#your pretty much dealing with systemic social politics

[clockworkreapers]

Theoretically if Limes are allowed back into AN society and live a normal live, where are they in the hemospectrum and what are the typical jobs for them?

(ps: still waiting for Hiveswap 3 for Lime lores)

An interesting question since as with canon lime bloods are removed from the social structure entierly, outright culled off but in AN… it’s not much better. Firstly it would take a TON of law changes and likely a change over in ruler as well as having stuff slowly integrate into a point where lime bloods even are seen as valid citizens again. I’m talking thousands of sweeps trying to get anything to change let alone highbloods and traditionalists to agree to such a thing. ALSO FOR CLARITY I ONLY SPEAK FOR ALEPH NULL’S UNIVERSE HERE.

Where they would be put is entirely up to the powers that be, could be rust level, could be where they were prior- could even be they are put up higher to give them more protections. It really depends on who’s in charge. I’ll tell you one thing though (cuz I’m a realist even when it comes to fiction love idealist stuff but there are logical issues) I don’t think a lot of trolls might enjoy the fact an excommunicated caste is allowed back in the system. I could go into why but that WILL become a massive tangent on Alternian social politics wich is likely messy as fuck.

The only safe place to realistically put them would honestly be below rust till you figure out how to fix their entire social structure and systemic issues. Thus you’d likely give them any job rusts might, maybe the general just ubdisirable things, housing same deal start small. Later on you can open more doors and fix the entire fuckery that is their society if that’s your goal. A system like alternias is incredibly fragile to make any changes you need to be very slow and delicate lest it will shatter and not in the way you want. (It’s very easy for war to break out if you move too fast and you tip the scales a bit too much and piss off a ton of people with your decisions.)

[visenyaism]

Stuff about American election night that you should know:

We’re one week out! Crazy. So I know too much about US politics because I explain this for money, so I figured it might be helpful to talk a bit about what we should expect from election night. If you're not American, are new to our insane election system, or are anxious about what's happening next week, here's the deal with next Tuesday:

1. Most important thing: Do NOT expect to know the winner on election night. Different states have different laws about when they can start counting early/mail-in votes, which often slows down reporting time.

2020 took until the Saturday after to call because of the high mail-in vote count due to Covid, and while that isn't happening this time, it'll take longer than 2016, 2012, or 2008 because the polls are predicting that this one's going to be a lot closer than those. Consider just going to bed instead of staying up for the results.

2. Because of the Electoral College, popular vote doesn't matter as much as who wins each individual state does. Every state has a certain amount of electoral votes based on population, whoever wins a state gets all their votes, whoever gets to 270/538 wins. We know how most states are going to vote. The Electoral College puts the election in the hands of 7 "swing" states that could go either way. This time, that's Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. These are the states to watch. Here's the map:

3. No one will know anything until polls close and states start reporting results. Doomscrolling is kind of pointless anyways, but it's especially pointless before 7pm. here's a map of closure times:

4. Data will shift throughout the night. Rural counties report results first because fewer people live there. This means the earlier you check, the more conservative the state maps might look. Do not look at the election results for any state with less than 90% reporting and freak out, especially if the state hasn't been called (deemed mathematically impossible for the other candidate to win) by multiple news outlets.

5. Voter fraud happens way less than you think it does. Pretty much never, actually. One study claims you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to witness actual, impersonation-based voter fraud in a modern US election. Be extremely skeptical of any voter fraud claims you might see.

6. Avoid getting news from social media accounts that aren't news outlets. There's a lot of disinformation out there, especially as AI/Deepfake tech is getting worse. Fact-check everything you might see. Anyone can make a destiel meme about the election. make sure it's true before you reblog it.

7. The electoral college sucks shit and does allow for a 269-269 vote tie. In this case, it goes to the House of Representatives, who are majority-Republican and will pick Trump. Some states might be within 1% (like 49.3%-49.7%) and candidates can demand recounts, which might delay official results by weeks or months. It HAS to be over by mid- December when the Electoral College officially votes.

8. take care of yourselves. if we're not going to know on election night, you may as well power down your phone and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

[astral-herald]

arcane, populism, and why viktor is the odd one out (yet again)

as a piltover-anti, a silco criticizer, and a pacifist, i am very very interested in how arcane presents not just the political undertones of both topside and the undercity, but the characters/dialogue through which they communicate those undertones. allow me to use some political science bro lingo to air out some thoughts.

long, long post incoming.

there are 2 ideological struggles at war throughout s1 (and i can predict that the struggle will carry over into s2): neoliberalism and populism - in their broadest terms since we're talking ofc about a fictional show dealing with surface level political machinations. by neoliberalism, i mean a focus on the social, political, and cultural structures of a polity (piltover, for our purposes) refocused into a strictly economic vacuum. and by populism i mean a unifying belief that the existing political systems of a polity fail to adequately represent their constituents, so the masses choose to rally around a specific gripe or issue, i.e., class discrimination, xenophobia toward immigrants, etc. this, in turn, forms a populist party or movement. an applicable example i can think of would be Nasser's Egypt in the 1950s.

*i know these are weighty topics with very real world implications! i just want to separate the theory to apply to our favorite fictional world.

the political struggle in question is put forward immediately by piltover, who, though presented as a technocratic state, embodies crucial neoliberal ideals emphasized especially by up-and-coming counilor mel medarda, much like how fresh-eyed american economists blew up the economic scene in the 1980s with a revival of capitalist, free market enterprise. take how she seizes the advent of hextech, for example:

she quickly sees hextech's potential yet not from the solely intellectual standpoint that jayce and viktor do - for her, it is profitable, literally and in terms of international relations. her goal is for piltover to prosper, but she has no rose-colored glasses on; prosperity means capital gain, and she's willing to override piltover's political and social systems to achieve her goal. an important caveat is that she draws the line at ambessa medarda's progression into militant authoritarianism, which deserves a whole post of its own!

piltover's populism moment will come later. first, let's unpack silco, who is probably arcane's most blatantly political figure, and a masterclass in the merits and failures of left wing, class-based populism.

silco, having been spurned by the classism and xenophobia that piltover's elite proliferate, and assisted by his rampant shimmer operation, fills the vacuum that vander's pacifism opened up. though silco's methods are unilaterally cruel (argue with the wall), the undercity clearly invested faith in him at some point, especially as vander's credibility as a guiding figure wavered over the years. he was fighting alongside vander for zaun's right to exist as their own independent body. in other words, he was uniting the undercity toward a common cause because the existing political system failed their constituents. to quote councilor shoola: "they may not be our preferred constituents, but they're still our people."

the track record of populism in our real world frequently ends in the ruin that silco himself brought upon the undercity. the kingpin is too dedicated to self-preservation, sees himself as too central to the movement, which prevents both compromise and/or a necessary armed revolt (insert your own politics about self-determination here). see italy's right wing populism party, Lega Nord, as a real-time example of this phenomenon.

but arcane makes an interesting plot decision with jayce, a very unexpected and "unwilling" contributor to piltover's abrupt dip into right wing populism. the showrunners love foils!

in arcane lore, i think it's safe to say that jayce's moniker "the man of progress" is pretty tongue-in-cheek. both he and viktor have a bemused tone about it in the run-up to his speech, and jayce is taken aback by heimerdinger's insistence that he deliver said speech. but the glowing, savior-esque imagery can't be ignored, nor can jayce's quick switch into his councilor role, no matter how reluctantly he makes it.

jayce is confronted by 2 forces that he seeks to combat in his quick tenure as councilor: internal corruption and an ineffective governing body. the latter goal is inspired almost solely by viktor, playing into jayce's naivety as a fresh-faced political figure, but this will be especially important to note later on. the innocence he offers up to mel is quickly erased, transformed instead into an uncomfortable - and inexperienced - militancy:

important in the bridge scene to my analysis is the populist "out group," or the designation populists give to those whom they actively oppose, and this opposition serves as their basis for organization. in this case, it's the undercity (keep this in mind for viktor's role!!).

jayce's combined frustrations at the unrest in the undercity and the council's (namely heimerdinger's) refusal to act, to both save viktor and to deal with the undercity's looming violence, motivates him to act like silco for a short time. unsatisfied with the status quo, he unites a likeminded individual, vi, along with the enforcers, to undercut the political system he feels is unable to represent its constituents or act in an effective manner. however, UNLIKE silco, jayce's realizes the inevitable cost the method of violence has and refrains in the end. he returns to the council and capitulates to some of silco's demands in the name of a peace piltover and zaun always thought impossible.

jinx's complete undoing of this underscores the failures of populism, especially as an extended movement over time. she wasn't accounted for. it's common sentiment at this point that she didn't attack the council for political gain. she was not invested in zaun's independence. she did it out of her and silco's twisted parental bond, and thus undid piltover's brief instance of compromise and compassion.

so...where does viktor fit into all this? and what are his implications for neoliberalism vs. populism in season 2?

viktor is neither wholly within nor wholly outside the populist outgroup - though jayce unintentionally shoves him back there in the pivotal bridge scene. furthermore, viktor also makes use of piltover's technocracy. he seems to have had a "raise yourself up by your bootstraps" history in arcane, contrary to left wing populist insistence that neoliberal ideals make this impossible.

this compounds as a double alienation for viktor, who also is straddled with the complications of his disability. a lot of his story is searching for a fellow in arms, if you ask me, and he had that with jayce until the pendulum swung, hence his return to singed.

if we stop there, viktor represents the failing of these 2 very flawed political ideologies. he fits nowhere and arcane uses him adeptly as a symbol of the failings of binaristic ideologues and systems. but let's speculate some more!

i'm convinced that viktor, due to his ambiguous 3rd party role in the story so far, will be one of the central villains (if not THE villain, if you allow me to be admittedly hopeful/biased) in season 2. consult the innumerable very well written theory/meta posts about the subject for more details, but one piece of evidence i want to focus on is this inherent physical, cultural, and ideological separateness that is innate to his character.

can we see him allying ever again with piltover, knowing that there's a split incoming? even without outside knowledge of league lore, singed's damning prediction ("if you take this path, they will despise you") cannot go unheeded. alternatively, then, can we see viktor allying with the supposed jinx-as-revolutionary side? no. personally, i see him as becoming increasingly unwillingly to compromise his a) immediate survival; and b) his ideals, especially after being endlessly sidelined in his attempts to express them in acts 2 and 3. he's also just a loner, guys.

there's some controversy on this point, but i'm convinced that the finger-printed cultists/followers we saw in the s2 trailer are devoted to viktor. starting with the shimmer addict he touched in the teaser, he is accruing a following all his own. and since noxus is here, touting their authoritarian militancy to replace piltover's outdated liberal ideals, nothing that jinx's revolution OR viktor's following does can be apolitical. to organize and to fight is survival under s2's raised stakes.

there aren't any binary spectrums when it comes to political theory in my opinion, so i am prepared to witness viktor introduce an entirely separate totalitarian narrative into arcane. where it will surely lack in militancy, it will make up for in its domination of the arcane. my biggest speculation is that, as they always do, piltover will fold and compromise at the last minute, perhaps yield to noxus, and invest wholeheartedly in taking down viktor's BBEG cultist regime. and by isolating his narrative repeatedly in s1, the writers planned this out expertly.

even if i'm wrong about viktor as third party, i like to think my observations still stand about the specific and qualifiable political divisions between piltover and zaun. the biggest hole this leaves for me is the question: will arcane ever take a stand? they seem very averse to making a blatant political statement, but i think their pervasive anti-police thread makes it clear that we're not meant to sympathize with piltover yuppies or their seasoned, jaded councilmen. let me know your thoughts!

also, as a jayce fan and a fan of arcane's overall story, none of this is meant as a CRITIQUE of him, mel, or silco. as silco said, "we all have our parts to play." i believe arcane's very greatest strength is their archetypal storytelling, and these distinct character roles are crucial to the success and vibrancy of the story.

if you read all the way to this point - ily <3

[drdemonprince]

what do u think about romance abolition? i recently discovered that i dont think romance actually exists as in i think every relationship every person has with anyone is unique and different. the concept of romance is rooted in a lof of our opressive systems and aphobia is inherently tied to it. i think these labels of being in a "romantic" relationship endanger everyone due to a percieved wrong clearness of what their relationship boundaries and expectations are and it also devalues "platonic" (and a lot other) relationships.

i also recommend the aromantic manifesto blog on here to kind of get part of the concept im talking abt

this comes from the mind of an audhd aroace trans person, if thats of any relevance!

thank u for ur blog an your opinions ⭐

I am fairly receptive to the idea that romance as we currently conceive of it is a recent cultural invention that is pretty ahistorical, and that is used to further the isolation of individuals from community. but also, I don't think we are going to get anywhere as a social or political movement in denying the feelings that a majority of people have, myself very much among them.

Even if it is all born of cultural conditioning, the cat is kind of out of the bag, and a great deal of us experience a romantic drive, romantic longings, close attachments that are romantic that we experience as distinct from non-romantic attachments, and view romance as a meaningful fount of inspiration in our art, sexualities, and even spiritualities.

I am all for a move away from amatonormativity and the primacy of the monogamous, legally committed relationship, but I do think there is something emotionally real going on there for those of us who experience it. I used to care a lot more about straightforward rationality, and after that about justice, but now I care a great deal about the emotionally felt reality of things, and the realms of life that are not easily categorized or known. I can't explain why the idea of romance is important to me, only that it is, and I personally have no desire in doing away with it.

perhaps I feel some of the resistance to the idea of romance abolition that some instantly feel when they first hear of family abolition-- The idea makes them uncomfortable because of what it sounds like, which is a threat to something that they are very bonded to.

I think on an institutional level it would be very beneficial to not tie social benefits or legal status to a person's romantic relationships. but in terms of my personal life? I draw very firm boundaries between relationships that are romantic in nature and those that are not, that is a distinction that is very important to me and I often feel really trampled upon by people who believe that no one should see a designation between those things. in most of the world writ large that's a very small problem, but I mostly run with polyamorous queer people who tend to see many of their relationships is a big mishmash of affection and commitment and friendship and that can get real fucking messy real fast in addition to being beautiful or revolutionary or what have you.

I think ultimately I'm a little bit more interested in providing the social supports and physical infrastructure that would make it more possible for individuals to form community in whatever ways that means for them. I think a lot of beneficial social changes and liberation would flow from that, rather than moving to abolish romantic relationships first.

and I really do get uncomfortable when a certain subcategory of relationally radical polyamorous queer people try to push against other people's romantic or sexual boundaries in the name of liberation; I understand if that sounds like a totally ridiculous complaint to you, the way a person complaining about veganism being forced on them almost always sounds like a overreacting cry baby, but I've been in enough toxic fucking communities since I was an 18-year-old to feel like I'm owed this grievance, and kind of want to give voice to it because I have seen people be abused in the name of otherwise really understandable ideals like these.

I think it is okay for a person to draw distinctions between their types of relationships, and to want certain forms of attachment with only certain people... there has to be a way to square this with a desire for greater community ties and interreliance. I need there to be, or it would not be a ideology I could really find myself safely within to be honest.

All that uncomfortable hand ringing aside, as a member of the asexual community and a person who does not form connections in a typical way, I have so much respect and care for my aromantic comrades and I do recognize how supremely excluded from basically every social practice and institution in the world you are, and how difficult it is for anyone to make family or build community for themselves in a world that prioritizes exclusive romantic relationships over everything. and I do really believe that fighting against that is a worthy and necessary project. I am perhaps just ultimately a bit less enlightened in terms of what I personally need and aspire to.

[apas-95]

I’m an anarchocommunist that thinks a lot of other anarchists are stupid. For example, I don’t think that most people will just make insulin or do garbage collection/processing out of the kindness of their heart, and I also don’t think if it was genuinely done out of the kindness of their hearts that it’d work great. My idea is that for the “getting people to do the shitty jobs” question, the people that do those jobs should be compensated better in some way. Maybe a larger/nicer house, I’m not sure on the details. But other anarchists will say “all labor is equal”, and while I’d like to agree in the “work is hard” sense, I think things for the obvious common good, like teacher or garbage man or doctor deserve some sort of reward over other jobs. And for the efficiency of the labor, I think *specifically for labor* there needs to be some sort of organization, and we can use what’s worked before. We don’t need to have bathtub insulin if there’s a factory right there, and if there’s no connection from the insulin factory to doctors/pharmacists and truck drivers then it won’t work either. Really, my main problem with Marxism/Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism or any combination of those is that there are specific people with far too much power over others. I’m ok with light power in the way of “man you gotta drive the firetruck to the burning building even though you hate the dude that lives there”, but I’m not ok with the idea of a supreme leader or representatives in a political sense due to as I’ve amounts of power obviously corrupting people.

Really I’m sending this to you to get your criticism of my ideas- I think you’re pretty smart, and even if I disagree with you on some issues, I think I agree with you on others. I also want to say that not all anarchists are… like that.

So, years ago, before I started reading any Marxist theory, this is about where I was at politically. If you think about any of the practicalities, you come up to points where, very clearly, the maxim of 'no authority at all' conflicts with being able to do anything. If you're seriously considering how society could be better organised, if this is something you actually intend on bringing about, then you make some amount of concession to reality - as you did with the firetruck example!

Now, myself, I went on like this for a good while, coming up with methods of truly democratic organisation that wouldn't be susceptible to the types of totalitarianism I'd heard about, ending up very similar to your position. I was interested, however, in how these 'failed experiments' that I'd learned devolved into bureaucracy started out, and I started reading up on the history, and realised, with some discontent, that what I'd developed, once I'd made all the concessions for reality that would be necessary if this system were to be the actual one real human beings lives depended on, was essentially identical to the Soviet system.

From there, I read up on Marxist theory, still basically wary that this had all, at some point, been taken over by an evil dictator, but able to see that the earliest stages, at least, had been exactly what I was imagining, but put into practice. Reading the theory, reading how their experience experimenting with different forms of organisation, and the failures of some types, had led them to discover what did and didn't work, and adjust accordingly, made me suddenly appreciate why certain things were done certain ways. The harsh experiences of civil war had revealed certain dynamics and mechanics in the way society and production worked, which translates into political theories that bore out results I wouldn't have expected (and neither had the communists who had discovered them through practice!).

Eventually, with some chagrin and a significant deal of excitement, I realised that much of what I'd passively absorbed about socialism, many of the common-sense maxims that I'd been taught by capitalist society about the nature of power and so on, were very much artifacts of a decades-long war against these communists and the system they'd built, carried out by exactly the corporations and empires I had thought myself opposed to.

I won't critique any individual point of yours, but I will enjoin you to try out some Marxist theory - Dialectical and Historical Materialism, or Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, or Principles of Communism, or even the Communist Manifesto, and to read between the lines of whatever capitalist source you read on socialism, to notice every [citation needed] and wonder what actually happened such that someone felt the need to make something up.

[imagine-shenanigans]

sighs dramatically.

Okay but the ghost distribution system as we call it is hysterical but can we tlak about how None Of The 141 are built to date.

Like, sure, Gaz is great at flirting, and he's charming, but DATES? He's the type who asks you on a date because he thinks youre pretty/handsome/adorable/etc but by the time the two of you actually go on a date he's ready figured out like. the whole rest of your lives together. He's already imagined up 20 different scenarios of different dates, stalked your front-facing social media and found your secret or hidden accounts that theoretically don't link back to you. Sure, he's scrounged through your discord servers and your private messages and texts and a thousand other things while he was bored on leave. He knows enough to know that he's happy with what comes next. All dates are simply... ritual at this point? Something obligational, other than the fact he gets to spend time with you.

You're not going anywhere, he's just the least heavy handed of them, the one who'll let you think its your choice to keep him around until he's got his ring officially on your finger. Life won't go according to plan but he's prepared for that too. In his head, you're already married anyway, he's just working his way up to that part. He'll manufacture any scenario to keep you with him, because he wants you to be. And he'll make sure you want to be too.

Soap on the other hand is WAY less tactful about it. He's charming, and he'll take you on dates, sure, but the moment he spots you it's incredibly easy to get obsessed. He immediately drops an arm around you, purring in your ear and talking to you. Doesn't ask you on a date so much as demands it, puts his number in your phone and presses a kiss to your temple, his fingertips squeezing your chin before you leave. God forbid you let him into your home - he'll never leave if you do. Johnny's SUCH a physical guy that while, yes, personality matters, it seals the deal for him the moment he's got his tongue down your throat and his fingers in your pants. Something about the way you settle in against him makes him feel like he's home, and you will never get rid of him.

He's willing to take you on dates if you need more proof, but he won't even pretend like he doesnt already have a copy of your key. Like he's not telling the guys about the bonnie little thing he's going home to - he slips into your apartment/house/etc and into your bed without changing, barely finding time to slip his boots off. Presses one hand to your mouth and just... holds you. He'll fuck you within an inch of your life later when you're less panicked, sure, but he just wants to press his nose to your neck and breathe you in. If his hips rut against your ass, ignore it for now. (Haha... unless? No? okay in a minute then)

Price is just as manipulative as Gaz can be, just as charming as Soap and Gaz too. But he just... doesn't care, just like Simon. There's a reason so many people have Price with like... mail order bride or a "one day you look up and hes your husband" scenario and thats because he's good at what he does. And by that I mean being a husband and pumping you full of kids whether or not its physically possible. (Btw check out Ceil's mail order bride western au its good shit, or Bo's Kingpin Price drabbles, makes me lose it every time.)

He sees you walking about and the MOMENT you do anything remotely domestic - pick up a neice/nephew/babysitting kid/etc and put em on your hip? Rock hard. play peekaboo with a baby across from you at a cafe? pick up after yourself just to be polite to the waitress? he's already stalking you on multiple platforms theres no goddamn way youre getting away from him. He'll figure out where you go in your free time and insert himself there as naturally as possible. He's not particularly hiding what he's doing either - he likes to test you, to see if you notice things missing or moved. If you do, he'll be a little more cautious, use it as reason to drive you into hsi arms. If you don't he jsut views it as all the more reason to take you away - poor thing, you just can't help yourself can you? You're lucky nobody else has got their claws around you, hm?

[pikahlua]

Can you expand a bit on why Hawks would want to keep the hero rankings rather than get rid of them? I'm having a hard time understanding why he would do that whatsoever. What "good points" are there that he would want to keep? It always felt like a major source of corruption imo, especially since one of Nagant's jobs with the HPSC was taking out corrupt heroes who found unsavory means to boost their rankings (convincing normal people to do crimes, then arresting them). Appreciate your insight as always <3

Hawks' major criticism of the hero rankings was not the rankings themselves but the popularity component of the rankings.

Saying the "popular" thing, saying the thing everyone wants to hear, isn't heroic; it's cowardly. It's conforming. Hawks is looking for a dependable hero to be a symbol, and such a symbol has to be strong in the face of criticism. They can't capitulate to what's easy and popular, especially when such sentiment stands in contrast to what's needed and righteous.

Hawks goes out of his way to pick Endeavor to mold into a leader because Endeavor has that leadership quality--he's not trying to look good in the public eye in every moment. He's consistent and dependable. He has the highest rate of incidents resolved--even more than All Might. Hawks thinks Endeavor is reassuring, that people will follow his lead.

Of course, the good part about the "popularity" component of the ranking is that it keeps people in check. To give an example, there's this concept in my old line of work called independence, which is divided into two things: actual independence and the appearance of independence. It's important for someone in my old position to be independent in fact BUT ALSO in appearance. If people can't TELL you're independent, how much does it help even if you actually ARE independent? The same thing can apply to heroes in terms of public approval. Yes, heroes need to take public approval ratings with a grain of salt, because sometimes doing the right thing is not the same thing as doing what's popular. However, consistently going against the grain without a thought for helping the public understand you, without regard for social mores or others' feelings, will eventually turn the public against you. It's the issue Katsuki had to deal with as he went through his character arc. If the public doesn't trust you, why would they take your hand when you reach out to save them?

Hawks never really goes into anything like what Nagant mentions, and I don't know if Nagant's commentary on heroes who colluded with villains for fame and glory even was a) directly referring to the hero ranking system or b) something that can be resolved by eliminating hero rankings in the first place. That issue seems like a product of fame chasing, not merely public approval, and people will continue to crave the limelight whether or not there's a ranking system. But if people aren't dependent on heroes being the only heroic ones, such as in this new list of everyday heroes Hawks is considering, the existence of fame-chasing heroes doesn't hurt society as much. People won't be depending on heroes to all be perfect and good, they'll support each other, and so the whole system won't be shaken up by the public image of heroes wavering.

As an aside, there's one other funny thing to me about this idea Hawks has.

Hawks is a young upstart, and the fact that he landed this influential political position is quite a shake-up of the status quo. Japan notoriously likes to have things happen in a certain social order, and young people jumping up the ladder ahead of their elders always makes for an awkward dynamic. I do kinda think Hawks is being considerate by not "doing things a little too fast" and completely destroying the old system, because something that radical is not always palatable to the majority opinion, especially when the person advocating for it is as young as Hawks. Just changing a system this much is already a pretty radical step based on my (limited) understanding of contemporary Japanese politics. And I direct you back to my commentary on how Hawks is building on what the older generations have given the next ones. He's always been a character that sat between the older and newer generations like a bridge, so this seems like a decent compromise.

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[catenary-chad]

My concept for an Americanized reimagining/revival of Starlight Express, based on actual US passenger rail history painfully relevant to the entire region around Broadway (the northeastern US)

ft. sacrilegious things like totally rewriting Starlight Sequence, roleswapping major characters, and cutting Rusty entirely (while also bringing Trucker Caboose and a heavily modified OLC Belle back) 

(long post btw)

I already made a whole long post about how a lot of “stupid and unrealistic” things about Electra (and Rusty) unintentionally take on a very different, deeper meaning in the context of US railroad conditions (and politics) of the 70s-80s.  But tl;dr, applying US rail context to the show bizarrely turns it into a colossal “immer pünktlich” sweater that you’ve snagged your nail on and the whole thing unravels into a weirdly specific and compelling allegory for US politics and railroads of the era in a way it was never intended to.  

Electra reads as a bizarrely specific conservative slander of Amtrak and the liberal policies that benefit it. And there’s weirdly convenient parallels for the social themes the original show tried to do. Electrified rail isn’t futuristic and bashing it isn’t punching up in the US, it’s actually been around since the turn of the century and perhaps the most visible and vulnerable symbol of how rail has been disadvantaged and “left behind” by the government in the US for DECADES.  And there’s actually a number of other things the show has attempted to do that click into place really nicely when you put them in this context.  Like Greaseball’s “coach sexism”- US railroads’ relationship with passenger services pre-Amtrak actually make a pretty good allegory for how “women’s work” is treated.  It had become monstrously expensive to run them without government subsidies and railroads tried to cut or downgrade them wherever possible- which is a solid parallel for how the likes of childcare and teaching are treated in the US.  

So you could actually do some really smart and meaningful things with an Americanized version of the show, it doesn’t have to be clunky pop culture references.  It’s almost kind of sad how well it works because most of the concepts are only relevant in the US, which has never taken to the show as much as the UK/Germany. 

While this is presented as an early 80s-era period piece, you only need to change some references to Control’s Grandpa and a few characters’ basis (Greaseball, Pearl, and Electra’s parental figure) to make it close to modern-day because 40+ year old rail equipment is so common in the US and a lot of the same problems exist on the modern rail system.  

If the theater is anywhere near NYC, there’s a high chance visitors will firsthand experience how old and ROUGH the surrounding rail infrastructure is and it doesn’t get more immersive than that.  There’s a major chance they ride in on a subway or NJT train old enough to have remembered the original Broadway Starlight run, and a considerable chance they deal with delays or cancellations due to aging infrastructure issues.  It’s like how Ruhrgold being “always timely!” is hilarious to anyone who sees the show in Bochum because they probably had an ICE run late just trying to get there, even if they’re a tourist.  

-Control is now used as a stand-in for the government/other rail authorities, whose complaints and praise about their toy trains mirror real-life sentiment.  Their “grandpa’s old trains and tracks” represent the oooold equipment and infrastructure Amtrak inherited/acquired at the beginning.  

-Greaseball is… unchanged lol he’s a solid representation of the conservative establishment hostile to rail investment and electrification.  Him being abusive to the coaches parallels US railroads’ mass downgrading and dropping of passenger services after WWII until Amtrak came in.  Him pulling passenger trains with UP’s livery in the 80s actually works out if you make him one of the corporate E9As in the Heritage Fleet.  Alternatively, just pretend Amtrak’s Rainbow Era (where everything had their chaotic original liveries) took a decade longer to end… it’s less anachronistic than literally everything about Rusty anyways.  

-Electra is now an actual threat to him he has actual reason to play dirty against.  As opposed to a switcher/shunter that would have a completely opposite skillset as him (engines like Greaseball went out of favor on US freight railroads specifically because they have no rear visibility for switching).  Not to mention the political divides associated with dieselization/electrification in the US and associated rural/urban divide. He should also be more deliberately group-oriented with his Gang- the first gen carbody diesel engines he’s based on were designed to run as several units attached together (and that’s still how diesel locomotives are used now). 

-Momma (now maybe just McCoy) is now the high-maintenance celebrity (Poppa would also work but I’m in favor of giving older women more roles). THAT is spot-on to the actual role steam engines had in the US (and UK) in the 80s, and still do today. She’s there to race to find out just what she’s truly capable of, since the real top speed of a lot of big late-era steam engines was never officially verified. She is not malicious, just accidentally causes constant confusion and delay based on actual mainline steam excursions’ issues in the 70s-80s US that led to them being heavily restricted (though you can probably use a lot of stuff from more recent ones elsewhere because it still happens a lot).  She can even get chased by paparazzi because people getting on the tracks to photograph famous engines has caused all kinds of problems!  Turn the components into the entourage railtours would have (head end power car/engine, various old coaches).  Give her Engine of Love. 

-She’s “Grandpa’s old choo choo and friends… ugh come on, you guys used to be great!  You were my favorite!  Why do you keep derailing and messing stuff up!”.  

-She’s far less politically written vs Electra and Greaseball, and mostly railfanservice, which fits how steam was pretty much off in its own preservation world by the 80s and not relevant in the much more bitter mainline revenue train politics.  Greaseball could be moderately hostile towards her to represent railroads becoming fed up with excursion incidents, but it’s for pretty legitimate reasons.  Electra probably just doesn’t care about her presence either way, unless she gets in the way.  As additional historical context for why Electra is steam neutral- the Pennsylvania Railroad, who built 41% of surviving electric lines today, phased out steam engines from the newly electrified southern Northeast Corridor in a relatively peaceful way, just moving them to other lines and not replacing them with more.  It’s a way more pleasant scenario than most irl jobs that have been outmoded and faced with mass layoffs.  And basically the hard opposite of what British Rail did in the 50s-60s (which is substantially featured in the Railway Series and probably where the original show got the “steam oppression” idea from… but it just was NOT that way by the 80s and when it did happen, diesel engines were a much newer and more experimental thing than electric ones… this is why I have so much beef with the original show’s premise as someone familiar with the RWS, which was generally really realistic) 

(I have my own idea of how to make a REALLY hateable Reagan figure steam engine but the above would be more palatable to a broader audience and require less modification)

-Pearl is also largely unchanged.  Make her a then-new Amfleet coach, maybe a converted Metroliner.  Now she can be both new and naive and indecisive and REALLY want to go fast.  As a bonus, the Amfleets were among the first coaches to be electric vs steam heated and she would not be directly physically compatible with steam or older diesel/electric engines without head-end power.  Perfect fit for a reverse Cinderella. 

-Since Electra isn’t a terribly romantic character, I think it’s more compelling to frame Pearl’s arc as being about discovering your real orientation after years of the media saying what you should be attracted to.  She’s had steam romanticized her whole life but it just physically isn’t compatible or appealing to her.  Tbh this is a possible reason to make McCoy male instead.  

-Bonus: style Pearl like a flight attendant and have her make passive aggressive jokes about air travel (there are no middle seats!  Please leave your tray tables down and seats in the reclined position) in reference to the Amfleets being deliberately styled after planes, and Amtrak ads of the time mocking airlines

-Dinah needs very little change herself, other than being aged up to 30s-40s to reflect being an older car.  Pearl Twirl makes a lot of sense with Pearl being clueless about the depth of such things and reflecting how older passenger cars were replaced with new Amfleets around this era.  Rather than get back with Greaseball at the end, she runs off with McCoy’s entourage in reference to old cars like her getting a second life in museum settings. 

-Lotta Locomotion is less demeaning in the context of Amtrak’s motive power crisis of the 70s-early 80s.  They had oooold stuff and struggled to get functional new engines so it really is something coaches would be concerned with.  

-Freight as an argument perfectly suits the tensions between freight and passenger service in the US since WWII (relevant in the 80s, still relevant now outside the NEC).  Tl;dr passenger trains got painfully deprioritized because freight made way more money, and freight trains becoming absurdly long and physically unable to move over and let passenger trains through has wrecked arrival times in more recent decades.  I don’t have really hard ideas of how I’d tweak most of the Freight characters, I think you could mostly carry over the originals, but you could also work in aspects of industrial decline or unions’ relationships with railroads at the time. Honestly you could do a whole separate musical about the woes of US freight rail, they go deep, just not in ways that work into the other themes in this rewrite.

-Power cut before AC/DC- Control complains that “the new train I got for Christmas sucks!  It doesn’t even work!” and their mom interjects “No, it’s your grandpa’s tracks and wiring from the 30s causing problems, let’s try and clean them up.  Maybe you can ask for some new ones for your birthday instead of more toy cars.”

-Electra is now the new AEM-7s Amtrak ordered in the late 70s-early 80s.  Make them as aggressively small as possible for maximum realism, those things were infamously tiny (~50 feet long).  Making Electra genderblind would be very appropriate for this version.

-Rather than unconfident, Electra is incredibly defensive, yet smug about knowing what they could do in proper conditions and kind of a bitch.  Self centered and prone to changing their mood on a whim.  Actually not that far off their canon personality, but now in a light that explains just why they make such a big deal of being electric and seem so short-fused- they’re a minority that’s been overlooked and screwed over for years.  Greaseball also treats them as hysterical over any legitimate complaints and dogs them for constantly asking for money.  There’s an almost endless well of “damn liberals” jokes for him to use against Electra.  It’s a bitter, much more even rivalry compared to Greaseball vs Rusty.

-Other than making the Japanese Engine less egregiously offensive, the Nationals can be largely unchanged, I think they’re all electric models anyways and at the time, all from nationalized rail networks.  

-Have Electra fail in the first heat due to powerline failure, Greaseball’s sabotage, or McCoy’s genuine bumbling, and go full No Comeback and blame themself for it when it was due to outside factors

-How do the comparatively mediocre US engines win?  Mix of Greaseball/McCoy doing the above, and the race being on tightly curving tracks in notably bad condition that a lot of the Nationals wouldn’t run well on. Cue Control being in constant dismay at how many trains keep derailing or failing and getting mad at them too.  

-Also made a previous post about this, but in place of where Momma/Poppa usually is… bring back the general concept of OLC Belle the Sleeping Car, and turn her into Belle the GG1.  That was the nearly 50 year old electric loco class that largely ran the NEC until the AEM-7s.  The Ella Fitzgerald angle aligns perfectly with them working out of NYC starting in the late 30s and being known for a sense of effortlessness.  The “fallen star” narrative also works with their full history, they were the symbol of what US electrification was posed to become- and got cut off by WWII and the railroads’ fates afterward.  They also ran their absolute last excursions in 1984 and her blowing a transformer after her win exactly matches what happened to one of them.  In a much more morbid twist, there’s no question of her faking it, the GG1s were on their absolute last leg and so trashed physically at the end that they’re one of the least likely engines to ever run in preservation.  

-This is a BOLD choice (that would NEVER work in Bochum), but turn Dustin into a uranium flask (concept art here).  I’ve gotten the impression that Hydra wanted to be nuclear-coded because he’s alternative energy, green, and seen as scary and untrustworthy.  But while nuclear submarines and boats are long established, nuclear steam engines are far less practical on rails so you can’t really go that route… unless you make it about nuclear power plants supplying electrified lines.

-Uranium flasks are HEAVY and being quiet is a main PR policy of the nuclear industry, so Dustin’s size and shyness is a super fitting trait.  They also have a really fun history of being crash tested to play with.  They smashed a whole diesel loco into one in the UK and it was totaled but the flask was fine.  You can even give them There’s Me because “I may not be the one you want to see” and “I am always there” are a funny double entendre for nuclear power’s negative rep but constant generation.  Also free opportunity for a female or genderblind freight role if you call them Curie.  

-Slick and/or OLC style trucker Caboose would both work really well as saboteurs.  The oil industry sure doesn’t want to move away from diesel engines.  And road vehicles are the #1 enemy of ALL trains in the US.  Also, while Caboose acting like a British brake van gets laughed at, cabooses were and still are used to remote control trains irl (Locotrol), so there IS some justification for him to control an engine’s braking!  And even better/worse?  What do you get when you combine one of those with a bunch of oil tankers?  The Lac Megantic Disaster.  

-Greaseball and those two deliberately destroying powerlines and other infrastructure to sabotage Electra and basically any of the Nationals both works on a practical level and a symbol of “government not investing in things so they fail” just like irl Amtrak

-Bring back Dinah’s Disco but with lyrics explicitly revealing that the “whistle” thing Electra lacks is… steam heat to keep her warm at night because she’s an older style car!  That mismatch was a legitimate issue at the time.  An earlier passenger diesel engine like Greaseball would have a heating boiler so it’s still compatible with him not being an actual steam engine.  Slick/Caboose can still attack Electra and throw the uphill race riding with Greaseball or McCoy.  McCoy could think Slick will get her but the tanker goes after Electra instead, because she “could be converted to an oil burner… remember the Big Boy on the Union Pacific” and is therefore not her enemy.

-Right Place Right Time also works on a much deeper level when the Rockies are turned into SEPTA Silverliner I/II/III EMUs, they’re from the infamously underfunded transit system of… Philadelphia, which fits the movies.  Being mean but genuinely helpful is also kind of a Philly stereotype too.  You’d have to reshuffle the freight/components a bit for this version so eh, throwing in some quick-change costumes for this isn’t out there.  

-Yeah, the Starlight Sequence’s lyrics need a massive redo.  I go into it in the initial Electra post, but it just inherently preaches themes associated with the politics that repeatedly hampered electric rail in the US.  Make the new lyrics be about that “you alone are an engine, not a train”, joining together as a group is how you actually make systemic change, not bootstrapping and individualism,  One of the major advantages of rail IS how much you can link together and move at once.  Which is a nice segue to Electra reaching out to uranium flask Dustin for the final.  

-As a nod to Jeffrey Daniel, a shortened version of this song is a perfect Electra/Pearl duet instead of the ballads. 

-Instead of the control and conversion speech, the trains all get together as Control discusses what to ask for their birthday “Slot cars?  Tanks? Planes?” and the group together yells “TRAINS” and Control goes “yeah TRAINS!”

-Belle the GG1 miraculously comes back as Control’s mom whispers “don’t tell anyone I just stuck the old shell on a whole new motor and frames, they were beyond saving” as a snarky reference to what would be needed to actually run one again.  

-How to make Light At The End Of the Tunnel mostly work: return the duet aspect, where McCoy starts praising steam and the newly revived GG1 Belle finishes the lines to be about… steam power plants and electrification.  

[mewos-laptop]

Yoooo intro post ???? ‼‼‼

Hey gamers, uhhh I'm Mewo/Albedo/Fruity and this is my general/mix of so much shit blog !!! My other one is strictly alterhuman based primarily, but I wanted one that my irl friends are permitted to be privy to lmao

Abt me: I'm queer, generally using the label "gay" for myself, an agender trans boy, and polyamorous aromantic/fictoromantic. I use a shit ton of pronouns, but I primarily use it/its and he/him. I'm diagnosed with clinical anxiety (over most of the anxiety disorder spectrum, so including OCD and social), depression, and (localized) Hypermobile Spectrum Disorder (HSD), and am self diagnosed autistic, ADHD, BPD and OSDD

Recognized dissasociative, PRO-ENDO, traumagenic system of six and counting. We do not tolerate fakeclaiming of our identity, nor do we owe you the information of us being traumagenic or recognized as dissasociative in the first place. Know your place, because you are on OUR blog.

SPEAKING OF WHO I AM, KIN LIST JUST DROPPED Y'ALL (Subject to change/being outdated bc I don't have enough time in my day to add and remove every single questioning kin everytime smth happens in my brain XD)

We also have a list of fellas which may front, and information about them.

I'm an alterhuman, a xenogender user, and generally the cringiest person you'll meet !!! I enjoy alt fashion, horror media, poetry, music, Honkai Star Rail and other Gacha games, character design, psychology and the science of mental illnesses, and much more !! Sunday mainly posts abt political opinions and shit, so watch out for that and block his tag if need be :3

I'm a scene kid in style/music taste and a punk in ideals, sparkledog nightmare cringe boyfailure, baby Kandi kid, and the scary faggot transspecies the conservatives warned you about.

Oh yeah, I'm also a minor (16-18 age range) sooo NSFW/NSFT dni plsss Xp

Other DNI shit. I don't cover everything, but I do just block ppl who make me uncomfortable :3

-Including an entire new paragraph for this bc holy shit. THOSE WHO ARE NOT PLURAL WHO ENGAGE IN SYSCOURSE DO NOT INTERACT. You do not belong in the conversation regarding them, and do not have the experience of those who are plural. Absolutely do not interact with me. I would also prefer for anti endos and anti-leaning neutrals to not interact. If I see you are anti endo and following me I WILL clown on you. It's quite frankly none of your business if sum1 is disordered or not, and I'm fucking tired of dealing with this bullshit. Live your life how you want, endos are not opressing you, and I do not give a shit if they describe their lived experience as plural. The brain is confusing and we do not fully understand the origins of systemhood fully. There are many debates still ongoing in the medical community, and until they come to a concensus that 100% is agreed on and 100% proves that endos are secretly lying to you, until that point comes, if it ever does, then we accept endos on our page, no questions asked.

-Identity police (specifically ppl who hate "conflicting" queer identities, bc literally sum1's identity has nothing to do w/ you XD), proshippers (I am fully aware it's fiction, no, I do not hate those who engage with hard topics in fiction, but that does not mean I want the romanticized view of those things for the titillation of the viewer on my dash, ESPECIALLY due to it triggering my intrusive thoughts), racists, homophobes, transphobes, Zionists, pro-cringeculture, anti-recovery blogs, anti-alterhuman, intersexists, radfems, radqueers, xenosatanists, transmisogynists and transandrophobes blah blah blah y'all get it.

BYI: I will post the occasional vent, I have a godawful memory, and I am severely mentally ill. I will often react before thinking when I am in states of distress, and my BPD can make me inappropriately angry, or inappropriately emotional. I have a hard time remembering trigger tags at times due to my bad memory, so please give me gentle reminders if I mistag something, or if I forget to tag something for you. Just in general, if I do something that makes you uncomfortable, give me a gentle reminder, because chances are I just literally didn't realize/or I forgot.

Alr bye bye :3

[psychotrenny]

While there is a pretty significant number of exception, it's still conspicuous how disproportionately Anarchists tend to be White, TME and able-bodied. Like it's an ideology that claims to oppose all oppression; surely it would be very appealing to the most oppressed right? The problems lies in the fact that most Anarchists advance the view that an ideal society is one where people are reliant primarily on the human compassion and goodwill of their community. But this way of living is already a reality for many of those on the peripheries of Capitalism. And it's a very widespread sentiment that this way of living fucking sucks.

Like goodwill and compassion are often very fickle things, especially on the scale of a community, and even the best positioned person can find themselves on the wrong end of various sorts of petty dramas and politics. Sure this sort of thing can be an issue under any system, but at least under a formalised hierarchy there are can be various limitation and mechanism of appeal. "Non-Hierarchical" organisation is in practice nearly always "Informally-Hierarchical" which can quickly turn into the most terrible sort of tyranny. It can be an awful problem for anyone, but this sort of thing is consistently much worse for those that are already seen as a lesser sort of human

And like this process is already bad enough for those marginalised by the formal structures of Capitalism. But at least those structures, as fucking awful as they are, are capable of occasionally offering an alternative. There is at least a distant chance that you'll get a decent job or your welfare payments will start coming through and maybe the restraining order will keep them away. Simply removing those structures, rather than genuinely changing or replacing them, and stripping things back to the "community" level is hardly an appealing alternative.

Like whatever your problems with policing as an institution, you aren't gonna make things better by just replacing them with lynch mobs. And under your typically imagined Anarchist Utopia, "Social Murder" is gonna spiral into "Physical Murder" even quicker than it already does. Like it's bad enough to get kicked out of your house and stop receiving the monetary charity you need to afford food and medicine. But if your abusive ex convinces the local Bathtub Insulin Guy that you're a dangerous predator, then you are just straight up completely and utterly dead.

If someone's already the sort of person to get mistreated by your community, they're unlikely to be convinced by an ideology that wants them to become even more reliant on it. You can't appeal to the oppressed if you fail to deal with their oppression

[ashaflemythal]

I haven’t seen any real critical takes on veilguard on here, so I wanted to add my 2 cents and open up a discussion bc at this moment I would say I’m beefing with BioWare lol.

Firstly, did I have fun playing veilguard? Uh, yes? I guess? Technically? I would definitely say the combat system and a lot of the gameplay itself is far better than it has been in previous games, and made me more engaged.

However, the writing issues at BioWare came to a major head here.

1) i didn’t feel like they went into the political and social implications of what was going on at all?? The elven gods coming back would bring so many other consequences beyond the destruction and blight. We didn’t see how this affected the way elves were treated, especially somewhere like Tevinter.

2) what happened to the Templar/mage conflict? The implications of the elven gods being alive and back are that then the chant and chantry are mostly wrong. There is no “magic was made to serve man and never rule over him.” This would likely make mages lash out at templars for being oppressed over what have turned out to essentially be lies. The templars then would likely split into those that leave the chant and focus on the real threats before them, and those who dig in their heels and decide that mages should still be oppressed bc of the dangers no matter what the chantry says. This would be such an interesting political shift to witness! And I’m sad we didn’t get this amount of depth

3) what happened to Solas’ followers? There was something so interesting to explore about having current elves helping him because they felt he was doing the right thing. We don’t run into any of his followers at all! And elves would definitely have more than enough reason to seek the world of the ancients and return to Arlathan given tevinter slavery and general oppression across Thedas, so what happened to that?

4) the only complex companion relationship that is allowed in-game is with rook and whoever was hardened with the treviso/minrathous choice. Otherwise, you can’t really have an antagonistic relationship with any of them. The only way to not progress a good relationship is to not engage in their content which I feel like is very weak writing. In DAI, you walk in on Cassandra and varric physically fighting and have to side with one of them. You can tell Cullen to keep taking lyrium. You can pick the wrong option in a companion quest and worsen your relationship. Where was that in this game?

5) the roleplaying, or lack there of. Sometimes I would pick the most aggressive option and it would still sound pretty nice, all things considered, where is my ability to feel differently outside of the very narrow window the game provides?

6) the STAKES of it all. The companions all seem very chill about things, all things considered. They are finding out things that would politically turn thedas on its head, and they’re having these calm discussions around a coffee table. I’m currently on my second play through, and it feels like none of these discoveries are given the weight they deserved, after three games of built up lore.

7) the gods’ allies. The motivations of the bad guys can pretty much be summed up by saying “want power” and that creates such shallow villains. Like yeah, obviously they’re bad bc they just want power and don’t care about people, but what about villains that do care about others? Villains that are complicated? I mean hell even though Alexius was mostly like “yes corypheus power” there was that grounding aspect of him wanting to save his son who was sick. I don’t feel like we had anything that tangible or real from major villains in veilguard

Ok, long post, but I do feel like BioWare has started to shy away from nuance and gray areas in a way I don’t like. It is important to show the complicated perspectives of evil people because that is the same thing we have to deal with irl. As an action-adventure game, it’s fine, but veilguard can scarcely call itself a true rpg. I don’t know, my feelings about it are complicated but all I know is that this game was quite disappointing to me especially compared to DAI, and I want to hope for better from the next game but given the way their BioWare’s last couple releases have gone I can’t say I’m expecting a lot. Anyway, how are yall feeling fr?

[racefortheironthrone]

On the subject of UBI, I always ask about the MCU UBI: Tony is a billionaire who lives a life of luxury, Bruce has a serious chronic illness that requires expensive medical care, and Trevor just wants to sit round all day drinking and doing drugs. I take the UBI guys more seriously if they can say what each man gets from a UBI.

That's a somewhat odd choice of characters to think about how a UBI would function in the MCU.

So yes, Tony Stark would get a UBI. Relative to his private income, his UBI check would be totally inconsequential - and given the level of taxation needed to support a UBI, it's pretty much guaranteed that Tony would be paying far more in taxes than he would be getting back in UBI payments.

This is not an accident or a mistake or a flaw in the system; this is how a healthy social policy should function. When Social Security was established in 1936, FDR made a big deal of the fact that even John D. Rockefeller would get a Social Security check - because it hammered home the point that everyone contributes, and everyone benefits. Reciprocal solidarity would short-circuit the divisive politics of distribution and redistribution and cement a permanent majority coalition in support of a universal welfare state.

Bruce Banner would also get a UBI check. Now, his financial situation is a little unclear - originally, Banner was a top research scientist at Culver University with U.S military contracts, so he would probably have been in the top 10% of incomes (affluent but not wealthy). After his transformation into the Hulk, however, Bruce was a wanted fugitive with no way of earning income.

After that, Bruce was an Avenger - and this is where things get odd. As established in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Avengers in the MCU don't get a salary: Tony gave them free housing and paid their Avengers-related expenses, but Sam Wilson notably relied on his veteran's pension and government contracts for his living (thus why his banker could justify turning him down for a small business loan rather than admitting to structural racial discrimination) and Steve Rogers even with his veteran's benefits, Social Security, and SHIELD salary couldn't afford a place in Brooklyn. This means that, while Bruce doesn't need to worry about money for his research and can save on rent, he does actually need the UBI for everything else.

This is very different from in the comics, where Avengers get quite decent salaries:

$4k a month in 1983 dollars works out to around $150k a year (on top of free housing at the Avengers Mansion), putting them solidly in the top 13% of U.S personal incomes.

As for Trevor Slattery, I feel like your description is unfairly characterizing a working actor. Slattery was not a major success in Hollywood - hence why he took Aldrich Killian up on his job offer and became part of a criminal conspiracy - and he does have some serious substance abuse issues, but what he does in his private life is his own business. Hell, even when he was abducted by the Ten Rings, he kept working as an actor. That being said, Trevor is going to have a hard time getting UBI, both because he's a wanted fugitive and convicted felon (which would end his eligibility in the U.S) and because he's now living in a rural village in another dimension.

[whumpdreaming]

Crownchain - Character Intros

Hi! This is the introduction to the characters of my new series! Here's a little about the setting itself: it's not quite medieval-era, but not quite modern either, and obviously knights and nobility are the main focus. The system of knighthood works in a way very inspired by BBU; knights are typically taken at a young age (usually from poor/orphaned circumstances, becoming wards of the state essentially) and forced to go through very intense training (at a place called the Academy) that involves not just combat, but also promoting absolute loyalty to their charges.

Said charges are usually members of the nobility, those important/rich enough to warrant having a bodyguard or even multiple. Knights are legally considered property, not people, and belong to whoever they're supposed to be protecting, meaning there are zero legal repercussions for mistreating your knights. In fact, such a thing is highly normalized, and knights are taught to expect mistreatment in whatever form.

Some nobles like to decorate or embellish their knight's armor, often changing their appearance to match the noble's own, such as matching colors or jewelry. Duels are common and function more like underground cage fights, with a variety of types (the most common being "until incapacitation"). Knights are held to an extremely high standard and are expected to continue in their duties even when sick or injured, and it's commonly expected to punish them if they're not performing well enough.

It's called "crownchain" because typically, armor is designed with a ring around the gorget (the neck piece of the armor) or generally around that area. Often, it's used by itself to pull a knight around, or a leash of some sort is attached; this is called the crownchain (i.e., the person with the crown has chained them). If that makes sense and isn't stupid.

This world concept came about with help from @bamber344 and @seastarblue :) I plan to fill out more details about the world itself as I go, but here's the main cast:

picrew link

Kyrie, she/her, a young trans woman and knight, who's been "retrained" a few times now due to poor performance and is now in the ownership of Lady Avaline. She's good at what she does, but also happens to be extremely socially awkward and shy. Wouldn't know how to ask for help even if she realized that's an option. Very much a wet cat. This picrew is missing her brands (two below her right eye, signifying her status as a knight and then her ownership to Avaline's house) but otherwise is pretty accurate. She's also built like one of those shotput athletes because I love fat women.

Lady Avaline, she/her, a very outwardly carefree young noble eager to get her hands deep in court politics. Considered a veritable ray of sunshine by everyone she meets, but also well-known for her brutality and high standards. Uses Kyrie not just as a guard but also as a glorified handmaiden, and is eager to punish her for any and all mistakes. Frequently forces her to duel, but clearly must be doing something right because Kyrie is very successful, leading many others of the nobility to follow Avaline's example (unproportionally harsh punishments for mistakes; although not many seem to be as willing to do it so publicly.)

There's another character I have in mind named Juniper, but I'm not sure of her role yet. What I do know is that I'll be doing Hurtcember with these girlies, so watch out for that :)

As an aside, I'm very open to the idea of a shared-universe type deal where other people make their own stories in the setting if they so desire 🤔 Mostly I just want to gauge interest because it feels good when people are invested in my creations lol.

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hi, we are several hundred rats. More accurately, I am a rat, writing on behalf of my several hundred friends, who are also rats.

It's pretty good, being rats, certainly compared to all the nonsense sapios and other bipeds have to deal with. Like knees, and dentist appointments. Recently, though, we've run into a problem. It's very common for sapios to mistake us for a multi-coporeal entity or a collective intelligence or something of that nature. You know, quote-unquote hive minds. Ignoring the fact that most hives don't actually work like that and the way that the common vernacular exposes the inherent sapionormative biases of the modern social system, it usually isn't a problem. One of us corrects them, the human reacts however they react, no big deal. Their reactions are on them, not our problem.

I'm being asked to add that it's a little sad that the humans don't have the close social bonds that could be mistaken for that kind of thing. So now I have. And now they're discussing whether it's sad or just the nature of the human condition. I'm going to keep writing while they're not trying to co-author this letter.

Well, about three years ago, a colony of cerebrachnids moved in next door with their host body. We don't need to tell you, of course, that brain spiders are actually a collective intelligence. Almost all of us have been of great terms with them since day one. It's nice having someone around who can sympathize with how sapios view us. Rats and spiders, right?

Turns out that they've thought we were some sort of multi-coporeal entity this whole time. It came up last week when some of us were visiting for tea. They've thought for years that we were some manner of genus similar to them, and have just been too polite to ask what we are. I, the rat doing the typing, wasn't there, but the ones who were there all agree that our neighbor got a little weird about it, and they're a lot less overtly friendly since then.

We can't agree if they're feeling awkward, or if they're maybe reevaluating the whole friendship in the light of how we have less in common with them than they thought.

Any advice? Do we just pretend it didn't happen and go on like normal?

Thank you for getting touch, reader – or should I say, readers? I'm extremely heartened to hear how healthy your collective attitudes are to the misconceptions people have about multi-corporeal entities and collective intelligences. I'm also pleased that you recognise your own boundaries in managing other people's expectations and reactions to your lived reality.

That said, I don't think there's any risk of your overstepping those boundaries by reaching out to this neighbour and clearing the air about their misconception. I understand you don't want to take on more than your share of the emotional work. But frankly, simply being aware of that as a potential issue is generally enough to stop it from happening.

There might be any number of reasons for your neighbours' sudden standoffishness. They might be embarrassed by their mistake, or feeling foolish for misunderstanding your nature. Or they might be disappointed at the loss of what they assumed was a friendship built on commonality of experience. The fact is, you won't know until you talk to them.

Invite them over for tea and let them know how much you've missed them. Emphasise how much you all value your relationship with them, and that you're keen that this misunderstanding should be set aside.

I would also take the time to stress how much you do have in common, despite these differences. You may not share the same kind of consciousness as them, but there has been enough shared between you to sustain years of friendship – not only shared interests and talking points, but also deeper commonalities around how sapios treat your genuses.

I don't think anything will be gained by making them feel shamed or punished, especially if they were acting out of nothing more malicious than embarrassment. Give them a little grace, and take the time to clear the air between you properly. Then, with any luck, you'll all be able to shrug this moment off as nothing but an awkward bump in the otherwise smooth road of friendship.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[ineffable-opinions]

Top 10 BL Novels I Read In 2024

10. Love Supremacy Zone by 화차

Adapted into a manhwa Love Interest Zone, and live action in 2024 Love for Love's Sake which inspired me to watch it. When I started watching the series, I felt that something was off. That I was missing out on a great deal. So, I jumped right into the book. Novel was not only more detailed, the storytelling was so brilliant that it brought about overwhelming emotions – despair, relief, happiness, etc. Going in, I had lots of theories in my head about the identity of many characters including the author-sunbae. I had expected Cha YeoWoon to be the author and Tae MyungHa to be his junior (because of military service) since Tae MyungHa’s life before transmigration and the story of the stalking horse in the novel (which was turned into game) were so similar. Cha YeoWoon is one of the best younger gong (Korean for seme), I have come across in a while. While this one and I, A Gangster, Became a High School Student had older people occupying younger bodies, I liked the latter better. I felt that some of the game assigned tasks were not making much sense towards the end, especially those involving gathering followers on social networking sites. The game system seemed to be acting up as it pleased without much rhyme or reason, which I found difficult to stomach. Extras are really good in this one.

9. Deadlock volume 1 by Aida Saki

Aida Saki passed away this year. While there are other works by the same author that had left a deeper impression on me, this one stands out for being the most political among them all. From prison politics to hybrid identities, there is a lot that the uke deals with as a half-Japanese with a Hispanic upbringing who serving sentence for the murder of his buddy cop in the USA. Maybe the foreign setting offers Japanese authors like Aida-sensei more liberty when it comes to dealing with complex social, political and economic issues, within and outside the prison. Unfortunately, the seme wasn't very impressive - that's an Aida Saki thing, I guess.  Recommended for those who enjoyed Manner of Death, Spare Me Your Mercy and BL comics like Under Grand Hotelby Sadahiro Mika (manga) and Shutline by Kyou (manhwa).

8. Try Me เสพร้าย สัมผัสรัก (ChaiWin story) by MAME

gif by @boosnbugs

The moment Chai appeared in Love in the Air, I wanted to know his story and was super-excited to discover the novel when he was main character. Win fell for Chai in his early youth. Years later, he is yet to move on properly after being rejected by his mafioso cousin's righthand man. Chai is bound by duty. Win and Chai's lives keep colliding. Win returns to Thailand amid situations that force Chai to personally provide him with security. Meddlesome ex-lovers and uncle shenanigans to complete the clusterfuck the start of their romance is set to be. Recommended for those who liked TulHin from the novel Breath or from the series Love by Chance Season 2: A Chance to Love as well as the Taiwanese BL series Kiseki: Dear to Me. Even though I read Try Me (PakinGraph story) before this one, it can be read as a stand-alone.

7. I, A Gangster, Became a High School Student by 호롤

Adapted into a manhwa and a controversial bromance live action High School Return of a Gangster in 2024 which inspired me to read the novel.I was glad for it. The book is an absolute delight. It is pretty different from the live action. The transmigrator and his lover have to overcome many difficulties on the way. I had expected the original soul to take hold of the body the gangster was occupying at the end at least based on certain rumors on the internet. But that was not the case. Even though the body was that of a teenager, gangster was a middle-aged man, with all corresponding life experience and attitude. Author did a good job of maintaining that throughout. Certain parts of the novel, especially the face slapping parts, were very makjang. While I think it was dealt better in the novel than in the series, I wanted something different. While the su was a responsible older person in a teenager’s body, gong was the opposite for most parts. the interaction between gong’s father and su were really nice. I also found the bully’s relationship with original soul versus his relationship our su pretty sad, on both counts.

6. Why? ทำไมต้องร้าย...ทำไมต้องรัก (Part 1) by Yeonim

gif by @pharawee

The main couple in this one Nan (Day’s friend) and Mac (Day’s love rival). Nan is an excellent self-aware psychopath for whom Mac is an interesting plaything. There is a great deal of back and forth between them that keeps readers engaged throughout. Nan is kind of a yandere character, especially when it comes to those whom he wants to toy with. Mac is no saint but his cruelty is warped and oft amounts to nothing when faced with the different issues the couple has to face, marking how different his relationship is with what he wanted with Itt. Meanwhile, both of them dotes on each other. The time they spend in Nan’s house, especially the veranda with the little pond in front, is some of the best I have ever come across in a BL. The side CP in this one between Dew and Three, who were interested in Mac and Nan respectively and bond over that. They go from being comrades to lovers with some Nan’s non-consensual exhibitionism being the trigger. Link to Part 2.

Honorable mentions:

The Missing Piece by Kun Yi Wei Lou I love Kun Yi Wei Lou’s works in general, especially her older works with fantasy and historical setting. Among the novels with modern setting this one and Ex-boyfriend are my favorites. It has one of most exciting tropes – substitute lover! But then there are misunderstandings too. So, things aren’t exactly what they seem.

The university set BL Test Love and salaryman, yakuza BL OatShin Diary by MAME – I read it to read about Oat who is mentioned in Love Storm novel as the best racer and got his illegal racing parts replaced with Prapai in Love in the Air and with Kawai Fuma in Love in the Air: Koi no Yokan. I loved their story the best too. Test Love offers glimpse into Phayu’s campus life as a student of architecture and shows us where his reputation as a famous helpful senior comes from. Test Love also has Phayu’s twin brother and his girlfriend. Many characters from Love by Chance are friends with characters in Test Love and there is a cool seaside vacation get-together.

กูจะร้าย...ให้มึงรัก (GearNight story) by Yeonim I got into novel through the movie Love Syndrome: The Beginning that focuses heavily of the murky start to the characters relationship. The characters we encounter in Love Syndrome III have journeyed through lot of ups-and-downs and the novels are really engaging, especially for me as I love meriba endings a lot. They grow as a couple a lot between the immature couple they are in the novel and the awesome couple they are in later novels (where they appear). The side couple FourGus had a troubled start consisting of an early sexual debut that ultimately left Gus pining and Four repenting. It was one of those when-will-they relationships that stands out in the novel. There are so many couples in Yeonim’s universe, it is overwhelming. Thanks to @mygwenchan for this excellent list of Yeonim’s works.

5. Love Sand by MAME

I have been trying to get into Thai BL novels for a while now with varying degrees of luck. This one had me hooked. Khom, the main character in Love Sand, has been familiar to me through TharnType and Love Sea dropped so many little details of his relationship with Connor. While Khom was great, Connor was the most thought-provoking, to say the least. This work tackled different aspects of sex work - gratification and pecuniary reward, romance and emotional toll, racism, race as fetish, etc. I had previously commented on how certain characters MAME created reads like ethnography. This one takes it to areas that are difficult to talk about from one single dimension alone. Moothon (2019) did intersection right and that's why it is the banner of this BLog. Love Sand gave me a close enough experience. Recommended for audience interested in intersectionality with focus on a white Canadian with Thai-upbringing via doting step-mother of Thai origin, as well as those who love wife chasing crematorium, with significant value gap.

4. 服了生育刑的alpha by 星河蛋挞

An omegaverse story about a remorseless alpha arrested on charges of sexual assault choosing to undergo multiple births rather than spend long years in jail. Even though the novel was written in 2022, it deals with a lot of issues that’s in discussion currently, especially in the West, post-US elections and Gisèle Pelicot’s courageous legal battle in the Mazan rape case, such as reproductive rights, sexual crimes, sexism, righteousness, punishment, reformation along with issues such as sex work and law and order and justice system from cops to courts. The novel is available on patreon.

3. 虎三不哭 (Third Tiger, Don’t Cry) by 间歇性咆哮

This is the tale of a crybaby tiger and his haughty lover deer (all in their animal forms throughout but with human like thought process, motivations and emotions). They have to struggle through the different challenges that nature and nurture have placed in their path. Recommended for those who enjoy older danmei as well as those who enjoy animal characters or characteristics such as in Caged Again and Choco Milk Shake.

2. Mr. Zhang and Mr. Zhang 《张先生和张先生》 by 王泡小泡

I started reading this with plans to write a post on Love in the Big City. This novel has been adapted into live action Kinematics TheoryandThe Ambiguous Focus. This is about a couple who are about to celebrate the anniversary of having spent a decade together. They get caught up in the whirlwind of seven ten-years-itch and more that threatens to uproot not only their relationship with each other but also with those around them. Recommended for those who enjoyed Love in the Big City and its adaptations, and for the fans of Fei Tian Ye Xiang’s 北城天街 (Bei Cheng Tian Street).

1. Utsukushii Koto by Konohara Narise

A gynephilic man falls for a crossdressing salaryman from the same company but different department. While this is not the best work from Konohara Narise, I enjoyed it the most among all the BL novels I have read this year. Recommended for those who enjoyed Mood Indigo, Smells Like Green Spirit or Wait for Me at Udagawachou.

Top 20 BL Live-action of 2024