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inkskinned · 7 months

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it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

#i can't believe i have to say this #the conservative party is legit like ''is it anything good? okay we hate it.''#''lets kill lgbt people and ummmmm school children shouldnt be able to read they should be at home watching jordan peterson :)"#the fact that it's like all related is. wild.#like it's wild bc if u start being like. actually making it impossible to afford housing is part of how they keep the nuclear family.....#it's just like lines connecting to lines. EXCEPT ITS OBVIOUS?#what's wild to me about most conspiracy theorists is that they're like . ohhhh the govt is hiding shit!!!!!!! they don't want u to know!!!#and im like. this old man literally got up on stage and said he hates public education and will let our kids die before taking away ak-47s #and ppl are like: lol thats just bob's sense of humor he didn't mean it literally uwu

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quixtrix · 5 months

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rayman, eden's feel good american dream story; an analysis

guess who's back with taking ubisoft's silly guys and cutting them open. yknow, if you strip rayman of his personality, of all the behind the scenes we get of him, we get a run of the mill news reporter that is an immigrant, who by face alone serves as a shining ray of hope. he's easily something that by all means, can be classified as a diversity hire. immigrant, nonhuman (which in the world of clh can be considered to be equated with poc irl), and notably the only one in his work environment. don't believe me?

we rarely ever see anyone other than rayman on the show in the form of a coworker. the only time we do see other eden affiliated people, they are both white. "but you can't see red's face!!" there is a reason his dialogue makes you think of more right leaning people with their claims of 'wokeness is destroying everything' under something like april from tmnt being black and not ginger. he's a caricature meant to represent a specific group of people under fascism; those who have successfully consumed the fearmongering and have let it turn from fear of those that they are told are beneath them into hatred for them. there is also the fact that on live tv he throws up a middle finger, refers to an implied group of immigrant people as 'filthy interdimensional alien scum,' and seemingly gains no backlash for it. yes, the other reporter does try to give red a chance to go back on his words, but he sticks to it. and despite all of this, we get no indication that neither red nor the niji 6 had to apologise or received punishment for this. in fact, red is possibly given more chances by eden due to him being weirdly in charge of bullfrog's containment in a way? (i'm not entirely sure WHY he was there, but as he is one of eden's tv personalities, he's at a possibly televised trial of a terrorist.) now if you compare this to rayman, who also acted inappropriately on tv by literally saying fuck, you'd come to realise that rayman was treated so much more harshly. he was IMMEDIATELY replaced by a clone of himself, with no warning nor any indication that eden would do such a thing. it's very likely this was one of, if not the first time that rayman has slipped up like this on live tv. maybe it's a repeat offence considering his personality, but then you could argue that red is a repeat offender of the same shit and then you have to wonder why a soldier like red was not easily replaced but someone who is the literal face and voice of eden was with ease. it's because rayman made himself more than jus a story, he humanised himself by showing a peek of his raw feelings. remember that cute little exposition of the rayman kids show about hybrids? where we see all of these hybrids working as society's grunts and the kids are told to be thankful for hybrids? it's very sweet and gives a good message! now the rayman kids show is a product of eden propaganda, but rayman very much has a hand in it, most likely as a writer. he uses his platform to speak on issues that has happened and affected him. this can be seen in his biopic.

jus sit with this image for a moment. you ever think about why rayman is specifically made as an alien? why he's specifically an immigrant? in real life news reports and speeches, there is a difference in implications when people use immigrants and not aliens. you wanna know why?

as someone apart of an immigrant family myself, i live in a community of other immigrants. majority of them are hispanic, and while i myself am not hispanic, i am very aware of how hispanic immigrants were referred to and treated by politicians under trump's presidency. how couldn't i? even as children in middle school and elementary, we had discussions about what trump was saying because it directly targets my friends and their families. they are people targeted by a man who specifically uses derogatory terms to dehumanise them, to make it easier to justify in the average american mind that the government is doing the right thing by keeping out and protecting america from these so-called 'invading animals.' makes what red was saying earlier feel very on the nose, right? adi shankar, the showrunner for captain laserhawk, is also an immigrant man. immigrated from india, which by the way, did you know has a lot of people immigrating for the purpose of having a better life? that's a common sentiment that can be found in every single immigrant family's story. i've asked my filipino mother why she took an opportunity to live and work in america, and she told me it's because she wanted to give her children a better life than what we would have had in the philippines. hell, i bet if you share a similar background to me, you can ask your own parents the same thing and get the exact same answer, regardless if you came from latin america or africa, or asia. it's because of the concept of the american dream. everyone who has ever engaged with any degree of immigrant discussion has heard of the american dream. it's a concept that seems to be consistently proven via word of mouth, with the biggest examples being celebrities. they will always, without fail, eventually speak about the american dream within their backstories. and typically, they will use their platforms to further empower others within their community. it's why people from specific ethnicities tend to group together, why people make art meant as something akin to a homage to their people. it provides hope to the masses, makes you relate to the person on the screen, and believe that this society is truly a gracious one by providing opportunity. because yeah, it may be bad, but it could be worse. i mean we appreciate you! just look!

dont mind the fact that the majority of opportunities allotted to you is grunt work, the work where you at the base of the pyramid, with the harder jobs and the jobs no one wants to do. dont mind the fact you will be actively dehumanised, forced to work for hours in conditions we wouldn't put anyone else in, but hey. we appreciate you. we thank you. and yknow, you can become more than what you are. yknow, we let someone just like you be more than what you are! nevermind the fact that if they slip up, they'll be met with MUCH harsher criticism in comparison to someone who isn't you! aren't we so gracious? i probably sound a bit like matpat's insane out of context real world examples, but this show is filled with political imagery, so let me be. anyways, let's get back to eden and rayman. rayman, despite being specifically from dimension x as an alien, keeps hybrids in mind when he's doing his work.

people of colour tend to share solidarity with one another due to the fact that surface wise, we share similar struggles. to grossly oversimplify things, we all face discrimination through our appearances and are oppressed by the rules of a society created by our white oppressors. again, hybrids and dimension x immigrants can be equated to irl poc, and despite being different from each other, there is still community. rayman keeps them in mind, hoping to make things better for the overall nonhuman and nonnative (native as in naturally born) population of eden. but, rayman is not what he believes he is. because despite everything he has worked for, despite what he has tried to do, he is still a facilitator of the fascist regime that has an active hand in the perpetual oppression of his own people. one of the core concepts within fascism is us versus them. it's an easy way to instill fear (which is very much needed in fascism to make it easier to lie to the masses) and it's used in multiple layers, beginning with a large group (ex. us versus ussr, capitalism vs communism), then progressively sizing down (ex. saying all eastern europeans are communist, then going smaller and say all those affiliated with eastern europeans are communist) with the goal being to put people against each other and break up community since if you put your minds together, you'll start to realise that the fascist system is bullshit. what i've personally come to find is that in order to hide the fact that there is fascism lurking is that someone that can be considered a 'them,' an other, will be given a seat at the table. it's so they can be used as an excuse, a human shield, when they inevitably slip up and can be paraded to the masses as proof that the other is not as smart or powerful as 'us.' the 'other' within the 'us' is used as something to look down at, while also justifying to oneself that they have a place, that they are not being oppressed. they have an opportunity as much as anyone else! so long as they don't mess up. rayman messes up, and is shunned from 'us.' hes a mistake, impure, clearly not like 'us,' 'us' who had been so gracious to give this 'other' a place. he's cut out and discarded because he has well worn his purpose, and clearly, they can just get another little puppet. they'll dress him up and make him worthy of being one of 'us,' and make sure that this one won't fall to the fault of his little ideas. which is exactly what leads to rayman's transformation of ramon. being forcibly forced out and discarded by eden because he showed his true ideas makes him realise that there was no real place for him within the system. because what good is his work if it leads to what he tried not to create? it's worthless, just as the system it attempts to thrive in is.

tl;dr, rayman is a representation of the american dream, specifically celebrities. he tries to do what he can with his platform, but the fact is that within a fascist system, his impact is not entirely felt in the way he wants it to. that is why he becomes ramon.

anyways if you reached the end of THIS LONG ASS PIECE GOOD LORD thank you!! always open to discuss this and take criticism, my ask box is open in the lil 'who's asking' :^]

#this was a fucking long one my bad #this is inspired by saji sharma's video on mindy kailing #in the sense that it made a few things click nd well here we are #i'm on my fourth rewatch and yeah #yeah i had to say smth bc i dont think anyone has said shit abt this?#i blame the fact that i believe theres not that many poc doing the lil insane analysis thing i do #which is fine btw #also sorry if i got anything wrong !!#im slightly going off of my own memory sooo #captain laserhawk #rayman #clh rayman #captain laserhawk rayman #all the rayman tags bc idk what to do #character analysis

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molsno · 8 months

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hii so im kind of confused about the general inner workings of transmisogyny as an extension of transphobia and was hoping you could clarify. basically, transphobes & terfs in particular say that trans women are men, however they treat trans women differently than men, dehumanizing them on the basis of their gender. i always interpreted this as a form of gender discrimination that aims to define trans women as a lower or subhuman class, a third gender of “not quite men but undeserving of the title of woman”. does this conflict with the concept of bioessentialism, i.e. that trans women are fundamentally men? i see people say that “transphobes see trans women as men” but from experience that’s not quite true. men receive privilege and rewards for being men that trans women don’t. sorry if this is incoherent im just trying to get a better understanding of it

your understanding is pretty good to be honest. trans women are a separate gender class - an underclass to be specific - and transmisogynists are aware of this, even if they claim to see us as men. does this conflict with bioessentialism? not necessarily, but in some ways it does.

the thing is, though, logical consistency doesn't particularly matter to bigots. that's why basically all of the laws designed to oppress trans women, despite all of the fearmongering about how some technicality in how they're worded will result in them targeting cis women and other tme people, are ultimately only going to be enforced to the fullest extent against trans women. for example, tme people would rightfully be furious if a teenage cis girl was subjected to a genital examination due to the suspicion that she's trans and playing in a high school girls' sport. this would unambiguously be sexual assault, after all. but ultimately, she would be allowed to continue playing (not that she'd likely want to after something so traumatizing, but I digress), and she would probably (not certainly though) have some kind of recourse available to her due to the backlash this incident would cause. if this happened to a teenage trans girl, though, would anyone care? would there be outrage about this? she would have gone through the exact same kind of sexual assault, but the law in that scenario would be functioning exactly as intended. no form of recourse would be available to her. sure, you could make the case that a cis girl might not be able to sue the school district due to financial or other barriers, but a trans girl would have no ground to stand on, legally speaking; she would have broken the law, no matter how unjust and discriminatory the law is.

so violence against trans women broadly isn't recognized as violence against women because we aren't viewed as women. but we're not viewed as men, either. for another example, let's work through the lens of sexual assault again. if a tme person of any gender accuses a trans woman of sexual assault, there is little to no doubt that she will be viewed as guilty automatically, both by other tme people and by the law (the trans panic defense is still legally admissible in many places). in the best case, this will lead to her ostracization and isolation, putting her at higher risk for instability and suicide. in the worst case, this will lead to her imprisonment or death - REGARDLESS of if the accusation is actually true or not. the justification for this is that trans women are secretly perverted men who are trying to prey on innocent cishet people, but the basic idea underlying that premise isn't even something tme people truly believe! if they actually viewed trans women as men, then her guilt wouldn't be quite so certain. men can commit sexual assault every day and face no consequences for it, even when brought to trial with clear and damning evidence, because patriarchy ensures that men won't be held accountable for their actions. of course, this isn't always the case, marginalized men often do face intense scrutiny, many times involving violence. but even adjusting this analysis to account for additional factors such as racism, trans women still receive absolutely none of the same solidarity, leniency, or respect that men of the same demographics as them do.

fundamentally, trans women aren't treated like women or men in society. we're treated as a disposable and undesirable underclass of women that everyone else is free to abuse without consequence. any claims by transmisogynists about what gender they see us as is posturing. we are treated in unique ways as a result of our status as transfeminine. that's exactly what we mean when we talk about how transmisogyny is a unique form of oppression. bioessentialism certainly plays a part, but its contradictions are so obvious that it can only be understood as one piece of a much larger puzzle.

#ask #acelez #I know this post is absolutely gonna get backlash but at this point I'll take whatever they throw at me #thank you for being willing to listen I appreciate it #transmisogyny #my writing

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genderkoolaid · 1 year

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"male aligned people are trying to invade wlw spaces!!"

huh, really? do you have proof for that? and why exactly do you think they are trying to do that? where did you first hear the idea that men are trying to invade women's spaces by pretending to be women?

oh, I see. it's not TERF rhetoric if by "males" you mean "trans men and multigender people and people who were amab who aren't 100% women and [insert lesbian heretic group here]." And it's totally a real problem causing serious harm despite that... I can't think of a single example where a multigender person identifying as a lesbian in good faith did anything to harm cis lesbians.

Who are always somehow the biggest victims here, you ever notice that? This kind of fearmongering always seems to imply that the purpose of wlw/women's spaces is to protect women who are Peak Women, meaning cis lesbians, and if anything seems to threaten them, it has to go. I wonder if maybe there's some sort of ideology that treats lesbianism as the pinnacle of women's liberation because it is seen as the most a FEMALE can SEPARATE HERSELF from MALES. I wonder WHERE you may have gotten the idea that MALES are actively and insidiously trying to INVADE WOMEN'S SPACES.

But sure, that "fuck terfs" in your bio is really moving.

#m.

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ragnarozzys · 2 months

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tumblr user ragnarozzy you have to answer me seriously. what are the classpects of the gang from always sunny in philadelphia, in your opinion

oh boy. WE'VE BEEN DISCUSSING THIS AS WELL so ok. you can get my thoughts on classpects and as a bonus, also the blood colors i think each of the gang would be if they were trolls.

charlie (bronze): bard of space mac (jade): maid of heart dennis (indigo): prince of mind dee (indigo): knight of doom frank (purple): heir of rage

charlie is the lowblood of the gang and that's why the rest of them would feel like he's automatically assigned to "charlie work". he's a bronze so he can commune and handle animals like rats, cats, and birds. bards are known to be the WILD CARD in a session which charlie firmly is!! he can make or break a session like the way he handles the bar. he keeps the space around him small (being difficult to get out of philly or shrinking the space of his apartment into a studio by blocking off rooms) and while generally laidback, he has shown a routine and a resistance to change. bonus, he’s also creatively inclined (various songs, the musical, sewing, etc).

mac is a jade since a lot of their character arcs can revolve around repression (which mac has Plenty of). purple was also considered for his religious fanaticism but mac wouldn't be that high on the hemospectrum imo. mac is pretty solidly a heart player to me. he is obsessed with his own identity and sense of self. as a maid, he lets others dictate that for him whether its his dad, dennis, the gang, etc. is he the religious guy, the big guy, the gay guy, the ireland episodes also touch a lot on this. he feels every emotion strongly. very heart player.

dennis and dee had a privileged upbringing and think themselves better than others bc of it, considering themselves part of the noble elite (despite having little to no real influence). they're indigo for sure and as twins, should be the same caste.

dennis immediately is a prince of mind to me. he ghosts heart because his decisions to manipulate people and mess with their heads is powered by his own emotional motivations and self (largely for his ego). he insists on standing out, strongly believes that his sense of logic and reason is above all others, and is not afraid to cut down other people in calculating ways to believe he's right.

dee is kind of a hard one to pin down but we settled around on knight of doom. knights tend to be insecure with themselves and hide it with confidence and an obsessive effort to make themself more useful. dee is not a stranger to doom and negativity and moreso, has weaponized it for her benefit, even introducing doom to others like cricket or the guy who called her his "rock bottom".

frank, as the one with the most power and pull in the group using his business status and money while also being insanely unpredictable, is a purpleblood. dude is all rage aspect to me, he embodies anger and fear. he's stubborn, skeptical, quick tempered, easily paranoid at the drop of a hat and manipulates others with his own fearmongering and falsities.

I HOPE THIS WAS A SERIOUS ENOUGH ANSWER this is something that i've been pondering about with my friends since like 2022

#oz txt #long post #ask ozzy #anonymous #homestuck #iasip

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pillarsalt · 1 month

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How do you cope with loneliness? My friends are so important to me but sometimes I feel like I can't fully relate to them anymore, and I just think about how they would hate me if they knew I was GC. I have TIF and even a few TIM friends that I love and cherish very dearly because I can see that they've just fallen victim to a toxic ideology feeding their body dysmorphia and self-esteem issues. But I can't tell them how genuinely worried I am about their mental health or send them detrans testimonies that I think they would relate to because they'd think I was some hateful violent monster that I'm not. Even the content creators that bring me joy and comfort are all so fiercely anti-TERF and it just makes me sad. I don't want to hurt anyone. I even distanced from the radfem community a bit because I felt like I was becoming too hateful towards men and TIMs when I truly believe many of the ones in my life are just trying their best and fell victim to a manipulative ideology that myself and other women also fell for. It's not that I wish I was still a TRA, because I feel much more at peace internally with my identity and my belief system, but I don't know if I can say peaking has made me happier overall. I feel like I don't fit in anywhere now. Making radfem friends helped a little bit but it's not the same as being around people I've known for years and gotten close to for reasons other than this one shared belief. I don't just want to abandon them all. And it's FRUSTRATING to see people spew misinformed fearmongered nonsense and not be able to actually help them dissect those beliefs. Feeling like the only one who sees things for how they really are, but forced to play along regardless, is just so restrictive and isolating.

To be completely honest with you, I don't have a great answer. I've been lucky to have one or two close friends at a time to whom I can tell everything, including my uncensored feminism-related beliefs. I've also been (and currently am) in friend groups with multiple people who identify as trans or are dating someone who identifies as trans, and have had to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself to keep the peace. I agree it's incredibly difficult sometimes, and I know a fair few of them would instantly drop me if they knew I was a "terf". It's kind of funny because I know some of them have an inkling of what I think about the issue, but say nothing so they don't have to fight with me. If anyone asked my opinion directly, I wouldn't lie, but I admit that I lie by omission.

It is hard to watch the ones who take the medicalization route hurt themselves. My ex girlfriend and I still talk, she's a they/them nonbinary now and despite always and still being very feminine and never expressing discomfort with her body before (including posting thirst traps often,) she wants to get a mastectomy soon. It sucks because of course after having looked into this phenomenon for so long, I'm well aware of the complications and side effects that can result from a major procedure like this: phantom pain/itching, extensive and restrictive scarring, the risks of infection and necrosis, and of course the risk of regretting having an entire organ unnecessarily removed from your body later on when it's no longer fashionable to do so. It sucks that voicing even the mere suggestion that it might be a bad idea is enough to have you shunned as an apostate. I genuinely care about her and I would feel similarly if she was having any other radical cosmetic surgery like breast implants or a BBL. At the end of the day, our friends will make their own choices regardless of how we feel about it, and the only thing we can really do is be there for them in the end.

I feel similarly to you in that I don't want to hurt anyone, only to protect people and especially women from the harms that are intrinsic to trans ideology. Unfortunately, you can't help anyone who doesn't want to be helped. Sometimes though, you can play dumb and ask questions that might get them to think a little bit more about the rhetoric they're repeating. For example, I often go out for drinks with coworkers, one of whom is a she/they nonbinary woman. One time she said something about how she couldn't be a full they/them because she's still 'girly' sometimes. I said something like "doesn't it seem kind of regressive to associate how feminine you are with how much of a woman you are? what about butch lesbians?" She didn't have an answer and brushed it off, but I could see the cogs turning a bit. Playing the uninformed normie pointing out the obvious sometimes gets them to realize how twisted the logic in trans echo chambers can be. And I think sometimes expressing your disagreement with the dogma can show your friends, who know you well and know you're a good person, that, contrary to what they've been told, not everyone who disagrees with gender ideology is an evil nazi out to slaughter transwomen in the streets.

But yes, in general, it is very very isolating to hold radical feminist beliefs. I'm sorry you're going through it. One thing to remember is, there are tons of women even in your general vicinity, who like you, don't buy into gender rhetoric but aren't saying anything in order to preserve their safety and social lives. I do believe that as the world seems to be becoming more aware of the reality of the situation, more and more people will feel able to be open about their dissent, and it will become less of a fringe opinion as the flaws in the ideology are exposed. Here's hoping I guess. Keep your chin up anon.

#ask

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impossiblesuitcase · 3 months

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I know this type of fic will seem strange, but do you remember where Cinder in the first book says that everyone will be aware of what Kai does, and that he will forget her, if this happened as an alternate universe, do you really believe that Kai forgot? of it, or remember it as nostalgia for what could have been as couple

Thanks your for your answer

I intended for this to be a five sentence response. Ha.

(Remember?)

He doesn’t remember her.

Granted, he doesn’t even remember what it feels like to take a full, unstrained breath. Kai is a busy teenager, a grieving son, an ill-prepared emperor and then the happiest widower alive. He can’t pretend to not be overjoyed by his wife’s untimely passing after her brief but bloody one-year stint as empress. The Earthen population didn’t seem to mind much either when the evil Lunar queen was assassinated in her bed by a group of revolting malcontents.

Kai only remembers her when the storm takes mercy on them and calms. The girl at the marketplace. Who’d never worn the gloves he’d given her to the ball she hadn’t attended. The brown eyes he’d never seen again. As the New Beijing Market celebrates a new era of peace with streamers and lanterns and sticky buns, Kai is pulling on his grey hoodie and weaving through the crowds to an unmarked booth. Instead he finds the musty, dark store replaced by a coffeé vendor. The nearby sellers tell him the young mechanic skipped town.

(Kai does remember her joking prod in the elevator, offering up that she was planning to run away to Europe. Now, Kai doesn’t think it was all that much of a joke.)

He searches for her, briefly. Her name turns up no more net results than what had been there the first time he’d sought her services. In checking government records he learns that her guardian reported the disappearance, inciting a police investigation. He has his own staff put on the case, who probably interpret this as a conscientious initiative to apprehend a fugitive as any responsible emperor would.

Reading the conclusions from the fruitless search by his agents, this is where Kai learns that Linh Cinder is a cyborg.

Something blankets him. Not...disgust or revulsion. Thick, encompassing understanding. He’s near laughter when it strikes him precisely between his third and fourth ribs because he knows that it doesn’t matter if he finds her.

The gloves. The obfuscation. A cyborg, an emperor. This is why she rejected him.

After this, the expressed need to find find find her feels vain. Find her and what? Tell her that—although he likes her—a cyborg would never be accepted by the public as his partner? Then he’d be tearing her away from whatever sanctuary she’s found herself in and subjecting her to capture by the authorities. Because she has cut out her ID chip—illegal. Fled the country without a permit—illegal. Disobeyed orders from her guardian—illegal for cyborgs. Whatever Imperial pardon he could try to extend would be nullified by the Cyborg Protection Act.

It doesn’t matter. She hasn’t been found. He’s no luck at searching for things anyway. That’s why he gave up on Selene. What’s one more thing to give up on?

So Kai doesn’t remember her. But he does revise the Cyborg Protection Act. He is appalled to discover that—despite having Levana’s antidote in his tenuous possession—the cyborg draft is still in operation. Luna is not a trustworthy government under regent Sybil Mira, they fearmonger. They might still need to develop an antidote of their own, they reason.

Both Earth and Luna are barely refraining from seeking blood as it is. After Levana was assassinated, Luna declared full-scale war on Earth, killing hundreds of thousands. Earth retaliated by detonating bombs on the craters of the moon, threatening that next time they wouldn’t spare the inhabited domes. The ceasefire went as follows: Luna and Earth would not intermingle. Luna would provide Earth with the Letumosis antidote in exchange for Earth sending Luna their desperately-needed supplies. No one deemed this agreement as trustworthy. No one had better ideas.

His decision to end the draft is met with mixed response. Kai just secretly hopes that Cinder is watching, holed up in her new musty, dark booth in her new European city with a flicker of pride.

Years past. Funnily enough, Kai learns that—at some point—pretending to forget and forgetting are not so dissimilar.

But sometimes he sees a malfunctioning android down a palace hall and remembers her steady gloved hands on Nainsi. Sees a woman with almost the right shade of brown in her hair and eyes and skin but never close enough. Yet each time, he collects himself, shakes his head and doesn’t give in, and when he marries a second time to a woman he actually wants to be with, his wife’s radiant smile expels any romantic thought of any other girl that has ever crossed his mind.

— — —

Fourteen years. That’s how long it takes for his loose threads to finally fray. Kai is in his office being briefed by Torin for an upcoming public statement by his cabinet. It has taken fourteen years after Levana’s death to fully uncover all the scrupulously concealed records of the atrocities she committed. As former empress, her crimes have to be reported by the Eastern Commonwealth, though no reasonably-minded Earthen would attribute her crimes to anyone but her own wicked self.

This report intrigues him. It’s not the usual analytics of Levana’s sins against the Earthen public, rather a detailed list of all the Lunars she victimised.

“Why are we reporting this?” Kai asks Torin, keeping his daughter from bouncing off his lap with steady hands. “What Levana did to the Lunar citizenry is beyond our scope of responsibility.”

“Not those on Luna, Your Majesty,” Torin informs. “This report refers to the illegal Lunar refugees who were hiding on Earth.”

Kai vaguely recalls Levana screeching once about how she would kill all the Lunars he had insubordinately smuggled into the country. He hadn’t believed that there were any Lunars on Earth at that naïve eighteen, but a thirty-three-year-old Kai is not surprised. He scrolls past the initial pages of exposition and gets right to the list of victims. He wants a number. How many Lunars were there really on Earth? That day on the balcony, when Levana had claimed that there had been a Lunar among those protestors—had it been true?

It’s page eight that he sees her name.

Linh Cinder. Cyborg. Lunar. Licensed mechanic in New Beijing. Records found to be falsified. True age unknown. True name unknown. Date of immigration unknown.

Cyborg. Lunar.

Kai’s hands are shaking. He places his daughter on the ground. “Torin,” he wheezes, “take her to her mother.”

His daughter’s soft, “Daddy? Was wrong?” goes unanswered.

Once they’ve left the room, Kai is alone with the horror lying in his hands. He clicks on her profile and a full page with her name and portrait appears. It’s a mugshot, but without the official stamp of the Earthen Union law enforcement, he knows it was Levana’s own team of minions doing the arresting. Her hair is loose, glossy and slick. Her eyes defiant but sunken into dark sockets. Her cheeks are full. She was not starving, wasting away in poverty. Evidently she did manage to make a life for herself on the run.

The biography is short. Linh was reported missing by her guardian on 28 August 126 T.E. at 08:31. CCTV footage shows her driving a second-era automobile from New Beijing to France over the course of 8 days. Linh hid in Nice for 7 months using a false ID chip and started a small mechanic business. Records of an apartment lease were found under the false identity. She was discovered by Lunar authorities when a mandatory Letumosis blood test identified Lunar genealogy in her genome. She was swiftly sentenced and executed without a trial on an unknown date for crimes of illegal departure from Luna.

That’s it. The only information. It limns a tale of another victim of the tyrant with not a stroke of sympathy. Kai thrusts down the port, clawing his hands through his hair.

Cyborg. Lunar. Executed.

He calls his wife.

The line clicks immediately. “Honey, is everything okay?” asks his wife, concern cooling her timbre. “Torin said you were all out of sorts.”

His words are faint. “Hey, love, do you remember that girl I liked before you?”

He can hear her smile. “The mechanic?”

“Yeah.”

"What about her?" her voice heaves and Kai hears a small giggle; Torin has brought their daughter back to their quarters. His wife is picking up the heavy three-year-old.

He has no strength to censor himself, even with young ears present. “She’s dead. Levana killed her.”

A long silence. The thread being pulled, pulled, pulled as the fraying creeps up to the heart of it. The girl whispers to her mother, “who Mummy? Who’s Daddy talking ‘bout?”

Her mother doesn’t explain. “Oh, love, I’m so sorry,” she consoles plaintively in that genuine lilt he knows is sincere. His superlatively gracious wife has never judged him for his grief over the lost cyborg, for regretting he couldn’t help the troubled young girl from a bad home. Never has she assigned ulterior motives of him mourning ‘the one that got away’ in some jealous plea for validation.

He says nothing. He had forgotten her brown eyes, her smile and her gloves. The sarcasm and the pessimism. Each detail had slipped away and now a single photo, an unuttered apology, is trying to resuscitate the dead.

“Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

Kai reclaims his port and returns to the cover page. It’s entitled: A Comprehensive Account of the Genocide of Lunar Refugees by Queen Levana Blackburn: Names and Implications.

A name. An implication. That’s all she’d be, immortalised in a forgettable list. After the cover page, a number is bolded.

3,582.

The number of Lunar victims. Miniscule compared to Earth’s population. Cinder was almost certainly the only Lunar Cyborg on the list. An oddity. A friendly statistical anomaly.

Never meant to exist. Always meant to be out of reach.

“Kai?”

“It’ll be fine,” he promises, convincing himself of it. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be fine?” she repeats.

That picture is burnt in his retinas; Cinder, forever sixteen. He, now so much older. He doesn’t mourn a lost love. He didn’t love her; he didn’t know her. He mourns an abandoned child who never even knew that someone was looking for her.

Kai exhales slowly and rests his port on the desk next to his wedding photo and his father's signet ring.

“I’ll be fine,” he affirms, “You know, I don’t really remember her.”

— — —

@cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @icarusignite @kaider-is-my-otp @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @cosmicnovaflare @kaixiety @snozkat @mirrorballsss @skinwitch18 @vincentvangothic @bakergirl13 @wassupnye @linh-cindy @therealkaidertrash21

#the lunar chronicles #tlc #lunar chronicles #linh cinder #kaider #emperor kai #angst #kaider fanfiction #this is not a lovey dovey happy ending folks

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refrigeratedboombursts · 24 days

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I admit a large part of why Volo irks me is because I'm a Miss Fortune Sisters stan and, despite having the same origin stories as the protag post-exile and Coin being stated to be compassionate and empathetic, they had no interactions with the protagonist after their exile.

And I wanted the protag to kind of add them to the found family and realise that the fearmongering was only hurting people, instead of Volo offering them a place to stay completely out of the blue and them accepting like their parents never warned them about Stranger Danger(which. Given the various beds you can sleep in in other games, might be the case but i digress.)

#pokemon #pokemon legends arceus #pla #miss fortune sisters #coin pokemon #charm pokemon #clover pokemon #volo pokemon

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dilfbuck · 4 months

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I'm a certified starfield enjoyer, and I don't understand the hate for it. Does it have problems? Yes, absolutely. But it's not a flop by any means. The bethesda games recipe just works for me, and I enjoy it despite its flaws.

It reminds me of the cyberpunk discourse so much, and I can't wait for the narrative around starfield to quiet down

Yeah, I ended up having to leave the starfield subreddit bc every other day the posts are "most disappointing game in the world 0/10 bethesda is so over anyone who likes it is huffing copium" but the next day it will be "this game is actually really good, i dont understand all of the hate in this sub" and both of these posts will have like 500+ upvotes. HDJHDJDKD

I joined r/nosodiumstarfield instead. Much better experience.

One guy in the starfield sub even started this whole fearmongering post about how modders are abandoning starfield in droves and the game is effectively dead, because ONE MODDER made a post in the discord that he didnt like starfield so he wasnt gonna port his multiplayer mod over from skyrim. like. big whoop? who give a shit? but now there's mass hysteria that starfield has destroyed everything we hold dear 😭😭😭

#askbox

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anti-endo-haven · 1 month

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[hey you probably know who this is ;,) feel free to not reply as an ask on your blog or talk in dms or whatever you prefer if you aren't comfortable with the topic, sorry we just. don't know where to go. you don't even have to reply we just. need to speak to someone]

TWs: System doubt, system invalidation Christianity, demons, & cult mentions.

Oh. oh. oh. oh. oh no.

sorry if our wording is jagged or doesn't make sense

despite having some minor religious trauma, we're collectively christian and have a lot of religious imagery headmates, both angels and demons, some in-between etc, sometimes we go to church. but we feel like the black sheep because stereotypical christians feel so judgemental and stuff but we're trying to be good about it because some of our friends and people we know are very kind and patient [we admitted we dated same sex a few years ago and they weren't "YOURE GOING TO HELL" etc but it was still a little awkward].

but. but. that's not the current issue. oh no. nonono. we just saw a short video how a man said he was he/they and multiple people because "we are legion." which is. demon bible stuff. legion is a demon of 6,000 or something i don't know the details. and then afterwards opening tumblr. what do we get greeted with? yes. a fuckinf post saying "Demons refer to themselves as they/them/we/us."

fuck! fuck!!!! we don't have a great relationship with christianity but now parts of our system are like "please don't let me be possessed" and others are "we're christian we can't be??" and others "we have angelic alters how would we be demonic?"

fucking. hhh.. tried to find. a DID christianity blog to vent to and ask for advice how do system christians work together?? because Google doesn't help and stuff?? instead!! great!! a rant about how christianity is a cult.

now i feel like our headspace is in a panic. our religion is invalid. we're not a real system, we're possessed. we don't know what to do or think. why can't we just be normal. why can't we just be a singlet. why do we have to be so ashamed of ourselves to the point of convincing ourselves that we're faking. now some of us are genuinely thinking we're in a fucking cult.

i want to cry so badly how do i calm us down how do i fix this why can't we ever EVER find reliable sources about DID and christianity as one? apparently they can't fucking coexist if its all like this!! hhhhhhggf...

im sorry shining if anything here offends or upsets you or if you don't know how to reply its okay [/gen] we're just. lost. very very. lost.

Okay, so, as someone that does have Christian parts even past religious trauma, you’re not possessed and you’re not faking.

It’s okay to have both angelic, demonic, and in-between alters. It’s not something anyone can harm you over, it’s perfectly okay.

You can still be Christian and be a good person. It’s not unheard of, just rare in some parts of the world or specific countries. It doesn’t mean you’re automatically bad or a black sheep. You’re not the wolf amongst the crowd. We view it as the Christians that are there for everyone are shepherds tending to their flock and protecting a family they enjoy and care for, they’re the ones that someone can go to and have support they need even without religious contexts.

The whole “we are Legion” thing strikes me as fearmongering, as well as “demons use they/them.” And it honestly depends on what you’re talking about. For us, typical “demons” are just trickster spirits or the ones that just want to do things out of boredom. Genuine “demons” are people that do genuinely horrible things.

This is an extremely hot take, especially from me, but just because a religious thing has something that can be cultish around it doesn’t make it a cult. Yes, there can be a cult disguised as that religious thing and can/will cause religious trauma, but that doesn’t make the entire religion bad (which is what we’ve learned to better heal to support friends/family that are Christian rather than just cutting them out entirely). Not every Christian person is going to be related to the disguised issues underneath. It can be hard to see that or understand and a lot of people might find it hard, but it’s also okay to just not interact with the religion but don’t bash it. Also just because people relate the religion to a cult doesn’t mean you were in one, it’s okay to be afraid of it, but don’t harm yourself by thinking that way.

The only thing I can really say is trying to take a break from social media for a little until everything is settled, this is optional. Write down all the reasons you know you aren’t fake. You’re not faking. You’re not possessed, write some positive things down about you and your alters.

It’s perfectly okay to be Christian and have DID/OSDD. A religion doesn’t define you. You’re good enough and you’ll have a place here as well as in DMs. You’re loved.

I’m a little slow on guessing people on anon, but you’ll always stay anon no matter what (even if you DM me). I don’t entirely like assuming who someone is either :)

I’m posting this as an ask for any other Christian DID/OSDD people that also want to have some reassurances regarding things like this.

You’ll always have a spot here, my friend.

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bottlepiecemuses · 3 months

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It's getting sad now seeing you picking fights or inserting yourself in them to get attention, and you're still lonely and ignored by people you're trying to curry favor with. It didn't help that people were warning others to block you, in and out of fandoms.

Or maybe because despite how you guys proclaim how progressive you are you guys come off as self-righteous sociopaths who marginalize those who don't fit your definition of good. You guys say that fundies are toxic, but act as bad as them. Seriously, you guys fear people due to fearmongering propaganda you spread amongster each other. And ironically for people who say Nazi punchers you guys are spreading some of the worst anti-semitism in years yet you guys lack any self-awareness to notice the effect. Also I am doing this because I truly believe you guys are anti-semitic and toxic and making a good amount of Jews unsafe.

#ooc post #israel #i stand with israel #pro-israel #pro israel #anti-zionism is anti-semitism #zionism #pro-zionism #israel is legitimate #israel isn't an aparthied #jewish lives matter #Israeli lives matter

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would-you-punt-them · 2 months

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excited to see your take on this discourse. I've been seeing a lot of it on my dash but it's exhausting, depressing, and everything I've seen so far is basically just fearmongering and inflammatory. too tired to actually look into it myself, and just because people are freaking out and getting emotional doesn't mean it's misinfo, but i hesitate to believe things that are that black-and-white without looking into it, especially with multiple hate mail and defamation campaigns getting flung around.

thanks for putting in the effort for those of us who want to know but just don't have the time for this kind of thing.

despite all the misinformation going around, one thing i think matt genuinely was guilty of in his response was using people's anger to twist the narrative, intentionally mischaracterising his detractors as a hate mob in an attempt to devalue any actually legitimate criticism

so that's why i'm trying my best to write something that's purposefully neutral in tone, with any conclusion i do come to being supported with hard evidence rather than just second-hand information

but it's taking a while, because the whole situation has been depressing from start to finish, and more things just keep popping up that i need to fact-check and then backtrack to include - and it's especially difficult now that he's started deleting posts that i should've archived when i had the chance

still, i'm glad you're looking forward to it <3

(also, if anyone has any screenshots or archived posts, no matter how irrelevant they might seem, please send them to me, i'd really appreciate it)

#asks #not a poll

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denimbex1986 · 5 months

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'Finally watching the first of the three 60th anniversary Doctor Who specials may have left you feeling transformed – like you've regenerated into a new you, even. One that now exists in a world where David Tennant is the Converse-kicking Doctor and his best friend Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) is his no-nonsense sidekick in a newly refurbished minimalist TARDIS. Better yet, she has her memories back.

'The Star Beast' gave us flashes of that infamous moment, which first aired in 2008, when the Doctor did a Men in Black-style memory wipe on Donna to prevent her human brain from frying to a cinder under the weight of all that Time Lord knowledge.

Despite portentous warnings that if Donna ever remembered anything at all of her time with the Doctor she would – imagine this bit in some scary cursive font, surrounded by exclamation marks – be deader than the deadest dead that ever did die, she gets it all back ahead of a TARDIS tootle for old time's sake in the two specials to come.

How so then? Let's not get too bogged down in the details, because in classic Whovian fashion, it was a bit of a marvellous timey-wimey fandangle. This is still a world where perils can be done and undone at the turn of a sonic screwdriver.

Donna has her memories flood back into her consciousness in a way that doesn't harm her and, with her daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney), saves London from the dastardly havoc of the Furby-with-fangs Meep (Miriam Margolyes).

It may even now feel a bit harebrained looking back on the Doctor's fearmongering to Donna's grandfather Wilf, played by the legendary late Bernard Cribbins, about what might befall her if she ever spied an Ood or the like. But when it first aired in 'Journey's End', the fate of such a beloved character was one that essentially felt worse than death.

Few enjoyed watching Donna manically repeat the word "binary" like a DVD with a scratch on it, and barely anyone liked seeing her reduced to tears, begging the Doctor not to do what he then did. In those final moments, Donna said she thought they would travel space and time "forever"; to lose that is one thing, but then to not even know you had lost it felt like an additional cruelty.

There's a reason it was described as "the saddest end for a companion ever" at the time.

Rose (Billie Piper) got her own Xerox copy of the Doctor as a parting gift, while Donna got some lottery winnings – which we now know she gave away to charity anyway – and a forever-gap in her memories.

That heartbreaking conclusion to mighty Donna has rankled with many fans since, after her character had been shaped into someone with a profound sense of self over those adventures with the Doctor, only for that all to be stripped away, leaving her much as the same as when we first met her, chattering away on the phone.

When the Doctor returned to visit Wilf and get that £1 to buy the winning lottery ticket, he confided how challenging his time travelling had been without her, while Donna had been left knowing something was amiss. "Sometimes I see this look on her face," Wilf told the Doctor. "Like she's so sad. And she can't remember why."

'The Star Beast' rewrites an ending Russell T Davies may have since sensed was a foot stepped wrong – perhaps the juiciness of Donna's tragedy, and the impact it would inevitably have on the Doctor, was a storytelling move too tempting to pass up.

While Rose or Martha (Freema Agyeman) might dominate fans' affections, Donna marked a refreshing change in Tennant's companions, moving away from the starry romantic eyes of the two before her to a relationship based on friendship.

Bringing her back and undoing the wipe allows Davies to do more with her character, but also more importantly to do more with her and Tennant's Doctor as he wrestles with what it means to be the apparently softer Fourteenth Time Lord, but back with the face of the Tenth.

It's an absolute thrill to see him back, and it's all the better having her there. From the moment they first run into each other near the shops, the quips are back.

"Word of advice," she tells him. "You can wear a suit that tight up to the age of 35. And no further." In many ways, Donna's lack of romantic interest in the Doctor often allowed her to see him clearest. Even if we will always love the pin-striped suit.

The broad comedy is paired with real soulful warmth. When Donna's reunited with her memories in the Meep's space shuttle, it's moving enough to forgive the memory wipe. "It's like the good old days," Donna tells us.

The Disney cash injection oozes from this special – particularly if you have any recollection of moments like the Slitheen unzipping foreheads and peeling skin suits off in Christopher Ecclestone's reboot season. But underneath the swish new money special effects is a bedrock of humanity, with that friendship now firmly at the heart of this sci-fi story.

Wilf said it best way back when, as the Doctor wrestled with what he had done without a companion at his side. "Don't you see? You need her, Doctor. Wouldn't she make you laugh again? Good ol' Donna."'

#David Tennant #Catherine Tate #Doctor Who #The Star Beast #60th Anniversary #Russell T. Davies #Donna Noble #Bernard Cribbins #Wilfred Mott #Rose Noble #Yasmin Finney #the Meep #Journey's End #Miriam Margolyes #Rose Tyler #Billie Piper #Martha Jones #Freema Agyeman

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