I only recently realized that not everyone grew up in a moderately strict Roman Catholic household because I’m in a 1400-1800s history class and I was the only one who knew the first few questions he asked about it and now I’m just the designated grew up catholic.

I'm gonna rant and vent

I'm gonna rant and vent about people I consider my brethren, my comrades, and my peers. I'm 100% not interested in debating or arguing with anyone at all so don't expect that if you message me.

I fucking hate election year. Every 4 years it's the same god damn song and dance and every other election it's worse and worse. And I'm not talking about some shitty pat ourselves on the back, circle jerking feel good about yourself garbage where I preach to the choir and we all sing "Yeah I feel that way too!"

I'm talking about Leftists, specifically, American Leftists (as I am American this will be therefore be from the point of view of one and my grievances will henceforth be specifically about "AMERICAN" Leftists so foh with your "That's an american centric view" shit).

I'm gonna preface what I'm about to say by stating the obvious. I am a leftist. Whether you fucking like it or not, whether you agree with me being one or not, I am. I don't hate leftists, as hard as this rant will make that easy to believe. I'm just very bothered by trends I see among them. They bother me because, unlike conservatives, I actually want leftists to "win". I actually want us to succeed. But in case your world view is black and white to the point you need me spelling it out for you, yes I am a leftist, I agree with leftists, and I am absolutely repulsed by Conservatism.

Now let me get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to bitch about. Basically, in the past, whenever I saw people bemoan that leftists are largely signal virtuing, morally uptight, jerkasses I thought of it as nothing more than the typically reactionary pant shitting rhetoric we've come to expect from Right-Wing discourse. And to be fair, back than, in the early-mid 2010s it probably was. But now? I don't fucking know anymore, it really does seem like at the very least a worryingly large amount of leftists think they're a part of some clique or social group and don't understand both the implications and power of their own standing. Particularly and most especially when it comes to voting. Let me tell you something, something really fucking important. You have nothing, you are nobody, and you are mostly powerless to do anything at all...EXCEPT for one thing, and that's voting. Yes, you can call your senator and congressperson but even thats only really gonna work if your congressperson or senator is one that'll even consider your interests. Do you think people in Lauren Boebert's district feel confident calling her to complain about trans issues? Yeah no. Every single fucking vote, every single god damn one matters and you can fuck off with your "both parties are the same" and "voting doesn't matter" bullshit. One party is waging a culture war on our entire nation, one party wants to make sure you're following a rigid social hierarchy, one party wants to turn Christianity into state law, one party wants to drape everything in repugnant Christian Nationalism and it's not Democrats.

Yes, yes it sucks that we can only pick from the two. No, no voting third party is not an option, we do not get the privilege of living in a country with a multi-party system. The DNC and the RNC both respectively own the two whole halves of the media industry in the United States, and no I'm not making that up. As cool and based as you think you look here on tumblr preaching about how we'll all vote for some super sick Ultra-Commie Socialist Dream party it's not going to happen. How many people will be inspired by you organizing on tumblr? in public even? on campus? Do you know the statistics you'd need? 2020 had an election turn out of 154 MILLION people! over 81 Million of them voted for Biden, and 74 Million of them voted for Trump! Now let's do a hypothetical, and lets be god damn realistic about it okay? REALISTICALLY, you and your lefty friends will never, ever, in all your attempts and rhetoric and debate, will ever be able to convince a MAGA Trump supporter from 2020 to vote for the Green Party. It will. Not. Happen. So that 74 Million? That stays, you get none of that. But, you could probably convince Progressives and Liberals who voted for Biden to do so (you know, if you actually want to shut the fuck up for 10 seconds and stop crying about how much you claim you hate them so all your friends nod and clap at you for being a super cool edgy leftist). So okay, let's be REALLY optimistic, let's say you convince like 20 million of those people who would've voted for Biden to vote for you, lets be even more optimistic and say you started with a base of 2 million people. I want you to keep this in mind that 2 Million people alone would be a record for the green party. In 2020 they had a popular vote of 406,000, literally less than half a million. But I digress. You're at 22 Million people, now lets consider people who didn't vote in 2020. That's 80 Million people, but, BUT, that's not a big pool of 80 million for you to grab from. We need to consider statistics first. Out of that 80 Million only roughly 30% of them didn't vote specifically because they either were undecided or didn't like the candidates. Therefore your actual pool of candidates interested in voting for you is 56 Million people. If you were only able to convince 20 million Biden voters, chances are you'd convince even less undecided voters. Realistically you should only get a hairs fraction of voters but, I'm trying to make a point here so lets say you get the largest share of Undecided Voters, somehow you're just super cool and based and you convince 30 million to vote for you. Not you have 54 Million votes. Congratulations, you have made US History by being the most voted for third party in the history of the US. You have beaten the previous record set by Jo Jorgensen in 2020 by a whopping 52 Million Votes (yes, really, that's the most a third party has ACTUALLY ever gotten before, just shy of 2 million votes). Despite your epic feel good win, the Orange piece of shit running against you, who has been galvanizing his base and everyone from the most fervant of maga's to your needle dick co-worker you kind of get along with despite voting republican for "fiscal" reasons, has surpassed his previous record by a little bit, he only really pooled in about a million more....which is 75 Million voters. Which is over 20 million people more than you.

Now I get it, I hear you barkin' big dog, we don't decide elections on popular vote, it's decided on the Electoral College. My point here is showing you how unfeasible third parties really truly are. This isn't a movie, this isn't like someone's gonna make some grand speech and everyone claps and comes to their senses and all of a sudden votes for "the right candidate". No, for a party that's NOT Libertarian to get even 10 million people to vote for them would be a historical precedent. And you don't need me to tell you that 10 million people is not nearly enough people spread across 50 states to make up for the electorate you'd need to win an election.

So why is this important? Why is it important we vote against republicans instead of voting for whatever helps us sleep at night, makes us feel good, and makes us look super "in" with our buddies online? Uh, because republicans will continue to do the things they're doing so long as they see it as a means to make themselves electable. Sure, some people say "well it's not MY fault it's the dems faults for not being GOOD enough for me to vote for them" and to that I say pbbbbth, you fucking KNOW better. You KNOW better, because you're a leftist, how dangerous fascism is, how bad and poisonous and terrible Traditionalism is. Consider this, another hypothetical okay? Everyone is so disgusted by the perils of conservatism they unite, as they did in 2020, to vote against them. They do it again in 2024, They do it again in 2028, and a 4th time in 2032. You've now had two full term presidents in the United States, will that make the conservatives go away? no. But will it swing the pendulum back? Yes! YES IT WILL! Politicians only give a shit about one thing and thats GETTING ELECTED. And if those mother fuckers start to realize that conservatism is an UNWINNABLE position, than they will, at the least, begin to abandon Conservatism as a platform for their party.

At the moment, that's NOT what's happening. Instead, we have Conservatives emboldened by 40 years of Reagan Rhetoric slowly shifting the pendulum ever more right. They've been doing it for 4 god damn decades okay, and you think 1 term from a dem president is going to start shifting it back? Fuck. The Fuck. Off. Dems are, from a global perspective, a centre-right party. When and if they do anything to "shift" the pendulum left, it's going to be shifted less to the left and more toward the "centre". Right now THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT!!!! YOU WANT THAT!!! HAVING THE PENDULUM FARTHER AWAY FROM THE RIGHT IS A /GOOD/ THING BECAUSE RIGHT NOW ITS DANGEROUSLY FAR TO THE RIGHT.

This shit doesn't make me liberal, this shit makes me pragmatic. I DONT. LIKE. CONSERVATIVES. I'm guessing if you've read this far /YOU/ probably don't either (or at least you claim to). But I don't hate them because they're rhetoric is bad, because they act like bigots or say mean/offensive things. I hate them because I genuinely hate their ideology, I hate their beliefs, I think everything they want for you and me and society at large is a fucking POISON to us as a modern, progressive society. And that's for obvious reason, they don't WANT us to be a modern, progressive society. If you've hated conservatives this entire time because of any "shocking" or "apalling" things you've seen or heard from them or that MSNBC or your lefty friends have shown you (including me) than I'm sorry but you're hating them for the wrong reasons. I mean, not that it isn't valid to hate someone for being a dick head. But your repulsion, your disgust should run deeper than that. You should be terrified and stop at nothing to want to crush Conservative ideology from the grip it has on American society. The vast majority of conservatives want to kill you, do you understand that? Whether that's because of their bigoted views, or because of LITERALLY CENTURY LONG WORTH OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST LEFTIST AND SOCIALIST VALUES they see you as a threat and want you dead. As much as they point and ridicule "libs" and "liberals" like you do, the liberals will be fine. It's YOU who won't be, it's YOU who should be hating them the most. And from what I see, you don't. Because if leftists truly felt threatened by conservatism they'd be stopping at nothing to rid it from our system. Instead, Leftists are more concerned with policing themselves, more concerned with having some super cool "hot take" on whoever the current president is. Leftists are more comfortable being the edgy outcasts, and if they're successful, they're not outcasts anymore. Fuck that. I haven't claimed leftism my entire life since I was 13 (I'm 30 now) just cuz I wanted to be edgy, and different. I didn't want to "look smart" and prove some "moral superiority" over people. You can do that shit with literally any political ideology. I claimed Leftism as my political ideology because it is, to me, the most pragmatic to ending universal suffering. And with that, I want leftism as an ideology to prevail and succeed. Not remain in the fucking shadows, ever caught on the side-lines of a worsening tug-o-war between Liberals and Fascists.

And most importantly of all, I want this to succeed, it NEEDS to succeed. And to do that we MUST unify, divide, and conquer. Yes, that means at least for a while we have to unify with Liberals. Our battle right now should be with the scourge of Fascism. The Soviet's didn't turn their guns mid-way through fighting the Nazi's cuz "erm actually the Allies are cringe too" no, they fucking united against a common, worse enemy. In fact, let me dive into the Nazi's cuz there's an interesting tid bit here. The Weimar republic, pre-Nazi rise, was composed of like 3 "left" wing parties. Needless to say by US standards all 3 of these parties would be considered left of Democrats but I digress. The refusal of all 3 of these parties to unite and caucus together created fractions in the political system of Germany at the time. This made it way fucking easier for the Nazi's to come in and sweep things up afterwards. There's many reasons WHY they were fractured, but those are beside the point of what I am trying to say here. It's like, that one part from Sun Tzu's Art Of War that people actually remember: "Divide and Conquer" with political division, the Nazi's easily just swept in and destroyed them. Do not forget, Fascism is an inherently authoritarian ideology. It is therefore organized and demands rigid conformity. If we do not unite, we will be easier to break apart and fall victim to it's clutches.

Finally, and lastly, I think this last part just comes from our horrible education system in the US. I understand many people probably didn't take Civics in high school, to those people I am sorry. As there's no way you could get how our system works because the system itself failed to educate you. If you did take civics in high school, or god forbid college, than you fucking know better. YOU! WILL NOT! CHANGE ANYTHING! IN A MEASLY 4! FUCKING! YEARS!

I know what we want, I know because I share a lot of the same values as you, even if I don't share your methods. I also know them because I've been reading you people post about them for the better part of like 15 years! NOTHING YOU WANT TO SEE IN GOVERNMENT, NONE OF THE CHANGES YOU WANT TO SEE HAPPEN! NONE OF THEM ARE GONNA HAPPEN IN ONE PRESIDENCY! Need I remind you that the current state of affairs has been shifted to the Right over a process that has taken FOURTY! FUCKING! YEARS!? and you think somehow that you'll just come in with some super cool epic revolutionary spirit and change shit in a couple years? That's not realistic! IT's just! NOT! But that doesn't mean we CANT change things. Yes, it does mean we have to change things slowly, it DOES mean we have to play the long game. But guess what, the Conservatives have been playing the long game since that shit bag Reagan leaked poisonous venom from his gunshot wound in DC. In fact they've probably been doing it longer, from 1965.

You wanna know if things can get worse? You already know the answer to that, yes. Yes things can get worse. Yes a society can advance forward, only to move backward. This literal exact fucking thing happened once in modern history, and it took 3 major super powers to defeat it.

Leftism isn't a fucking club, it's not a circle jerk for all of us to feel good about ourselves for being intellectuals and morally upright people. It's a fucking political ideology, that's it. It's not one of your fandoms. So no, you don't need to spend all the energy spent arguing with and debating with every other leftist and YES I know how that sounds coming from me. As much as this rant will have you assume otherwise I don't really spend much time debating other leftists. Mostly because a good chunk of leftists are way too reactionary to give me a charitable and honest platform. Anyone you disagree with is a fascist. And yes I've ACTUALLY had people call me this before. You dilute the term, you HELP the fascists this way. Fascism is a very specific evil, it's not just people who disagree with you. Sometimes, you will feel uncomfortable about the views other leftists have. That's normal. That doesn't mean they're "Liberal" or "Fascists". Again, this isn't a little pow wow where we sit around and agree with each other and get super psyched together about our favorite piece of political theory, and than if someone says something we disagree with we just kick them out of the circle. That's not how that works. That's not how any functional political movement succeeds. Right now, you and I have ZERO seats at the table, we don't exist on the grand political spectrum, as much as the GOP tries to fear monger that we do. So yes, we will have to unify sometimes with people we don't like. We will have to agree to disagree and come together for a common enemy.

I know this will change literally nobody's mind but I just really needed to get all of these thoughts out. I want them out and I want people to read them so that they can at least SEE the perspective of leftists outside their fucking echo chamber. Our division is NOT conducive to our success. We are going to /FAIL/ because the pendulum will keep going to the right. It'll fail cuz we are more concerned about making a choice that makes us feel morally vindicated than one that is pragmatic. I have nothing else to say anymore. Fuck Americans. Fuck all of them. Fuck all the American Conservatives. Fuck all the American Liberals. Fuck all the American Leftists. And Fuck all the undecided pieces of shit who couldn't decide whether or not they want to vote against fascism or let it slip on in. Fuck all of you, you uneducated, feel-good, self-satisfying, non-communitarian, individualistic, pigs of society. I sincerely wish I was born in literally any other country because at least than I wouldn't have to deal with being around some of the most inane, vapid, superficial fucking human beings on the planet. American Society is a god damn joke. Only above Israel. And that's not a bar you should be proud of.

Are you Christian? You usually seem very negative about it with Jake but Nat talks Bible stories and you own a Bible?

There are a few things to unpack in this ask, and I’ll try to touch on them all. 

CW for frank talk about religion/Christianity, child abuse, domestic violence

1. I was raised in a very conservative rural Christian community in which the closest I came to knowing an open atheist before I was in high school was that my best friend’s family didn’t go to church. It was the kind of conservative Protestantism where my friend in high school being Catholic was cause for commentary by my extended family, who were concerned that if I attended church with her I might get into “idol worship.”

I wanted Card Captor Sakura tarot cards once because I thought the art was beautiful and had a family member threaten to burn them.

I took Christianity for granted as the foundation of the world until I watched it used as a cudgel against the people I knew who in some way did not fit a mold that made no sense, and I became aware that the strictures I was living in were subjecting some of the people I loved to utter misery, hatred, and violence. This is before I was able to even conceive of my bisexuality. 

The older I get, the more I see how the American Christianity I grew up with is merely a weapon, twisted and corrupted from the very words that its adherents claim to most believe in, used to excuse and justify bigotry, selfishness, and cruelty. Learning about the history of Christianity used as a weapon during colonization did a lot, too, to make me see that what I read, and learned, in the Bible was not Christianity as most of its adherents understood it.

Would I identify that way now? I don’t know. There is such a weight of negativity, when we have watched those great and pious Christians support tearing children from their families, executing prisoners, justifying all those things they once taught us were unforgivable sins unless you repented, and selling the soul of the national Christian to gain a little power and a justification for their own bigotry.

If you shall know them by their fruits, there are a lot of rotten fruits.

There is a lot of good in Christianity, but it has lost so much ground by catering to the worst and refusing to stand up for those who need love most. The very people we are called to hold our arms out to are turned away for the tiniest, flimsiest, most ridiculous reasons.

The person I have known in my life who most embodies Jesus is an atheist and she is working herself to the bone trying to serve undocumented communities along the border in Texas, despite a consistent risk to her own health from the violence she is routinely threatened with.

2. I don’t really think the comparison of Nat to Jake is a fair one. Jake grew up in an abusive environment, and his experience with church was a congregation that turned away from the obvious signs that he and his mother were being abused. 

Jake experienced being told his father was the ‘head of the household’ and he should be more respectful. He experienced his father’s bullying, violence, and homophobia. He experienced his mother being told that she should try to “steer” his father away from abusing her, or be more faithful, or call on God for help, when the people who could have helped her chose not to.

He saw his father wear the mask of an affable family man, and how everyone chose to believe the mask, because it was easier for them if they did not see a woman and her son who desperately needed a way out.

Jake’s experience was, as a whole, a deeply negative one. And if you think it’s not true to life, I would challenge that you are ignoring a lot of stories of very real people who have experienced and survived this exact thing.

While I have not modeled Jake on a single person, every aspect of his upbringing, right down to being told that if he respected his father as an authority more that the abuse wouldn’t be so bad and being sent back to his mother when he got old enough to fight back and couldn’t be used to control her from afar any longer, is something that happened to someone in real life.

A lot of these things are hidden - but they are still real.

Nat, meanwhile, has a background of some similarity to my own, in that nothing was perfect but the church was not inherently negative in her life, it was simply part of the foundation. She has a lot of joyful memories of her childhood in church.

A lot of us are walking around who may not attend church, at least not regularly, but who were raised on Bible stories that we can still recite word for word even a decade or two later, and who can sing whole songs from Veggie Tales, who could right here and right now burst into “THERE’S A RIVER FLOWING DEEP AND WIDE” at the top of their fucking lungs. You want to hear about Jacob wrestling with God? I can recite parts of it from memory. I can sing “It Is Well With My Soul” right now. How Great Thou Art, all the old hymns, they’re still in my mind and my heart and I still find so many of them beautiful. 

I still think of Bible stories when making comparisons, sometimes, because it’s very much like any memory - your mind pulls on the strongest associations automatically, and our childhoods are foundational. 

So, yeah, Nat thinks about those stories and what is left between the lines, because they’re part of her identity, no matter how she lives, now. She also tells Jake, when following the ambulance to the hospital, “we take the hand that God deals us and we hope for the best”. 

I would argue Nat has retained some faith in God as a force of good, but she has retained a faith that requires her to do the hard work, make the hard choices, and stand up for the ‘least of these’ rather than hoping someone else will, rather than waiting for someone with more power or more authority or more money to do it.

Nat is my view of the ideal Christian - imperfect, prone to mistakes, but her compassion knows no boundaries, and she will stand up for the weak ones, and those who need her, even at the cost of her own freedom and life if necessary - but she doesn’t sit around proclaiming it, she doesn’t need the world to know it, she only needs to show through her actions, be known by her fruits. She fucked up before, sure, but she’ll spend the rest of her life working to undo that failure and how it hurt so many people she could never have understood at the time, with the information she had available to her. If I had to pick a song to define how I see Nat’s view of religion, it would be Dear Me by Nichole Nordeman.

If Jake kept any shred of positivity towards religion, it would be because of living with Natalie Yoder, who actually quietly lives out all the shit that other people just say really loudly while publicly supporting the opposite.

They’re different people, with different life experiences and therefore very different ways of looking at Christianity - and neither one of them is me, not fully. Neither one fully reflects where I am, in my own beliefs. 

I understand them both, but I am not my characters, and I don’t want their mindsets or beliefs to be taken as mirror reflective of my own, because they aren’t.

3. For the record, I own five Bibles. Three were gifts, two I bought myself a long time ago. The archeology Bible I bought myself and I still fucking love it, it’s cool just from a history nerd perspective even. I have never thrown a Bible away in my life, and I don’t get rid of them. 

It’s just a superstition, I guess, but I’ve never been able to. 

When my father died, he had something like seventeen Bibles, many deeply worn and torn. I can’t tell you how we agonized over what to do with them, because throwing away a Bible seemed so deeply wrong. We had to sort of gin each other up to be able to throw any of them out, and we still kept some.

But, yeah. I own a few. 

I think you are likely to discover that a whole lot of us raised very Christian still have Bibles in our houses/apartments, whether we currently practice or not. 

Some of us may only have them for still-religious family members to see, to hold off a series of questions we don’t want to answer. Some of us have them because they’re just part of our lives, like the walls and the kitchen faucet. Some of us still sit down to read them, sometimes, because we still feel moved by the stories that lived in us first.

Some of us keep them for all those reasons and more.

Pardon me for the intrusion, but you're the only person I found who's still into CC and I have to ask: does the romantic aspect of Chrono's and Rosette's relationship seem lacking to you? Like I can see when Rosette starts to view him as a love interest (chapter 28), but I can't see when Chrono starts to view her as one. To me it feels like he only had an interested in Mary, and Rosette is just his very beloved friend; the kiss felt too sudden. I'm sorry, I just need a second opinion on this.

Okay I am so sorry I didn’t respond to this until now, I’ve mostly been using tumblr on my phone and using it to check a few blogs and occasionally the CC tag, and apparently tumblr doesn’t notify for asks on the mobile app? Or I’m not seeing it? Something. I have no idea how long you’ve been waiting for a response on this, so I’m really sorry! I hope you find this!

I think I need a reread of the manga at this point--a lot of the stuff I’m writing these days is going off of head canon which might not be 100% accurate anymore. So I’m just going to write this off the cuff. Gonna be a bit stream of consciousness! So this is definitely not a definitive opinion or even one I’ll always stand by, just how I personally feel in this particular moment.

So off the top of my head...

I think we see less things from Chrono’s point of view than from Rosette’s, which is part of what makes this tricky. This isn’t ALWAYS the case obviously (we see his sort of...PTSD dream flashback after Rizelle’s death, the flashback in volume 6 is basically from Chrono’s viewpoint since it’s mostly his memories, etc), but since one of the way the plot moves forward is the mystery of what happened in Chrono’s past usually the viewpoint is more centered around Rosette. I actually always assumed that Rosette was the only character that Moriyama would consider the protagonist until I saw that on a dust jacket for one of the books he said that BOTH Chrono and Rosette are (can’t remember which book, sorry! it was a fan translation).

Thinking about it, I think we see Chrono start to realize he has romantic feelings at the end of volume 6. I think that’s the first time he really, truly comes to accept his contract with Rosette as a good thing instead of just...the lesser of two evils, I guess? It’s when he goes “oh, yeah, I made the contract because otherwise she would’ve run off to solve the problem on her own, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.” I think that’s when he starts to really see Rosette as someone that’s on the same level of emotional maturity as him, too--earlier he occasionally teases her for being immature, but I think when Rosette tells him that she wants to share his pain, and Mary’s, that he sees how emotionally strong she is as a person and really respects that. Not that he didn’t see her as strong BEFORE, buuut like...he’d been so hesitant to share his past with Rosette until right then, and her response, I think, makes him realize how helpful having her support really is to him.

This isn’t really the same situation and is definitely my own personal reaction, but as I write this it makes me think of when I was dating my husband. I was initially terrified he was going to break up with me because I was bisexual--we both came from conservative Christian backgrounds and were homeschooled, and in the past he expressed homophobic sentiments--but I felt like I HAD to tell him because I couldn’t see myself in a long term relationship with someone I couldn’t be 100% honest with. His reaction when I told him was to immediately tell me he trusted me and cared about me, start to reconsider what he’d been raised to feel immediately, and he’s become one of my biggest advocates as I’ve come out to friends and family. Coming out to him was one of the best things I’ve ever done, but it was terrifying until I did. I can see Chrono having similar fears talking about his past with Rosette, and having a similar sense of relief and healing as soon as he realized how much Rosette is in his corner and how helpful having someone he can be open with actually is.

In the next chapter, Rosette holds Chrono’s hands to comfort him while they briefly talk about their current situation (Chrono being held in, uh, demon jail? and Rosette being taken off of her mission to find Joshua), then they both blush and get flustered when they realize what they’re doing. They babble small talk afterward while inner dialogue repeats Rosette’s promise to share Chrono’s pain, and Mary’s too. And then RIGHT AFTER is when Remington walks in and takes them to Aion’s old house on the beach so...that’s about it.

So I think the manga does show that, either right after he’s pulled out of his coma by Rosette or sometime in the aftermath, Chrono is starting to acknowledge that his feelings for Rosette might be more romantic. But it is VERY brief, because literally everything after that is two volumes of the big finale, taking place entirely over no more than 24 hours. Everything after that is rushing to tie up as many loose ends as possible--Fiore being Satella’s sister, saving Joshua, Joshua beginning to grapple with the gravity of what he’s done and been a part of and what’s been done to him, Aion and Chrono’s confrontation, the Order and the Sinner’s confrontation, Rosette’s near death experience, Aion’s motivations revealed, Chrono and Aion’s true relationship revealed, Azmaria finally coming into her own in terms of taking ownership of her powers, the culmination of Aion’s plans (and near-Apocalypse caused by it), the true nature of demons, the deaths of most of the Sinners, Shader’s defection, Joshua and Fiore’s relationship being somewhat resolved, Rosette and Chrono’s relationship being somewhat resolved...like holy shit there is SO. MUCH. THERE.

On top of that, I’ve got the Japanese reprints and while I can read basically no Japanese (HUGE GRAIN OF SALT INCOMING), I’ve pointed Google Translate at some of the omakes and from what I can tell, Moriyama talks in the omake in...volume 6, I think, that he basically had a whole other volume’s worth of story for the flashback that had to be cut! If I’m understanding it right, it’s like...from Remington’s perspective, and involves some Native American tribe or reservation that had connections to the Sinners, and the woman in charge of the orphanage Joshua and Rosette grew up in was a child living in a town nearby....

Basically, from what I can tell? Moriyama had a LOOOOOOOOT of background stuff he wanted to go into in the back half of Chrono Crusade that he wasn’t able to do for time reasons. I’m not sure if his editor gave him a deadline, or he realized it would be too meandering, or what exactly happened, but...have you ever heard the “iceberg” theory of writing? Basically, flesh out as much of the backstory as you can--know everything about the town your story is set in, the family of your protag and their relationships with them, what they eat for breakfast, just...every little minutia you can possibly think of, but most of that won’t get into your story. The audience will only see the tip of the iceberg, but knowing so much background about your setting and characters will help it feel more alive and inform your decisions as you write.

I think Moriyama had a fucking huge iceberg, basically, and I think he actually wanted to show more of that, but...couldn’t. So we get little pieces of art that reference this entire backstory for Satella we never see, and Aion, etc....that gets small nods but doesn’t make it into the manga.

And I think there’s a lot of things Moriyama wanted to give time to breathe in the manga but due to space limitations, couldn’t. So that’s why the second half of the manga literally takes place from Thanksgiving to sunrise on Christmas Day and is...the entire second half of the manga. He’s rushing to get in as much as possible while still letting the story flow as a story and sometimes...it’s not perfect.

So....I think unfortunately, yeah, one of the casualties of that is that we don’t get a huuuuuge amount of Chrono’s side of the relationship, because most of the moments that really shows that they’re heading in that direction is from Rosette’s POV. Other than the scene I already mentioned, I think you could argue that Chrono’s reaction to “the place that Chrono can go back to was decided 4 years ago!” might also be the first moment he starts to consider how important Rosette is to him, but that doesn’t HAVE to be romantic...Chrono’s reaction to her death (and then realizing there’s a chance to revive her) again emphasizes how important she is to him, but it doesn’t HAVE to be romantic...the kiss at the end is the only thing that really 100% says “Yes, this is romantic and not platonic” on his part. And...yeah. It feels a bit sudden. There’s some underlying hints before that but...I mean, I know about them because I’m obsessive about character growth and narrowed in on it in subsequent rereads, I’m not sure if it came through right away on my first read of the manga, and I even knew going into it that they were at least meant to be teased as a ship, so, yeah.

Also I briefly want to admit that as I’ve gotten older, the age gap bothers me a little more. Not enough for me to abandon the ship, just, you know, it’s something I acknowledge will turn some people off. I think Chrono, maturity-wise, is meant to be seen as...about 20. I think Moriyama mentions in one of the early omakes that that’s what he looks like in his unsealed form, we know that when he leaves Pandaemonium it’s right after his coming of age ceremony so he’s about what a demon would consider to be 18 in terms of emotional (and physical?) maturity, and especially since he’s been sleeping for 50 years since that period of his life he doesn’t have the experience that his age really indicates (which Aion blantantly points out near the end). So I’m not THAT bothered by it because I don’t think that Rosette and Chrono are actually that inequal in terms of emotional maturity but it’s still...there, and...I mean he met her when she was 12...so...yeah that’s a bit weird!! 

I’ve just gotten to where I shrug my shoulders and go “look, every ship in Chrono Crusade has something problematic about it, if you’re going to be a fan of Chrono Crusade you’re probably going to have to grapple with the fact that it’s messy and human and nobody is 100% good or bad in the manga, and that’s part of what I like about it, so, that’s cool, but it’s probably not for everyone.” It’s actually one reason why I’m kinda OK with CC not being as popular as some of its contemporaries because...some of the anti-shipper stuff I’ve seen online...oh boy.

So...I guess in conclusion, I think there’s stuff there in the manga to build up the relationship a little bit, but a lot of it is from Rosette’s POV and most of it is kind of subtle. I wouldn’t be surprised if Moriyama had wanted to flesh it out more obviously in the manga but the second half is stuffed full of wrapping up character arcs and questions and loose ends so it just didn’t really have the time to get as much focus. I really like the ship a lot, but a lot of it comes from analysis of the characters and how they relate to each other rather than it just being...canon. I’m okay with that, I’m the sort of person that will ship characters that never even meet just because I think the dynamic might be cool, but...I’m not surprised that not everyone would be into it, either.

And now I kinda want to make...a series of posts analyising the different relationships that are...either canon or teased in canon, see how much they’re built up, etc. Because this post makes me think a lot about Joshua/Azmaria and how confused I was by them apparently being married in the epilogue on my first read, and only seeing the hints Moriyama hinted about them possibly being a couple in the manga on subsequent rereads (and even then HO BOY it’s so subtle it makes Chrono and Rosette look really in your face aaaaaa). BUT I HAVE RAMBLED ENOUGH FOR THIS POST and, again, I need a reread. Maybe soon....!!!!

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 2

Thanks to everyone who said nice things about my earlier post!!!! I like am really invested in representation and media so I’m glad it’s being received well. 

I also want to add a caveat that I’m not trying to cancel She-Ra. I just want to hold media to a high standard and think that we can critique the things we like.

Next I want to talk about some pretty heavy topics: the White Savior trope and colonialism. Again, I’ll be pretty spoiler-heavy here. I also want to warn people that there will be mention of genocide and antisemitism. I’ll be writing about Hordak in the next part.

In the fourth part I want to add an addendum about Catra being coded as Latina, which I think is a valid interpretation. I also want to talk about the ableism present in the show with both Hordak and Entrapta, which is a separate issue so I’ll label it differently. 

Imagine a story like this: 

“I am a white-coded, able-bodied, implied cisgender protagonist who has a Special Trait that makes me Stronger and/or More Unique than other characters. I also have some connection to Some Evil Colonizers from Space. Oh no! Some Evil Colonizers from Space have showed up to threaten me and my Token Diverse friends who get about half as much screentime as I do! Wait a second, “evil?” There’s no such thing! They’re only Misunderstood Colonizers Who Didn’t Mean It, and/or there was More to the Story. Maybe they came from a Dysfunctional Family or were Abused/Bullied! I think the people/places they colonized may have been Secretly Bad or Just As Bad all along, too! Wowee! Let’s all have a Heart-to-Heart and/or sacrifice one of my Token Diverse friends to save the day!”

Which story am I referring to? Well...

Voltron... or She-Ra... or Steven Universe.. and probably others...yeah.

(And for those who claim that Keith isn’t the protagonist of Voltron, well... I mean he is... but that’s an entirely different essay. But notice how Lance and Hunk are actually smaller than the other characters on the screen and are partly transparent, and that Allura gets pushed to the back row and is mostly covered? Yikes...)

(On my previous post, someone also noted that Steven is half-Jewish. I was not aware that Rebecca had confirmed this officially. As I am not Jewish myself, I don’t want to speak over this, but I do want to point out that you can be white and Jewish, as it is a Diaspora identity. There are many Jewish ethnicities, such as Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim. I also wish that we had seen more of that in the show--like Steven celebrating Hanukkah, or learning Hebrew, or having a Rosh Hashanah celebration... From what I can tell, Rebecca only confirmed this on a Reddit AMA post. So I don’t know specifically how Steven identifies because that was never clarified in the show, but it seems like he is coded as white. Definitely feel free to disagree, this is just how I’ve interpreted the show, especially given its treatment of colonization.)   

On top of all three of these shows recycling a very similar plotline, they all share the White Savior trope. Teen Vogue has an article talking about how this is linked to colonialism and I highly encourage checking that out. I’m going to pull a large chunk of text from there because I think it’s really important and applies to animation, not just live action films. 

“Many white people in films based on the stories of POC are often subliminally depicted as godlike saviors, heroes who are rational and judicious to the core. They are usually deified men or women — glorified and righteous — like scripture out of a Holy Book. Look at Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers. The white savior somehow always ends up usurping the narrative. And in this centering of whiteness and white characters, the POC characters end up becoming props, which only perpetuates ideas of our otherness and unimportance, which then establishes a status quo of racism. Whiteness is again normalized, and POC are decentralized. This is particularly problematic because whiteness is not only favored in Hollywood but also in society at large; white privilege is ever-present and ubiquitous.”

Look at the center poster for She-Ra: Adora is pictured in white and gold and red as an accent. She’s bathed in a golden light. This color combination is no coincidence, because we already associate that combination with religious iconography, like the Vatican. 

(I also want to make a note that this is specifically associated with Christian/Catholic iconography. A lot of these shows could be classified as antisemitic in their handling of colonialism and genocide. I would argue--and will be arguing in my thesis--that Season 6-8 of Voltron’s plot heavily relied on antisemitic tropes, especially as it related to Lotor and the Alteans. But that’s for another day.) (Also see my discussion of Steven Universe’s Jewish identity above.)

So how exactly does She-Ra follow the White Savior trope, how is it similar to other stories’ utilization of the trope, and how does this all relate back to colonialism? I would say there are two main factors: setting up Adora as a white heroine with a darker-skinned foil (Catra), and setting up a narrative where Hordak “isn’t that bad of a guy, really.” For this part I’m gonna focus on Adora.

1: Adora as the White Savior

Adora is from the Horde. Keith is half-Galra. Steven’s mom is Pink Diamond. 

All three of these protagonists have some personal tie or connection to a group of colonizing villains. The Diamonds want(ed) to take over earth and suck the life force from it, as they’d done on other planets. They also used a super-weapon to with the intent to kill all the rebel gems. The Galra created an empire and also sucked the life out of planets. They also created a super-weapon that could kill an entire planet, and had already committed genocide against the Alteans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big Bad of She-Ra, Horde Prime, has similar goals. Hordak certainly does.

There is an ever-so-slight separation of Adora from the other two protagonists, who, at the start of the series, do not know they are related to the villain group in some way. (Steven doesn’t know he’s a Diamond.) Adora, on the other hand, starts the series as a villain. She’s part of a group that has actively been fighting and destroying the Princesses and the planet. The first episode notes that she is particularly good at her job, with Hordak nominating her for Force Captain. Adora also notes that “this is what [she’s] been working for her entire life.” When Catra and Adora leave the Fright Zone, it is not out of goodwill. They simply want to go for a joyride on a skiff. 

When Adora gains the power of She-Ra, she acts ignorant of the Horde’s actions. The first episode, Adora is completely defensive of Hordak. She even claims that “Hordak says we’re doing what’s best for Etheria.” It is not until the second episode that Adora begins to have any remorse for her actions--but also note that Adora’s main motivation during the first half of this episode is to continue onward with Bow and Glimmer because she wants to know more about herself, not repent for her actions. It is not until the end of the episode that she begins to become a bit more self-aware, but there is a key phrase that Glimmer utters that is very key to the White Savior narrative: “I feel like maybe you’re here to help us.” This line comes after Glimmer apologizes for not trusting Adora. Adora. The Horde soldier. The soldier from the group of colonizers who were responsible for the death of Glimmer’s father. 

Ok sure. 

Consider how realistic this is. (Not that fantasy has to be realistic, but when you’re working with a narrative based on systemic violence, you need to at least be considerate of how this works in reality.) Adora has been trained to fight and kill Princesses and their allies. She’s been trained to take over Etheria and strategically destroy and/or take resources to weaken them. Yet she acts as if this is all news to her. Suddenly meeting the people she’s been trained to destroy causes her to repent, and suddenly the people who have been victimized forgive her and trust her within two episodes. 

Here’s what I think is going on here: given the current hyper-conservative political climate and rampant xenophobia in the world right now, white creators feel the need to put a white person as the hero as if they’re claiming, “See, this character--and subsequently myself--aren’t like those other bad white people!” They want a degree of separation from the reality that they have white privilege and are part of the problem. 

There is no truly “woke” white person. White people have been raised in a society where they benefit off the oppression of the chosen “other,” in this case black and brown people. Even if you do your research like I’m doing, you still will mess up. White people cannot rid themselves of privilege no matter how hard they try, because in this current society, the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and racism have made it so that white people will ultimately be more successful and have more opportunities for success than others. (Also, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so even attempts to be considerate about taking advantage of laborers cannot be completely successful.) 

All of this results in a lot of White Guilt. Thus, we end up with narratives where the white colonizer character suddenly has a change of heart and fights against the system without really challenging the core mechanics that put that system in place. But fighting against oppression and violence doesn’t make a white person special--it just makes them decent. 

It also ignores the fact that white people, to be blunt, haven’t done shit to advocate for inclusion and equity compared to literally everyone else. I want to pull another quote from the Teen Vogue article:

[White saviors] perpetuate an idea that is essentially a historical banner of colonialism: People of color need white people to save them. To this day, some people still latently believe what imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling said, that colonialism was important for everyone: the conqueror and, most importantly, the conquered. That without the colonizers, the colonized had no hope of survival. And by constantly churning out movies with plots in which white people "save" people of color, Hollywood reinforces colonialist dictum.

Why does Glimmer think that they NEED Adora to be saved? Why is this white woman the only one who can do it? Sure, Adora has the power of She-Ra, but remember that giving Adora, a white woman, that power was a CHOICE made by the writers. They could have given the sword to someone else, they could have made Adora a PoC... but they didn’t. So suddenly, because Adora, ex-Horde soldier, is there, the Princess alliance can be reformed, people start working together, the rebellion is saved! etc. etc. etc.... 

So then it’s extra ironic (and honestly is pretty predictable given this White Guilt narrative) when the White Savior trope goes right along with The Colonizers Weren’t Actually Evil, Just Misunderstood.

This post is way too long so I’ll continue in the next part. 

Arguing Abortion from a University Philosophy student and budding rhetorician:

Top rule from Philosophy: follow the argument whereever it goes if you want to find the truth.

Top rule from Rhetoric: consession will get you very far.

Top rule from both: understand the question you’re asking, but more importantly!! Understand the answers they’re giving you.

Alright. I was pro life growing up. I was also very conservative, homophobic, and transphobic but we won’t go into that because most of that was repressed shit. My family is pro life. I hear the arguments all the time. And guess what— they make sense! What they’re saying makes sense to them, and the way that we argue against it doesn’t target their concerns at all!! So we get no where!!

Some other rules to note as we get started: rhetoricians will tell you to control the argument and control the topic- and that’s great if you’re trying to convince people who don’t know yet. But if you’re trying to convince people who are pretty sure in what they say, you have to remember that ALMOST EVERYONE IS REASONABLE— or at least, almost everyone thinks that they’re reasonable, and their definition of the argument is reasonable. So, you can’t change the direction of the argument on them, or else they will catch you in a fallacy.

Great thing about the pro life argument, as given to me from a Christian perspective, is that it IS full of fallacies for many different reasons. You have to acknowledge what they will not budge on, and follow it to the conclusion they make, and question the inconsistency. They will come to the conclusion themselves if you just point it out vaguely. DONT BE COCKY!! One of the sins of Christianity is pride, ironically enough, but they will use yours to belittle your argument!! Being humble is crucial. And as much as it hurts me, PLAY ON THE CONSERVATIVE DEFINITION OF GENDER ROLES. It sucks, I know, but they have to be acknowledged if you want to do anything.

You remember in geometry when you had to line up your givens? We have to do that here, and ADHERE to what they say. These are the very most basic ones, and not everyone does adhere to them, but they will agree.

1. Killing is wrong.

2. Killing the innocent is especially wrong.

3. Premarital sex is wrong.

4. The future is uncertain.

5. Souls exist.

6. The soul of a baby is implanted in the embryo at conception— you can probably argue this one! But if you choose to depends on the opponent’s stance. If they don’t believe you after one explanation, then use CONCESSION!! And move on!!

If more questions arise, and you can’t answer them, TAKE YOUR TIME. Don’t jump in on something you can’t backpedal from. Even better— ask them what they think your answer is, and EXPAND or DISAGREE.

Also!! Do not make this personal— it will turn you into “one good pro-choicer” not that all pro-choicers aren’t so bad. Do not make it personal. And DO NOT BRING UP THAT YOU JUST WANT AN ABORTION!! IT MAY BE TRUE BUT IT WILL NOT MAKE THEM BELIEVE YOUR SIDE OR LIKE YOU!!

1. Killing is wrong. And 2. Killing the innocent is wrong.

I agree that killing is wrong and killing the innocent is wrong. It’s something we should avoid at all costs. We don’t want people to die. Sometimes, though, there are situations where if we allow a pregnancy to continue it could harm the life of the mother. If that’s the case, a lot of times the pregnancy kills two people instead of just one. By allowing a pregnancy like that to continue, it’s like killing the mother and the baby, when you could get away with the mother still alive. I feel like that is especially important when the mother has other children to take care of? And it’s even more important if the mother became pregnant in an abusive household— then the baby will too be abused and maybe killed before it reaches its first year by its own father— or if not, then it’s mental instability will probably drive it to unthinkable things before it’s 18. Do you think it’s okay for people to have abortions in those sorts of situations, where it’ll hurt the mother and the baby if the pregnancy carries on?

[if yes, great, one point won. If no, ask “what point does it accomplish to let them both die?” The answer WILL MOST LIKELY BE: “we don’t know FOR SURE that they would both die/that the baby would be abused.” (Point 4) So you say:]

That’s a really great point. There’s a lot of things that we don’t know for certain. But these doctors don’t want to kill anyone— it’s not good for them personally, and it’s not good for them from a business standpoint. They don’t want any of their patients, born or unborn, to die. So they have to be very certain that the pregnancy would end really badly before they decide to endorse that a woman in this situation gets an abortion. They have to be as certain as you and I are that god exists before they do this, and whereas we should never test God, these doctors HAVE to do a lot of tests before these things. We have to trust these people to heal, and sometimes that means that hurt must be involved. And in terms of the mother and baby being abused— abuse is about the exploitation of power isn’t it? Who has more power over an infant than a father? Do you think it’s God’s will that the baby is abused so much that it may have suicidal thoughts by the time it’s 13. Or the mother is killed by the father before the baby is born— and they both die? What if the mother can’t get herself and a baby out of that situation, but may be able to win just herself freedom in time? It’s God’s will that the humbled be exalted, and the baby will be in heaven no matter what— it’s the mother who has been humbled beyond repair, and any chance she may have to be healed should be taken, right? Abuse is wrong. It’s God’s will that we end abuse.

[if they don’t agree, it is probably because “if that happens, it must have been God’s will— I want God’s will controlling the situation, not a doctor.” If that’s the case, move on to point 5 and 6. Also move here if during argument 1, they bring up that the baby is innocent but the mother is not.]

That’s a good point. God’s will definitely has to be respected in all of this. But God’s will is for us, as Christians, to bring more people to heaven than we leave out of it. The baby is innocent, it hasn’t done anything wrong yet. But what if the baby kills the mother? Not intentionally, of course, but the pregnancy is still to blame for a mother dying. Is the baby innocent if it kills the mother before it’s born? What they both die because of the pregnancy, and neither of them go to heaven? The baby is innocent, and it’s soul can go straight back to heaven if it has to die for the mother to be safe — it’s really a selfless act on the part of the baby. Especially if the mother isn’t yet Christian— then she still has time to give her life to Christ, rather than have it taken from her... and speaking of the baby’s soul making a quick return trip to heaven— wouldn’t that cause less pain for everyone? If the baby has to make a return voyage to heaven, isn’t it important that it’s early on so fewer people are hurt by its absence. But then, what if it’s discovered too late that they both will die? Isn’t it again, better to preserve the maximum number of lives. The baby’s soul will live on in heaven forever, but the mother may not get to meet it if she hasn’t given her life to Christ. It is God’s will to bring as many people to heaven as possible. The baby’s already there, whether it’s aborted or there’s a miscarriage: and it’s most likely God’s will that the baby was taken back so quickly, as he controls all. It’s just the mother that is a wild card in terms of her salvation and we have to respect that journey she must make ON HER OWN.

[NOW!! Go back to 2 and tack on 3.]

The sad part about this and why it needs to be a choice that the mother makes is because the baby is already going to heaven. But what if the mother wasn’t married and needs to ask for forgiveness? What if she was raped and needs to forgive God for what happened to her?

What about that little girl in Ohio who was raped? She didn’t know any better— she’s 11. She’s innocent, but was forcibly made pregnant by a criminal. The type of emotional turmoil that poor girl must go through is incredible— and many people in her situation would probably commit suicide, living with that reminder of how she was hurt. I can’t imagine dealing with that kind of hurt- can you? And she’s so young, she is almost CERTAIN to die if this pregnancy carries on. The unborn baby is safe, soul wise, but doesn’t the born baby deserve a chance to get back on her feet and find justice for herself? It feels like a difficult question, I know, but she’s just a baby herself— can you remember when you were 11? What would you have done if you were given this choice— to send a soul straight back to heaven or to die trying to bring it to this cruel earth.

-THESE ARE TIPS AND ARGUMENTS TO BE GIVEN TO THE STRICTEST CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS. ALSO BRING UP THE POINT THAT JUDAISIM BELIEVES THAT THE SOUL ENTERS THE BODY AT THE FIRST BREATH. SO EVEN IF THAT IS NOT THEIR PERSONAL BELIEF, IT SHOULD BE THE MAIN ONE OF CHRISTIANS.

but yeah, Christians aren’t unreasonable if you understand their reasoning. Like anyone else, they don’t want to feel unreasonable for their beliefs, so don’t make them feel like they’re crazy or unjust. They care about the baby more than the mom because the baby is innocent and has a lot of potential, but sometimes that innocence belongs in heaven, and that potential can be fulfilled there as an angel.

Just respect folks’ beliefs if you’re gonna argue with them. Especially if you want them to be on your side when the ballot comes around.

Disclaimer: I believe some of these things I said, but definitely not all of it. These are just arguments that I would pose to MY family.

If it works one way, it works both ways.

So, here’s a thing I thought I’d start writing up to express just how frustrating it is listening to conservatives talk or post about socialism in the US that are either so factually incorrect as to be incoherent, or so out of the loop that they sound like I expect my grandparents would if they were trying to talk about modern electronic music. Of course, I could totally make the argument that most of these people don’t actually care about being factually correct about socialism, or about discussing any sort of leftist ideology. Especially on places like Facebook, where you’re able to cultivate your group of friends and family to the point where you can push out any sort of dissenting opinions by simply not hearing them in the first place. Most of these posts are, to steal the conservative buzzword they love to apply to only people on the left, just virtue signalling. They’re not actually interested in discovering a truth, they’re not actually interested in having a conversation, they just want to shit on a thing they don’t understand and have a bunch of friends send them Likes, or Hearts, or Yeahs!, or whatever other self-validating thing makes them feel better. They want to tell their in-group that ‘Hey that thing we all hate? I hate it too man! Yeah, we’re great!’ To remind them they’re part of the Us, and not the Them. In the end though, that isn’t all that productive. Me pointing out all the ‘triggered’ conservative ‘snowflakes’ crying about Nikes or Keurig coffeemakers or NFL players kneeling. All the ‘identity politics’ based around conservative Christians, or gun-owners, or just being white. All the ‘media bias’ that particular outlets have in sharing just as much bullshit as others, just fellating one side instead of the other. All it proves is that a lot of things are universal among human beings with opinions.  The problem here is that politics is a complicated beast. One could argue that the majority of your positions in life, should you have ever had any sort of opinion on them, is simply politics. Being that we are social creatures and we interact in so many places, at so many different levels, and we all have a lot of different opinions on a lot of things, there’s always going to be difference of politics. The goal then, as humans, should always be to sit down and discuss these things. To be open to discussion on these things. To figure out why we all have our ideology, and what got us there. Of course, in the modern US, bereft of the socialism that these folks so hate, the large majority of people in this country do not have the time to engage with others on these topics, let alone even inform themselves of a position all that well. They could certainly find the time, everyone could, but then you’re actually asking someone to read dry history books, or listen to discussions. Or,  just to engage with something with a larger portion of time than they might normally do. That’s probably a big ask from people that are juggling jobs, financial stress, family, social groups, hobbies, housekeeping and homemaking already. Which is why I say I understand why people who are ignorant of a thing, a concept, an idea, can spend plenty of time gnashing teeth and spreading nonsense about it, but little time actually engaging in anything more in-depth with that concept. Why sit down and try to use my time to sit down and unpack something particularly complicated that I’m wrong about? Why add to my list of responsibilities something along the lines of self-betterment, that won’t directly help me outside of having a broader understanding of something, but will cut into my already current routine called life? I get it. The thing is: This idea works both ways. The reason why conservatives don’t understand that, is that conservatism relies on tradition. It relies on things being as they are now, or as they were. It is rooted in an essence of not changing, or resisting change. Conservatism works fine as a concept for things like managing natural resources, in trying to protect environments, protecting natural habitats for wildlife. It works as a means of helping things outside our society that cannot discuss issues. Now, I could be very wrong on this, and I could be just taking what I see from conservative posters and extrapolating something that isn’t there, but from the outside looking in: US Conservatism and reality are in constant opposition, for one specific reason. The passing of time and the constant change that brings.  Society, human beings are not a monolith. Unless we just stopped asking questions about the entirety of our existence tomorrow, somebody’s always going to ask ‘Why? How?’ If somebody’s always asking why, somebody’s always going to try to find out the Whys and the Hows. What if those Whys and Hows try to figure out why conservatives revere tradition? What if those Whys and Hows try to figure out Gods and Religions? What if people question the conservative ideology? How much change can conservatives handle, or in what ways? After all, for those of us that’ve grown up seeing Reaganism conservatives being the mainstream, and then see that conservatives are backing Trump, we have to have assumed that something has massively changed, as Reagan and Trump are vastly different Presidents, vastly different individuals, and yet Evangelical white conservative voters heavily favored both. Again, more Whys. Again, more Hows. Because even from the outside looking in, this shouldn’t make sense even to conservatives. So, my perception has to be, that conservatism in the US is about denying the reality of the world. How can someone be for small government, but for a Border Wall that will require the government to use eminent domain to take property away from people to put it on? How can someone claim that the US is a Christian country, but also be racist, or against immigration reforms that would allow more people to become legalized citizens? How can someone be anti-Government, but be pro-Military and pro-Police, groups directly associated with enforcing penalties for the Government? Where is this going? What does this have to do with the socialism stuff from earlier? If we use the same logic that conservatives do, in that I get to pick any specific part of a thing, and claim that thing to be Conservatism, regardless of how well versed I am on the subject, aren’t I entirely justified in doing the exact same thing? Because I, like some conservatives that understand little about, say, Nazi Germany and think that ‘because it says socialist in the title, it’s socialist’, can do the same thing with conservative views and conservative movements. Funny though, how conservative movements in Europe and the US, are trying to prop up Nationalism, the other word in that suuuuper bad National Socialist phrase. Funny though, how conservative media outlets and pundits have tried to pretend that Hitler was a Liberal. Or that fascism, an ideology that’s perfectly pro-capitalism, is somehow leftist in origin. Again, a lot of denial about the reality of the world, of history. After all, Reagan sold weapons to conservative radicals in Iran, to fund conservative militias in Nicaragua. So I could easily say, “Ah, conservatism is all about enabling conservatives to keep a grip on government power, even if we’re literally selling weapons to people that shout for the death of our country.”  After all, George W invaded Iraq and Afghanistan with the goal of finding WMDs and Bin Laden, found neither, and ended up destabilizing both countries further and bolstering ISIS. So I could easily say, “Ah, conservatism is all about US imperialism, sticking our noses in places it doesn’t belong, while shitting all over the concept of individual or national sovereignty.” After all, Nixon, Trump, and Reagan’s administrations did and have done illegal things in the sake of keeping power in the hands of the Republican party, and supporting other conservative governments. So, I could easily say, “Ah, conservatives are all about lying and breaking the law, so long as it’s them and nobody else doing it. Conservatism is entirely based on hypocrisy.” After all, Republican members of Congress like Steve King or Roy Moore, or Donald Trump even have made statements to defend things such as white supremacy, pedophilia, and sexual harassment. So, I could easily say, “Ah, conservatives are all about morality and family, but are fine with immoral behavior from those they support.” After all, slave owners used to use the Bible to justify owning slaves, because of the Bible containing passages that condone slave ownership, but zero passages stating not to own slaves. And since socialists or any other leftist doesn’t base their political ideology on the Bible, I can only assume those people were also conservative. So, I could easily say, “Ah, conservatives are fine hiding behind their religious beliefs to justify terrible things, even when they proclaim the US as a bastion of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, or Liberty and Justice for all. They really don’t actually mean all. They mean ‘Us’. The conservatives.” You get the gist. If all I do is look at the actions of conservative movements, conservative people online, conservative politicians, I get a really bad picture of conservatives. That doesn’t mean I have a strong grasp on what conservatives themselves are trying to do now, what those positions are, and what informs them of their positions. All it means is this: If you want to try and tell me that Socialism is bad, because of stuff you don’t understand from the 40′s and 60′s, and I tell you that you’re wrong because you don’t understand them. Then you decide you don’t want to be bothered to learn why, then am I entirely justified to have all kinds of misconceptions about all the immoral, illogically consistent things that conservatives have done since the 80′s? Or, since, ever? Because if I’m not, you’ve really only confirmed my misconceptions, in that conservatism is only about ‘rules for thee, not for me.’ It is only about protecting the Us, and vilifying whatever ‘Them’ conservatives have picked out this month. The difference is, I’m here willing to listen. Willing to talk and engage. To explain those misconceptions and where they came from. To actually explain leftist positions, leftist policies. To actually explain, yes, things like socialism.  Are you willing to explain conservatism?