#your inability to understand how the world works will destroy your life

[allhailthe70shousewife]

They rationed their food to fight Nazis and in 2024 most Americans sat on their hands, refused to vote for Kamala, and just allowed Nazis to take the country.

I will never understand. I hope they all get exactly what they have coming to them. I am having a very difficult time coping with my confusion and rage. Why do most Americans want women bleeding to death in parking lots? Why do most Americans shrug at racism and cruelty toward vulnerable communities? Why do most Americans think that Jan 6th was just another day? Why do most Americans not care that a convicted rapist who allowed Covid to kill millions of us will be our President (again)? Why did most Americans decide that sacrificing their rights and allowing a fascist dictator to control us was “just fine” and no big deal at all? The apathy of these people bewilders me. I truly wonder, at what point, might some of them wake up and realize what they have done to destroy their own lives, never mind the lives of the rest of us?

MAGA are bad enough. But the people who treated it like nothing mattered are the ones that send me spinning. How dare you glibly throw away our country into the trash?

[screeching-bunny]

may i request a yandere god/angel? The idea of something so pure..the one thing you have faith in is actually the thinkg keeping u trapped in their obsession bubble is so appealing to me. having no hope left anymore. just them <3

Yandere! God Hcs

Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Yandere Thoughts, Bad Writing, Stalking, Possessive Behavior, Reader is Referred as ‘You’

🌟 Yandere! God embodies profound wisdom and possesses knowledge beyond mortal comprehension. They have a mysterious aura and speak in riddles, often challenging his followers to seek enlightenment and often confusing the hell out of them. He’s very unpredictable and playful. He finds joy in playful interactions and enjoys surprising their followers with unexpected twists while they worship him. He lives for drama and will one hundred percent mislead his followers.

🌟 Yandere! God is starstruck when he first sees you. He can’t believe that such a cutie is worshiping him and is such a devoted follower. Any prayer that you wish for, he immediately tries to make it become a reality. Since he’s an all powerful god, you can best believe that he will misuse his powers when it comes to you. What’s this? You met a cute guy at work and flirted with him? Well too bad he got struck by lightning five times and died on the spot. Truly unfortunately. He’ll do his best to isolate you from your friends and family. You’ll be so lost that the only thing you can do is just pray to him whenever you can. The thought of this has him kicking his feet up in the air and twirling his hair.

🌟 Yandere! God plans out exactly how and when you guys will finally meet in person. After watching you for many hours he wants this moment to be as perfect as possible. He makes sure to be as dramatic and extra as possible, revealing himself in a very flashy way. Some lightning here and there and some cool looking smoke for his entrance. One day your just praying to him and poof he’s out in front of you.

“WHAT THE— WHO ARE YOU?!?”

“Some people want to meet me, some people don’t believe me, and some people claim to be me. I am…?”

“OH MY GOSH YOU’RE BATMAN?!?!”

“Yes it is— WAIT NO!!!”

🌟 Yandere! God eventually stops speaking in riddles around you because of your inability to get the correct answer. It’s just the only way that he can communicate with you properly and have you understand what he’s saying. Don’t worry though he still loves you nonetheless even if you are a total airhead. He will, however, personally tutor you if it ever really comes down to it. He still speaks in riddles to everyone else but you.

🌟 Yandere! God enjoys watching you pray to him. You view him as someone to look up to and ask about life questions. He makes sure to manipulate you by giving you advice that causes you to become a social outcast to the rest of the world. Who needs friends or a lover when you have him? Whenever his servants hear him say these things to you they just side eye him. They don’t try to do anything about it though because there’s no stopping him when it comes to love.

🌟 Yandere! God uses his followers as entertainment. They’re like his own personal reality tv show that he can control whenever he wants. He loves dropping random things on them and watching them freak out about it. Do you remember the time when a bunch of archeologists dug up an ancient rock with diamonds around it? Yeah, that was his badly made art craft that he threw away years ago. Do you also remember that hurricane that nearly destroyed a country a few months ago? Yeah that was also him, he just accidentally sneezed in the wrong direction that day. His followers believe that anything he does has a meaning behind it. Those natural disasters that have been happening recently must be a test from him. When in reality it was just you messing around with the weather because you we bored.

🌟 Yandere! God would make a new flower and name it after you. His love for you is infinite and would like to spend all of eternity with you. When you first met him you thought that he was supposed to be a generous and pure being. It was because of this thought that you never really saw his advances towards you as romantic. You just brushed these thoughts off and thought you were crazy for even thinking this was. When he found out what you were thinking he nearly ripped his hair off.

🌟 Yandere! God uses the idea of enlightenment to forever trap you by his side. Ditch all the people that you once knew and live with him. This is the only way for you to reach your full potential. People are just vial and disgusting so just jump right into his arms. He’s honestly so good a gaslighting that you don’t even question him and just do exactly what he says. To him it’s almost comical but he couldn’t be prouder of you. If you ever tried to gaslight him it wouldn’t work. I mean you can’t out gaslight the original gaslighter. He was literally the blueprint.

🌟 Yandere! God is terrible at cooking. This is understandable because he is a god and doesn’t need to consume food in order to survive. You, however, do need it. He tries his best to cook food for you but whenever you eat his food you always get food poisoning and need to run to the toilet. He always looks so proud when handing you the dishes that he made that you don’t have the heart to tell him that you don’t want it. So you usually just suck it up and shove it right down your throat.

🌟 Yandere! God is aware that you are a mortal and will one day die. So he tries various ways to make you immortal whether you like it or not. The thought of you dying just pains him and he’d do anything to prevent it from happening. He would destroy and sacrifice the entire universe if it meant that you’d be safe with him. Being with him is so suffocating. He’s like a clingy dog that always bites for attention. There is honestly no quiet moment where you get to be alone in your own thoughts because he is always watching you.

[comicsohwhyohwhy]

Arcane and Love

Arcane is about

love as a blessing, the thing that saves you, being really seen by someone and at the same time

love as violation, being seen as someone you are not, being changed against your will in someone's eyes or in reality

With Vi and Jinx, it's about Vi's inability to let Powder go. She only sees Powder, she wants her little sister back, she sees Jinx as a violation of what she should be as Powder. But Jinx cannot go back - the break that happend, the trauma, is inscribed in her, she is forever changed by it, even if it isn't (or is only partly) Vi's fault. Vi sees Jinx as someone she's not (anymore), at a moment in Jinx' life when she has gone through the painful journey of trying to accept herself as somewhat 'broken' and 'perfect' despite it all (Silco calling her 'perfect' with his dying words). But neither does Jinx really see Vi - Vi should be her sister who loves her unconditionally despite her transformation, who's there only for her, but Vi isn't that person anymore either. Vi has gone through her own trauma, she has lost everything, and when she comes out of prison and realises 'Powder' is alive that is her obsession - gaining her back, also to take back the biggest mistake she ever made, her biggest regret when she slapped Powder and talked to her cruelly. When they look at one another in season 1, they only see what they can't have anymore, what the other person can't be anymore. It takes their arcs in season 2 for them to reconcile somewhat to the new realities - Jinx, in being an 'older sister' to Isha, realises how fraught the task of caring for and protecting someone is, and Vi sees Jinx with Isha and sees how kind Jinx can still be, how she can care, even though she will never be Powder anymore. And Jinx comes back to help, to save her people. In the end, Vi and Jinx know this:

They will always be with each other, even if they are worlds apart, even if their images of each other are irreconcilable, because their stories are so entangled that they can only fully understand themselves by looking at each other.

With Viktor and Jayce, they start out truly seeing one another - Viktor sees through what everyone else views as Jayce's insane obsession that his entire life revolves around and sees his brilliant ideas, he sees him, which is why he's able to save him from suicide, give him a reason to live. And though Viktor offers himself to Jayce as what he is always perceived of in Piltover, someone subservient, an 'assistant' at most, 'let me help you with your Hextech dream', Jayce sees him as the brilliant man he is and makes him his equal, his partner working on their Hextech dream. But then Jayce starts seeing Viktor less and less throughout season 1 - he gets mixed up in politics and enjoys the adoration of the masses, he gets distracted by attention and becomes scared of the responsibility he suddenly shoulders. He often leaves Viktor alone to try and find a cure to his disease, he starts using an 'us vs. them' rhetoric when talking about Zaun, not counting Viktor's people - and by extension Viktor himself - as his people, he weaponizes Hextech even though this is Viktor's worst fear. And Viktor retreats, he becomes quieter, he doesn't fully trust Jayce, the only person he ever trusted, anymore, he experiments on himself recklessly, incresingly desperate not to die before he has done some good or without being able to prevent the worst. And then Viktor does die, the man Jayce has increasingly disregarded is suddenly gone, and Jayce, who has distracted himself from this reality that was imminent even without the explosion, can't let him go. He violates his trust and his body by merging him with the Hexcore that he explicitly promised Viktor he'd destroy. Love as violation in its purest form. Viktor is changed against his will, and Jayce cannot let him go, he wants back who he lost through his own doing. But Jayce has to go through his own journey of suffering, realising what pain and self-loathing are, and at the very end, he sees Viktor fully for the first time - a complex, idealistic, self-loathing, broken yet beautiful person. This is what frees Viktor from the very curse that Jayce set upon him.

And in that moment of seeing and being seen, the world is saved.

[kseniyagreen]

Zhao Yuanzhou is certainly a character with many flaws, but I see him in the situation with Li Lun not so much as cruel as weak.

He was also a teenager, like Li Lun, only a soft-hearted naive idealist. When his naive world collapsed, it shook him to the point of essentially a psychotic breakdown and a split personality. Because I am strongly convinced that the story with the ever burning wood and the red moon is not the cause, but a metaphor for what happened between them.

When Li Lun committed an act of aggression, the adults said that Li Lun should be isolated - and Zhao Yuanzhou obeyed the adults, because he is actually a very driven person. But his soul still could not accept this situation. And so in his breakdown, he killed the goddess - who had just imprisoned Li Lun.

And then he destroyed the Demon Hunting Bureau. Because well ... the subconscious, having entered into an aggressive rage, does not conduct an investigation and distinguishes who is right and who is guilty. He sees a sign that says "demon hunters" and takes out all his unexpressed anger on them, both for the demons in the clinic's cages and for Li Lun.

But then he woke up with blood on his hands, and after that, even thinking about Li Lun became unbearable. Because now Li Lun is not just a loved one who made a mistake. Li Lun is now his own unbearable guilt, that burning him from the inside.

And in my opinion, this is a fairly accurate metaphor for how the inability to face your own dark side makes you no less dangerous to others than the one who brings his dark side into the world.

All this certainly did not make the situation any easier for Li Lun, who first learned that in the human world, creatures like him are caged like wild animals. And then his closest and most beloved people essentially did the same to him. What meaning can he see in the world after that? And empathy and morality are actually very fragile things, easily dying if the world and your own life cease to have meaning for you.

And for me too, I would like, if not a better ending, then at least more sympathy for Li Lun from the other characters. The most he got in life was recognition that they did not want him to die in the eyes of Zhuo Yichen and Zhao Yuanzhou.

In general, of all the anomaly characters in the drama - Zhuo Yichen, Zhao Yuanzhou, Li Lun, Bai Jiu - only Zhuo Yichen received at least some explanation about how the world works from a respected adult in childhood. And how it changes things!

All the others fell into the world of prejudices, understanding almost nothing about themselves or about humans and immediately got into the most epic troubles.

[invalidstories]

I hope you have the courage to...

"I hope you have the courage to keep loving deeply in a world that sometimes fails to do so. In a generation that orders up attention like they order up a meal, in a generation that has started to love with one foot out the door, I hope you have the courage to believe that genuine connection still exists. And I hope you have the courage to stand up for that, to open yourself to it when you start to feel it bloom within the heart of you. I hope you have the courage to appreciate it for all that it is, to not approach it wearing a mask, to not try to desensitize yourself to it or to play it cool. Please, I hope you have the courage to crash your heart into the people life gifts you. I hope you have the courage to believe that goodness still exists, that there are those who have the capacity to love the way you do, and that there are those who will see you, will grow you, and teach you more about the world. I hope you have the courage to fight for connection. I hope you have the courage to go deeper. To never exist on the surface of your life, even if it’s easier or more convenient. At the end of the day, you should leave this world with a heart that is worn-out and soft all over. A heart that is bruised from loving, and feeling, and caring in the best way possible. At the end of the day, you should be proud of your inability to be anything but open to the world. You should be proud of who you are.

I hope you have the courage to do the hard work. I hope you have the courage to sit down with your demons, to befriend them; to look them in the face and to not feel fear. I hope you have the courage to stop picking or numbing or avoiding the wounds within, and I hope you choose to heal them instead. I hope you have the courage to understand yourself, fundamentally—to open up the deepest, darkest parts of your mind, to unhinge your rib cage revealing the gritty parts of your soul, the parts no one else claps for, and I hope you have the courage to clean them out. To forgive yourself for what you had to do to kill your sadness. To forgive yourself for the ways in which you didn’t fight for the person you were becoming. I hope you have the courage to nurture your pain, to not disregard it or sweep it under the rug of distraction or convenience. I hope you have the courage to heal yourself, even when it hurts.

I hope you have the courage to know when to end things. And I hope you have the courage to see endings as beautiful, transformative stepping stones. I hope you have the courage to let love and opportunity move through you like rain. To not grip, or seek to change it, to not ask people or circumstances to be more than they can be for you. I hope you have the courage to see endings as the cornerstones of the chapters that changed you without needing them to be a part of the rest of your story. And when that is done, I hope you have the courage to give yourself closure. To be your own home. To be your own safe place. I hope you have the courage to not let the losses destroy you, to not let them burrow into the heart of who you are and convince you that you failed, or that you are unworthy of the happiness you are standing up for in your life. I hope you have the courage to see the way in which you loved and tried and fought for something as a testament to just how deeply your capacity to feel is, just how beautiful moments can be when you appreciate them for what they were instead of nullifying them or letting them harden you to the world. Please, I hope you have the courage to move forward. I hope you have the courage to walk away with grace.

I hope you have the courage to do things differently, to be the kind of person who takes the risk, to be the kind of person who leads with their heart and shows up in their life with a ruthless dedication to learning and growing and enjoying the hell out of their moments here. I hope you have the courage to never let comfort or apprehension convince you that you are better off staying still. I hope you have the courage to trust the part of yourself that knows there’s more out there for you, the part of yourself that is easy to quiet when you’re trying to live by the rules and the expectations of a world that has bred so much dissatisfaction and sadness. I hope you have the courage to trust the part of yourself that seeks freedom from those trends, from those boundaries, and I hope you have the courage to go after whatever it is that genuinely makes you want to get up in the morning. I hope you have the courage to find the things in life that ignite you and deepen your understanding of the world and those within it. I hope you have the courage to fight for a future that inspires you, even if it doesn’t look the way you thought it would. I hope you have the courage to change. I hope you have the courage to trust in the person you’re becoming."

-Bianca Sparacino

Masterlist

[assmaster-8000]

OKAY NOW THAT IM FINALLY FREE PREPARE FOR MY ASKS TO STEADILY FLOW IN BECAUSE YOU GET ME™️ was having thoughts about waking up to cécile thanks to your artwork (other things were going on that didn’t involve sleeping anndkss) but idk something about the softness of that vs him is just…it does something to me okay

also having thoughts about him fighting the urge to look at you in a certain way while you interact with gael

also having thoughts about taking advantage of him being off duty

and your tags on my fic meant sooo much to me, thank you again I’m so happy you liked it, talking to you about him made me think how important picking up on his body language would be for your mental sanity, and you’d have to be damn good at it too

no literally!!!! waking to cécile KILLS ME BECAUSE OF THAT ONE ASKKKK 😭😭😭👊👊👊👊

nsfw mention in the last paragraph

WHAT DO YOU MEAN CÉCILE DOESN'T SLEEP THE WHOLE NIGHT BECAUSE HE'S TOO ENAMOURED BY THE VULNERABILITY YOU'VE SHOWN HIM BY FALLING ASLEEP IN HIS BED AND THE VULNERABILITY YOU'VE PRIED OUT OF HIM FOR EVEN LETTING YOU BETWEEN THE SHEETS?????? OR MAYBE HE'S SCARED AS IN SO VERY SCARED OF THE WAY YOU'VE DESTROYED HIM BEYOND REPAIR BECAUSE NOW THAT HE'S HAD YOU HE'S GONNA KEEP WANTING YOU TILL HE HAS ALL OF YOU AND THAT THOUGHT IS MORTIFYING TO THE CLOSED, HOLLOW HEART OF HIS??? OR MAYBE HE HASN'T SLEPT NEXT TO SOMEONE IN SO LONG THAT THE FEELING OF YOUR BODY IS TRULY FOREIGN TO HIM AND HE CAN'T HELP BUT LEARN ALL OF YOU EVEN WHEN, OR ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'RE ASLEEP????????????? WHAT THA FARRKKKKK i think the first night with cécile is gonna be 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 because he's denied you for so long that he just... snaps. he snaps and he'll have you no natter what. but after the sex, after the passion? he's angry, shocked— scared. what have you done to him? and he has to get up early in the morning because he can't stand the thought of you seeing him like this past the lust BUT HE STAYS ANYWAYS UNTIL YOU WAKE UP. IM SICK. IM FUCKING SICK. RAVENSTAR DEVS ARE YOU HAPPY TO SEE ME CRY?? CÉCILE IS ALL DRESSED AND CLEANED UNTIL YOU WAKE UP AND KNOWING ACTS OF SERVICE IS SEWN INTO HIM, HE MIGHT HELP YOU FRESHEN UP BEFORE HE GOES OFF TO WORK. HE'LL SAY IT'S BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT ANYONE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU TWO WITH YOUR ' GRAVE INABILITY FOR DECORUM' AND MAYBE SO BUT CÉCILE, FOR ALL HIS CUTTING FORTHRIGHTNESS, HAS THINGS HE CAN NEVER ADMIT. SO HE'LL ALLOW HIS GAZE TO LINGER ON YOU BEFORE HE GOES BACK TO FIGHTING OFF AN UNBIDDEN DESIRE (DESIRE? LUST? NEED? HE DAREN'T THINK OF THE OTHER DIRTIER WORD BEGINNING WITH 'L')

ahem. pardon my french i got a little carried away! also a certain way goes so many ways here LOL i think for the most part he'd just be looking at you like you're a roach buzzing around gael. his master is a respectable and noble man and you're... you 🤨🤨🤨 unfortunately he can't let his face do all the talking because believe it or not, gael doesn't want his bodyguard to stare murderously at his guest.

the other way is the one that screams with conflict. again i really have to know what cécile thinks of his love for mc in relation to his love for gael because i have no doubt that even when you reach the end goal and become cécile's world, gael is still gonna mean so so much to him. at that point, would he sacrifice everything else for you? yes. but he knows the world includes gael too and it's a part of him nothing, and i mean nothing can heal. what im trying to say is; does cécile feel even more pained, looking at you when you're standing right next to his master only in name, now? can he stand to look honestly at gael when the bane of existence and the recipient of all his need makes things so fucking difficult? he has never been on gael's level, and for good reason.

he has no right to ask for gael's forgiveness nor understanding - even though gael would forgive him in every life time like jesus willingly kissed judas - but he can't help but... need to know. just this once, the loyal hound strays and he's sorry. he's so, so sorry. please know (yes, i know) that he did not go willingly (of course you did, and it's okay), that he will always love gael (i have no doubts about that, but it's about time you have a love to call your own, now - a master and a pet only for you).

and he can't help it, the smaller feeling crawling underneath his skin. that the exact same master he loves so dearly could treat you better than cécile could by miles— gael could sweep you off your feet, and cécile wouldn't even be angry.

also sorry but 'taking advantage of him' while he's off duty snapped me out of my angsty mindset and immediately got me huffing like a dog. heartbreak time over, we're pulling cécile into a bathroom stall to suck that dick till it's blue and black before sending him off again 🤷

[endoyamato]

i wanted to get into it in a diff post but basically i think it's. very cool/sad/interesting/amazing (depending on your personal read of this) that endo basically "fandomifies" his own life. he isn't living in the real world because he can't connect to reality, which is boring and unpredictable (<he thinks it's predictable, but i think the issue is that it ISN'T and that's why he has issues here). instead he views himself and people around him as characters to analyze, put in roles (the "the villains role is to destroy the world the heroes have built", positioning himself and takiishi etc as the villains in a movie), and described like works of art. look at how he talks about takiishi, yes, but also look at the meaning he put behind his tattoo (and probably his other tattoos, too) - he explained the sort of analysis you find in essays and "what did the author intend", not usually what you say about yourself/others. look at how he described takiishi and umemiya's fight, with the metaphors and everything, put in neat little boxes. endo cannot connect to reality, so he's made reality into his own fantasy. this is his inability to see other people and reality as multi-dimensional, but also.... his inability to see himself as such, too. he doesn't know his own depth and feelings and he's just now starting to understand the different facets people have - including himself.

[drdemonprince]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the "top shortage" thingy because I read what you shared........... and didn't understand half of it........... because the sentences were too long and i got lost........... (can i blame it in not being a native speaker even if i'm fluent? can i play that card?)

Yeah that piece was super long and very academically worded, so if you struggled to parse it you are far from alone.

The core takeaway from that author's perspective is that some bottoms believe they can only be topped by their fantasy version of an all powerful brute, but that brute has to also be a person that they can respect, and how we view those two qualities is often skewed by classism, racism, sexism and so much more. This leads to certain bottoms yearning for a type of person so rare and so hard to reconcile with their own worldview and social position as to almost not exist. They want tops to be voracious animals who just magically claim them in exactly the way they want to be claimed but without ever having to do any of the work, and without ever seeing themselves as a person with real power. This often has to do with gender and racial biases the person has about what being strong or dominant has to look like, and it's very dehumanizing. It is kinda no wonder people with that worldview cant get laid.

MY take (and I do love that author's piece) is a lot more simple. The top shortage does not exist. When bottoms complain about there being a top shortage they reveal their own inability to communicate and to actively seek and initiate toward what they need. Or they dont see tops as human and arent mutually giving and considerate toward them. In short, communication, agency, and mutuality are key.

I have never had a problem finding tops. Any active attempt and I'm drowning in options within like moments. This was true at all points in my life and thru many identities and in a variety of scenes. straight bi gay bondage hypno vanilla furry groups parties cruising whatever whatever. I never had trouble because I a) approached people that I was interested in, b) could lay out in detail what I wanted, and c) was happy to learn what the top wanted and dole out in return while also just generally treating them like a person with feelings and insecurities.

Communication agency and mutuality destroy the top shortage.

The notable exception is seeking a person with very particular niche expertise that takes years or money to develop. So, if you are seeking an experienced suspension rope top (and particularly one with their own space to host play), you will be limited to the handful of people who have the time and resources necessary to develop into that. Bottoms might be more plentiful on the ground due to that.

BUT even then!! there is always a relative shortage of BOTH tops and bottoms who can communicate, initiate, and be giving.

One thing I have learned as a professional communicator is that people with confident communication skills are rare. If you are good at communicating, initiating, and being mutually giving as well as receiving, you are a glistening jewel in the dating market or kink world and prospects will be numerous for you accordingly.

[deadmegumi]

Things Started Going Wrong for nrt very early on (see: that post about the resurgence of japanese nationalism in ~2005 and it's effects on kishimoto's portrayal of war/war crimes/child soldiers/military rule/revolution vs "terrorism"/etc) but the cracks really start to show in the pain attack... pain has many legitimate points about the flaws of the shinobi system and I think both naruto's recognition of these flaws and his inability to refute them with the solutions pain asks him for (which makes perfect sense like he's a 16 year old with no idea of how statecraft works... Being hokage is still just very much a symbol of his prowess and worth in his mind he's not viewing it as a legitimate political position because he's a teenager who's main mentor was fucking jiraiya) are poignant depictions of how difficult it is to really make change in this system and how many actors who have good reasons to want change (kakashi, itachi, zabuza, etc) are unable/unwilling to enact it and instead uphold the status quo because that's all they've ever known, which sets up naruto as a counterpoint to these characters as someone who WILL uhhh break the wheel (pain literally destroys all of konoha in the attack and naruto going nine tails mode contributes, it sets up the literal and figurative reconstruction of the village and its ideals really well)

Except. Then we get the minato speech about how actually all you have to do is believe in yourself and you can save the day. Which works to motivate Naruto and cause him to entirely reject any internalization of pain's ideals and go back to this very generalized nebulous ideology that jiraiya spoke of, a dream of a peaceful happy world where everyone gets along through the power of Talking It Out. Like we joke about talk no jutsu but what's the point of it when you're just trying to convince someone with a sound grievance to stand down? It's all well and good on someone like gaara, who was ostracized and isolated his whole life but was able to form real connections and begin healing by opening himself up on an interpersonal level following naruto's example, but when it's a systemic issue, any individual person's willingness to roll over and work within an organization like the hidden villages is pointless, it's not going to contribute to any change. I find the statement (paraphrasing) "methods don't matter, only your dedication to peace" especially sinister, like actually methods DO matter and sometimes that method is violence. Wishful thinking and good intentions are pointless in a situation like this! What's the point of all this if not to begin fixing things in a material way (boruto theme starts playing menacingly)? Naruto expresses desires to reform shinobi society (he wants to change the hyuga clan, he supports/understands sasuke's vengeance more than anyone else) but at a certain point he accepts that the hokage is a sedentary position incapable of anything but upholding the status quo and you can see the beginning of that here (BORUTO THEME PLAYS EVEN MORE MENACINGLY). semi-unrelated but I wish there were actual consequences for the pain attack like let kakashi or shizune or hinata die fr. Come on man.

[bestworstcase]

Your points about Salem really make it evident why Salem and Cinder being at Beacon is probably the only time that we can really learn the truth about her:

Because it's basically near impossible for her to be truthful about anything except only to those she knows she can trust absolutely, or at least those who are able to challenge the facade she puts up around herself.

Tyrian, for all of his devotion, knows nothing about her except what he wants out of her (Destroy the World for reasons not explained).

Hazel was always someone who was on the borderline of betraying her due to his own moral complications. Emerald is basically an automatic no due to her own history with those who try to deceive her. Mercury is a giant question mark so far.

Watts is a big maybe depending on how you interpret his character, though it does lean towards something akin to mutual respect (and the fact that he's tellingly the only one in canon who doesn't seem to project his own desires onto her, not factoring in the dubious canonicity of the JL x RWBY films)

Cinder's basically the only person other than Salem's contact at Beacon who would be willing (or really even consider) carving through the layers of bullshit to figure out what's actually going on, even though I get the feeling she still has to sort out her own side of things in relation to the parallels with the Madame and Salem made in "Midnight".

salem divulges information more or less on the same principle jinn does, which is “if you ask, i will answer”—which is complicated somewhat by the fact that she also really doesn’t know how to communicate what she’s thinking in a straightforward way (cinder asks what’s the point of leaving ruby alive -> “never underestimate the usefulness of others; take leonardo. he was one of ozpin’s most trusted, but now…” -> what salem is trying to express is that summer rose, her general, is ruby’s mother and she’s optimistic about the possibility of getting ruby on their side down the line, but she talks in a circle around her actual point because she isn’t used to having conversations with people, like cinder, who actually talk to her like a person)

so part of the problem is that nobody asks and part of the problem is that salem, while generally honest in that i don’t think she ever lies when asked a direct question, does not think or talk in straight lines. she’s cryptic. i don’t think she’s being cryptic on purpose so much as she’s incredibly fucking old and has spent most of her very long life alone.

and conversely part of the solution is that cinder is likely to ask and summer did ask, and summer has had fourteen years by this point to unravel salem’s cryptic best efforts to probably have a mostly complete understanding of what salem’s deal is and the requisite social skills to, like, translate for cinder. salem Wants People To Know The Truth, she’s not trying to hide, she’s just not making an active effort to not be hidden, so it’s all tipped to start coming out once she enters an environment where it’s her and one person who already knows the game and a second person who is mainly desperate for salem to treat her like an equal.

where oz is the man behind the curtain, salem is stuck behind a mirror. she just needs to be asked, and heard.

(re: her inability to communicate properly, this woman describes the murderdivorce and forever crusade situation as a bad “working relationship.” every time she has to go off-script is a train wreck. she’s on her 1174932th language. someone help her)

[molinabiancavalentina]

LITERATURE FOR ENGLISH

1ST BLOG _THE BIG THIRST: The secret life and turbulent future of water / STORY

The Great Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water is a 2011 book by Charles Fishman that explores one of Earth's most precious and often taken-for-granted resources: water. Fishman vividly demonstrates that we have said goodbye to a century-long golden age when water was plentiful, free, and safe, and have entered a new era of high risk for losing water. Since my English project has to deal with the topic of water conservation, I decided to choose this book because I thought it was very interesting because the author tries to involve the readers with some scientific and practical explanations of how water can run out any moment if people don't care about water conservation.“The Big Thirst is an interesting, easy-to-read book about the global water crisis.” — Heather Hansman

Fishman attempts to explore the concept of "water conservation" in many ways throughout the narrative of his book. He highlights the importance of water conservation in the context of the growing global water crisis and suggests that we all have a role to play in preserving this vital resource. In addition, he mentioned a lot of interesting ways to save water, such as being aware of consumption through inspiring stories, efficient use of water, corporate responsibility, etc. As Charles Fishman writes, "Many civilizations have been crippled or destroyed by their inability to understand or manage water. The symbolism of water in the book can be portrayed as something precious and powerful that should never be taken away from humanity, otherwise we will probably die of dehydration, the worst part is that all this problem is caused by us. Water can be like an analogy and an antithesis in this book, because there are some concepts that contradict each other, like the fact that water can be life and vitality, but at the same time it can represent scarcity and crisis.

The author's message in this book is to raise awareness about water consumption worldwide, since water in different cultural and geographic situations is increasing its scarcity level, something very worrying especially in those places where it is already over... That is why Charles Fishman narrates and explains from different aspects and perspectives on how we can take care of water, or rather, conserve it, before the worst comes for our planet. It could be stressful and difficult to make this situation get better but not impossible.  In addition, Fishman also mentions how different cultures and societies have different attitudes and relationships towards water. In some places, water is abundant and often taken for granted, while in others, water has deep cultural and spiritual significance. Understanding these cultural attitudes is essential to solving the global water crisis. 

Based on the work written by this great author, I will tell you about some tips you can follow to conserve water:

* Stop keeping the water faucet on as long as it is not necessary.

* Do not take very long baths, in case it is not necessary, take short showers instead.

* Collect rainwater to water your plants, instead of using tap water.

To culminate this great analysis of such an interesting book, I would like to address the issue that we can all make a change just by having great teamwork as people of the same world trying to conserve water. From my perspective, we can do it in the different ways mentioned above, by simply having the will to stop all this big problem that should not exist in any area or any country at all. The author left us a very important message, and I am sure that if you read this book, you will never look at the issue of water conservation in the same way. 

[not-poignant]

Looking forward to the new chapter of UtB! Also I learn a lot hearing your thoughts on fandom culture, and I was wondering why you think puritanism is getting stronger? Lately I’ve experienced it a lot both online and irl.

Hi anon,

I could write like a 10,000 word essay on why I think moral puritanism is getting stronger in the world, and how that intersects with increased moral panic, and 'anti' or fancop behaviour among fandom.

But I think there's more than one reason, and that at the centre of it, is the radicalisation of political extremes alongside the disdain for human life and education in the USA specifically. In non English-speaking cultures, antis are often considered a uniquely American phenomenon, for example. (They're not, but I do think some of the problems start there).

And from there it's necessary to look at:

The high presence of evangelist religion and their millions in USA politics in particular, and the influence this has on the news and government systems from the top down, affecting legislation, what we see on the media, what gets censored, who gets impacted (SESTA/FOSTA etc.) and so on. When companies like Paypal or similar say they won't support certain sites because they don't support sex workers or explicit artwork, we see extremist perspectives being normalised into the mainstream. Puritanism becomes baked into the system, and accepted as normal. And it has a domino effect, taking one thing away usually means to another thing being taken away, and by 'one thing' I usually mean like... equality, access to basic human rights, and more.

The presence of certain billionaire TERFs in UK politics actively working to destroy legislation over there gives a platform to hateful, bigoted extremists of all kinds, including Nazis (as seen in Australia recently, during a TERF event where Nazis turned up in open support). Also, I'd like to add that a lot of anti/fancop thinking is generally SWERF, anti-kink and eventually TERF in nature, and often homophobic and transphobic even when it's perpetuated by queer folk.

A long-term attack (we're talking over several decades now) on education (especially the humanities and any area that teaches critical thinking) including gutting the funding to libraries, colleges, high schools, primary schools and not increasing the pay of teachers, decreasing the general intelligence of US citizens in IQ tests across multiple metrics (except spatial reasoning). This, combined with the lack of emphasis on teaching nuance and critical thinking, means you get people primed to make didactic, black-or-white decisions and often are prone to radicalisation and black-or-white thinking. There's an increasing lack of ability to understand complex or even reasonably moderately complex thinking tasks. A great example of this was re: anti-vaxxers who said 'if masking works so well, why do you need vaccines' because there was a complete inability to understand that just because something works well, doesn't mean it works 100% of the time. There was a consistent inability too, to grok things like the swiss cheese model. That's not the only reason people are anti-vaxxers and there are some extremely smart people who are anti-vaxxers, but among broader populations, a lack of basic appreciation of nuance and risk mitigation in health was a huge issue. (And it's fairly easy to see this happening in many fandom discussions when we discuss how racism in fiction is generally not great, but that rape in fiction does not cause rape in reality.)

I know the above paragraph is long and unwieldy but it doesn't actually come close to capturing a lot of my thoughts on this so slafkjdsa it'll have to do though. The tl;dr is 'the government said philosophy and critical thinking isn't worth money, so a lot of people don't know how to do it, and anyone who can do it is often attacked or viewed with suspicion' (see also: The increasing suspicion and hostility towards experts in their field x.x). (Oh see also: A lot of people thinking YouTube videos count as 'valid research' for their viewpoints, and a lot of folks just...not ever learning how to research in general).

Something something social media privileging inflammatory and provocative takes as well as clickbait etc. encouraging people to often say things in the worst or least nuanced way possible.

The systemic attacks on democratic processes in the USA (and the UK and Australia and many other places).

The loudest and most obnoxious voices are often the people saying the stupidest shit. As in: It will feel like puritans are everywhere (and there's definitely more of them), but they're also just louder and getting more attention than they used to. It's misleading. Anti-vaxxers are actually a tiny minority for example, and antis are a minority in fandom, they're just...the loudest and the most willing to try and murder real people to defend the rights of fictional characters.

Er so. That's some of it anyway. There's more, absolutely, because I could talk about the presence of puritanism in a lot of levels of our experience/s, whether you're religious or not.

It's frustrating writing about this because I fall into the same trap of knowing that I can't talk about this in as nuanced a way as I want to, even if I get to do it in 1000 words instead of like, a miserable amount of characters on Twitter. Anyone thinking 'but it's not always like that!' or 'but not in every situation!' like trust me, I know. But if I sat here caveating everything that deserves a good caveat this post would blow out even more.

Basically if you try to stop educating your people as much, don't teach them how to research, debate or learn (yes, you have to learn how to learn), and don't give them access to basic needs, and gut your democracy/s, and the people at the top believe a fictional being cares if they're virgins or not or have abortions or not, and you don't care if people commit genocide against the children of your nation because that's not as important as the right to kill them in a moment of anger..., and you create a world where the children of your nation are primed to develop PTSD due to the fear of being gunned down while learning, you create a really great environment for radicalisation, extremism, the safety and comfort of puritanism (i.e. following very strict rules in the hope of fixing what's wrong with the world) while people look for a solution to why they feel so empty and hopeless in their lives.

[nikethestatue]

I saw the anon ask about Illyria and your response with self-insertion. I totally agree. Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion but I honestly don’t think Nesta’s mental health journey was even that great. Idk- I felt it was strange and out of character for Nesta to have resorted to the coping mechanisms she engaged in- sex and alcohol, to begin with. Nesta is an externalizer and I could see her spewing her vitriol…but sleeping around and alcoholism? It seemed out of left field to me. It just felt like such a missed opportunity to explore her powers & flesh things out. She was contained to the house of wind in this contrived scenario and it had this institutionalization feel for mental health, imo. We heal by quarantining ourselves from others and not engaging in the real world? I understand this is a fantasy world, but as we overlook these other grossly problematic plot-lines to praise the mental health journey, it’s difficult for me to pretend it was…good. Maybe that’s an unpopular take- people obviously love the book.

I understand the library is a safe-haven, don’t get me wrong, but the entire messaging from a mental health standpoint was- separate from the world and re-engage when you’re ready? That’s an exceptional mental health journey to people? Again, big institutionalization vibes. Don’t ever have a meaningful conversation with your sisters, but isolate yourself away and train and get dick therapy? There’s a reason they discourage dating in early alcohol/substance abuse recovery…it just fell flat for me.

I also agree with you about these very contrived friendships amongst the Valkyries for the same reason above. Let’s see how they actually engage in the real world. Outside of this institutionalized/residential healing center scenario. Then, I will buy that they are ‘sisters’ and have such an entrenched bond. It seems inauthentic.

I thought the entire ‘training to heal’ plot had big “the gym is my therapy” vibes. Not that exercise can’t be helpful with mental health, but the training focus, in addition to essential social isolation and banishment to a home you are literally stuck in that provides your every desire, is healing? The only part of the “healing journey” I found semi-decent was the hike, and even that was wrapped up in this weird threat to her life and that whole bizarre Feyre’s womb plot. And it was with Cassian, which is fine, but why are we not having a sit-down as sisters? That’s all just brushed over bc Nesta altered anatomy? I hate it. I’m sorry.

Anyways, I’m always shocked by how people relate to that journey and feel it was so amazing. To each their own, but blah lol.

I guess I’m not really asking anything, but I am interested in your thoughts.

I absolutely agree with you.

The idea of the Library is a good one in theory--a place for abused/traumatised women to have as a sanctuary. However, it also does have this vibe of an asylum for sure. Like if someone is unable to speak in 80 years, and hasn't dealt with their trauma to any significant degree, there is definitely an issue with this set up.

But I also feel like it's a strange theme of a lot of SJM's writings--this inability to move on, forget, forgive and be done. Like think about Mor, who is 540 years old, and can't forgive Eris for leaving her in the woods. Cassian destroying a whole village of people. Even Rhys, who told Tamlin that he can't EVER forgive him for how he made Feyre feel.

And the women in the Library seems like one massive exaggeration of all this perpetual trauma and inability to heal or move on.

Which, I think, goes back to the idea that SJM doesn't know how to tackle trauma. It's very superficial, and I really wish she didn't get into these grandiose subjects and pile it all on, and then come up with the most rudimentary of 'solutions'. Love. Working out. Friendship. All these external factors, which basically indicate that in her opinion only relationships can help you out of it. Not any type of self-help, self-actualization, self-guidance.

Ugh, and don't get me started on Nesta self-destructing with sex and alcohol. Absolutely makes no sense at all. But I think it was just an excuse to get Nesta into the House and keep her there.

[talenlee]

The Tiny God Of Christianity

The Tiny God Of Christianity

I spent fifteen years in a fundamentalist Christian space, and another five trying to recover from that, reconciling what I was with what I was being shown was okay. In this time, I fervently, aggressively, desperately tried to believe in it, tried to make it so it worked for me because I was terrified of the alternative that was the reality I was slowly coming to terms with.

It was in this time, I keenly began to feel pinched at the edges by the desperate smallnes of the god of the infinite and untouchable universe.

See, in the fundie space, there’s a lot of very empty talk of absolutes. It’s hard to escape, in hindsight, the way that I think of literally every major position and promise as being empty rhetoric. Oh, I know it’s not nice to act like they don’t believe things; we give the benefit of the doubt, and it’s also just flat out impossible to say for sure what a person does or does not believe, because their belief systems are always personal and can be internally unreasonable. People who believe the world is ending in five days still pay their power bills and that can be true because people don’t have to make sense.

It’s not that I think any given individual member of my church didn’t believe what they said, though there were quite a few of them who did let slip that they had doubts and their fundamentalism. There’d be some moment, some serious spiritual conversation with a mentor, and they’d say ‘well of course I have some doubts,’ or even more terrifyingly, ‘act like you have faith, and faith will be granted to you.’ The whole point of the faith is that it’s meant to connect you with an immortal all-powerful creature who has a plan for your life and whose choices have directed the very fundamental materiality of your experience…

And you kinda gotta wing it.

You gotta hope you got it right.

This is the best way for that immortal entity to connect to you, to talk to you, to relate to you and your cohort. Obviously, that’s unsatisfying, it’s meaningless, but the thing that stands out in those same moments, like peeling paint on old walls, when you realise that something you thought was an absolute is still a thing that falls apart and weathers and can get old and fall apart, is how much there is that their god can’t do.

Healing, sure, you get some mention of that, though not in any way you actually know is a miracle. No returned fingers or restored limbs. I know, I did working bees, I knew more than a few people who lost a piece of a hand or a foot in the name of giving the church free labor. God wouldn’t fix that, hospitals fixed that, or nobody fixed that.

Evolution had to be a lie, because it was complicated and difficult. If God used evolution, then it eroded everything that god could be. If the world was older than six thousand years, then the Bible could not be literally true, and that would destroy our icon of God. Homosexuals and feminists had to be wrong, because the Bible had no place to talk kindly of their complexities. Everything had to be seen in terms of if God had a hand in it, and if he did not, then it was discarded, as if it did not exist.

It was an idea better expressed than I ever realised by Carl Sagan, possibly before I was even born. He wrote about how the faith met new discoveries and could only reject them. I think in part this is because of a lack of control, an inability to synthesise or incorporate those ideas into the nature of our faith as we could wield it. I think in part it was because of a limit of understanding; the people I know who confidently dismiss any of these realities are completely uninformed about it. Ken Ham is an internationally successful explainer of evolution and he doesn’t understand it at even a level a child can. Being rock stupid isn’t a function of brains, it’s a function of choices, and Ken Ham sure chooses to be that fucking stupid.

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”

Carl sagan

It’s a kind of rhetorical dead-ending, a drain that sits underneath your soul as you try to keep throwing things down it. The world is full of interesting things, systems and perspectives and art and ideology and even just like material objects doing weird shit and at some point, something, eventually, sometihng mundane enough that you can hold it in your hand is there and present and you realise that the god of the infinite space and Abraham who counted the stars in the sky has about as much power as one shithead can manage to maintain over a hundred people, and that seems very small for a god.

It never made sense! It never got a satisfying explanation! I’d discover something interesting and ask about it, and so, so, so often, the answer is ‘the world is not so complex; god didn’t do that.’ And this sounds bizarre, I know, but fundamentalist christianity involves so much denial, so much ignoring and discarding. Imagine thinking that millions of people working in laboratories are all just playing grab-ass and inventing results, and nobody’s bothering to check or point it out!

The solution that comes in there is conspiracy.

God is small, god is petty, god didn’t do that, can’t do that, can’t be that complicated, those things can’t exist.

because our god is a small god.

And he needs you to think small.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#FundieStuff

[thebrisingamen]

I personally disagree; Aang should have killed Ozai because that was the narrative leading of the story. ALTA is a show about war and the consequences of it, so the complete ass pull of 'Energy Bending' flies right in the face of the main philosophies ALTA pulls from.

With ALTA pulling clearly from Taoism, Buddhism and Hindu, all of these beliefs come from societies where the priority is the community/culture over individual feelings. Aang would be considered The Avatar first and foremost, an Air Nomad second and Aang third. His obligation is to be The Avatar, to bridge worlds and people together; that's why he's the master of all four elements and is respected by all four nations. Ultimately, The Avatar is supposed to become the guide and protector the world needs.

When Aang is awakened 100 years later, the Fire Nation has already made major headway in their conquest of the world.

They have, at this point; killed, enslaved, displaced and destroyed thousands of people over the course of this conquest of the world, they have crippled the Water nation and almost wiped out all the Water Benders they knew of. The Earth Kingdom was unable to unite against the Fire Nation as "Kingdom" is a strong term for "A Bunch of City States, the largest of which wages a war of misinformation to the citizenry 'to keep it safe' and solidify a sycophants power."

So, I must ask, why do Aang's feelings matter more than what happened to thousands of people? The world should matter more to him than his feelings, but it doesn't.

When literally all of the philosophy and the understanding of bending and power is based on Community > Self, having your main character choose Self > Community basically is a smack in the face to what you built.

Since all we see is 'Aang refuses to let go of unhealthy feelings and expectations which prevents him from accessing the Avatar State again' he just...gets to unlock it without making any changes at all?

"the point is that if he breaks his vows the air nomads will truly die out with him, forever. the point is that the monks taught him all life is sacred"

Well, that is a truth of Aang's character. However, the Fire Nation will continue to attack and conquer until it has consumed the entire world. Sometimes there are no good choices. Sometimes you have to make a compromise and live with it, especially in a situation as deadly as this.

Aang gets the ending he does because that's what the writing team wanted. 'we'll give super special awesome bending to Aang and ONLY Aang' So every other Avatar that had to compromise their beliefs just had to live with it?

The way it is written, it does not work. It takes Aang back to being selfish, rather than selfless.

"the point is that he takes the man whose ancestors set his on fire and robs him of the ability to hurt anyone ever again"

Bold of you to assume that his inability to bend means he has an inability to hurt others. Rhetoric and hate, as we are seeing in real time are just words but wreak havoc. It is very easy for a man who had power to continue to have influence even in a jail cell. If he's dead his power would been far more broken because HE IS NO LONGER alive to listen to. It would not stop everyone who believed he was right, but it would SURE do a number.

Aang only cares about his own feelings about Ozai and killing him, NOT ABOUT how Ozai and the nation he's led that's been seeking to take over the world and wipe out other forms of bending and did with Aang's people, almost did it with Katara's people and was working on doing it over all over the Earth Kingdom.

TL;DR

Yes he should have killed Ozai because the world should have mattered to him more than his personal beliefs, or if he wasn't going to kill Ozai, we needed more than just 'No, I don't want to' to call forth the power. I can think of several ways this would have worked, but they didn't do any of those options. So it reads as completely and utterly selfish and a slap in the face to all of what was built up before the finale.

Bottom Line?

Don't tell a War Story if you're not going to be able to allow your characters make compromises, otherwise everything earned feels cheapened because of the refusal to have there be any actual consequences or compromises for the characters, especially your titular one.

can't believe there are still people out here in the year 2023 that genuinely think aang should have killed ozai

[aracellipaezbloggingproject]

Reflective Essay

No longer human is one of the most depressive books I had read up until this moment. Still, it has its own charm that makes anyone unable to stop reading, despite the pessimism that distyle. It’s an exaggeration of how the little things in life can become the most heavy curses; that, at the same time, feels completely relatable for anyone that has feel out of place in his life at some point or another. At the end of the day, the main topping of no longer human is that feeling of alienation. That constant sensation that someone doesn’t belong on society and how that had eventually destroyed a person’s life. In a sense, the ending of the story is foreshadowed from the beginning. Yozo doesn’t feel part of the society, he tries to fit in but he feels that he still doesn’t belong and eventually, he ceases to exist for the world.

The most important lesson that this book teaches is the idea that you never really know what others are living through. Now one in the story seem to even fully understand what Yozo was thinking. For his family and friend, he was always an angel, a good person, that was destroy by his drinking habits. When that drinking problem was just a symptom of a much larger problem. Its leads you to think twice about what truly push a person to become a drunkard or an addict. That the problem not always get better by just depriving the individual of the addictive substance; sometimes the problem is more complex and they need more help.

The book also feels like a cautionary tale. A crude showing of how humanity can be cruel and can lead you to a horrible ending if you never learn to have agency in your own life. Many of Yozo circumstances were brought out by others, and he just went along because of his inability to speak for himself. Ultimately regretting the majority of this endings. In the end, No longer human is an incredible reading. It’s extremely well written, and the translation do a really good job at conveying the original authors meaning. Over all is a work I would recommend to anyone that can stomach a couple of heavy scenes and bad circumstances that forms the over all pessimist life of its protagonist.