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Bravery is often framed as a type of emotion. I... really don't agree with that framing. To be brave is to control your fear. It's overriding your fear to do what your mind wants. It's emotional control, to be brave is a key part of what it means to be rational.

I think it's something that could be compelling if explored in a main character. Have as a protagonist or side character one of those cold, rational, calculating characters, but who is also a coward. She rationalizes giving into fear as not being reckless, and being in control of her emotions. Her arc would be realizing that that isn't what's happening at all, she's instead just giving into her fear, and that you cannot truly call yourself a rational being if you're not able to be brave.

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a common failing among policy data analyst types is a sort of… intense econ brain, applied to politics.

There’s a certain type of pundit whose advice basically consists of looking at issue polls and advising politicians to shift their rhetoric and positions as close to the median voter as possible. Implicit in this type of analysis is that voters have fixed and exogenous preferences over political outcomes that cannot be meaningfully influenced.

This is a type of framework imported from economics, specifically consumer theory. It’s reasonable to apply there, both in a normative sense (the alternative is paternalism, which economists are right to be wary of) and in a positive sense, in that whether a particular consumer prefers, say, apples or bananas makes sense to take as given and fixed (to a point, marketing is a thing and probably has some effect).

It is very much misapplied to politics. Voters by and large don’t really know what they want, and for the vast majority of issues either hold no strong opinion, don’t know anything about it, don’t care, or form their views from social consensus. If you’re a politician and you believe this framework, you’ll totally abandon the idea of personally framing and creating the narrative around specific issues. You’ll abandon the idea of investing in propaganda campaigns (after all, if voter viewed are fixed beforehand, what’s the point?). And you’ll cede the field to those who don’t believe this. Essentially consigning yourself to a reactive position, an empty vessel for the “will of the people” (as determined by issue polls)

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It’s still pretty unbelievable to me that when the online right say that people like Mark Carney are communists they really mean it.

They aren’t grifting, are not cynically lying, they sincerely believe that Mark Carney, a literal Goldman Sachs international banker, who served as head of not one, but *two* central banks, is a marxist communist. I’d almost prefer it if they were grifting, but no, they’re just totally insane

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The American economy will explode on April 4th

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Reading the Neil Gaiman charges… there are some deeply evil people in this world man. Some people are hollow inside and you’d never know

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Thank god Trump is doing the tariffs. The more he blows up the American economy the better, it’s necessary that his popularity tanks. Makes it much harder to establish a hybrid regime that way. Fascism cannot be allowed to become a successful electoral program in the global hegemon. It must be associated with failure

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I disagree with this in that I think trying to save Lupin in DH is a pretty strong counter example! It isn't really pragmatic (he risks his cover for basically no strategic benefit, Lupin isn't that important in the grand scheme of things to defeat Voldemort), and he still detests Lupin, is afraid of him and bigoted towards him for being a werewolf (which incidentally is another flaw given to losers!). It's straight out of stuff like the Knights Radiant in the Stormlight Archives lol (I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right)

Tbh I'm not sure how much Snape actually despises children (other than Harry, he definitely hates Harry) and how much of the bullying is just stuff he does because he finds cruelty amusing. It's kind of like his social maladjustment. I think you can both interpret Snape as having really good social skills and emotional control (Occlumency, being a spy, etc) and the constant dickishness and cruelty and pissing people off being something he does because he enjoys it, or you can also interpret him as being socially kind of inept like I tend to see in fandom. Both takes on Snape are viable imo, depend on if you lean more into the competent parts of his character or into the loser parts.

One of the reasons I find Snape kind of unique as a character in the stories I've read in that his particular combination of traits is... rare. By this I mean in that A) he has virtues and skills that would normally appear in a main character, a hero, hell even a teen boy power-fantasy, completely larger than life demonstrations of competence and virtue, while at the same time B) having traits that would normally be given to petty villains in order to make them look lame/pathetic, in order for the audience to laugh at the loser. (petty villains are not the same as regular villains, it's the difference between Filch and Voldemort. Voldemort is infinitely more evil but is rarely someone you pity/think is a loser the way you do Filch).

For A) he is a genius immensely skilled at magic and is hyper competent, inventing spells and potions as a teenager, is self sacrificing and brave to ridiculous extremes, over and over again, more than any other character bar the protagonist himself, is a spy that constantly makes the main villain look like a fool, is so virtuous he risks himself to save people he hates because it's the right thing to do, has tons of sarcastic one liners and witty jokes, is intimidating and smooth and has presence, I could go on. All these are traits you give to the Harry Potters of the world.

For B) he's ugly in a very visceral way, he bullies children who did nothing to him and makes them cry, he's bullied and never truly gets his revenge, in fact the girl he's in love with gets together with his bully, he's constantly humiliated (i.e. the Neville boggart scene where he's made to dress in an old woman's clothes, Dumbledore telling him that he disgusts him, the SWM scene). All this is stuff you give to the Filch's of the world.

More interesting than gray morality of whatever the fuck, which I've seen before, Snape is unique to me in that he's as much of a classical hero, larger than life teenage hyper-competence power fantasy made to idealize and try (and inevitably fail) to live up to as he is a pathetic petty tyrant loser made for the audience to laugh at and feel sorry for while hating him at the same time. It's like if you fused Harry Potter's virtues with Argus Filchs flaws. And he never really stops being either of these things throughout the story, he is cool and pathetic always. It's what makes him so incongruous to me, and part of what makes him inspire such strong emotions. People, whether fans or people that hate him, don't really know on what traits to lean into more: Is he cool or pathetic? Lame or awesome? The reality is that he's both. At both extremes at the same time, writing Snape correctly requires toeing the line between power-fantasy and masochistic self-flagellation.

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“All art is political” where “political” is basically used to mean “the way society is organized and functions” isn’t even true as stated even if it weren’t a uselessly broad interpretation. Realistic self portraits are informed by the laws of physics and the way the brain interprets light, both of which are older than society

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Someone should write a vampire society fantasy story where the big twist is that it’s a giant vegan allegory and transitions into horror near the end. Just straight up copy industrial factory farming but for humans and have none of the characters (which you’ve spent the whole previous part of the story developing and having the audience connect with) bat an eye.

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no im sorry but I definitely am going to need to know more about ??? A cannibal??? An ethical one?? Visiting your school to talk about cardiovascular diseases?? Please

Guy who visited went on a plane flight in the 70’s which crash landed into the Andes mountains along with his rugby team. He and the other survivors lasted about a week with the left over rations, but once their piss turned black they resorted to… other food sources. It was ethical because they only ate people that were already dead and they all agreed that if they died the others were allowed to eat them. They were stuck there for three months until the dude and one other guy went on a ten day trek and managed to find a guy. Dude’s name was Roberto Canessa, and later he became a cardiologist. There’s a movie about the event that came out recently on Netflix, it’s called Society of the Snow. I rec it

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HP x ASOIAF fusion. Remus Lupin is Barristan the Bold.

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Hard Man who makes Hard Decisions and sees himself as super rational but is actually a hypocrite and just as emotionally driven as the people he derides is a super common trope but I’d like to see the opposite.

Soft and warm man who sees himself as super in touch with his feeling and very passion driven but is a hypocrite since he’s actually rational and calculating

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GRRM should add a Romeo and Juliet plotline between House Bracken and House Blackwood at some point

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“And the meek shall inherit the earth”. Unreal cooking. Three Michelin star level stuff. Jesus was on fire with that one

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what's your most unhinged hp take?

Idk. Maybe that Snape’s arc is unironically the same type of arc characters like Peter Parker go through?

Not really unhinged though, just funny. Idk, I’d have to think about it more lol. If I ever think of an appropriate one I’ll reblog this post, so follow me anon if you want to stay updated

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HC that Dumbledore talking shop with Snape about Potions or Occlumency is probably the only time he dislikes talking about magic. Basically the only times he’s talking to a superior in any area of magic since Tom Riddle and Grindelwald, brings up bad memories.

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tbh i think its kind of awesome how bodybuilding has developed its own body-aesthetic sense basically unrelated to normie body-aesthetic sense. its unfortunate it invovles a sort of self destruction. altho many of these guys seem to be having fun with it. it takes all kinds. all gods critters have a place in the choir