about their own values, and not just what they have been prepped to say. I am glad you do it.

Dear anon,

thank you for your essay,

"The mass starvation of Ukraine was just because it was furthering the goal of righteous communism". Idk I think the people who victim blame and mock Ukrainians for the holodomor actively think it was a good thing and not a neccesary evil.

"The reason I bring this up is because a lot of the younger tankies are absolutely just trying to rebel against American social injustices, but are being lead along by another cult." Indeed and that cult is LITERALLY Hamas or LITERALLY the IRI

"By running this blog, you are assisting people to break free of that thought and forcing others to think critically about their own values, and not just what they have been prepped to say. I am glad you do it."

I certainly hope so, I do feel this blog does more harm than good sometimes so it's nice to hear differently

yours,

Cecil

[gryficowa]

Karma touched blue MAGA for denying genocide and treating it as a "less important issue", years ago I would have been angry, but today… I don't feel anything, thanks blue MAGA, for with your approach to genocide you made the only thing I feel is the fact that karma has touched you

Maybe instead of blaming leftists, it's time to blame ourselves for calling genocide a "Divisive Issue"? Just a suggestion, because your attitude towards genocide was a real problem, but since Trump won, maybe you'll finally care about it like you should

Ukraine and Gaza won't die, but you know what died? Your dignity when you praised Harris and used Trump as a bogeyman, treating both countries as a tool in politics, and not as places of genocides and wars that they have been fucking fighting with for years, living in fear for their lives

Start blaming yourself for treating all this in such a trivial way, because the blame is you, not the people who didn't want to vote for the lesser evil

[pennypurr]

Lowkey (NOT LOWKEY VERY HIGHKEY I MEAN THIS FROM THE DEPTHS OF MY SOUL) miss when fandom was just for the freaks and weirdos. "Oh, but people used to get bullied for liking things-" YEAH AND AT LEAST THEN IT WAS JUST AT SCHOOL, NOW IT'S ALSO IN THE FANDOM!! I've been in fandom spaces for eight years and trust me when I say it is NEVER that serious. Is this gatekeepy? Absolutely. Do I stand by this? HELL YEAH. New-Gen fandomers are so fucking annoying and the reason I had a block list of over 5000 people when I was still on Twitter. AND ANOTHER THING- what happened to block and move on? Ship and let ship? Minding your own fucking business?? As long as you tag your shit correctly I don't fucking care what you write/draw/cosplay. It could be the most vile thing to ever grace someone's screen and as long as it doesn't involve real people (and if it does you have their consent) I do not give a damn. Fandom etiquette has died and it pisses me off. I also heavily blame this on covid!! Fandom had already been on a decline, but lockdown brought the normies (yes I'm using that unironically idk what else to call them) into weirdo spaces and suddenly everything is morality policing and ship wars all over again. There is a REASON asian artists are constantly blocking westerners and it is because New-Gen people in fandom are annoying as hell and they aren't going to force themselves to tolerate it. It's also the New-Gens using things like generative AI to create things like artificial fanart and fanfic, completely disregarding how those things are so beautiful because they're made out of love and adoration for a piece of media. These are the people demanding new chapters and complaining about what fics are and aren't readily available to them. Make it yourself!! I understand the irritation, but that is what breeds creativity. Directing your energy to making something is not only better for the environment, but also your mental health. Also, yeah, your AI slop and the sheer amount you people are producing is worse and costs more energy than all the shit boomers did to mother Earth, and you're denying your impact just like they did. And don't even get me STARTED on people who intentionally seek out fanart/fic they KNOW has the potential to trigger them and then get upset at the CREATOR that they were triggered!! You literally did that to yourself. That's like getting upset when you break a boundary and the person whose boundary you broke follows through with the consequence. One of the worst parts about it is that as someone who has been in fan spaces for a long time is that the majority of these people are ones around my age and so it's difficult to find actually tolerable people to talk to. You'll also notice that the age demographics of the annoying new people in fandom and the fresh wave of mega-conservatives correlate a lot... It's almost like they're the same people. And even then the ones that identify as leftists are usually so far down that it circles back to fascism. Like what do you mean you think people should only be allowed to write/draw/engage with what aligns with your specific morals regardless as to if they're causing genuine harm or not? That sounds a little too familiar for my tastes- When did we get to a point where we decided censorship was good? It also NEVER works the way you want it to because sure at first it seems reasonable but then no one can agree on what is morally rephresenible enough to not be portrayed in a work of fiction and it just keeps getting worse, and worse, and worse, until suddenly queer people aren't allowed to be shown and social commentaries aren't allowed. Fandoms have been around since like- the eighties (probably before but I'm not looking that up atm), and this has never been such a major issue until now. The Internet has simultaneously been the best and worst thing to ever happen to fandom.

TLDR; Fandom etiquette has died and New-Gens are so fucking annoying.

[19thperson]

How do you defeat The Children?

This is something that's been bouncing around in my head recently.

Not actual children, of course. Defeating them is easy. They're very puntable.

No, I mean the concept of The Children. The Archetypal Child. The pure (white) blank slate that functions as the unit of cultural and social reproduction on a figurative and literal level.

Whenever there's new repressive/conservative/censorous movement/policy/whatever pushed forward, it's often done with the express intent of protecting/shaping The Child. A lot of conceptual resentment toward children some people present is just recognizing this force, but blaming the victims.

As we've seen both with abusive parents and legislators, there are people who are fine sacrificing actual children for the sake of The Child. If the children aren't The Child, they need to be corralled until they fit it's mold.

Unfortunately, this is an effective strategy. Not to get too evo-psych, but it feels like it's exploiting a fundamental flaw in our nature as a social animal. We both recognize children as vulnerable beings, thus in need of some special consideration, and, like a lot of other values, good or bad, a main mode of enforcement for this value is social ostricism. "This person hates/harms children" is an easy smear.

(Of course, considering how abuse is prevalent and how there are people who run defense in the name of prominent abusers, like Allan Wood or Roman Polanski, you can circle this around to being more worried about The Child than actual children.)

So how do you counter the appeal to The Children? The standard liberal response I see is attempts at rational disproving. If you look at studies A, B, and C, you'll see that this doesn't help the children, it harms them. And this is an argument that needs to be made, just like there need to be empirical studies on obvious bigotry.

But this fails for a few reasons. First, there's the previously stated fact that people are willing to hurt children for the sake of The Child. Second, it leaves the ball in the conservative's court. They are still defining the terms of engagement. Third, it leaves an opening. Both milquetoast centrists and leftists can be duped into certain positions if The Child is well enough invoked.

So what's to be done instead?

I don't know.

My first thought is a radical utilitarianism. Don't treat children as a class who need special consideration, base your arguments solely on undifferentiated numbers. This helps 100 but hurts 10, but the 10 are children? Do it. The numbers line up.

I don't think this is actual best practice, but it functions as a hard counter to the invocation of The Child. It turns it into a non-sequitur. "What ABOUT the Children?"

But this has obvious flaws. For one, this is a mental framework that can easily be used to excuse child labor. Yes, these children are getting exploited but it is for the good of the many. Of course, child labor still occurs even under a non-radical-utilitarian framework, but it's still a functional counterargument.

The other is that you probably wont win hearts, minds, or votes with that, especially in our current political climate.

My second idea is to go from materialist to idealist. Find some value that transcends The Child, takes priority over it. Yes "think of The Children" but also "Think about Freedom" or whatever more.

But as we've seen, a politic not tethered to material concerns is ripe for hijacking by the hard right and fascists. Freedom is whatever we want it to be, and can be used to excuse anything.

I guess the problem is twofold. First is one of priorities. This is an ideological superstructure question, about how people justify decisions and not the material power base that allows them to make those decisions in the first place. But I feel like the base is the long term problem, and there still needs to be wrestling with those justifications.

Second is a problem of language. I'm falling into it here too. As much as I want to separate The Archetypal Child from actual children, they are connected enough at the hip that it's hard to speak about disregarding one without disregarding the other. And against an enemy that both makes moves against child welfare while using children's welfare as their justification, those linguistic contradictions are easy to abuse.

I don't really have a conclusion. These are just disorganized thoughts that I hoped to organize, posting in case someone smarter than me has some sort of coherent way to tie it all together.

[jewishbarbies]

So I debated for a long time whether to send this or not bc I explicitly do not want to equate what's happening in I/P to fiction or in any way trivialize the very real people who have died

But I find it incredibly ironic (in a bad way) how the leftist circles screaming about Zionism are the same circles that are STILL openly proudly fans of tv shows/books/movies that depict war in genuinely nuanced ways. Ways that EXPLICITLY contradict the black and white narratives exploding in leftist spaces.

So like. Did y'all miss the point or do you think nuance is for fiction only? There are innocent civilians on every side in war and civilians shouldn't be blamed for the actions of their governments --but only in fiction? In the real world it's fine to celebrate civilian casualties as long as they're Israeli? Guilt by association in fiction is bad but every Jewish person should be held accountable for the Israeli military???

Like I'm intentionally not naming any fandoms bc this SHOULDN'T be about fandoms, but the hypocrisy is killing me. They claim to be fans of the "killing civilians is bad even when they're from the Bad Culture™" shows but they're out in the real world denying (or worse celebrating) Oct 7th? They love the fictional characters who say "killing civilians is bad" but can't stand Jewish people mourning the civilians in israel? What???

(again, I'm really not trying to make this extremely real problem about fiction. I just mean the complete lack of self awareness I see every day has me ready to explode. )

no, i get what you mean. i definitely think there's a link between the massive drop in critical thinking and media literacy and the fandomization of real world issues. there's some statistic that gen z is the most politically active of most previous generations and while that's inherently a good thing, they're not engaging with politics and conflicts in responsible ways. they'll do a lot of organizing for a cause here in america and get something done, and then think they can do the same thing for international plights and just end up stepping on everyone's toes, inadvertently perpetuating that america-centric attitude they claim to be against, bc they don't listen.

a lot of people these days refuse to engage with media in the way it's intended and therefore ignore or flat out miss its entire message. you'll have a movie/show/book/whatever about the nuances of war, like the hunger games (which gen z is so completely misinterpreting), and how easy it is to become the person you're fighting against if you let yourself do the things they do eye for an eye style, and they'll come away from that comparing hamas to katniss. it makes no sense within the context of the book's narrative, yet that's the conclusion they draw because they refuse to properly engage. it contradicts their second-hand anger. they're mad about their own shitty life in the states and the powerlessness we all feel here as our rights are being threatened every single day, and they'll look for somewhere else to put it all. so they butt in to situations they don't belong in and make it worse like bulls in a china closet.

bottom line is that they see what they want to see because of their lack of self reflection and self awareness, thus allowing their lack of media literacy, critical thinking, and confirmation bias run the way they think and believe. they've taken "it's fiction" to the point where none of them would pass a basic english class and now palestinians and hamas are all blorbos in The Real World Show.

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

(This one's a long ask..) NPD + BPD + autism experiences is thinking you're just an absolutely good and the most morally correct person ever. You are a hero and you are an absolute gem to society. You'll fix all the problems society has, especially the systems that hurt the marginalized and hurt. You genuinely think you can lead a revolution or play an important role in it. You genuinely think you're the only person in your political wing that has the "best" politics and is the most morally correct and least damaging/most helpful thing ever.

You change your entire vocabulary to be more inclusive and non-hurtful/non-discriminatory, no matter how much the change is. It's exhausting when you slip up, and you either feel ashamed or you call yourself an exception and give yourself that little grace. You tell yourself you can do it, and that if you can do it anyone else can. You judge everyone else who thinks differently from you, because they're suddenly bad, bigoted, conservative, harmful people and you're the only one next to a select few/some people you follow who have good morals/politics.

You feel like you're the therapist friend, you feel like you were built to help everyone around you and save lives. You are the best person at helping anyone and everyone with their problems and you're perfect.

You end up being so obsessed with morals and feel like it's so enveloped in your identity, and you can't handle it when everyone has different morals from you. Or you can handle it, but it's just... exhausting or causes you to split on others. You have an intense desire for justice, fairness, kindness, and compassion at ALL times... and sometimes it becomes debilitating.

It destroys how you perceive others and how you interact with them. You so badly want to be the best at Leftist, anti-capitalist politics. You don't want to be problematic. You never want to hurt anyone, you want to be perfect and good and a hero. That's what you are. You're morally perfect and you can do literally no wrong. If you ever do wrong you end up shame spiraling or getting defensive, and it takes you all your strength to admit you did a wrong and hurt someone. It's just the shame that comes with potentially discomforting someone or hurting them or coming across as uneducated/uninformed. It's the fear of messing up in front of everyone and no longer being seen as a nice person, just a creep. Just a horrible, evil thing. It all just makes you no longer feel pure, morally good, self-righteous, heroic, or anything positive. You just feel sick and angry. You blame yourself, you blame others, you blame your abusers and bullies. You don't know why you're like this.

.

[thedandelionresistance]

What is a revolution?

I've seen so many people think of a revolution as a bloody, violent thing. Taking a better society, wresting power from the hands of the powerful with force. Eliminating societal undesirables as the unspoken bonus goal: the disabled who rely on medical supply lines, the homeless who rely on community and state support initiatives, the children already caught in the crossfire of their parents' ownership and the state's enforcement of it.

I've seen fellow leftists - socialists, anarchists - reject the concept of revolution for that reason, and I'm right there with them... except the word revolution is still meaningful to us.

So... what is a revolution?

Is blood the only fuel, or can we find a clean energy source? Can it be so unlike YA revenge fantasies and instead be a tsunami of overwhelming compassion and community? Can it be gradual, ongoing, not a Rapture nor a cleansing but simply a process day by day? Can it be a living thing, breathing with the collective oxygen and dreams of a whole world?

What if a revolution is all the small things? Asking your disabled neighbor what form of help would be most helpful to them and doing what you can. Making (food-restriction-safe) food for people who can eat it. Sharing resources and building social programs that'll catch the vulnerable as the rot in the state condemns it. Sharing freely and fearlessly and not blaming others for the way they cope with a world that is still often cruel when they aren't hurting anyone else. Taking according to your need and giving according to your ability, including with how you take action to take care of others.

rev·o·lu·tion·ar·y

adjective

1. involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.

Things never truly change when power is seized and hierarchies redistributed. Every "revolution" of blood and death fails at its fundamental intent.

But what, then, could be more revolutionary than one step at a time, making the world a little brighter? Call me naïve, call me idealistic, but those who cannot even imagine a better future largely can't make one. (If you can't imagine it because of despair though, let us do that work for you, and we'll bring you with us for as long as you'll come.)

What could cause a more complete change than simply changing how each of us treat other people, bit by bit? What could be a more dramatic change than merely building a home and a hearth, brick by brick?

What could make things better more than never stopping trying to make things better? (Not doing everything right all the time, but just pushing to do as much as you can, whatever that means in any given moment, and forgiving yourself your own flaws and mistakes.)

Our revolution is life lived, not checkbox checked. It lives, it breathes, it feels, it laughs, it cries, it grows. Most of all, it seeks out a thousand thousand other small revolutions and builds communities of change.

That is revolution.

[hummingbird-hunter]

Boy do I love it when American leftists make posts that get tens of thousands of notes by making it 90% leftists terms and buzzwords but when you take even a little bit of time to understand and factcheck you'll realize that it's a big ol' nothingburger at best and complete misinformation at most and by "love" I mean I'm gonna fucking shoot myself next time I see one. But sure keep blaming dems for trump's win babygirl keep telling people how they didn't do anything productive and are actually just as bad, even though one google search can disprove it. Keep blaming them so you don't have to take responsibility, it's not like this entire mindset caused the entire thing in the first place. But I'm sure if you throw in one or two "normalize" and "indoctrination"s it will make things cool and right, right?

[beardedmrbean]

Oh I mean when I say do leftists see history as a Disney cartoon because how they talk about people

“Indigenous people wouldn’t do that to their native lands!” Well that because most tribes learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, like modern American farming-

Holy shit Dave is right that they never left their metropolis area

But there this complaints how geeks spaces don’t want black people in it

Black activists: Why don’t white people want us in it?!

Me: Every since we somehow switch from racial equality to black supremacy

Hmm what we done in media? Oh yeah let start in black Panther where

1. They made a oversized shantytown with different African cultures, many of which hate each other guts

2. Expect to believe that everyone with sympathies with the main antagonist, now the movie did point out Killmonger was a hypocrite because he took a mask that didn’t belong to wakandans because he felt like it. And did the exact things he bitch about white colonizers to Wakanda

Though the irony is that Killmonger represents a lot of bitter black supremacists with a pan Africa fetish

Oh oh fantasy, my Indian friend pointed out that the issued with modern fantasy is that they are using a post mayflower American structure vs any form of feudalism

Because my chimera republic made realize it more easier to create black fantasy characters in a colonial and beyond world like ones based off George Carver or Bass Revees

Also like that black elf in rings of power and black Aragon, the problem to me that they look like larpers especially the black elf

Pssst modern Hollywood hairstylists, the fade was a post ww2 thing black men started after vets return from duty, so it automatically stick out for most black people

Also if you want to use Middle Ages hairstyles for black characters. Just go to the tribes that exist as many hairstyles we use today are thousands of years old and if you stretch it to the 13 century you have enough resources for reference

Actually someone pointed out that lot of fantasy places have LA demographic structure, this got me thinking and I’m paraphrasing

Who more bigoted?

My countryhick West Virginia friend who gave me a lot of insight on American history including my people and you who help me try to research west African cultures like the Yoruba?

Or the colored hair, glasses, usually upper middle class feminists that rarely interact with non whites unless they’re genetrifed and lived in gated communities?

Keep in mind a lot of them write or influence current fantasy stuff

Oh I mean when I say do leftists see history as a Disney cartoon because how they talk about people “Indigenous people wouldn’t do that to their native lands!” Well that because most tribes learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, like modern American farming- Holy shit Dave is right that they never left their metropolis area

Not all of them, but for the most part ya, it's respect for the land created after generations of learning that it's important to respect the land, with a additional healthy sized dose of religion and remembering to thank the land and everything else that provides for their needs.

"Noble Savage" is the term you're looking for there, "soft bigotry of lowered expectations" is another one you'll see a lot and not just for natives.

Low hanging fruit in Berkeley talking about why voter ID laws are bad and racist because black people may not know how to get one, or be able to afford one, or even get to the dmv.

Forever funny

But there this complaints how geeks spaces don’t want black people in it

Geek spaces are welcoming and inclusive, they just want you to geek out with them and not start trying to force changes, I honestly don't blame some people for gatekeeping their hobbies. People are coming in and demanding changes to fit their sensibilities and what not and when they're done the 'space' completely different.

That and all the other stuff you mentioned as well.

The question to ask is, why are you in this particular fan space if you are going to change 80% of it, can you maybe just make your own instead?

Oh oh fantasy, my Indian friend pointed out that the issued with modern fantasy is that they are using a post mayflower American structure vs any form of feudalism Because my chimera republic made realize it more easier to create black fantasy characters in a colonial and beyond world like ones based off George Carver or Bass Revees

Look up the show Firefly, if you don't already know about it. There's two really good SciFi western tv shows and neither of them are Westworld, the one besides Firefly is The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. and it's there in my list because it stars Bruce Campbell.

Which actually you might give that one a look too,

Keep forgetting how much of a giant Julius Carry was, it's got a lot of steampunk elements and it's funny as heck.

Mentioning Bass Reeves made me think of that.

Also like that black elf in rings of power and black Aragon, the problem to me that they look like larpers especially the black elf ECT

Never saw the show, but everything I did see told me they had zero respect for the source material so I didn't expect respect for anything else to appear.

Hair thing we have current year references that since as you said, they haven't really changed them up much in the last few thousand years.

Who more bigoted? My countryhick West Virginia friend who gave me a lot of insight on American history including my people and you who help me try to research west African cultures like the Yoruba? Or the colored hair, glasses, usually upper middle class feminists that rarely interact with non whites unless they’re genetrifed and lived in gated communities?

I'm sure you already know the answer. As a generalization at least.

The joke about internet racists being a tolerant group of people, 'they don't care what race you are so long as you're racist' actually pans out to be fairly true a lot of the time.

Granted a lot of them aren't actually terribly racist, they just like to be able to rip on each other and like doing it Eric Cartman style, le edgy people.

The "Anti-racists" are the ones to watch out for, that's the people from berkeley in that video up there.

It's performative for them, look at how tolerant and accepting I am.

Like this.

I know it's what you want there my whatever you are, but there's a multitude of reasons why this

won't be happening, but I'm sure you've managed to take great strides in the effort to eradicate racism and didn't just totally become a joke for millions of people of all colours.

Except maybe this creature

I love how that's become a insult to people for some reason, she just called him a individual thinker and is mad because he doesn't support the hive mind.

Granted any positive accomplishment in the black community is greeted with several different cheers about how they all share in that accomplishment, but when bad shit happens all of a sudden we're not a monolith.

That's human psychology tho so not much more to expect from that honestly.

Multimillionaire tv host saying she's oppressed and that black people can't make it in the US will forever be funny to me, also sad because that sentiment is holding people back by saying things like that, since it's discouraging, why should I try if I've got no chance to make it anyhow.

May as well just get mine any way I can or maybe lay down and give up.