This woman on my nots is now trying to claim something else than what she actually said.

Let this be a living example that knowing the beliefs of any individual who wrote any piece of text- be it literature, articles, or posts- can and should drastically alter your perception on what the text is actually communicating, even if that knowledge has, on its face, changed none of the actual printed words. This is how application of real-world context works, and this is how it applies to any recorded medium.

It reminds me heavily of a quote from video essayist Jacob Geller, regarding the 1938 film Olympia- "It's different when Nazis do it". Olympia is a film that, on its face, simply depicts an artistic documentation of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But within the context of its production taking place during the Nazi regime, with its director being a well known Nazi propagandist... The way the movie fixates on the power and elegance of the human form and Ancient Greek statues quickly shifts from being completely innocuous appreciation to the worship of what is perceived as the ideal forms of the "Aryan race". Suddenly, you understand the movie not to be a pretty inoffensive documentation of a historical event, but a propaganda piece.

Understanding the time period in which something was made, as well as the setting it was produced in/for, and whatever ideologies an artist may hold and experiences they've had is absolutely critical to getting a full understanding of anyone's work. There are some things that are near completely anodyne on their face, but the revelation of what the author thinks and feels about other people and the world around them totally redefines every word on the page.

This image is such a prime example of why context matters. This opinion, laid bare, stripped of context, is both inoffensive and nonsensical. No one's ever thought it to be lame to create your own nickname... But on its own, that's a harmless kind of wrong. ... But with the addition of them being marked as Anti-Trans (red) on Shinigami Eyes, a browser extension dedicated to crowdsourcing keeping track of Trans Friendly and Transphobic creators... Suddenly, "Nicknames" doesn't mean "Nicknames" anymore. Suddenly, you realize that "Nicknames" is code for "Chosen Names of Trans People". Suddenly this isn't about thinking choosing your own nickname is lame, this is about thinking that trans people shouldn't have the right to name themselves. Suddenly it's about invalidating identities, thinking they're worth mocking. Thinking that people who identify as trans are "just trying to be cool", and that they're not actually what they say they are, because you don't get to choose your gender nickname, that's something already decided for you.

Suddenly, you realize, it's not about "being lame".

It's about Transphobic Violence.

This is why you cannot ignore when an artist, author, essayist, developer, musician- so on and so forth- is bigoted. This is why you can't ignore the context behind their upbringing. This is why you can't ignore the context behind their lived experience, their ideals, their goals, their message. Yes, it may appear innocent on its face. Yes, it may look fine stripped from the context of it being written by an inevitably flawed human being. But what's really being said here? What do those words mean... To the one who wrote them?

Context redefines Text.

Even if the words didn't change.

could you talk more on eds and biopolitics?

sure, so this is broad strokes and it's also worth reiterating that the energy deficit characteristic of EDs can have a lot of different causes besides intentional food restriction—food insecurity is a huge and underrecognised factor here but there are many others. so when i talk about intentional restriction and the desire to be thin / lose weight, i'm not suggesting these are universal characteristics or causes of EDs.

anyway though, in the context of discussing these things, and particularly the relationship between 'diet culture' and EDs, a perennial frustration to me is that i often hear people fall back on the idea that the desire to be thin comes about as a result of the beauty standards perpetuated in mass media, fashion adverts, &c, without any subsequent interrogation of why it is that beauty itself is now so heavily dependent on thinness. after all, plenty of people have pointed out this is not a universal; beauty varies in different times and places, what is described or depicted as beautiful in historical records doesn't necessarily have much overlap with today's hegemonic standards, and so forth.

so when historicising this phenomenon it becomes very clear that the euro/anglo standard of thinness as beauty is, one, part of the ideological apparatus justifying colonialism thru the creation of race and white supremacy. sabrina strings and da'shaun harrison have written on this. two, the thin ideal is also inextricably tied up in medical discourses defining the ideal body as one that is economically productive, with the promise being that if the populace can be transformed into 'healthy',*** useful, hardworking citizens, the state benefits. control of bodyweight is therefore certainly a means of demonstrating one's supposed self-control, moral discipline, &c, but it is also a demand expressed in medical terms: these two discourses merge and overlap, and are both part of the capitalist state's transformation of its citizenry into a biological resource that can be controlled, managed, and exploited to bourgeois ends (profit): hence, biopolitics.

(***the story of how 'health' itself comes to be so dependent on thinness is obviously a critical piece of all this but this post is long as shit already so suffice it to say that this conflation is also not obvious, necessary, universal, &c &c)

medico-political discourses in the 19th century tended to talk about the dangers of both over- and under-weight more than what we hear now; similarly, if you think about something like wilbur atwater's calorie-value charts, these were explicitly intended to guide labourers to the most calorie-dense foods, because to atwater the central danger to be avoided was starvation among the workforce. these days in wealthy countries like the us, you are much more likely to hear about weight management in the context of demands to reduce; this is of course following moves like the WHO declaring an 'obesity epidemic' in 1997, and the rise in the usa of more explicitly nationalist, militaristic weight-loss rhetoric in the post-9/11 era.

however, my position is that these demands for thinness, and the beauty standard that follows and justifies them, are not a departure from earlier 19th- and 20th-century scientific nutrition advice, just an evolution that, for a multitude of reasons (politics, medical professional interests, insurance company practices, &c) has simply come to focus more on the ostensible economic and national threat posed by fatness. the underlying logic bears the biopolitical throughline: the state has, or ought to have, an interest in enforcing the health of its population, and as part of this demands that you the individual surveil and alter your weight according to the scientific guidelines du jour.

this is fertile ground for the development of what, in extreme form, we regard as ED pathology. first, because even the most purely 'health'-motivated individual engaging in the required degree of bodily monitoring and caloric restriction is liable to respond to energy deficit in ways that can become diagnosably distressing. second, because the morals of 'health' are never far from standards of beauty; thinness is sold in overtly profitable ways (the diet and weight-loss industries) and furthermore, our idea of beauty is often a kind of post hoc justification for the thinness already being demanded by state and medical authorities. which is really just to say, beauty is part of the ideological superstructure both resulting from and invoked as a justification for the material conditions of capitalist biopolitics. again this is very broad strokes, but imo it is a much more useful framework to understand EDs than simply presenting them as a result of desiring thinness because it is glorified in The Media, because... reasons (essentially the rené girard model, lol).

kind of a hot take and maybe a bit offensive and blasphemous: confucianism was? is? kinda... off putting,, i find it weird that this guy existed in a point in time irl, and now we've come to think of him as a god figure?? he was real, and was probably a normal dude who got some different ideologies that people supported, and then now there's a religion. it's sus, not like muhammad from islam or moses from the bible, we have no tangible records that those people existed at all, or if they were of real people they dont have dates and times or documentation besides the scripture. perhaps this is something unique to china in the sense that their religions kind of have dates and that existence is not just confined to religious scripture if you know what i mean?? laozi, the founder of taoism, possibly exists in some accounts, and in others he is immortal, but its possible to think the guy existed.. idk sorry if this makes no sense to you.. i'm not even going to open the can of worms that is cultural minorities and their religions that i do not have the authority to even speak of knowledgeablely?? china is a melting pot of socio-cultural stuff i couldnt possibly understand without actually being there and i acknowledge that as an agonostic diaspora with one lone braincell that blasts rasputin all the time

actually wouldnt it be funny if elon musk started his own religion like confucius or whatever i think that would be funny i wouldnt call it a religion itd be a cult and an mlm simultaneously

This took a hot second to reply to because I went down oh so many an unnecessary side quest. But is it really a reply from me if I don't talk about something else instead?

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I am going to put this in the nicest most neutral way possible because a) I got nothing going on at this particular time, and

b) to your credit, I feel like you could hear yourself in your head sounding dumb as hell but just decided to hit snooze on those alarm bells and sent me this ask instead of turning to google first:

confucianism was? is? kinda… off putting,, i find it weird that this guy existed in a point in time irl, and now we've come to think of him as a god figure??

Confucius (Kongzi) did not start a religion. Confucianism is a school of philosophy first and foremost. He may be somewhat mythologised as a major historical figure, sure, but his primary influence is that of a philosopher and as the "father of Chinese ethics". He is revered as a great thinker, not a god. Comparable example: Socrates.

Confucianism is not a religion the way you might be thinking about it. There may be folk religion/religious practices that go into it, as Confucianism in Chinese society is heavily blended with aspects of folk religion, Buddhism, and Daoism, but Confucianism is not like Christianity where the namesake was/is deified by its followers.

In fact, fun fact, this was so much so the reality that was a point of criticism against Jesuit missionaries in the Ming Dynasty and perhaps a contributing factor (in addition to fundamental culturally-based world view differences) for why the Jesuits failed so hard at converting the Chinese masses to Catholicism/Christianity; they would try to explain Jesus in terms of Confucius teaching, and in turn, Confucius, which those who rejected the Jesuit teachings found incredulous.

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Side note time! when it comes to Confucius and what he said about religion/spirituality，he's often quoted as saying "敬鬼神而远之", "respect gods and demons/spirits from a distance", which, fun fact, Matteo Ricci (Jesuit missionary) uses in an argument to piggyback off the Chinese understanding of spirits to explain the Holy Spirit (i.e, the more important spirit to be worshipped who, unlike ancestor (spirit) worship, is the key to salvation) in his book "The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven", written in Chinese. He points to the quote by Confucius as paradoxical because Confucius confirms the existence of spirits and encourages ancestor worship but also says to distance spirits, which, from Ricci's POV makes no sense if the point of ancestor worship is to curry favor with the spirits.

故仲尼曰：「敬鬼神而远之。」彼福禄、免罪非鬼神所能，由天主耳。而时人谄渎，欲自此得之，则非其得之之道也。夫「远之」意与「获罪乎天，无所祷」同，岂可以「远之」解「无之」而陷仲尼于无鬼神之惑哉？(source, 581) So Confucius said: "Respect gods and demons/spirits from a distance". Happiness, position, and longevity and absolution [of sin] can only be handled by God. Yet contemporaries flatter [the spirits of ancestors] to obtain their [favor], but this is not the way to do it. This "from a distance" and "when you sin against Heaven, [there is] no one to pray [to]" are the same. How could "from a distance" and "there is no [gods and demons/spirits" trap Confucius in [the puzzle] that there are no gods or demons/spirits? (^rough translation)

What I feel he takes out of context is that in the source of the idiom, Confucius is responding to a student who is asking him what the meaning of knowledge/wisdom/intelligence is. His full response is "务民之义 敬鬼神而远之 可谓知矣", "The meaning is to serve the people. Respect gods and demons/spirits from a distance—this could also be called wisdom". Confucianism generally holds that ancestor worship and similar rituals are necessary to society but that religious fanaticism and superstition should be discouraged. To Confucius, worship to spirits based on etiquette (which is respectful) are important to creating a stable and peaceful society. Devout belief/zealotry/fanaticism and indulgence in gods/demons/spirits/superstition is profane, so one should keep their distance and stick to rational respect for spirits (ritual). This is how Confucianism can actually be compatible with Christianity, although from Ricci's standpoint, he sees contradictions in Confucius because to him, ancestor worship to curry favor rather than worship to god IS the superstitious behavior and is blasphemous in the face of his god.

Fun food for thought aside, if you're wondering: Jesuits mostly got for milked for hundreds of years for their knowledge of things relating to science and math, which the Chinese considered as being part of knowledge that was once known but then lost in earlier dynasties due to political instability. Then ironically their favor began to decline when the Manchus instated the the Qing dynasty and in an effort to obtain more support from their Han subjects, adopted Confucianism philosophies more strictly.

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Basically, most of your vague questions here could probably be cleared up if you read up more on what Confucianism actually is and what its relationship to Chinese society is.

I can understand how this might be confusing if you are diaspora but grew up agnostic and only have the vague framework of, let's face it, Christianity in western society to base your understanding of religion off of, but I don't think it's thaaaaat unique to China for historical figures to be mythologised, either as the center of religions, folk religions, folk lore/legend, philosophies, or religious philosophies. Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus of Nazareth, for example. The Catholic saints. (Edit: also, Muhammad did exist historically and there's decent evidence to suggest that Laozi did as well, though these were not their birth names most likely).

My friend, Please tell me what you are studying, for I greatly desire to study it too. With many thanks, A frustrated philosopher

I’m assuming you’re asking after seeing that Adorno post lol - I don’t wanna get too specific but my dissertation work is on fascist movements in north america! the first text I encountered that really made me want to study it (in addition to just like observing and experiencing what’s happening in the world, especially as a trans person lol) is The Authoritarian Personality by Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford. I think it’s a pretty flawed text for a lot of reasons but it + some of Adorno’s other work are pretty formative for my research interests and understanding of the social world. I’m deeply indebted to it intellectually and it’s a landmark text in western studies on fascism (so it contains all the issues of western thought on fascism in general in addition to Adorno’s flaws and limitations as a thinker more specifically).

It’s a thousand pages long so if you wanted to read parts of it, I would recommend finding a pdf of the 2019 edition and reading Adorno’s critical reflections on the work written after it was published (it’s inserted as a preface in the 2019 edition) + the introductory chapter. The intro outlines the context and rationale for the study (basically: why did people support Nazi Germany, what motivates antisemitism in the modern day) and describes the methodology of the study. The methods section is incredibly interesting, the authors talk about how they go about collecting fascist sentiment from the public while basically deceiving their participants, since one of the methodological problems they (and prior research) run up against is that most people do not publicly and openly declare, even on anonymous surveys, their support for fascist governments, so you should instead measure their support for the underlying rhetoric and sentiment of fascist beliefs without explicitly telling people they’re being polled on how fascist they are (their unit of analysis is the potentially fascistic subject, not necessarily explicit fascists - they wanted to, in addition to outright fascists, measure potentiality for fascist support and were interested in people who might reject explicit fascist talking points but still agree with the underlying logics of fascist thought). The study is very heavily wedded to psychoanalysis, which I have a lot of problems with, but I think they capture something legitimate and real with their psychological framework. Part of Adorno’s defense of their psychological approach is that personality is the medium through which ideology gets expressed (essentially his claim is that you are your beliefs about the world, and that you become a different person when you believe different things, an argument I find basically compelling), so measuring personality ‘traits’ of a person will reveal their potentiality for fascist support, possibly even moreso than their publicly stated beliefs. Again I think generalising from this framework needs to have a lot of qualifications attached to it, but despite my many reservations with psychology I don’t think this is a totally illegitimate approach.

anyway lol going a bit long but I hope that answers your question !

there's also an implication in this conversation that I do not like- and that I have seen vocalized pretty blatantly, too- that atheism isn't actually something that truly exists, and the concept itself is just a damaging remnant of Christian ideology.

like- the idea that whether a thing is religion or not is purely arbitrary, that there is actually no easy way to define "religion" and not participate in it, also very much means that things like "the separation of church and state" are necessarily impossible. right?

and if your religion is also just the culture you're a part of, you can't really consider yourself non-religious, because culture is just religion. if you have culture, you have religion, and everyone has some kind of culture.

I often see people point to like, Hinduism; originally not considered more than a lifestyle, until Christians needed to define it in order to convert people from it.

and yeah, yes, the two are very heavily tied. but I think y'all misunderstand what atheism is if you think of it as an absence of belief.

Atheism means you believe that there isn't a higher power. like any religion, there are values that follow from this: we have to decide why it is we should do good things, what it means to be good, what the point of living is, and all the other questions every religion has to answer.

it's just... not formally organized, so those questions are usually asked and answered individually, or in small family groups and maybe social circles.

and yeah, there are atheists that never do this. we don't have systems or processes for converting, so it's easier to just like, decide you aren't religious anymore and never question what that means or entails. but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, either; it doesn't mean that deeper introspection isn't a pretty logical next step for a good number of ex-theists who become atheists, and a pretty intrinsic part of being raised atheist.

what it means to be an atheist varies by the person, their individual experiences with religion, and surrounding culture. the beliefs you have are likely going to be informed by how they contrast to the religions you have experience (direct or tangential) with.

and... that's also not untrue of any religious person.

what bothers me about this conversation is that a good amount of it relies on how people view atheists from the outside; a lot of which is informed both by the surrounding Christian-dominant culture of a lot of these folks, their own religions and individual experiences with religion, and the interactions they've had with atheists.

the reason we see people framing atheism as a total lack of personal ideology is because they literally just don't know what it is, and they're often unwilling to listen to atheists about it. a lot of them don't question (ironically) that these ideas they have come from Christianity and religion, even if they themselves are not Christian.

and if that sounds like how a lot of atheists in Christian-dominant cultures view minority religions like Judaism, that's because it is!

I don't think it's the exact same; there's obviously a very different system of power and oppression at work with religious minorities than there is with atheism. but I do think that the people trying to criticize atheists who aren't making an effort to listen & learn about religions they don't already have direct experience with, also need to listen & learn about the thing they're trying to criticize. ideally from multiple people who have direct personal experience with it, and ideally from a diversity of experiences within that group.

and I think the crux of this conversation is that everyone needs to be operating under the assumption that their ideas may not be coming from pure logic and reason.

On a post mocking anti-zionism.

This is how Zionists turn their brains off.

To Zionists, fellow Zionists can have nuanced discussions about different kinds of Zionism ("Jewish self-determination"--soft zionism, apartheid denial, "Greater Israel"--destroy all of Palestine and convert it into a settler colony, etc.) Only fellow Zionists can discuss Zionism. Only Zionists get to criticize Zionism, so long as they don't become anti-zionist.

And anti-Zionists are assumed to be antisemites, and should not be listened to. This commenter also heavily implies that Jews support Zionism (the last parenthetical implies that Jews will all know that anti-zionism is antisemitism.)

Zionism is a harmful, settler colonial ideology. And saying that anti-zionism is antisemitism shuts down the conversation every time. And back to the original post this comment came from which was mocking zionist blocklists, it absolutely makes sense to make a list of people to block who have trained themselves never to engage in good faith. (I'm not a cop; you can do what you want, but you're likely wasting your time with the Jumblr zionist "influencers".)

Imagine saying "only racists get to discuss racism" or "only fascists get to discuss fascism." It doesn't hold up.

I understand the fear here. Many western Jews are taught from a young age that the whole world (except for Israel) is out to get you. I was taught this too. I was taught that "when people talk badly about Zionism, they really mean Jews." That went for Jews, NK, liberal, or otherwise, just like for Gentiles. But it's not true.

But when Zionists refuse to listen, this is why. They teach themselves not to think. This was me 5 years ago. This is absolutely how this works. In the name of "keeping Jews safe" they refuse to understand that they're supporting apartheid.

This is your reminder that my account was created to share my "alternative" personal views. I will take little to no criticism, I will not change based off of what the majority tells me to, even if it's already a minority. I will always honor myself and what I believe in. This account is to talk about the things that normally wouldn't be socially acceptable to.

I'm getting attacked for my last post, but honestly idc lol. (Rant kinda)

if you wanna be a safe space for creeps, baits, and overall people who mock our community and diminish our struggles so they can use a label they don't understand, go ahead, but not everyone wants to be associated with that. Just proves what kind of person you are, someone who doesn't understand us at all.

Paralleling me to transmeds is crazy. Just because transgenderism and other transids are similar, doesn't mean they're not completely different in many other ways. Gender is a subjective thing. You can't be hypothetically disabled.

Things such as gender and race ARE social constructs, so you can interpret your identity with them as you please. It's not real, after all. Things such as transabled, however, are based off of real things that people struggle with daily. I'm not saying it's wrong to transition to it, but it's not something to be taken lightly. There's a very thin line between minimizing disabled peoples experiences and mocking them vs. actual transabled people who know what they're talking about, and I'm sick of people mixing them up and referring to them both as the same.

Disabilities are a VERY real thing. You can't just transition to it for the labels and an inner feeling that doesn't even match the transition like you can gender and race. There's literally no way to host an identity like that WITHOUT feeling at least a little dysphoria and wanting to transition, even if you can't. I don't care how much you ostracize me for this, we need to stop being a safe space for bad people. This is why the respectful radqueers still get judged so heavily.

Transharmed is one thing, it's your body so it's your choice as long as you know what you're talking about, doing, and respecting people who were born with it, but transharmful? I genuinely don't get it. Like transna/zi and transgro/omer? Do people seriously think these identities are okay? Identifying with ra/cism and eu/geni/cs and overall harming others goes COMPLETELY against the original rq ideology.

Call me a fake radqueer, call me a transmed, call me an exclusionist, but I will never ever support people who are harming anyone intentionally.

Transitioning to anything isn't something to be taken lightly. It's not a joke, it's not something fun, it's not aesthetic. It's a grueling, painful experience that, if any of us had the option to not have to go through it, we wouldn't. It hurts. So I wish people would stop pretending like our suffering is just something they can do for a week for fun.

We're a community that was built off of our unusual dysphoria and being ostracized out of our own communities. Please don't continue the cycle by ostracizing people who have their own views.

Anyway, because of all of this drama, and a lot of my personal ideologies and morals not fitting the standard radqueer ones, does anyone know of any similar labels? Should I make my own?

(regarding the Hilton article that you were sent by that anon)

Hilton’s "criticism" is so frustrating because my favorite thing about the Strike novels is that the crimes the team are investigating are not treated as crazy one-offs, but as single *instances* of more frequent problems, and so of course on the way to uncovering one truth, they uncover several. Similarly, the act of investigating those single instances will bring up similar circumstances from characters’ pasts, because again, they are not entirely infrequent occurrences.

But what also shocks me is that this particular criticism ("How dare the world not be split into good decent people and The Criminal!") is the perfect opposite of the criticism everyone loves to return to with Harry Potter ("How dare she write a book where there are Good Guys and Bad Guys"). Of course, actually reading HP will show that the books aren’t so clear cut, but they are still children’s books which tackle good vs evil.

So which one is it? Does Rowling write books with painfully black-and-white views of the world, or does she need to be reminded that only one person can be evil at a time, and the morally perfect heroes must defeat him before someone else can take the reigns? Do we want more variation and imperfection and bad-people-on-both-sides or less?

Well there are two things you have to consider in order to answer your question.

Number one, most if not all criticism thrown at JK Rowling since 2020 has to be read as bad faith because, 9 times out of 10, it's motivated by ideology rather than an actual desire to engage intellectually with the text. It doesn't matter if the criticism makes sense or constitutes rigourous analysis, what matters is how much criticism gets thrown out there. If there are enough articles titled "10 Reasons Why Harry Potter Is Actually Terrible For Children", most people won't read the articles, but they will eventually get a sense that Harry Potter MUST be wrong for children to generate so much controversy. The goal is to discredit JKR's opinions by any mean necessary. That's why Pink News's strategy in June 2020 (following Jo publishing her essay on self-identification) was to publish multiple "articles" a day attacking her and her positions.

Number two: i've read a lot of bad faith "criticism" of JKR and HP over the years (long before 2020). This thing you're talking about - accusing her of promoting black and white morality in HP - is mostly no longer "fashionable" discourse. At its height, it was only ever promoted by, ahem, let's call them "passionate" fans of Slytherin. Context: the marketing strategy of Harry Potter (especially post-release) heavily relies on encouraging fans to pick one of the four houses and identify with it. The problem with that marketing strategy is, to sumrise, no Slytherin is supposed to be a good guy in HP (because the way the "recruits" are picked is based on a racist/classist premise), and there is no real redemption arc for any of the Slytherins kids we see in the books, so some fans eventually started to resent that and became mad at JKR for not just… redeeming Draco and making him Harry's best friend or or whatever. Honestly the psychology behind this particular outrage and why so many people rallied behind it against Rowling ever since the 2000s is fascinating and could easily make for an entire post on its own. But, not the point of this reply!

In short: it was always a very niche criticism from a very petty and nerdy side of the fandom. And nowadays, that specific subset has by and large decided that engaging AT ALL with Harry Potter would make them a Bad Person™. So they no longer protest that specific, perceived issue, because that would mean admitting they care about HP in the first place. They have moved towards basically saying that JKR's morals IN GENERAL are wrong, so if you read her books (which you shouldn't!!) every good guy should be seen as bad (or badly written) and vice versa. This is the reasoning behind people calling for an entire "rewriting" of the books by anyone else, preferably multiple people, or aggressively pursuing the building of a "counter" HP universe, via fanfiction.

Which, again, is really interesting to me from a psychological perspective! This need not to simply erase, but rewrite JKR's work in the "correct" way. The only reason one would feel the need to do that if if they perceived the original work to have so much resonance, so much power, that it can't just be left to be forgotten, because it will NOT fade on its own. Instead you have to rewrite it to confuse future readers, to "drown" the original work essentially under a pile of bullshit. It is not a goal one would ever pursue so relentlessly if they perceived the writing to be bad – wrong, maybe, but not bad. On the contrary it's probably the highest compliment to Jo's writing skills that people feel so threatened by her and the longetivity of her work.

Oh Dex, you don't get to pull the "I can't be bigoted, stalking, violent trash because I'm more leftist than you are" card.

I'm trans and an ancom and it's no secret that a lot of "ex" gg-ers tried to re-invent themselves.

Funny how it never works for long.

No one outside your diminishing echo chamber believes a word you say.

Actually, that is just wrong. Me being leftist has nothing to do with me not being bigoted. Im simply... Not bigoted. The reason why i point out my leftist "credentials" is to prove through my ACTIONS why you people are fake progressives.

You gave me labels. You are trans and an ancom. Okay. Why should i care? I dont care about your labels (I stopped caring about them during the invasion of Ukraine when people started using the "pacifist" and "anti-imperialist" labels to argue for Russian occupation of Ukraine). I care about actions.

So, let us all recall what YOU anti-RWDE people have done with your actions.

1 - During the RT controversies many of your people came in DEFENCE of RT, people like Lilith Fairen cursed out and attacked people on twitter for criticizing RT and afterwards your anti-RWDE crowd spread Kdins past shitty behaviour. Pointing out her past behaviour is not a problem. But you did so to protect a bigoted company.

2 - Your anti-RWDE crowd has called for people to support RT financially through merch and other such avenues. Showing that you care more for your show and a corporation than its workers.

3 - Multiple anti-RWDE people have been caught using slurs, people like Lilith using ethnic slurs while some of your other people have been caight using the word "ret*rd". One of your people, Darious uses an alt account to spread islamophobic and racist shit to Adel Aka and Vexed Viewer. I dont like their content. But the racist attacks on them come from YOUR crowd

4 - Multiple of your people have been caught faking accusations about others. Canonseeker, a person your anti-RWDE crowd is friendly with for example took issue with me slagging of NAZIS on twitter. Pretending that they were "RWBY fans". I dont know why he stated that Nazis were RWBY fans but you should ask him that.

5- Your anti-RWDE crowd constantly use language or tactics associated with the alt-right. Lilith Fairen often weaponizes an alt right tactic when people call out racism/sexism, to them accuse the accusers of these things. Some of your people freely use the word "degener*te" which is HEAVILY associated with far right ideologies.

6 - Most of your biggest attacks have been against people of colour and sexual minorities. You dont go after chuds. Your MAIN targets are specifically women, people of colour, and those of non-straight sexualities. And that is no coincidence. Hell, quite recently one of your leaders, Lilith straight up made an entire paragraph which just reeked of white saviour syndrome.

7 - It is only from YOUR anti-RWDE crowd that i have gotten shit for supporting Ukraine in their defence against a Russian invasion. No single critic of RWBY has EVER given me shit for that. Only RWBY fans. Why is that?

Need i go on? The reason why i call you fake progressives is not due to the labels you hold. But due to your behaviour. The BEST you can levy in accusations against RWDE people is making shit up.

Xel Writer/Zam/Xelianthought for example is hanging around twitter claiming that the Canonseeker expose document was made with the help of Kiwifarms knowing that its a lie. He wanted to get my Reddit account deleted through false accusations that Lilith wanted to get onto too. Your friend canonseeker is coming up with real life fanfiction about me "controling" RWBY youtubers and r/RWBY mods.

The best you can do are either lies or shouting "YOU ARE SEXIST/RACIST/HOMOPHOBE" with absolutely no proof.

While your, anti-RWDE behaviour has been recorded to be fucking horrible. And none of you ever apologized or even acknowledged the things you have done. None of you have acknowledged or apologized for using slurs. None of you have apologized for defending RT.

You doubled down on that shit.

Also, if you dont care what we say. Why in the fuck do you keep hounding us? Why do i receive nearly daily asks of harassment? Why do you keep talking about us? If nobody believes us or listens to us. Why do you care?

See? Your attacks are so transparent its funny to me. Because in your whole "Nobody cares about you spiel" you reveal just how much of a pain we are to you people. Good.

feel free to skip if you're uncomfortable. I saw your post about the things you don't support in writing but what are your thoughts on things like rape-fic or CNC?

First and foremost I think I will never write them or read them. I am a rape-survivor and though I have managed my trauma well I am not in a place where I want to see or interact with it in literature or media.

In terms of whether or not they're ethical? That's a grey area. Context matters pretty heavily when depicting those topics and there is definitely a way people do it that is toxic and perpetuates harmful misconceptions about sex and consent.

To a point you can argue it's like BDSM, the people creating and engaging with these scenarios are adults writing about other adult characters and they retain control over the fantasy so there's no actual consent being violated. Though I certainly think there is a conversation to be had about why these fantasies are so prevalent, especially among women. There's also an issue with the predator characters sometimes being intentionally or unintentionally racially coded but that requires its own separate conversation. It also makes a difference if the writer is identifying with the predatory role vs the victim role which is also it's own conversation but I think for the purpose of this ask I'll focus mainly on female consumers who identify with the victim as that is the most widespread scenario in fanfic and the "romance" genre.

Take this with a grain of salt, I haven't really done a lot of research into this so most of this is speculative and based on conversations I've had with women who enjoy this kind of content. I could be way off in my observations but I noticed common threads in all of my conversations.

I think genres like smutty "bodice rippers" written by and for women don't have widespread popularity for no reason and the reason is rooted in internalized misogyny. It's a symptom of generations of women feeling ashamed of their sexuality. The main appeal of these kinds of narratives seems to be that the female protagonist has little to no control and is therefore not responsible for initiating or perusing any kind of sexual gratification. She remains passive rather than active, through that passivity she can retain a sense of moral purity and even innocence. Why do those things matter? Because historically and even in some sense currently, that is the measure of a woman's worth.

I've spoken to women who say that they inexplicably feel a sense of guilt if they take a proactive role in the bedroom and I find that more than a little troubling tbh.

In most of these stories the female protagonist is not given power because power would mean she could be held responsible for her own debauchery. It opens her up to criticism, slut-shaming and accusations of "asking for it."

In summary I don't think there's generally anything wrong with kink but I think it's beneficial to examine where the kink comes from and why a particular fantasy or kink is widespread. Fiction is shaped by reality and consumers of fiction are obligated to some extent to understand what they are consuming and why they are consuming it. At the end of the day all I ask is that people engage critically and be willing to unpack whether what their consuming is in itself harmful or a symptom of a more widespread harmful ideology.

Rose Nicholas ; The Ultimate Good Cop (Danganronpa The Privileged Traitor)

Rose Nicholas (As it sounds) ; 21 Years Old ; From Chicago, Illinois ; The Ultimate Good Cop

Rose Nicholas is a student of Hopes Peak College Class B-3 in Danganronpa The Privileged Traitor. She is nobody’s favorite character.

Rose is a privileged kid, as someone who was born in a family with high influence, her father being the country treasury and her mother being a military captain. She was born weaker than an average infant, but that didn’t stop her.

Growing up, she’s always had a dream of making the world a better place, as the head of the entire country’s police force.

So she worked HARD for that goal of making the world her image and training to be a proper police officer. She quickly became a heavily established member of the force despite just being in training, and earned high respect from her chief for her ‘sweet’ personality.

It’s in the name really. Rose is sweet as roses. She’s the good cop. She’s the one who always has the moral high ground and can’t ever be wrong ever-

But to her, that isn’t enough. As she’s had a few problems. Problems that are not her fault at all why even suggest such-?!

One, she doesn’t actually have friends. No one wants to be her friend. She’s not sure why, as all she ever does towards her peers is judge them and tell them exactly what they are, and most of them are degenerates or degenerate sympathizers so really they don’t deserve her-

Two, her little sister, Rain Nicholas. Ever since the speck was born, Rain has been the favorite by everyone but the chief, who prefers Rose. Rain follows Rose to a T and mimics everything she does, to the point where she too becomes a cop, and is sometimes said to be stronger and more reliable on the field than even Rose.

But Rose calmly tolerates it to Rains face cause she’s the good cop. Despite how erratic her sister is to the point of sabotaging Rose’s training grades and social life sometimes. Everything wrong with Roses life is totally just Rain’s fault and not Roses. But someone has to keep her little sister in check. Even if it is extremely grating to even look her in the eye-

Rose is VERY passionate about her ideologies. She will protect those who need it, she claims. She will make the world a better place, she claims. As a member of the police, she is the good figure of society and can do no wrong, she claims.

In her mind, a perfect world is reached when she is at front and center and in charge. It is law to have rose gardens in your home. The evil men are in jail or dead. The ‘good’ men are stuck in office where they belong. Baseball is illegal. Bollywood is displayed prominently. No debt. No murders. No suffering for anyone but the evil party. And there are no vigilantes of any kind cause those people are objectively evil-

Rose has an absolute awful time taking criticism towards herself. Towards Rain, she absolutely supports it, but towards herself that’s another story.

See, to Rose, because she is so sweet and a lawful good, she’s never wrong.

Everything she does is objectively the correct thing to do in any situation. If she’s not calling the shots, or agreeing with the shot being taken, there’s a problem.

Every opinion she has is objectively a fact. Anything else is not a different opinion, it is simply a lie.

Don’t even slightly imply you don’t agree with her. She will let you know you’re wrong. After all, disagree with her and you’re just exposing yourself as a pure evil person out to destroy the world and commit global crimes.

Agree with Rain? You’re an awful person cause no one should ever side with the bad cop.

Not follow her plan? You’re a criminal sympathizer who wants bad stuff to happen.

Don’t agree with an opinion she has? You’re spreading lies and you’re a gross whiny human being for it.

Just simply don’t like her? You’re misogynistic and a disgusting piece of garbage that deserves to rot cause CLEARLY you just don’t like her because she is a woman with power. And you don’t, so you’re just jealous and insecure. Disliking Rose is objectively wrong.

At least that’s all what Rose thinks. That’s her headspace when it comes to opposition.

Still, with her power, she can get out of basically anything cause she has the excuse of being correct and justified, and she’s also a privileged kid so…

With it, she and Rain are the officers watching the other students when the whole school scam reveals itself as a killing game. Both the cops are ready to take action and find out who is running the game so justice can be served and the innocent students can be protected. After all, it’s Roses job to protect the others, it’s Rains job to smash stuff.

Get on Roses good side and she will protect you. Just… don’t get on her bad side.

Victim? Killer? Survivor?

I’m not gonna lie, out of everyone in this cast, Rose is at the bottom of my list no contest. Some of the scenes with her I’ve outlined so far, I’ve felt angry at multiple occasions because of her. It’s all intentional, but I will be very surprised if anyone actually likes this character at all.

Also yes, Rain Nicholas is also a student and a character. Take a wild guess what Ultimate she is.

See my other profiles; The Protagonist ; The Mastermind; The Ultimate Musical Sensation ; The Ultimate Bad Cop ; The Ultimate Scientist ; The Ultimate Archer ; The Ultimate Environmentalist ; The Ultimate Arsonist ; The Ultimate Vigilante ; The Ultimate Violinist ; The Ultimate Renaissance Student ; The Ultimate Dance Streamer ; The Ultimate Video Game Modifier ; The Ultimate Poetry Writer

REVIEW: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City [no spoilers]

Here is the blurb on the back of the book:

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

My rating: ★★★✰✰

TL;DR: Overall, I had fun with this book. I loved the genre elements: the Roman-inspired world and the plot centered on a siege. However, the literary elements were underwhelming. I think it can still be worth your time if those genre elements sound appealing to you; if not, skip it.

This is a rather difficult book to categorize into a genre. While the world in which it is set is heavily influenced by the Roman Empire, it is assuredly not historical fiction. Our protagonist is saving an unnamed capital city on the coast that is directly inspired by Constantinople, but is never named. The city is the capital of Robur Empire, whose culture and attitudes and government form are quite similar to our Romans, but whose skin is blue! (Note: the protagonist is not a blue-skinned Robur, but a "milk faced" outsider, and this sets him on a lower rung of the Robur's racial hierarchy.)

At the same time, it's not a work of fantasy. There is no magic, no prophecies, no divine intervention, no fantastical beasts, and no superhuman heroes. Indeed, the blue skin of the Robur people is the only arguably fantastical element of the world-building.

I would categorize it as a work of alternate history in an alternate universe. While the world of Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (16WTDAWC hereafter) is unmistakably Roman, it remixes Roman (including the period we call "Byzantine") culture in a very interesting way. In this world, both gladiator fights and chariot races are held in the hippodrome. The Robur state religion has the aesthetic vibes of the Greek Orthodox Church but it remains polytheistic (As best I can tell. The narrator--the protagonist--never gets into the details. He makes a passing remark about some cult analogous to Christianity never getting off the ground.)

The book absolutely delivers on the premise in the title. Much of the plot centers on defending the walled city, either the organizing of its defense or the engineering of solutions to stave off any assault. If you like military history and/or warfare simulation (video games, tabletop games), you will have fun with this book. I certainly had fun with this book for that reason.

However, other elements of this book left me unsatisfied:

I personally disliked the protagonist-narrator. I am not going to opine on whether he is "likeable"--you can decide whether you like him. But he is very cynical, self-effacing in a way that comes across as insincere, and exhibits patterns of communication with other characters that are just terribly unproductive (e.g. telling them they're stupid instead of explaining WHY they are wrong.)

The narrator has a terrible habit of introducing flashbacks in the middle of dialogue scenes. It makes for a very jarring return to the present once the flashback is over.

The ideological conflict at the heart of 16WTDAWC is the same one identified by the (invented) speech of Calgacus in his criticism of the Romans prior to the battle of Mons Graupius: "To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace." Calling the empire "Robur" is not terribly subtle in this regard, but I don't mind that. My disappointment is that I felt that questions about wars of conquest, slavery, genocide, and imperialism were explored but not satisfactorily.

Regarding this final point, I want to be clear about what I am not trying to say here:

I am not disappointed that 16WTDAWC is not a thorough denouncement of the crimes of imperialism and vindication for human rights. I am disappointed that the protagonist is incapable of articulating:

a coherent explanation about how he reconciles his participation in a imperialist regime that is racist against him personally (even as he has risen fairly high in the ranks of its military!) He has an explanation but it's not a very good one! Basically he just doesn't think about it too hard and tries to get on with life.

a coherent response to the antagonist, who has strong views that the Robur Empire is evil (but I won't say too much more so as to minimize spoilers)

I think a more charitable read of this situation is that 16WTDAWC is happy to live with the ambiguity and let the reader make up their own mind as to whether the protagonist, antagonist, or neither is in the right. That's fine to a point. But I feel that this ideological question was under-explored by the book, in large part due to the personality and limitations of the protagonist. The conflict came across as one-dimensional.

Hat tip to @the-queen-of-bithynia for the recommendation.

Jk rowling was not "cancelled on the spot" shes been spouting crap for years that pisses people off and naturally collected a large amount of haters. Her amateur writing and many strange plots in her books have been heavily scrutinized by critics. Extreme stereotyping, racism, homophobia, writing weird shit about children on twitter, the whole thing with the elves who loved being slaves is weird as fuck, aids metaphors etc. Everyone knows she's annoying. She's hated by transphobes ands trans people alike. Young people hate her and old people hate her. Harry potter fans hate her. Even many of the movie cast hate her. She's a bigot. She doesn't care about people like you. why are u falling over yourself to defend her honestly its so pathetic and we can see right through you. I'm sure you never really gave a crap about the books or who wrote them until you became a radical bitch. You just love her because she hates trans as much as you. That's all you have in common. Shes not a feminist, shes not fighting for anyones rights, she doesnt spread any important information or have any educated opinions. Her new books and movies suck. All she does is sit writing drivel and spreading hate which sounds a lot like you. No wonder you admire her so much. Honestly i bet if Kim Yo Jong or someone came out as a terf and a radical feminist u would all start fanning over her and convert to her ideologies bc u have no back bone or brain and the only thing u care about is worshipping ur chronically online terf cult, making up shit and hating trans people who have nothing to do with you. News flash! Your radical feminism isn't any more radical than what normal ass women have been talking about for generations. All the issues are already included in normal feminism, it's just the same except: you ignore big issues (especially those involving minorities and women of colour), act horrible and rude to everyone, isolate yourself and most of all, devote your existence to being transphobic. It's like a cry for help or something. You're ruining your life by being a bitch. and noone is going to feel sorry for you. Mental illness innit. 🤣 - Sincerely a happily married cis white woman. Get a life.

Oh my god this is so funny, did you copy and paste this from somewhere or did you really type all of this out for me?? I am blushing🤭

People will always have a lot to say about JKR and that's okay, she's a famous female author who owns a billion dollar franchise—people are going to talk shit on her name and some of it may be true, and some of it may not. With the way now that people deliberately skew what other people say (e.g. "JKR wants trans people deaaaaad!!!"), take a lot of shit you see from non-sources with a grain of a salt.

Regardless of the discourse & semantics you want to engage in, biological sex will still be real, women will still face sex-based oppression, and same-sex attracted people are still being erased in favour of "queer" activism. It is not hate to call that out. But it is very condescending to say all this to a detransitioned trans woman / homosexual man since I am still dysphoric, but I am not a victim nor will act like one because of it.

I made this blog to support detransitioners & same-sex attracted people, and to call out lies I was told by the trans cult during & after my transition. I really don't need "happily married cis white women" lecturing me about gender ideology that you never lived. Thanks though!

Sincerely, a "radical b*tch"

As someone who started watching the anime, then dropped it two episodes later, which I assume is what Mingi did, I honestly find it weird that people are attacking Mingi. I honestly believe that with an anime as critically acclaimed and popular as this, people don't usually look up the mangkas' histories. Mingi watches a lot of anime, so, in this instance, I think he took the same route as most of us who found themselves curious about this heavily awarded and popular anime, and decided to watch an episode or two and just stopped watching because the vibes are weird. And then much later we learnt that oh, the mangaka is basically a criminal.

CP shouldn't be taken lightly, but at the same time, fans shouldn't go around calling idols p*d*s just because they mentioned that they watched xyz piece of media. That's like saying people who watch or listen to true crime series/podcasts support all the disturbing crimes that happen. I mean, have people who love Alice in Wonderland looked into Lewis Carroll's history? Man was creepy as hell. But does that mean people who have engaged with the media support the ideology of the author? Not at all.

This whole scandal is absolutely stupid in my humble opinion (which doesn't count for much), especially if you haven't watched the anime in question.

Also, Mingi was set up. We don't know in what context this anime was talked about, because the op muted themselves and mute Mingi at certain critical points of the fancall. Moreover, the translation was wrong. What I've gathered is that Mingi was sabotaged. Simple as that. ^-^

Sorry for this long ask, smt. I'm just really irritated with people jumping to conclusions without actually looking into the whole story and accusing idols of doing or being things they aren't.

Have a good day!

GREAT A POV FROM SOMEONE WHO WATCHED IT

YES I DO GET YOU like sometimes you see smth and said "i wonder what this is" and you checked it out and i don't think it's wrong to say "oh yeah i watched that" bc you did technically and even if you did only watch 2 episodes, you still watched it and why is that bad ?? it's not like you turned to a cp after watching it

and to say that mingi was set up... i don't want to believe that op actually set mingi up bc what for ?? this "issue" started because one dumbass thinks they're bilingual bc they listen to kpop 24/7 (and yeah i sound so bitchy towards the mistranslating op because to me, that op is solely at fault for making a mountain out of an ant hill)

i guess if people wants to leave the fandom, good riddance, ateez don't need punk ass coward dumbass bitches anyways and honestly i wanna gatekeep them. keep them humble and away from crazier fans (bc we still need to eliminate the current sasaengs)

and don't apologize for having an opinion, i'm just glad you want to speak up with your unique pov and experience

Just a few things:

"I don’t know that much about his family, other than fans crapping on them for having a religious background." - no, people don't "crap on him" for his religion, he can be whatever religion he wants. Tthey are rightfully critical because Alan is VERY pro-life, VERY right wing Christian conservative. He thinks its gay for boys to use straws, men have to be "manly" and not show emotions, etc. THAT is why people have issues with Alan. His beliefs are out there, he's on anti-abortion youtube vids, he's made ignorant comments about Obama etc. People can believe what they want but when you are publicly outspoken about such divisive topics and basically think women shouldn't have rights then people are going to call you out and have the right to be offended.

"Family loves you unconditionally and he looks like he could use a lot of love right now." - this is a nice sentiment, but is unfortunately often untrue. Family SHOULD love you unconditionally, but that is not always the case. I don't know Jensen's relationship with his dad, but the reasons I listed above, among many other things, makes me think Alan is maybe not the most accepting person. I obviously cannot say with any degree of certainty, but with what I know about people like Alan, I doubt Jensen is comfortable talking with him about emotions or problems in his life and marriage. He seems to very much be a "suck it up and be a man" type of advice giver. And his mom comes across as a very passive homemaker, filling in the perfect wife/mother role. While she might be comforting, I think her ideologies probably align with Alan's quite a bit so that comfort can only go so far.

I agree and I hope someone in his life close to him is there for him, but I honestly don't know that his parents are those people. From what I've heard (and grain of salt because I don't have the receipts on this so I won't ask anyone to just believe me) Alan is also against divorce. So his advice may be the opposite of what Jensen needs to hear right now.

Thank you for sharing all of that. ♥️ I deeply appreciate your perspective. I tend to steer clear about rumors on his family because a lot of it is unfounded but the points you mentioned are real and extremely valid. It does point to Alan being closed minded and extremely judgemental. I usually steer clear from talking about religion precisely because a lot of its ideology is based on judging other heavily and that to me that not represent embodying love. So, whatever people's religion may be, I hope they lead with love and empathy.

I wrote what I wrote because, despite all the differences that arise within a family, parents do love their children, at a psychological level the child is like a mini you. So, I hope the Ackles have evolved enough to be open the way their son needs it because he really needs it right now and, if not, then I hope he finds some people he can call family that truly love him. Danneel's parents are clearly leeches just like her and her brother. Jensen needs mentor for his career and aside from his career he clearly needs true love, especially within his personal sphere. I hope he finds exactly that. ♥️♥️♥️

Sending you love and thank you for speaking up❣️