#every time i see a post that's entirely based on claiming something is true/false when it's explicitly stated to be false/true in the codex

[crossdressingdeath]

Did You Know: Bioware put the codex in the game so you could read it. Did You Know 2: They've been putting interesting and important lore details and clarifications in the codex literally since Origins. There's no excuse not to read it if you're going to engage with meta.

[hyperfixingfr]

I just saw this post and it reminded me of something I have yet to say

This is literally what this fandom does with Hoagie's implied queerness, Kuki's implied masking (aka; her overly upbeat behavior being a front) and Wally's implied autism/neurodivergency. I could go on about the first two but I sort of wanna focus on the last one especially because it takes a bigot or an obtuse person to deny it.

Look, I get it. "Respect other headcanons" and all. But is it a headcanon if it directly contradicts canon? Yeah, okay, it's not directly STATED that he's autistic. He doesn't look at the screen and say, "I'm autistic". And you know what? I don't even think it was intentional. I don't think Warburton was actively thinking "I want to write an autistic character" when writing Wally. But the truth is, autistic people have always existed, whether they were diagnosed or not. Warburton most likely used reference of his own experience with certain people in his life for Wally, and happened to use autistics he had met as a base. You can see it in Hoagie too, but it's not as prominent nor the center of this discussion.

Tell me, if you saw somebody confirm, whether through words or actions, that they fit the criteria EXACTLY for a specific disorder, disability, or illness, would you try to claim that it could just be coincidental? Any sensible person would say "no". If you fit all of the official criteria for anything, you are automatically that thing. You can deny it but it doesn't make it any less true. The entire point of a diagnosis/medical terminology is to give a name to somebody's experiencing of a specific set of conditions. When somebody experiences these specific sets of conditions, it means they have whatever they end up calling it. It's pretty simple.

The reason why I bring this up? Wally can be diagnosed using the official DSM-5 criteria. Yes, through the show. Think about it; we see Wally acting naturally. They don't know a "camera" exists that is watching them. Throughout the entire show, Wally ticks off criteria after criteria for autism. Not only does he meet every single criteria, and demonstrates himself meeting the criteria far more than once for each criteria, but he also happens to exhibit commonly observed behaviors of autistic individuals, such as meltdowns, trouble with school, and aggression when confused or upset. It's not him just barely making the mark, he has at least 3 different instances of him meeting the criteria for autism for each individual criteria. By definition, he IS autistic. This is objective. He is factually autistic, whether or not anybody said so. And if you have experience in the field of psychology or mentally disabled understanding, this won't surprise you in the slightest. As somebody who knows a lot about abnormal psychology, this stuck out to me immediately when I first watched the show. He almost acts stereotypical at times, and some instances of him meeting the criteria feel so intense that you really can't argue logically that he may be neurotypical.

He is factually, indisputably, without a doubt, autistic. He fits the criteria for ADHD as well, but people usually don't deny that one. I do see a lot of people trying to convince themselves that he ISN'T autistic, though. Normally I respect headcanons, but that isn't a headcanon. If you believe he's neurotypical, you aren't giving him a headcanon. You're denying actual facts. Whether you're denying psychology and what we know about autism, or if you're just denying his sole case, it doesn't matter. You are objectively incorrect if you think he's neurotypical and the only way I can describe why I know this is by telling you to try arguing that the sun doesn't emit light and see for yourself the way that saying something false over and over again doesn't make it true. The sun is going to emit light whether you agree with that or not, and the same applies to this kid being autistic. There is literally no reason for you to feel so strongly about this that you want to claim he's neurotypical, unless you're incredibly dense... Or ableist. It's a fact, not a headcanon.

[positivlyfocused]

Here’s Definite Proof Manifestation Is A Thing

We are literally surrounded by evidence proving manifesting is a thing. Why so many think it’s not real astounds me.

Every man-made object first started as vibration which turned into an “idea”. An idea is a thought. Such ideas usually come in a burst of inspiration. “Inspiration” is communication from one’s Broader Perspective.

Then a person acts to make the idea real. These actions come from impulses to act. Impulses come from one’s Broader Perspective.

After a time, the object is “manifest”. It becomes real.

It’s the same in nature. Things manifest first as vibration. The consciousness in nature translates that to a thought. Then it acts on its impulses until manifestation happens. 

Our entire physical world is manifested evidence that thoughts turn to things. Why people deny it baffles…

….Then again, beliefs create reality. So if one believes manifestation is fake, the Universe will create circumstances proving that belief “true”. Meanwhile, it’s proving other beliefs “true” too.

In fact, there’s so much room in the Universe, any belief held long enough will assemble cooperative components proving it true. That’s how the universe expands: vibration becomes thoughts. Those thoughts become things.

So a person claiming “you create your reality” is false proves it true. They create a reality for themselves wherein the universe gives them proof that they don’t create their reality!

But your reality needn’t be theirs…

Beliefs create experience

It’s no wonder then when a client talked about her sister, we discovered more “truth”. The client, who I’ll call Mary, has a sister I’ll call Jane. Jane celebrated the birth of her child recently. That’s cool. But what’s even cooler was Mary’s experience.

According to Mary, Jane is kind of a worry-wart. She believes in preparing for all contingencies. When it came to having her child, therefore, Jane believed it a better choice to give birth in a hospital. When she did give birth, complications resulted which necessitated a cesarean intervention.

A week after the birth, Jane re-admitted herself to the hospital with post-birth complications. She’s been in the hospital for a week now.

In our session, Mary asked if all this resulted from Jane’s belief in preparing for the worst. Yes, I told her. But also, it represented a manifestation of Mary’s beliefs about Jane. How else could Mary have had the experience of seeing Jane go through this?

We all create our realities. We do that through our beliefs about reality. That includes beliefs about ourselves and beliefs about others. However, something very important plays a role too. That is the dynamic of co-creation.

Collapsing into another’s momentum

Each person experiences others they meet as versions they create. No two people experience a third in the same way, just as no two people experience the same reality. Even when two people experience the same situation, they each have their version of that situation. There is no shared reality.

That’s true for people in our lives too.

When it comes to experiencing others, belief momentum is everything. Whether you experience someone the way they experience themselves or the way you experience them depends on this belief momentum. For example, Mary and Jane are related and Jane is older. Mary’s experience of Jane is almost entirely the result of Jane’s momentum. In other words, Mary’s beliefs about Jane largely come based on her observation of her. That seems normal, right?

After all, we all get to know people based on what we observe, then conclude based on those observations. But we can also create versions of others independent of our observations. In the same way we can create whole new realities independent of what we observe of reality. In that same way, we also can create whole new versions of other people.

Usually however, we “collapse into the momentum” of another’s belief momentum. We allow ourselves to accept the emanation of thoughts and beliefs people have about themselves. That’s what happened between Mary and Jane.

These days, Mary is questioning all her beliefs. That’s having her see things she hadn’t before. Such as realizing that her sibling’s birth complications weren’t random situations. Instead, they sprang from her beliefs. Mary’s beliefs too.

The purpose of life

This offered Mary tremendous evidence supporting her Positively Focused practice. Evidence proving for Mary that she is literally surrounded by things made real by her through her beliefs.

How else could it be? Who else is creating her reality? No one else is creating your reality either, other than you.

What that means is, we all possess tremendous potential. Potential to create really daring and satisfying realities. Realities offering whole new experiences. For us, for the world and for the Universe.

That’s the reason we come into the world in the first place. We come to participate in universal expansion. Doing so, we expand too. And, through our example, we encourage expansion in others.

It’s the Great Game that is life experience. Expansion, joy and growth is its purpose. What could be a better purpose than that?

[drake-the-incubus]

/rp

EDIT: Added a read more, the post had been originally written on mobile

For context, unless stated otherwise for the most part, this is the roleplay dynamic.

Ayyy, been seeing some Dream SMP takes on Tommyinnit’s character development that are pretty uh, piss poor. I want to point some obvious things out to people. Especially following the Technoblade/Tommyinnit team disbanding.

Techno isn’t right. Techno was certainly not in the right there, and Tommy didn’t do anything that regressed his character either, his entire character came to a development.

Let’s Start by pointing out that Wilbur has posted their Dungeons and Dragons Alignments, where Techno is Lawful Neutral and Tommy is Chaotic good. (For sake of the post, Tubbo is Lawful Good.)

So I’m going to break down exactly what was going on there and how it developed the characters.

If we go by Technoblade first, I’m seeing a lot of people say he’s better than Dream- he is- and therefore Tommy shouldn’t have left. Which is true, Techno is better than Dream, but he’s just like Wilbur. Watching from Technoblade’s POV, you notice that he starts carrying a book of the To-Do List he intends to do with Tommy. Outlining that he wants to destroy L’Manburg and tried, at almost every chance he got, to convince Tommy to do so.

Tommy said no, he didn’t want to destroy L’manburg, because he cared for it. He outright said no, he JUST wanted his discs back.

Techno concedes, saying Tommy doesn’t have to participate, only after failing to convince him many times.

Techno the entire time, tried to convince Tommy that Tubbo wasn’t his friend, that Tubbo obviously doesn’t care for him. (Not true, as Tubbo literally mourned him and thought he was dead and it destroyed him.) Which is EXACTLY what Wilbur did.

This is an isolation tactic. Techno used ANY means necessary to try and recruit Tommy. Because his character doesn’t care about interpersonal relationships so long as he gets his goal- possibly excluding Phil. His entire character sticks to one set of Morals and set of laws he’s self imposed. (Canonically refusing to truly give up violence).

1. Governments are bad.

2. Governments must be destroyed.

3. The means justify the ends so long as it destroys the government.

Technoblade’s character gets a lot of sympathy, which is cool, but I want to point out while he personally was felt betrayed, he never was.

Techno from the start, was anti-government. Willing to destroy it all so long as another country was never rebuilt. That was his only condition.

Except he KNEW everyone else wanted L’manburg back, that’s what the fight was about. It was very transparent that everyone else was working for L’manburg back.

The three people who wanted it destroyed? Wilbur, Dream and Techno.

Techno wasn’t betrayed, he chose to ignore the goals of his allies until it came time that everyone took back L’manburg. He ignored knowledge that was given to him plenty of times, by Tommy himself even. They wanted L’manburg back. Techno talks of betrayal, but when Tommy points out that Techno betrayed them, he falters and excuses himself.

Which brings Tubbo into the mix. Tubbo was an ally, and he was working with them, WILLINGLY, to give information because he wanted to take down Schlatt and return L’manburg to how it was. He was trapped, scared and wanted help. In the festival, when Technoblade shoots him, THAT is a clear act of betrayal. Techno kills Tubbo, at Schlatt’s orders, betraying Tubbo and Tommy’s trust in him as he worked, clearly, for the other side, against their collective goals.

Techno claims the ends justify the means, and that he was under mild amounts of peer pressure. This is an example of his character. He doesn’t feel bad for hurting his ally, because they got something out of it. If it suits him, he WILL hurt his allies to get ahead in his goals, and he will say anything to justify it.

Tommy’s character cannot agree with this. He values friendship the most, and would give up his goals for his friends, as a true Chaotic Good, he values his friends and the people around him, over any law or morals, and would break his laws and morals for it.

He couldn’t understand Techno shooting Tubbo, because he wouldn’t. There wouldn’t be a force on the SMP that could make him shoot Tubbo in Techno’s place. They have too widely different views, where Tommy values friendship and people, Techno values ideals and goals.

So, we’re not even done and this is pretty long, let’s cover Tommy and the discs. The entire plot device for season one and two.

Tommy’s attention to the discs are goal oriented, to get back his discs no matter the costs, yeah? Except I feel like some of you have no idea where this goal came from. Tommy gave up the discs before, despite fighting for them desperately, so his friends could have L’manburg. He fought desperately, to have those discs back initially, as a war against Dream.

“Before this, before everyone, before L’manburg, it’s always been me and you, against Dream.” Tommy to Tubbo, before the Pogtopia vs Manburg war. (Might not be a true quote.)

This isn’t just a cute little moment, Tommy CARES for Tubbo deeply, they’re some of the closest friends on the SMP. He fought Techno because Techno killed Tubbo. It was personal for him, that is his best friend and he would do anything for him.

Tommy does, do anything for Tubbo, promising that no matter what, it will be the both of them. That they will always be together. This isn’t showing his hero complex, this isn’t a show of some inherent flaw. This is Tommy’s closest and most valuable interpersonal relationship. Chaotic Good Tommy values his friendships deeply.

So when Techno continuously tries to pressure Tommy into believing Tubbo and him aren’t friends, that Tubbo doesn’t care, and so they should hurt Tubbo to get the discs back, Tommy refuses. He refuses over and over again, claiming he trusts Tubbo will give back the disc.

Technoblade uses the framework Dream made, by the way, to accomplish this. He takes Tommy’s fragile mental state and uses that to his advantage. He does what Wilbur does, and almost succeeds. Tommy falters, believing momentarily that Tubbo doesn’t care. Something Dream was trying to convince him of in his isolation. Which isn’t true. Tubbo, upon learning Tommy is dead, is in disbelief and despair.

Let’s talk about the hostage situation for a moment. Tommy tells Tubbo off for not coming to his beach party, and that he was never visited, never received letters, and he was told the same thing from Tubbo as Wilbur said; “I wasn’t invited. I did send you things.”

The broken relationship we see? It’s falsely constructed by Dream. That bond exists still, fractured because someone came in with the intentions to break and destroy Tommy’s interpersonal relationships and manipulate him.

Tommy’s exile arc, was an abuse arc. Tommy was regularly abused by Dream. Techno profited off it, and used Tommy’s fragile mental state to try and achieve his goals, not even trusting Tommy until, in his fragile state, they both threaten Fundy. Techno sees this as commitment to the cause.

Tommy wanted his discs, Techno wanted L’Manburg destroyed.

So when the community house was destroyed, and we get that scene with Techno going with Tommy, they both have a moment. But I’ll address that in a second.

First, Tommy rushes in to defend himself, saying he didn’t destroy the community house. That he was innocent.

Tubbo doesn’t believe him. Why? Because Tommy does this. Tommy destroys things, he burned George’s house (taking the fall for Ranboo), he did plenty of things.

Tommy and Tubbo fight, and Tommy says, “the discs were worth more than you ever were”. This line, I’ve seen it interpreted many ways, one being he used to value the discs over Tubbo, and another being his values as a character.

It’s neither, by the way. It’s a heat of the moment comment, it shocks Tommy into silence, he instantly regrets it. He hates that he said it. Tommy’s goals, in that moment, change, based on his alignment. His goal doesn’t matter, if it’s hurting the people he cares for. It’s hurting Tubbo, it’s time to get rid of the goal.

In that instant, the discs do not matter. They mean nothing. Tommy doesn’t care for them. This is the moment that he GROWS as a character. Instead of obsessively wanting the discs and harming his friends for it, he is willing to let them go so he can foster his friendship. His arc, comes to an end. He doesn’t choose to be a hero again, that’s not what that is. No, he chooses his friend, the one he’s put so much faith and trust into, over something he has realized doesn’t mean more.

He tells Tubbo to give the disc to Dream, because he doesn’t care about them anymore, the sentimentality he has with them and Tubbo mean nothing if he loses Tubbo. Chaotic Good, he chooses the people over his goals and morals (which change on a whim).

Techno, who was using the discs to get Tommy to cooperate, who only recently thought Tom y and him were equals, is enraged because he can’t understand it. He can’t understand Tommy giving up his goal, because he couldn’t. His goals and ideals, they never went away in retirement, he was always wanting to destroy the government, he was planning it behind Phil’s back even. Everything he did was in preparation for a war. I think, even without the execution, Techno would have gone back to his ideals to destroy the government.

Which is why Techno, is angry. He feels betrayed, because once again, the outcome that was obvious happened, and someone stuck to their own words. Tommy would never harm Tubbo, and he wasn’t going to help Techno against L’Manburg.

But Tommy doesn’t do it maliciously against Techno, willing to even try and stay friends, showing he still cared for him. Tommy values his friends, including Techno in that moment.

What Techno sees is Tommy’s betrayal, Tommy broke their alliance because his goal is gone. “Help me get back the discs.” Tommy said when they made that deal. That no longer applies, Tommy was never intending on helping with the destruction of L’Manburg or the death of his friend.

Techno, once again, convinced himself that he would be assisted in his goal despite the vocal outcry against it.

So what does Techno do? He gets revenge. He teams up with Dream immediately.

That’s Techno’s character. Interpersonal bonds mean nothing if they get in the way of his goal, but he doesn’t go out of his way to purposefully destroy them. The MOMENT Tommy isn’t with him, Techno doesn’t have an issue with Dream or what he’s done.

Techno willingly teams up with Tommy’s abuser, because he gets his goal.

Tommy, who still cares for Techno is in shock at this. He sees Techno as a friend, like Tubbo. This hurts him.

Techno, later, even goes on to say he doesn’t care for friends so long as the people he’s with share his ideals, ending into the extreme of his alignment.

Techno has never been a good guy. He’s an antagonist of the SMP. Particularly, he’s not a villain, but antagonist. He’s an obstacle. Not via his person, but his goals.

And he wins, and he tells Tommy, “you never saw me as a person, only a weapon, you betrayed me twice now”.

Tommy, who has seen them as friends, after Techno broke their friendship off the first time with the withers, counters, “and what of Schlatt and what you did to Tubbo”.

Which Techno dismisses as, “in the past” and “it doesn’t matter”. To Techno, it’s not relevant how he treats others, his betrayal to other people doesn’t matter, just the perceived betrayal towards himself.

In the end, Techno is blinded by his beliefs. They controlled him to the extremes. To the point where he would burn any bridge made to keep them.

But Tommy? Tubbo? They gave up L’Manburg, to make their own little place. No vocal apologies were given, yes, and they should address that, but they gave up the country to be together as friends.

And for anyone wondering, Tommy and Tubbo are friends again, through action. Tommy, contrasting his words, gave the discs up to repair his friendship.

Techno, true to his word, destroyed the country and killed anyone who stood in his way. Even going out of his way sometimes to target Tubbo and Tommy.

In short, Techno was a second Wilbur to Tommy, and it shows that some people ignored the subtle manipulation attempts to achieve his goal. Is he as bad as Dream? No, not even close actually. But he’s as bad as Wilbur.

I also want to point something out on ages. Techno is canonically an adult. Tommy is a child, a kid. He’s a kid. The dynamic between them was skewed.

Techno saw a kid, in distress, and in a poor mental state, and tried to manipulate him.

When the kid figured out he didn’t want his goal anymore, he backed out. Techno punished him, by repeating what would be a huge source of trauma for him.

Techno tried to destroy L’Manburg, and succeeded. And he told Tommy that, “you could have just sat out”.

Tommy couldn’t. Because Tubbo is, and always will be, his closest friend. He values his bonds, but he promised Tubbo it was the two of them.

As Philza is the exception to Techno’s alignment, the promise to Tubbo is the exception to Tommy.

There was no betrayal, but a shift in goals and ideals from Tommy, which lead to Tommy and Technoblade no longer needing to be allies.

The narrative isn’t supposed to be black and white, that’s most of the characters. Techno being a big perpetrator of this. The narrative is a morally Grey area, where you can side with whoever you want.

That’s it, that’s the meta.

- Signed, A Techno and Tommy apologist

[sketching-shark]

I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

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PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure. 

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work. 

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst. 

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. 

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).   

----

Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity. 

----

 As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[lochnessies]

I feel like 3H discourse gets fucked over a bit by people not taking into account that characters will say inaccurate information (without it having to be a plot hole). Perspective is a huge theme in Three Houses and characters are going to make, sometimes, dramatic actions based off that misinformation.

yeah

Like, Dmitri accuses Edelgard of being involved in the Tragedy of Duscur, but, she was like, 12 when that happened. It’s a lot more likely that Edelgard was being experimented on or recovering from experimentation during that point in time considering that the Tragedy happens not long after Edelgard and Dmitri last see each other.

do i think edelgard was involved? nah. it’s one of the few things i genuinely believe her on. however, it isn’t unreasonable for dimitri to think she was somehow involved. i mean, faerghast is pretty standard medieval when it comes down to fighting. was sent to quell rebellions at like 14. that’s really young. and in the middle ages the standard age that boys trained to be nights was at the very least seven (glenn was 15 when he was full on knighted). felix says he learned to fight before he could write his own name and dimitri was already swinging swords at nine. not to mention she was in the kingdom and then not long after she leaves the tragedy happened. so it could also look like she was a spy even if she didn’t set lambert on fire herself.

then there’s the whole shit of her saying nothing. a whole nation gets wiped out and she has no plans to ever vindicate them. hell, even dedue says that her being involved in any way is unacceptable and he’s fucking pissed. is he delusional? is he being irrational and unfair to edelgard? she isn’t the victim here, dedue, his people, the kingdom royals and co. are.

Likewise, Setheth accuses Edelgard of trying to become a false goddess when that’s not even remotely close to her goals.

ok this part right here is the reason that this fucking thing took forever to come out (sorry anon). i have so much to say and i wanted to write it all but i decided to put in my edelgard essay instead. i then waited to post this answer but sadly it’s taking longer to edit than i planned and i feel bad so you’re going to have to wait for this bit. so if you stick around i’ll talk about that in depth in the essay but just know that i disagree with the op very much.

Edelgard makes a ton of false accusations and misconceptions about Rhea. She accuses Rhea of being a power hungry inhumane tyrant who has no regard for life outside her own when that just isn’t remotely accurate.

And then there’s Claude, literally the only major faction leader that cares to uncover the truth and nuances of everyone’s decisions. He’s literally the only faction leader to not act like his version of events is the definitive truth. He acknowledges that he and Edelgard are fighting for similar things: a system overhaul of Fodlan. He also doesn’t oppose the Church because he’s learned enough about it to want to keep it’s institution in place. That’s why he’s the only faction leader that can survive in every route (I’d consider Seteth and Rhea to share the role as Church Leader since Seteth leads the Church Route but Rhea’s the one actually in charge of the Church). Claude is also the only leader that doesn’t make any false claims about other factions. I said a while ago that Claude would make the best ruler and this is why.

ok this is fine

But going back to what I said earlier about discourse, this impacts discourse drastically because people can just pick whichever version of events they prefer and there’s probably a character who claimed it went that way. The plot also doesn’t seek to clarify events one way or the other in any route. So even if you’ve played every route, it’s up to the player to make judgment calls on who’s speaking out of their ass.

except it’s literally not. we are told what routes have correct information from the devs themselves. and unreliable narrators can be proven and disproven when you put their words against everyone else, their actions, and the lore.

Between all the relevant character and plot details the game hides behind supports, endings, and other easily missable content and the fact that no two characters interpret the series of events that happen in the plot the same way (due to coming from various background, being present for some stuff but not others, having different priorities and biases that will cause them to interpret different things in different ways, etc.), no two players are likely going to interpret the events of 3 Houses the same either.

just because two characters interpret the events differently doesn’t mean they’re right. for example, the agarthans think the crest experiments are good but edelgard and lysithea would say otherwise. but you wouldn’t say that twsitd’s perspective is valid just bc they see things differently.

and when i see players trying to excuse some of the most horrific things bc they don’t want their fave war criminal to look bad yes i will judge them. you can like whoever but don’t excuse shit like imperialism and racism and we will be fine.

So, if you want to talk 3H, please acknowledge that none of the characters should be taken solely on their word, especially when describing major things. With the examples I gave earlier of misinformation in the game, it makes sense that Dmitri would place the blame of the Tragedy of Duscur almost entirely on Edelgard because he doesn’t know about the Agarthans or Edelgard’s history with them.

ok but she’s still complicate if nothing else. that’s still terrible. like if she was planning to clear duscur’s name that’s one thing but she isn’t. the only way to do that is to reveal twsitd and we know she doesn’t since it is a shadow war that the people don’t know about since that would reflect badly on her for working with them.

It makes sense that Edelgard has a lot of misconceptions about the Church because once you start completely rewriting and erasing history (and the Church does openly censor literature, which is shown in Claude’s route), any possible “true story” is more likely than the story you’re giving. Alongside that, Edelgard is getting most of her information from the Agarthans and a very private source only accessible to the Imperial Family.

fair but choosing war at like 13 is an extreme jump. maybe wait till your brain fully develops and you have a better picture of the world around you

It makes sense that Seteth might assume that Edelgard is trying to become a false god because he’s been helping lead a religion based on lies for centuries.

she is. also the religion isn’t based off of lies. sothis exists. she’s in your head. a few details were changed to hide nabateans from a red canyon massacre 2.0. however, the values are the same. also he came to the monastery 20 years ago not centuries.

When you’re trying to understand some part of Three Houses, you have to think about where that information came from, what factors might be biasing that information, and that there might be some detail that shines a new light on that information somewhere else in the game that you’re missing. And that’s generally a good philosophy to have when processing any information.

yeah

That’s something I like about Three Houses. I like how you have to sort through a ton of biases and misinformation within the game to understand the story. If you let your own biases get away from you too much, you’re going to miss the larger picture. The game let’s you know exactly where everyone is coming from in some way and (almost) everyone is given a sympathetic eye in at least one route. And (almost) everyone is viewed as irredeemable in at least one route.

the only people who are portrayed as irredeemable are edelgard and rhea (and maybe dimitri if you count edel’s contempt for him in cf).

[swiftwidget]

MHA: Fling Theory

While writing a much, much longer analysis and prediction post (which we will finish and post hopefully by Wednesday - fingers crossed, it’s already been delayed over a week because of work schedules and additions) and a portion discussing what @aoimikans​ and I know of the wider-known Dad for One Theory, I had to pause while discussing the topic of Nana Shimura’s husband.  

At the time, I had been writing about the alternative ways All for One found Nana Shimura and her husband (whether he was a hero, a civilian, or perhaps the 6th User of OfA) and killed her husband. I mentioned there is an alternative theory floating around that All for One was actually her husband, but it is generally easy to debunk based on canon information, including recent information given to use via Gran Torino’s flashback: 

In a recent chapter, when we see Gran Torino watch Nana as she gives up Kotaro, Nana says later in the flashback “if he learns of Kotaro” as if All for One was not aware of the boy, to begin with. That may imply that her husband was killed while she was pregnant and she escaped AfO’s attention long enough to raise Kotaro for a few years. 

One would think that if AfO was her husband, he’d know about Kotaro early on, or at the very least know of the attempts to have a child. And if AfO already knew of their connection, he would try to use it against her and put both her and her child in danger. Not only that but when All for One finds Shimura’s family later on - and he would have to have found them to show interest in Tenko - he simply allows Kotaro and Hana to die. Kotaro, Nana’s son, and Hana, Kotaro’s daughter who resembles Nana in both name and appearance. If he had been her husband and found she’d managed to hide away a child, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t move to possess that entire family somehow. 

Then… It occurred to me that there is another alternative option which I’m calling the Fling Theory. 

All for One approached Nana Shimura under a different name and quirk (much like the theorized Dad for One = Hisashi Midoriya situation) and attempted to get close enough to her to create a relationship, trick her into giving him One for All (and maybe even a child at that point). All for One was unsuccessful stealing the quirk by force up until then. Perhaps he thought a different approach would work, and being a charismatic person and egotistical it sounds like something he’d do. 

Maybe it got as far as a night of passion before Nana realized who All for One was and fled. That would certainly give one plausible explanation for why everything seems so personal when All for One discusses Nana Shimura. Moreover, if she discovered she was pregnant after? A marriage to a hero or civilian husband to cover for the existence of a child would be necessary to hide him. Again, in Gran Torino’s recent flashback, there is that focus on what Nana says: “if he learns of Kotaro...” 

If Nana fled this false relationship, found out she was pregnant but decided to keep the child, and got married to another man in a very short amount of time, wouldn’t that give the prideful All for One reason to kill the otherwise unnamed, unidentified husband first? Revenge against the woman who did what his brother never could except through death, escape him and build another life. When Nana makes the heartbreaking decision to alter her family registry and send Kotaro into foster care, she is not just protecting herself and Kotaro at that moment, but she is ensuring she takes the secret of Kotaro’s father to the grave.

Which makes it all the more terribly ironic given what we believe All for One did upon discovering Kotaro and the life he’d built for himself. 

We believe All for One discovered Kotaro and his family and watched them for some time. Enough time to know their names, their home life, the kind of life Kotaro’s children were living - specifically Tenko Shimura. In 2016, aoimikans wrote a fanfic called “What Lies Have You Told?” based on her theory that All for One gave Tenko the Quirk: Decay. Then in chapter 235, we see a man dropping Tenko off wearing AfO’s signature suit with no tie (just before Decay manifests). This seemed like pretty strong evidence for that to be the case. A while back during our MHA discussions, we also added to that theory that in exchange, All for One took Tenko’s (“Ten” 天 = sky, “ko” 子 = child) unmanifested Quirk: Air Walk which we saw him use at Kamino and was the only Quirk written specifically in katakana. (Sky child, Air Walk → Sky Walk → Skywalker because Horikoshi loves his Star Wars references.) 

All for One never learned of Kotaro’s true origin. In giving Tenko Decay, he put into motion the events that led not only to Kotaro’s death but also the death of Tenko’s sister, Hana.

Each time All for One tries to own/possess family, he ends up destroying it. 

And again, every time All for One speaks to and of Nana, it’s terribly personal. 

In the All Might Rising OVA, AfO thanks Nana for the “amusing comedy.” Is that a bitter reminder that what they had was an act? That it was all a game to him? (At least, it was meant to be a game until she escaped him for a time.) Either way, his monologuing at Nana, the personal focus on her, may have cost him the chance to capture All Might while he was young and unprepared to fight him. 

During their first fight and at Kamino, each time All for One talks about Nana to All Might, he mocks her to anger him. All Might is Nana’s successor but more than that he is like her son. He is representative of everything All for One could not get from Nana, both One for All the quirk and the love and loyalty of family (be it a child or his brother’s remnant in OfA). Of course, he takes every opportunity to rub Nana’s death and what he views as her shortcomings in All Might’s face. 

And how would All for One know of Nana’s ideals in order to mock them? How would he know of her signature push-up smile that he parrots at Kamino? The way he talks about her even as he mocks her seems to imply that he knows these ideals of hers, how she might talk about them, her vision of the future… Sure, she might have said things during their fight, but honestly, that sounds more like something you’d tell someone as you were getting closer to them.  

This theory naturally pairs well with the Dad for One Theory for a few reasons:

The resemblance pointed out between Nana Shimura and Inko Midoriya. (All for One has a type.) 

The resemblance and similarities between young Tenko and young Izuku. (A family resemblance?) 

The continued themes of family, lineage, and legacy that is shown throughout MHA but works specifically well when we think about how Shigaraki and Deku relate to either side of the All for One / One for All coin. 

The continued use of name puns and Star Wars references that hint and foreshadow. 

Side note: How does the 6th User of One for All fit in this theory? 

We assume based on what canon tells us that All for One has been trying to take back his brother’s quirk, the last remnant of his brother and only family. 

(All for One claimed to love his brother - though his view of love is clearly skewed toward simply possessing his brother - and he tried endlessly to manipulate his brother into showing his “love” in return with loyalty to him and his view of the world. In death and through the passing down of One for All, his brother had escaped him.)

Based on flashbacks, All for One’s attempts up until the 6th User seemed to include killing them off while they were relatively young. Maybe he was attempting to hunt them down, weaken them, and then torture them until they willingly gave him the quirk; however, he was never successful because each User of One for All was successful in passing it down to the next, playing a dangerous game of keep-away.

From the 4th (top right, long hair) to the 5th (see his jacket shoulder), from the 5th (center, bald) to the 6th (far right hand?), from the 6th (bottom center, black hair) to the 7th (Nana’s gloved hand at the very bottom of the frame?). 

Aoimikans and I were trying to figure out: Who was the 6th to Nana? 

He looks younger than most of the other users we can see (not counting the younger, blurry version of Toshinori), too young to have been teaching or training Nana. And in the frame discussing how the quirk was passed down, we see that his right arm is missing, he is offering his hair to pass on One for All, and also… 

… he’s smiling. 

There is something else Nana said that makes us wonder if maybe the 6th User was Nana’s first love:  

To be able to meet again at the end within One for All, she thinks it’s romantic. It may just be her personality, but the idea of reuniting with specifically the previous users is romantic to her. 

Could it be then that the 6th was her first, young love? Could it be that they were both heroes and when he was hunted down by All for One, the 6th hastily gave her the quirk with a smile on his face - a smile she pressed onto her face, and a smile she passed down to Toshinori?

Could All for One have found out that she had that kind of relationship with the 6th and attempted to replicate the feelings that led the 6th to pass OfA to Nana? 

Not only that, but there is that focus on the romantic with regards to specifically previous Users of One for All. Why don’t we see that kind of desire to reunite with the husband that was killed? 

Well, if she were trying to find a husband quickly (not necessarily for love), one who wouldn’t mind that she was already pregnant or who would want to just as quickly have a child with her under the belief she wasn’t pregnant - how best would she go about finding such a man? Quirk marriage. It was likely more common in her time. She’s a hero, young, and with a flying-type quirk. She’d be a catch for any man wanting a marriage focused on mixing quirks. And wouldn’t that be just the kicker for All for One? In his view, she fled him only to run into the arms of a man who wanted her for her quirk? His ego can only take so much of a beating. 

Possible timeline: 

The 6th and Nana have a romantic connection

AfO hunts down and fatally injures the 6th

The 6th gives One for All to Nana with a smile 

Nana escapes for a time

AfO discovers Nana and knows of her previous connection to the 6th

AfO uses his knowledge of their connection to try and manipulate her into a relationship based on falsehoods to trick her into giving him One for All 

Nana discovers AfO’s identity and flees

Nana discovers she is pregnant with Kotaro

Nana quickly marries a man, possibly through Quirk Marriage, to explain away the pregnancy

AfO finds Nana again after years and rashly kills her husband before finding out more about her life

Nana is forced to quickly give up Kotaro to foster care and alter her family records to hide him from All for One, keeping All for One from using the knowledge of their connection against her (again) 

Nana goes into hiding again, eventually finds and trains Toshinori and passes down One for All 

All for One finds Nana again but she doesn’t run away. All for One mocks her (allowing her successor and friend to escape) and kills her in the fight but keeps her hand. 

AfO later finds Kotaro and his family, gives Tenko Decay, unwittingly allows Tenko to destroy what family he had made, AfO takes in Tenko and gives him the name Tomura Shigaraki claiming that Shigaraki is his own surname - ironic to be giving his own grandson his surname thinking he’s simply taking from Nana Shimura the last remnant of her own family. Revenge for her giving away the last remnant of his brother to All Might.  

Meantime, AfO took on the name Hisashi, met Inko (who looks like Nana but would be in his view meeker), and had Izuku. 

Fun fact: Shigaraki is 20 in canon. Izuku is around 15. AfO would’ve likely taken in Tenko Shimura around the time Izuku was born. So, at that point in time, he thinks he’s won that battle. Started a family of his own with a Nana look-a-like, and stolen away Nana’s family. All he needs to do now is take back OfA and kill All Might. Then he’ll have everything he’s wanted.

Then, All Might smashes All for One’s Empire and head in, and he takes away All for One’s ability to be a part of the family he’d tried to create. Adding insult to injury, All Might takes Izuku under his wing 5 years later and gives him One for All. Stealing everything from All for One. (All but Shigaraki - the child pawn All for One raised to hurt All Might, not knowing his own grandson.)

And there you have it: Fling Theory!  

[batmansymbol]

why the mcconnell rule is invented, illogical, and inconsistent

this post has no action items. i am truly just ranting at this point, i just need to get this all down.

these days i feel like my head is spinning with misinformation. i haven’t seen a single well-cited post or article outlining every problem i have with the so-called “rules” mcconnell has invented. what i have seen are hosts of people defending him online based on scraps of unconnected, irrelevant information. even the people who have an issue with mcconnell’s actions rarely address every part of the problem.

so i’m just going to write the post myself, to feel sane again. i’m going to go through every reason that McConnell denying the Garland appointment, but pushing forward with a Trump appointment, is nakedly hypocritical and logistically contorted.

it freaks me out to see the Republican base accepting, for instance, this arbitrary idea that the Senate and presidency being of different parties should make any difference for a SCOTUS appointment—because if McConnell & co. can convince voters of this invented “rule,” what part of our (deeply flawed, but largely democratic) institutions will be next to fall at a moment’s convenience?

anyway. let’s go

The facts: after Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016, Barack Obama nominated a replacement to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. He made the nomination in March of the same year, but Mitch McConnell and his Republican cosigners, acting in a Republican-led Senate, blockaded the nomination and refused to hold a vote, saying that “the American people should have a voice” and later referring to Obama as a “lame duck” at that point in his presidency.

McConnell’s original reasoning for the blockade cited what he named the “Biden Rule,” referring to a suggestion Biden had made during George H.W. Bush’s presidency in 1992 to delay a SCOTUS nomination until after the election. (Biden’s suggestion was hypothetical; there was no vacancy in 1992.)

Flash forward four years. After Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Sept. 18th, 2020, McConnell immediately stated that a Trump nominee would, unlike Garland, receive a Senate confirmation vote. In this statement, though, he declared new reasoning for the Garland blockade. He claimed that the blockade had been based in political precedent rather than on the "Biden Rule.” McConnell’s supposed precedent was that “since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

In other words, his claim evolved in 2020 into the idea that a Senate of one party and a President of another represents a divided American opinion. Based on that premise, a Republican-led Senate confirming a Trump nominee while blockading an Obama appointee is, apparently, consistent.

So let’s start with that idea, McConnell premise #1: “The American people’s will is unclear when the Senate and President are of different parties.”

Yes, you could make this claim. But if the American people’s “unclear will” is really the point, then the Senate should blockade any presidential nominations by an opposite-party president at any point, not just in the year leading up to an election.

The Senate has never behaved this way—19 justices of the 114 in our country’s history were nominated and confirmed by different parties—so this can’t be the point.

Then how about McConnell talking point 2, a direct quote from his statement? “Since the 1880s,” he claims, “no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

This is plainly false. We non-politicians might even call it a “lie.” We only need to look back to 1988, when, on February 3rd of an election year, a Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Republican Ronald Reagan’s nominee Anthony Kennedy by unanimous vote. McConnell blatantly ignoring this fact in his statement is particularly brazen.

“Yes, but Anthony Kennedy was nominated before an election year! He was nominated in 1987, only confirmed in 1988!”

OK. Let’s give McConnell the benefit of the doubt and say that he mistyped. Let’s assume he meant to say, “Since the 1880s, no President has successfully nominated a Supreme Court justice in an election year.”

McConnell is clearly namedropping the 1880s to make the practice seem shockingly out of date. Don’t buy it. SCOTUS appointments are lifelong, which means replacements are infrequent by nature. While 12,348 people have served in U.S. Congress over the course of our history, only 114 justices have served on the Supreme Court, ever. And of those 114, only 64 of those justices were confirmed after the 1880s.

Out of 64 people in 130 years, is it a real shock that none of their confirmations met the narrow criteria of McConnell’s rule? Let’s look at it mathematically. Criterion 1: their nomination would have had to arise in an election year, one of 32 such years since 1890. Criterion 2: the confirmation would have to happen under divided government (when the Senate and Presidency are led by different parties), one of 36 such years since 1890.

I’ve cross-referenced the years. There are only 13 years since 1890 that meet both of these criteria.

And then there’s Criterion 3: the vacancy would almost certainly have to be a death rather than a retirement, because Supreme Court justices often tactically retire when someone they trust to replace them is the President. I’m not at all surprised that, of the 13 election years since 1890 when the country had a divided government, there were no voluntary retirements or sudden deaths among a court of 9.

My point here is this: McConnell is implying that an opposite-party confirmation hasn’t taken place since the 1880s because it’s an out-of-date practice, a matter of principle, and a matter of representing what US citizens really want. In actuality, an opposite-party confirmation hasn’t taken place since the 1880s because of sheer statistical unlikeliness.

In saying that an opposite-party confirmation hasn’t taken place since the 1880s, McConnell also implies that parties have often obstructed each other’s nominees. In actuality, only 3 SCOTUS nominees have been voted down by opposite-party Senates since 1890: Haynsworth (Nixon nominee), Carswell (Nixon nominee), and Bork (Reagan nominee). None of these votes occurred during an election year, and crucially, Nixon and Reagan still wound up filling those vacancies with different candidates.

In essence, it’s all a totally arbitrary bit of framing. McConnell might as well say something like, “No Senate with primarily brown hair has confirmed a nominee whose birthday falls in April since the 1870s!” It’s the exact same process: picking random categories in order to winnow down the numbers, in order to make something seem more archaic and unlikely than it is.

We should also consider the fact that something “not happening since the 1880s” is hilarious as reasoning. Since when are the 1880s and before not considered as valid precedent? Does the entire Republican party not, right now, constantly refer to the second amendment, ratified 1791, as something that must be obsessively adhered to, letter for letter?

But all this is just about the reasoning McConnell gave this year. So let’s go back to his 2016 talking points, justifying their initial blockade of Garland, which Republicans everywhere are recycling faithfully. I see this one a lot:

“Blockading nominees in an election year was Biden’s tactic first! It was the Democrats’ idea!”

This is incorrect for two reasons. Firstly, there was no vacancy in 1992. Biden was speaking in hypotheticals and, unlike McConnell, had no actual power to control what would happen if a vacancy had arisen.

Secondly, Biden’s suggestion was that, should a vacancy arise, the nomination and confirmation process should take place after the election (still allowing Bush time to nominate and confirm before the inauguration), so that the process wouldn’t be tainted by campaigning and politicking.

Biden suggesting to George H.W. Bush that he should wait to name his hypothetical nominee until Nov. 4th of that year is not, in any way, the same thing as McConnell & co. refusing to vote on actual nominee Merrick Garland’s appointment for a ten-month period, destroying Garland’s nomination.

And then there’s this: “This wouldn’t have happened if Harry Reid, a Democrat, hadn’t removed the judicial appointment filibuster in 2013!”

Technically true. Harry Reid removed the appointment filibuster, dropping the number of necessary confirmation votes from 60 to 51. In my opinion, it’s true that Reid shouldn’t have changed this precedent. But it’s also true that Republican obstruction has made operating a functional government impossible since Obama’s election. Reid had few other options with a Republican Congress obsessed with stymying Barack Obama’s appointments.

This one just rubs me the wrong way: “Obama was a lame duck!”

The phrase “lame duck period” refers to the period between an election and the new president’s inauguration. In 2016, this was the time between Nov. 9th and January 20th.

Obama nominated Garland eight months before the lame duck period, in March. As little as I have faith in McConnell’s moral center, I would at least expect him to know the difference between the words “March” and “December.”

Barack Obama had nearly 1/4 of his second term left when Scalia died. The expansion of the term “lame duck” to include an entire year of the presidency is fundamentally ridiculous. You may as well call his entire second term a lame duck term, but maybe I shouldn’t type that, because they might get ideas.

And lastly, my least favorite of the McConnell talking points: “Dems would do the same thing and 1) blockade a Republican equivalent of Garland or 2) fill RBG’s seat!”

Well, a couple problems with this. Firstly, no, we haven’t ever done anything like the Garland blockade, so you can’t use this logic. In the 20th century alone, Democratic Senates voted to confirm twelve nominees by Republican presidents to the Supreme Court. A Dem Senate has never refused to consider a nominee by a sitting President, no matter the party.

Secondly, yeah, of course Dems would fill RBG’s seat if we were in power at this very instant. That wouldn’t be a hypocritical action, because we didn’t blockade Garland. The point isn’t that Presidents should be less and less frequently able to nominate justices. The point is that in 2016, McConnell changed the playbook by demanding that “the American people” get to decide—and now that he’s been asked to apply the same rules to his own team, he’s scrambling to create loopholes so that he can pack the court further.

This is the most infuriating to me because it’s truly invented. “Dems would do the same thing” - based on what? What are you even talking about? Every time a Dem Senate voted no on a Republican appointee, it was eventually followed by that same Dem Senate confirming another appointee by that same Republican. Conservatives are truly bending themselves into knots trying to feel victimized by the left wing. I don’t think I’d mind so much if they didn’t also insist on calling us precious little snowflakes with victim complexes.

The fact is this. Mitch McConnell invented a new SCOTUS appointment rule in 2016, loosely based on something Joe Biden floated but never did. He got away with it because our systems, left and right, are showing how poorly they’re equipped to handle people who are obsessed with gaining and keeping power. And now, in 2020, in order to justify going back on his own rule, McConnell added new stipulations about party and precedent that don’t hold up under even the scrutiny that I, someone with no legal or political expertise, can apply to the situation.

Mitch McConnell and his ilk are a moral black hole: spineless, shameless, power-hungry. The effects of McConnelism are obvious. Once Trump’s nominee goes through, five of the justices on the Supreme Court will be conservatives nominated by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote. In fact, Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last 28 years. This is the current state of representative democracy in the US.

[n1ghtcrwler]

So there is a post that I recently saw that I just don’t want to add notes to for a number of reasons, not least of which being that I’m about to go on a significant tangent, so I’ll just say what I needed to say about it here.

The post is screenshots of a tweet thread about how bad “Cuties” actually is, from someone who claims to have watched it, and that’s fine. I haven’t seen the movie, I have no input to give on that matter. My concern arises in a reply offered by one user, who goes into more detail about how disturbing it is to consider that someone had to, at minimum, be comfortable putting the underage actresses in the situations depicted for the sake of filming them for the movie, and again, that is probably a valid point. But they ended their tirade with this:

“If you didn’t believe it before, the fact that this movie was even released and is being defended by the elite is proof that there is a deliberate plan to normalize and eventually legalize pedophilia and child porn.”

And that, my friends, is some QAnon bullshit.

See, this is a great example of how conspiracy theories work. We tend to only think of them in terms of their major propositions and the implications of those propositions--that the Earth is hollow, your average garden-variety antisemitic caricature of a shadowy society controlling you, that sort of thing--instead of talking much about how people fall into that hole in the first place. And, in our day-to-day lives, it’s really where the theories start that we need to be vigilant about more than where they end. Where they end is important, obviously, but no one buys the end product immediately. They get there through a process. And the user who posted the above quote is playing into that process.

Here’s the process that I want you to see in that paragraph, and to look out for elsewhere:

0: ‘Facts’ that are viable, and possibly even true

Step Zero is not to lie or even to introduce new information. I call it Step Zero because it isn’t automatically part of a conspiracy theory; obviously, if we’re going to talk about the impact of anything on the world, we have to talk about what is actually happening. But I point it out because conspiracy theories always start with a premise that you can accept. Always. Every time. You cannot assume that you will recognize a nonsense theory based on immediate nonsense. No one starts there. They start in the real world. As above, where they are describing very real or at least realistic consideration for the ways filming such a movie can groom young actresses and audiences.

1: Framing facts through key concepts

A good conspiracy theory begins not in the facts provided, but in the way they are provided.

Consider the bit of the paragraph I copied where it said, “the fact that this movie was even released and is being defended by the elite.” Who are the ‘elite?’ See, the use of that wording is intentional. What the user has done is frame the delivery of the fact or near-fact (that the movie and its mode of production are abhorrent) in a way that an elusive enemy is embedded in the fact or near-fact itself (that the elite are defending the abhorrent thing, making ‘them,’ whoever they are, also abhorrent) such that it is difficult to separate that idea from the rest of the fact or near-fact. In fact, I expect that if anyone wishes to argue with me about this post, they will do so by framing my dismissal of a mythical elite with being part of their work; that is, the primary means of arguing against this post, based on the way people have argued with me about similar things in the past, will be to hold that if I doubt that part of the sentence I must doubt the whole sentence and doubting the whole sentence means not finding pedophilia abhorrent and that, by extension, must make me either a pedophile myself or a man comfortable with pedophiles.

I’m sure you’ve seen that play out before in some context or another. This is why it plays out that way: the fact or near-fact has been married, unsuitably, to a claim that sets up Step Two.

2: Using the altered fact or near-fact to demand a pre-determined conclusion

Here’s the thing. If there is an elite who are actively trying to make and promote and defend “Cuties” (which is a highly suspect claim already), then the logical question is why they are doing so. Well, by golly, our friendly neighborhood conspiracy theorist has an answer! See, it’s “proof that there is a deliberate plan to normalize and eventually legalize pedophilia and child porn.”

That conclusion is not demanded by the agreed-upon facts. That is, if I agree with the theorist that the movie is, indeed, a work that grooms actresses and audiences, there are actually a variety of conclusions we can draw about why the movie was made. Maybe it was filmed with entirely different intentions and the end result is because of editing, or license taken by questionable cameramen. Maybe the version shown at Sundance or whatever was not actually the version currently on Netflix, so the people defending it were defending something other than what the twitter thread author saw. Maybe the producer really did have terrible motives but managed to convince someone at Netflix that that was not what was happening. Some or all of these may be false. I have no idea. But here’s the thing: neither does the person who posted the paragraph in question. The facts given in the post are actually pretty sparse as far as coming to a certain conclusion about intent are concerned. You need more information to know what is really going on here.

But see, that’s why they added information in Step One. By making it a behavior of that conspiracy’s boogeyman, they can easily come to a conclusion. The facts or fact-adjacent statements made in the body of the post, paired with a conspiracy-based understanding of who the elite are and what they want, is enough information to come to a conclusion. And it’s a conclusion that is only reasonable if the elite are real and are who the conspiracy says they are. See, the goal of getting you to believe the bigger conspiracy isn’t by telling you who the elite are, but by getting you to accept something that requires them. Which is why

3. Frame the delivery in a way that hides the conspiracy

The post leading up to the quoted paragraph is actually fairly long (admittedly, not as long as this post), and every part of it fits the conversation that has been had about the movie and is presented in a way that makes sense. So while the average tumblr user is scrolling along, if they read through, they’re being hit with a lot of sensible discourse about a movie they probably haven’t seen but have seen more discourse about, and then that bit of QAnon is just kinda slipped in without any major change to wording and presentation. It’s bolded for effect, but the content itself seems to flow naturally from the rest of the post. It’s only in stopping and thinking seriously about what has been said that the diversion away from a discussion of facts gets noticed.

The point is to be distinct enough to set up the conspiracy theory, but subtle enough that you accept it as part of the rest of the post’s claims. See, because, what happens there is that if the rest of the post makes sense to you, and you aren’t thinking about the fact that the post has taken a left turn, you accept the conclusion being given as a natural part of the post. And accepting the conclusion requires that you have, maybe without realizing it, accepted the claims about the ‘elite.’ And that sets you up.

4. Go Deeper

Because once you have accepted the conspiracy’s claims about the elite, preferably without recognizing that there was a claim about the elite, you are ready to accept other things that connect to that. Someone comes along and says something that also sounds plausible, and also ties into the conclusion that the elite are trying to legalize pedophilia. Well, because you’ve already accepted that this was a reasonable conclusion elsewhere, and it seems reasonable enough here, you accept it here as well. And this is solidifying in your mind the idea that it is known that there is an elite working toward that goal. But the questions remains of who the elite are. So, when someone finally comes along and ties the ‘elite’ to a specific person or group of people that you do recognize (usually Jewish people or some caricature thereof), and offers some evidence that is pretty flimsy but plays very nicely with claims you’ve already accepted, you buy it. Or you don’t, but you’re so deep now that you have to provide an alternative if you want to reject the answer you’ve been given, and so you start to spin your own theory.

Either way, the end result is the same: you are convinced of a claim that would have sounded crazy to you a year ago, and your family is trying to tell you how crazy it sounds to them now, but they just don’t know! They haven’t seen all the facts! You should probably show them the facts. Ideally, by starting with something they already know to be true. And the cycle continues.

Please. Be careful out there, folks. Don’t be that guy.

[llycaons]

we knew jiang cheng was pissy but I nearly forget just how immature he is. simultaneously pitiful and contemptible. this is episode 46, ft. the girls! painful truths, theft in the name of love, tenderly Holding your beloved on a boat under the stars, fighting your asshole brother-in-law, comfort in the form of food, and motherfucking wen ning

to start out, I think this is a really good episode with rich character moments and well-timed plot reveals, but the strife and conflict make it stressful to watch so I think 43 will remain my favorite episode. I mean, 20 minutes of lan wangji. can’t get that anywhere else

at least they don’t use the r word in the viki subs

watching the cultivators talk up a storm about how jgy is evil and every bad thing that’s ever happened around him is his fault - well, it’s the mindset that set these same people after wwx, no matter how true or false these claims may have been. and he’s done with these people. he questions the witnesses, tries to find the truth, but it’s clear he’s washing his hands of this bullshit. his internal monologue seemed a lot more bitter in the novel tbh

the jiang ancestral hall truly is so beautiful. I wonder if the design is based off real architecture because I’ve never seen any place with an upside-down pyramid fountain coming down from the ceiling before. I’ve never seen an analysis of the architecture in this show :(

wwx really needed this time with yanli and myu and jfm...this was a really important thing for him to be able to see them again and pay his respects

god. FUCKING jiang cheng in this episode. I know I’ve said some of his anger is justified (which wwx knows, and is part of the reason he doesn’t defend himself) but the bullshit jc is bringing up is legitimately irrational nonsense just to make wwx feel bad for surviving and having someone he loves with him. what did that one post say? simultaneously denying wwx his trauma and wielding it against him, making jc the real victim of everything? it was worded so well

this is not a jc hate blog and never will be but he tests me

like okay, maybe they shouldn’t have entered this private jiang place. as far as they know, wwx still bears some responsibility for yanli and jzx. but that’s not what jc throws in wwx’s face, it’s the fact that he saved the heirs (conveniently forgetting that wwx saved jzx too), spends time with lwj amd his close with him, was apparently entirely to blame for the fall of LP, and then saved the wens, something that wwx did because 1) they saved him AND jc first and 2) they were innocent!

and jc at some point understood the political importance of saving the heirs, and was worried when wwx and lwj’s friendship was in trouble, and understood that the wens were going to attack no matter what, and defended wwx for saving wen ning because they both had a debt to him. on a rational level, he understood these things! he knows why wwx did what he did! but he doesn’t care, because the satisfaction of hurting wwx is more important than anything else and he will pull out anything he has to do so

I know it wasn’t this episode but I still think jc trying to convince a freshly ressurected wwx that lwj didn’t actually care about him is one of the worst thing he’s ever done to him. what was he trying to do, cut him off from one of his only healthy relationships and his only source of love and support? in order to what, drag him back to beg forgiveness in lotus pier? to fall into self-loathing and fresh grief, to be tormented and attacked however long jc felt like venting his anger? the entitlement. unbelievable.

and you know what kills me is that wwx is absolutely collected and calm. the entire time. he explains to jc very politely what he was doing and that he was leaving. he calls himself a little kid sometimes, but he has more emotional maturity than like, the majority of the cast, and certainly more than jc, especially here

and only getting mad when lwj is insulted even though lwj doesn’t give a shit what jc thinks...wwx please stand up for yourself I swear...

but! even politely stepping out of a fight (FOR YANLI’S SAKE) and leaving as fast as they can isn’t enough for jc, who may want wwx back “home” but consistently denies him the possibility of even daring to think about returning to LP. so he chases after them in order to fight? is that the only way he knows how to communicate? jc is tragic, but he is ultimately destructive to the people close to him. I don’t call fictional characters “toxic” very often because I think it’s overused, but god, jc is so so bad for wwx in almost every way he intentionally can be

lwj physically getting in between them was so satisfying like YES and lwj blocking zidian with bichen and telling him to piss off!! why didn’t the viki subs show him saying piss off?

thank god, wen ning is here

this is one of the times that the flashbacks were used very effectively, because it shows details about things that happened like 20 episodes ago that we missed or forgot

lwj’s voice was so much harsher back in their post-BM reunion argument wow his voice has been so gentle and soft postres

and WEN QING!! we get to see wen qing again!!

I always focused more on the visuals of this scene (gorgeous) and the dialogue (heartbreaking, clearly wen ning has an excellent memory) so I missed the voice acting. and wen ning’s voice is shaking with a barely restrained passion that we’ve never heard from him before or since. this is his best friend he’s defending, his savior, someone he loves deeply. and this is his sister he’s praising, the best fucking doctor in the qishan wen, this is what we did for you and and don’t you dare forget it, don’t you forget her

I’ve seen people criticize wen ning for being too harsh here but honestly, jc deserved far worse for his behavior and he’s only lucky that wen ning is, by comparison, gracious, merciful, and forgiving in a way he could never manage

(you know, wen ning, who also lost his entire family to bloodthirsty cultivators, and who was also tortured, and also lost his sister, and who was also bullied by his peers and has no friends besides his family and wwx?)

honestly wen ning is such a great man. jc could never hope to be like wwx, but he could never hopento be like wen ning either. get him, wen ning

I get jiang cheng freaking out about the gc reveal - his reactions to horrible situations are almost always, understandably, high-emotion, and being lied to and treated like a fool is a horrible thing to realize

it’s just that he never takes responsibility for what he does. he never apologizes for all the pain he’s caused wwx until the very end of the show, he never apologizes to wen ning or anyone else at all afaik, he doesn’t change his behavior, he refuses to try to see things from anyone else’s point of view, he will not try to sympathize or have the barest shred of compassion for anyone outside his immediate family, he consistently prioritizes his own feelings and his own ego, he seeks whatever excuse he can find to justify his own anger and to justify inflicting pain. who was it that said he was a character eaten alive by self-pity? they were right. there are definitely issues with miscommunication between the two of them but that’s hardly the only thing that’s wrong with their relationship or the only flaw he has

I’ve been upset that there aren’t more hints of a reconciliation but honestly I think I’m glad the story ended giving wwx space away from him. I do think reconciliation will happen eventually but I like the chance that it may not, based on what the viewer thinks (and usually I hate open endings so this is an exception for me). but if it does happen it needs to be a long time from now

until then, wwx needs to recover with people who actually value his happiness and safety and mental well-being, while jc needs to do some serious introspection and learn to control his emotions and recognize when he’s wrong. and yes it’s very tragic that jc doesn’t have that support! it is! but that doesn’t mean he’s not responsible for his actions or that he should be babied because of what happened to him. the man’s almost 40 years old and it’s going to take a lot more than one apology or even open communication to repair what’s broken here

I actually really like the idea of him going into seclusion, if the jiang clan could handle it. not redemption, but what, penance? atonement? self-reflection?

there are many people who have said this all better than me but you get the idea

back to wangxian - the close physical contact on the boat scene actually hits a lot less hard after all those fics I’ve read where they sleep in each other’s arms and stuff. it’s more than they get for most of the show and I do love this scene, but I wish they could be physically closer more often

wen ning thanking lwj for speaking for the wens at koi tower before their deaths! for taking care of a-yuan! and lwj leaving the reveal of lsz’s identity to his last living relative! such a short scene but I love them.

sorry but back to jc- I truly don’t think he could have prevented the wens’ murder at koi tower. lwj couldn’t, and even allied with jc, jgs wouldn’t have cared. they turned themselves in. pre-nightless lwj and jc both ultimately failed wwx despite lwj giving him money and jc arranging a visit from yanli, but it’s really what they did postres that ultimately matters to me

jc turned away from his grief by burying it in anger and the approval of the other clans, by demonizing people he either owed his life to or people he loved, by encouraging yanli’s son to hate her beloved brother. and lwj took responsibility for the last living wen, faced his mistakes head-on, suffered for stepping out of line in support of someone dead, shifted his perspective, and made sure never to act in the same way again. like it does annoy me when people reduce postres lwj or jc to shallow one-dimensional version of themselves who are either Good and Flawless or Evil and Mean but there is. no contest here ultimately. jc is not a great man

the boat scene is SO PRETTY I always thought so. and wwx telling lwj that jc’s a brat who speaks to hurt others, and always has done so, is so sad. he knows what jc is at this point and even with all he’s tried to do, it seems it’ll never be enough. and he hates to see lwj disrespected even though, like I said, jc is probably the person who’s opinions about him lwj cares least about, and he doesn’t care about many people’s opinions about him in the first place

his vision of yanli :( the fading echoes of their yunmeng siblings song. her smiling face, offering him food. everything hurts. we miss you, yanli! your brothers are so maladjusted!

he’s sitting there crying and hallucinating and asking for comfort in the form of food and even then lwj is almost like “no that’s stealing” damn lwj I guess you still have some chilling out to do

but it is a really beautiful scene with the three of them. lwj giving wwx that lotus pod and wwx being like “what the fuck” to wen ning who’s like “yes young master wei, accept it, this is affection and comfort, I know you aren’t used to it but it means we care about you and want you to feel better! we love you!” poor guy really isn’t used to being taken care of

I find it very funny that wwx is like “wen ning! to yunping city!” and wen ning is like “yes sir right away!” does he even know where that IS?

and the scene where wwx sends his butterfly talisman at the guys bothering wen ning and all the foolish peasantry are distracted by the pretty colors and trying to catch magic dragonflies like omg I feel like the commoners deserve better representation

I don’t remember how this episode even ended? they choose very awkward times to end the episodes. they always have

[beetlemancy]

Anon again: Thank you!! I appreciate you taking the time to answer me because I am kind of active in the community but very very new. I did know your opinions but being new I just wanted to know whether those recent posts held any weight. I want to be socially responsible with my media consumption and I was worried there was something I was missing, given I have seen specific call outs for certain cast members (Travis, Laura, Sam, and Liam) recently. Thanks again!!

Anon pt2: you don’t have to post this but for context the call out posts were as follows: Travis actively supports the military, Laura voiced a black character?, Sam did brown face??, and Liam is fake woke/virtual signaling (or something along those lines). Obviously I can find out information about this for myself but I have seen more anti-CR stuff lately which prompted my ask.

As with everything, I suggest you do your own reading on those topics, and any topic that comes up in regards to the media you watch. Below is simply my opinion. Note: this gets long.

Travis does support the military - but not as an institution. He has family in the military. He supports the soldiers. He works with Operation Supply Drop and I’d encourage you to look into OSD specifically. Whether you agree with the idea that we should even have a military or not, you cannot deny that our veterans and soldiers are given the short end of the stick. We cannot just abandon them because helping them might be viewed as giving money to the military. I have so many military vets in my disability groups. The VA is awful because it has no funding (I know good people who work at the VA too, but they just cannot help everyone like they’d want to). Programs like OSD are genuinely helpful to a lot of hurting folk and the people who shit on Travis and CR for promoting and helping them out have clearly never actually sat down and talked to a vet or a soldier before. 

Laura and many many other voice actors have voiced people of color in various shows. Yes, this is a legit problem. However, obviously as with most things, the problem is nuanced. The fault mainly lies with the VO industry as a whole, in that actors actually have very little control over what they do. There was a whole strike about this very topic (though the strike covered other issues in the industry as well). In the case of Laura, for instance, she was never told what her character would look like until after the fact. And that is super common in the industry. One of the things they tried to get in the strike was more transparency so that actors could make the decisions themselves whether to voice characters or not - not just based on race or culture but also based on type of work (stressful screaming vs chill dialogue) and whether the content of the game itself was something they wanted their name attached to. 

Sam’s blackface scandal is extremely old news. That’s not to say it isn’t important to note, and in fact Sam made a point to note it again back in 2018. I know people who can’t watch CR because of it, even after his apology, and that’s fine because its not my place to judge others for how they react to that kind of thing. However I know a lot of people who read his apology and the circumstances surrounding it and decided to forgive. To some people, the fact that he was asked to do so by will.i.am changes the situation. To others, it doesn’t. To some the fact that he apologized and has clearly worked to improve his behavior matters, to others it doesn’t. You have to decide that for yourself. You can read Sam’s letter HERE. 

Now. Regarding Liam. * sigh * I think, and again this is my opinion, that you cannot proclaim someone you do not know as ‘fake woke.’ I think there are parts of this fandom that have it out for Liam because of a whole bunch of gross reasons, many of which I’ve spoken about before. He is sensitive and a man - that makes people uncomfy. He plays a lot of women characters and tends to embody them in both personality and body language - that makes people uncomfy. He fully embraces the bi energy (this is not to say whether he himself is or not) - that makes a lot of people uncomfy (and angry). He loves theatre and loves to explore the human condition, warts and all - that makes people super uncomfy. Now. There are people who thinks he’s homophobic. Do you know why? Its because his bi character ended up with a woman instead of a man. That is biphobia, no matter how they twist it. Bi people being “allowed” to be bi and not ‘pick the right side’ in the LG (not BT, lets be real) community IS revolutionary because its so very hated. 

Another reason they say he’s homophobic is because of the jokes he is often involved in - some gay men in the fandom believe that joking about sex is him ‘making fun’ of gay relationships. As a bi enby, I disagree, and I read many of the jokes he himself makes as the kind of humor I use among my own friends. I think there is a definite disconnect between bi vs LG humor and I’m not entirely sure who would be considered in the ‘right’ on that. However, when LG people in the fandom claim that he cannot talk about gay relationships because he is cishet? They cannot know that. That is an assumption they are making. When LG fans say that he alone is responsible for this issue and not -literally every single member of CR- ? I have to question whether its really the issue and not just that they still hate Liam for deigning to make a bi character bi instead of gay.

Another thing re: Liam. Aside from Marisha, he is the one I see the most hate about. People on Twitter and Tumblr both have legit uttered death threats about him if he doesn’t do exactly what they want his characters to do in the game. Usually this is about shipping. I have seen people claim that they WISH he was ‘like vic mignogna’ so they’d have a reason to hate him more. I’ve seen a certain group of people and one in particular say they have ‘dirt’ on him but refuse to say what the dirt is - and yet continually bring up that it exists, but that they just cannot say. Why would you incessantly bring up information you possess just to say that you cannot divulge such information? 

Legit issues about CR that is attached to Liam is the whitewashing issue. Some say that only Liam is responsible here because he controls all the art. I would say that we actually don’t know that for sure. He is ‘Art Dad’ and clearly has some pull. I do think that CR should address this issue, but I’m not sure they can legally do what the fandom wants them to do, which is “call-out” artists by name and denounce them. Now, this too is more nuanced than the fandom makes out because its often way more about colorism vs whitewashing. Many people do not draw Beau as white, but they do draw her as much lighter skin tones than her original art. Colorism is a real problem, but white allies tend to go about talking about it wrong or making smaller things a bigger deal when POC would really rather talk about something more important to them. It was these same white allies that tore Mica Burton apart on Twitter because she liked and enjoyed a drawing of Reani, her own character, that was a few shades lighter than the drawing she herself had brought in, even after she had said that she appreciated the variety of skin tones due to seeing herself in each of them. On the topic of whitewashing/colorism in the fandom, I personally tend to wait to hear from POC over the masses of white allies.

The CR fandom is very big for a niche thing like DnD. As such, there are many many corners of the fandom that can get really jaded, really dark, and really up their own ass in regards to the discourse. There are legitimate issues in the fandom and with CR as a whole. Nothing is perfect, nothing ever will be perfect, and people should absolutely do what they can to do better and to ask their media to do better. That being said, there are also people who think that if you don’t do something exactly like they want, then you’re Problematic by default. There are also members of this fandom who have an active vendetta against certain cast members and will use any opportunity to co-opt legit issues in order to shore up their false arguments. These people are only using the real issues and it becomes clear pretty quickly that they don’t actually give a shit about the people they say they are trying to speak up for. 

There is also some fandom drama that has occurred ONLY in fandom and has absolutely nothing to do with CR other than the fact that the people involved happen to be CR fans. Certain people in the fandom think that CR should arbitrate this issue and involve themselves, call out the individuals responsible, etc. This is, I believe, a GROSS misconception of what CR’s role is and asking way too much of a source of entertainment. The fact that CR has not involved themselves in this issue has led certain members of this fandom to claim that CR is homophobic. I would caution that most callouts of CR as homophobic are directly linked to this first issue, and also a callback to the Vaxleth drama from campaign one, and is incontrovertibly tied to bi and enby-phobia and a seriously sick misunderstanding of the responsibilities a show has versus the responsibility individuals have as viewers of said show. 

That’s it for now. I could go way more in depth on this problems, but I’m tired of typing. Suffice it to say, its easy to make a list of things Problematic with CR, but once you actually delve into each topic hopefully you’ll realize how complicated and filled with nuance and Different Opinions going on back from the first episode of Campaign One... Listing problems without actually addressing them head-on isn’t a good way to deal with the problems that are true anyway, let alone tell them from the false ones. 

[lanwinograd-blog]

Topic:Men's RIghts Movement

During the very late hours of November 8, 2016 and early morning November 9, 2016, I sat in shock along with the rest of the country. The most qualified person to ever run for President had been defeated by a bumbling, sexist, clown. How did this happen? What actually happened? I spent a lot of time dissecting the election, and of course I ended up looking at whether or not gender played a role. Four years later Biden would pretty easily defeat the clown. The 2016 election was so close I wondered “if Hillary were a man, would she have won? How many people voted against her just because she was female?” While I watched the Trump supporters (of the asshole variety) gloat on Facebook, I would occasionally see people post “A win for men! A woman can’t be President. The Men’s Rights Movement Survives!” It goes without saying that anyone who said that repulses me…but “men’s right’s movement?” WTF is that? It sounded like a White Power thing…something that would repulse me…however, I had to do my research, to prove to myself it was nonsense…and, spoiler alert…for the most part it is, but not completely.

Now, let me get something out of the way right now…there are many hateful organizations that cloak themselves are fighting for “Men’s Rights.” Incels, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, etc. I always assumed that anyone who supported even examining “Men’s Rights” was filled with hate. Well, I’m not filled with hate. I’m a feminist…and I don’t identify that way in an effort to get laid…cause well, although I’m not an “incel” I’m incel. (get it…hahaha). As I started my research I was lead to the “documentary” titled “The Red Pill.” Great…a documentary making some stupid Matrix analogy. Before I watched it I did a little research on it…it was funded by Prager University and Milo Yiannopoulos. Greeeattt…a movie funded by an organization I hate with a passion, and a person I hate with a passion. Ohh, and the person interviewed the most was Paul Elam…(male backwards…coincidence? mmmmm) who is quoted as saying “P---- is the only real empowerment women will ever know. Put all the hopelessly wishful thinking of feminist ideology aside and what remains is the fact that it is men and pretty much men only who draw power from accomplishment, who invent technology, build nations, cure disease, create empires and generally advance civilization. Women whether acknowledging it makes us feel warm and fuzzy or not, depend on men for all of that and the only tool they have at their disposal to have any sort of influence on any of it is the power of p---- and p---- is powerful indeed…Sexual robotics may well prove to be the best thing that ever happened to women from the standpoint of their humanity.... what would that do to the vast majority of women who would suddenly have to prove their worth as human beings beyond simply being the owners of said p——." I was not excited to watch this but I had to if I was going to write about it…however much I thought the whole concept was nonsense. So, as promised, I watched it, and yes, most of it was not reality based. Making dumb points that “Women and children are always brought to safety before men in an emergency” and “women should make less than men cause they live longer.” Honestly, I don’t even see how one had bearing on the other…and that “men are victimized in domestic violence situations almost as much as women.” Wait…is that true? The first two were opinion and the third was an actual statement of fact. Now, I wasn’t going to trust anything this movie said so I had to do my research. The answer surprised me…of course it was no…women are the victim quite a bit more, but the number of male victims was not as low as I originally had thought. “The crime survey’s stats also showed that 3.8% of men (equal to 786,000) and 7.5% of women (1.6m) were victims of domestic abuse in 2018/19. As ManKind points out: ‘For every three victims of domestic abuse, two will be female, one will be male.’”(National Domestic Violence Data Base). However while this is true, there is only one domestic violence shelter for men in the entire United States. This also can be misleading because the majority of DV shelters are unisex. Now, the movie pretty much had the thesis “someone cannot be a feminist if they admit males are disadvantaged AT ALL.” I disagree with this whole heartedly…because just looking at certain statistics…males are disadvantaged. Keep in mind, I identify as a feminist. Now, it goes without saying that if you take list and write the ways women are discriminated against the way men are discriminated against, you might have a mile high list for the women, and half a sheet of paper for the men. But the half a sheet of paper is not zero. It’s those things I would like to discuss. Now, let’s get some faulty statistics out of the way…you know, the ones the movie pushes. 93% of work places deaths are men…true but out of context…men typically have more physical jobs due to genetic makeup and women have just recently been taking part in these jobs. The movie states that 90% of the homeless population is men…that is just a flat out lie…it is 60%. The movie states that 90% of suicides is the United States are men. While that is not true, the number is 78%. Why this disparity. The only conclusion I could come up with is that men, throughout history have been taught to hide their emotions or they will come off as “a p—-.” I even have examples in my own life where I held back true emotion under fear of being ostracized. One thing that wasn’t mentioned in the movie but has always bothered me from observed experiences is false allegations against men. Whenever someone comes out against a politician or celebrity and accuses them of rape and/or sexual assault men are asked to fall in line, and not voice any other opinion other than “the woman is telling the truth.” I have encountered this twice in the past year. The first time was when I posted that Aziz Ansari did nothing wrong and the I did not believe the claims of Tara Reade against Joe Biden. Holy hell did men and women come after me like I was a woman-hating chauvinist pig. I pride myself in not being that; however I was called things I will not mention in this rant…but they were bad. Before I get myself into too much trouble, let me say that I believe every sexual assault allegation should be taken very seriously and thoroughly vetted by the police and any other agency that looks into it…however, that doesn’t mean they are all true. I will often times be told…only 8% of rape accusations end up being false…so the numbers speak for themselves. Actually, it’s 5.9% but I do believe that number is out of context. That number (5.9%) are rape allegations that are proven…100% to be false by either a confession of the woman, DNA showing it was another man, or proof that the man accused was in another state or country. However, the amount 44.9% of rape accusations are not handed over to the prosecutor. That number can also be misleading because prior to the #metoo movement…there was the ethic that “boys will be boys”…and I’m happy that is dead because it is offensive. I do predict the number of rape accusations handed over to the DA office will go up, but the amount not handed over will never be as low as 5.9%. Also, if a man and a woman are both blacked out drunk and have sex, the likelihood of the man getting arrested is much higher than the woman. The one place, and yes, only one, where I believe the woman has every advantage over the man is in Family Court. First, I am as pro-life as they get. Once a woman is pregnant is totally her choice whether or not to keep the baby…the man had a choice when he choose to have sex and put himself in that position…and that is probably 99% of the time…however, what about that 1% (these aren’t actual statistics). There are two types of men that have to be looked at here…married and unmarried. First, lets look at unmarried men. If an unmarried man is the father of a woman’s baby, he must pay child support…no questions, with only two exceptions (unless the woman doesn’t want it or another man adopts the child). However, would you believe that “sperm stealing” is actually a thing? I honestly though it just happened on lawyer shows and cop shows. Examples of this really are limited to a woman telling a man she is on the pill (probably cause of the heat of moment) while she is not. The movie quoted a Nigerian Story where a hotel maid took a condom out of the garbage and impregnated herself. Well, upon further research…that ended up being a satirical story with no truth to it. The movie also claimed that women use other “sexual techniques” to get the sperm, and than impregnate themselves with it…I could not find any examples of such. However, female on male rape is a real thing, admittedly much rarer than it’s counterpart, where once the woman gets out of jail, she can fight the man for custody…assuming she did not put the child up for adoption and the man is the sole custodian. When it comes to married men, their are much sadder stories. One thing the movie showed that I thought was insightful (and there weren’t many), was a woman on “The Wendy Williams Show” saying she wanted to have another child but her husband didn’t, so she was going to “trick him” and THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE clapped with approval. Here are some statistics that really made me think…and I’m still thinking: Fathers are granted custody only 18.3% of the time Mothers are awarded child support nearly 2 times as often as fathers are Fathers are awarded nearly 10% less, on average, in child support Fathers receive less of the awarded child support than mothers 69% of people surveyed believe that having two parents in the home is essential to a child’s happiness More than 25% of fathers live apart from their children Only 10% of nonresident fathers help their children with their homework Nearly 60% of fathers who do not get custody, speak to their children on the phone 4 times a month or less Over 25% of fathers who do not get custody, have zero in-person visits with their children each year Nearly all (97%) of the fathers surveyed agree that the rewards of being a parent are worth the costs/work that go into it. (National Institute of Divorce and Custody) Believe it or not…their are some good men out there. Men who want to be in their child’s life…I would actually say that is probably the majority; but being the woman holds the baby for nine months, it would appear she is preferred once those nine months are over. One of the saddest issues is false paternity. In all 50 states, when a married woman gives birth, the husband is legally deemed to be the father. However, what if he isn’t? What is the woman had an affair? Irrelevant. It is also illegal to perform a paternity test on a baby without either the mother’s consent or a court order. In these situations there are two male victims. First is the husband, who could be raising a child that is not his…and if he finds out the child is not his, he will be on the hook for child support anyway and has already formed an emotional connection with the child. The second victim is the biological father who will have NO LEGAL rights to a child that is biologically his. While asshole men might see this as a blessing…I have personally met men who have become suicidal over this. In conclusion, I am not a Men’s Rights Advocate…I am a feminist. However, I enjoy ranting on issues that people don’t talk about…all the way from porcupines to men’s rights…that doesn’t mean I fall on any side. I believe that in order to gain equality we have to work on and focus on how females have been discriminated against over the years; but to just ignore the (albeit few) ways men are discriminated against is irresponsible.

[tinyshe]

Pure, Unalloyed Evil Masked as a Pandemic Analysis by Mike Whitney

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Mike Yeadon is a soft-spoken microbiologist and a former vice-president of allergy and respiratory research at Pfizer. He spent 32 years working for large pharmaceutical companies and is a leading expert on viral respiratory infections.

He is also a man on a mission, and his mission is to inform as many people as possible about the elite powerbrokers that are using the pandemic as a smokescreen to conceal their real objectives. Here’s Yeadon in a recent interview:1

“If you wanted to depopulate a significant portion of the world, and to do it in a way that wouldn’t require destruction of the environment with nuclear weapons, or poisoning everyone with anthrax or something, and you wanted plausible deniability, whilst you had a multi-year infectious disease crisis; I don’t think you could come up with a better plan of work than what seems to be in front of me.

I can’t say that’s what they’re going to do, but I cannot think of a benign explanation for why they are doing it.”

“Depopulation?” Who said anything about depopulation? Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to go from a mass vaccination campaign to allegations of a conspiracy to “depopulate a significant portion of the world?” Indeed, it is, but Yeadon has done extensive research on the matter and provides compelling evidence that such a diabolical objective may, in fact, be the goal.

Humans Are Capable of Unimaginable Viciousness and Cruelty

Moreover, it is not for lack of proof that people are not persuaded that Yeadon is right, but something more fundamental; the inability to grasp that men are capable of almost-unimaginable viciousness and cruelty. Here’s Yeadon again:2

“It’s become absolutely clear to me, even when I talk to intelligent people, friends, acquaintances … and they can tell I’m telling them something important, but they get to the point [where I say] ‘your government is lying to you in a way that could lead to your death and that of your children,’ and they can’t begin to engage with it.

And I think maybe 10% of them understand what I said, and 90% of those blank their understanding of it because it is too difficult. And my concern is, we are going to lose this, because people will not deal with the possibility that anyone is so evil …

But I remind you of what happened in Russia in the 20th century, what happened in 1933 to 1945, what happened in, you know, Southeast Asia in some of the most awful times in the post-war era. And, what happened in China with Mao and so on … We’ve only got to look back two or three generations. All around us there are people who are as bad as the people doing this.

They’re all around us. So, I say to folks, the only thing that really marks this one out, is its scale. But actually, this is probably less bloody, it’s less personal, isn’t it? The people who are steering this … it’s going to be much easier for them. They don’t have to shoot anyone in the face.

They don’t have to beat someone to death with a baseball bat, or freeze them, starve them, make them work until they die. All of those things did happen two or three generations back … That’s how close we are. And all I’m saying is, some shifts like that are happening again, but now they are using molecular biology.”

People ‘Cannot Imagine Anything so Demonic’

He’s right, isn’t he? Whereas, a great many people know that the government, the media and the public health officials have been lying to them about everything from the efficacy of masks, social distancing and lockdowns, to the life-threatening dangers of experimental vaccines, they still refuse to believe that the people orchestrating this operation might be pushing them inexorably toward infertility or an early death.

They cannot imagine anything so demonic, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend not to see what is going on right beneath their noses. It’s called “denial” and it is only strengthening the position of the puppet masters that are operating behind the scenes. Here’s more from Yeadon:3

“… In the last year I have realized that my government and its advisers are lying in the faces of the British people about everything to do with this coronavirus. Absolutely everything. It’s a fallacy this idea of asymptomatic transmission and that you don’t have symptoms, but you are a source of a virus.

That lockdowns work, that masks have a protective value obviously for you or someone else, and that variants are scary things and we even need to close international borders in case some of these nasty foreign variants get in.”

Many readers may have noticed that this interview appeared on a small Christian website called Lifesite News. Why is that? Shouldn’t the informed observations of a former Pfizer vice president appear on the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post? Wouldn’t you expect the big cable news channels to run a hot-button interview like this as their headline story?

Of course not. No one expects that, because everyone knows that the media honchos reflexively quash any story that doesn’t support the “official narrative,” that is, that COVID is the most contagious and lethal virus of all time, which requires a new authoritarian political structure and the wholesale evisceration of civil liberties.

No One Is Allowed to Refute the Official Propaganda

Isn’t that the underlying storyline of the last year? COVID skeptics and naysayers, like Yeadon, are not allowed to refute the official propaganda or debate the issue on a public forum. They’re effectively banned from the MSM and consigned to the outer reaches of the Internet where only a scattered few will read what they have to say. Here’s more:4

“Everything I have told you, every single one of those things is demonstrably false. But our entire national policy is based on these all being broadly right, but they are all wrong. But what I would like to do is talk about immune escape because I think that’s probably going to be the end game for this whole event, which I think is probably a conspiracy.

Last year I thought it was what I called ‘convergent opportunism.’ That is, a bunch of different stakeholder groups have managed to pounce on a world in chaos to push us in a particular direction. So, it looked like it was kind of linked, but I was prepared to say it was just convergence.

I [now] think that’s naïve. There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers around the world have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. One of those two things is true because the reason it must be true is that dozens and dozens of governments are all saying the same lies and doing the same inefficacious things that demonstrably cost lives.”

Let’s pause for a minute, and ask ourselves why a modest, self-effacing microbiologist who operated in the shadows for his entire professional career has thrust himself into the limelight when he knows, for certain, he will either be ridiculed, smeared, discredited, dragged through the mud or killed.

In fact, he openly admits that he fears for his safety and assumes that he could be “removed” (“assassinated”) by his enemies. So, why is he doing this? Why is he risking life and limb to get the word out about vaccines?

A Moral Obligation to Warn People

It’s because he feels a moral obligation to warn people about the danger they face. Yeadon is not an attention-seeking narcissist. In fact, he’d rather vanish from public life altogether.

But he’s not going to do that because he’s selflessly committed to doing his duty by sounding the alarm about a malign strategy that may well lead to the suffering and death of literally tens of millions of people. That’s why he’s doing it, because he’s an honorable man with a strong sense of decency. Remember decency? Here’s more:5

“You can see that I am desperately trying not to say that it is a conspiracy, because I have no direct evidence that it is a conspiracy. Personally, all my instincts are shouting that it’s a conspiracy as a human being, but as a scientist, I can’t point to the smoking gun that says they made this up on purpose.”

Many of us who have followed events closely for the last year and have searched the internet for alternate points of view are equally convinced that it is a conspiracy, just as Russiagate was a conspiracy. And while we might not have conclusive, rock-solid proof of criminal activity, there is voluminous circumstantial evidence to support the claim.

By definition, a “conspiracy” is “an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons.”6 What is taking place presently across the western world meets that basic definition.

Just as the contents of this article meet the basic definition of a “conspiracy theory,” which is “an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.”7

We make no attempt to deny that this is a conspiracy theory, any more than we deny that senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, DOJ and U.S. State Department were involved in a covert operation aimed at convincing the American people that Donald Trump was a Russian agent.

That was a conspiracy theory that was later proven to be a fact. We expect that the facts about the COVID operation will eventually emerge, acquitting us on that account as well. Here’s more from Yeadon:8

“I think the end game is going to be, ‘everyone receives a vaccine’ … Everyone on the planet is going to find themselves persuaded, cajoled, not quite mandated, hemmed-in to take a jab.

When they do that every single individual on the planet will have a name, or unique digital ID and a health status flag which will be ‘vaccinated,’ or not … and whoever possesses that, sort of single database, operable centrally, applicable everywhere to control, to provide as it were, a privilege, you can either cross this particular threshold or conduct this particular transaction or not depending on [what] the controllers of that one human population database decide.

And I think that’s what this is all about because once you’ve got that, we become playthings and the world can be as the controllers of that database want it.”

Mass Vaccination a Pathway to Absolute Social Control

So mass vaccination is actually the pathway to absolute social control by technocratic elites accountable to no one? Are we there yet? Pretty close, I’d say. Here’s more:9

“And they are talking the same sort of future script which is, ‘We don’t want you to move around because of these pesky ‘variants’ — (but) ‘don’t worry, there will be ‘top-up’ vaccines that will cope with the potential escapees.’ They’re all saying this when it is obviously nonsense.”

Is he right? Is the variant hobgoblin now being invoked to prolong the restrictions, intensify the paranoia and pave the way for endless rounds of mass vaccination? Judge for yourself, but here’s a sampling of articles that appeared in recent news that will help you decide:

1. Reuters — South African Variant Can ‘Break Through’ Pfizer Vaccine, Israeli study says10

“The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa can ‘break through’ Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is low and the research has not been peer reviewed …

We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine’s protection,” said Tel Aviv University’s Adi Stern. (So, according to the article — the vaccine doesn’t work.)

2. The New York Times — Rise of Variants in Europe Shows How Dangerous the Virus Can Be11

“Europe, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, has once again swelled with new cases, which are inundating some local hospitals and driving a worrisome global surge of Covid-19.

But this time, the threat is different: The rise in new cases is being propelled by a coronavirus variant first seen in Britain and known as B.1.1.7. The variant is not only more contagious than last year’s virus, but also deadlier.

The variant is now spreading in at least 114 countries. Nowhere, though, are its devastating effects as visible as in Europe, where thousands are dying each day and countries’ already-battered economies are once again being hit by new restrictions on daily life …

Vaccines will eventually defeat the variants, scientists say. [So, they don’t work now??] And stringent restrictions can drive down cases of B.1.1.7. [So, don’t leave your home.] …

‘We’ve seen in so many countries how quickly it can become dominant,’ said Lone Simonsen, a professor and director of the PandemiX Center at Roskilde University in Denmark.

‘And when it dominates, it takes so much more effort to maintain epidemic control than was needed with the old variant.’” [In other words, we are effectively dealing with a different pathogen that requires a different antidote. It’s an admission that the current crop of vaccines doesn’t work.]

3. Cell — SARS-CoV-2 Variants B.1.351 and P.1 Escape From Neutralizing Antibodies12

“… our findings indicate that the B.1.351 and P.1 variants might be able to spread in convalescent patients or BNT162b2-vaccinated individuals and thus constitute an elevated threat to human health.

Containment of these variants by non-pharmaceutic interventions is an important task.” [Note — In other words, the new vaccines don’t work against the new COVID strains, so we might need to preserve the onerous lockdown restrictions forever.]

How can people read this fearmongering bunkum and not see that it is designed to terrify and manipulate the masses into sheeplike compliance?

Variant Being Used to Fuel COVID Hysteria

There’s no denying that the variant is being used to fuel the COVID hysteria and perpetuate the repressive social restrictions. So, the question we should be asking ourselves is whether we can trust what we are being told by the media and the public health officials?

And the answer is “No,” we cannot trust them. They have repeatedly misled the public on all manner of topics including masks, asymptomatic transmission, immunity, infection fatality rate, social distancing and now variants. According to Sunetra Gupta, who is professor of theoretical epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow:13

“… some of these variants could be more transmissible, but the truth is … even with a marginal increase in transmissibility … that does not have much of a material effect or difference in how we deal with the virus. In other words, the surge of the virus cannot be ascribed to a new variant …

The other question is are these variants more virulent, and the truth is we don’t know, but it is unlikely because the data don’t seem to say so despite the scary headlines … Pathogens tend to evolve toward lower virulence … because that maximizes their transmissibility … It is much more probable that these strains will not be materially so different that we would have to alter our policies.”

So, according to Gupta, even if the new strains of COVID are more transmissible, it is highly unlikely that they are more lethal. Here’s more on the topic from diagnostic pathologist Dr. Clare Craig, who provides a more technical explanation:14

“SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence has ~30,000 letters. Alterations in a handful of letters will not change it’s shape much — if it did it wouldn’t function properly anyway. Fear mongering about immune escape is not needed and is irresponsible especially when no evidence to support the claims.”

In essence, Craig is saying the same thing we said earlier, that the slight mutations to the infection will not impact the immune reaction of people who already had the virus. Thus, the current crop of “variants” should not be a cause for alarm. If you have already had COVID or if you already have prior immunity due to previous exposure to similar infections, (SARS, for example) the new strain should not be a problem.

It should also not be a problem if the new vaccines provide the type of broad-based immunity that one should expect of them. Again, the mutations represent only the slightest change in the composition of the pathogen (less than 1%), which means that — if the vaccines don’t work — they are, in effect, useless.

Media Misstating Science to Terrify the Public

Here’s a longer explanation that some readers might find overly technical and perhaps tedious, but it’s worth wading through in order to see that the media is deliberately misstating the science to terrify the public. This excerpt is from an article by Yeadon. Here’s what he said:15

“The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity … (that is) gained naturally, after repelling the virus … It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious agent into short pieces.

Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade … These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies & others are programmed to kill cells infected by the virus, recognized by displaying on their surface signals that tell the body that they’ve been invaded.

In almost all cases … this smart adaptive system overcomes the infection. Crucially … this event leaves you with many different kinds of long-lived ‘memory’ cells which, if you’re infected again, rapidly wipe out any attempt at reinfection.

So, you won’t again be made ill by the same virus, and because the virus is simply not permitted to replicate, you are also no longer able to participate in transmission … The general ‘direction of travel’ (for viruses) is to become less injurious but easier to transmit, eventually joining the other 40 or so viruses which cause what we collectively term ‘the common cold.’

What generally doesn’t happen is for mutants to become more lethal to the hosts (us). But the key point I wanted to get across is just how large SARS-COV-2 is. I recall it’s of the order of 30,000 letters of genetic code which, when translated, make around 10,000 amino acids in several viral proteins.

Now you can see that the kinds of numbers of changes in the letters of the genetic code are truly tiny in comparison with the whole. 30 letter changes might be roughly 0.1% of the virus’s code. In other words, 99.9% of that code is not different from the so-called Wuhan strain.

Similarly, the changes in the protein translated from those letter code alterations are overwhelmed by the vast majority of the unchanged protein sequences. So your immune system, recognizing as it does perhaps dozens of short pieces … will not be fooled by a couple of small changes to a tiny fraction of these.

No: your immune system knows immediately that this is an invader it’s seen before, and has no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with it swiftly & without symptoms. So, it’s a scientifically invalid …

… even if mutations did change a couple of these, the majority of the pieces … of the mutated virus will still be unchanged & recognized by the vaccine-immune system or the virus-infected immune system & a prompt, vigorous response will still protect you.”

Why Are Public Health Officials and the Media Lying?

Let’s summarize: We have presented the informed views of three reputable scientists all of who explicitly refute the idea that the so called “variants:”

Are more lethal

Have the potential to reinfect people who have already had COVID

Have mutated enough to reinfect people who have already been vaccinated (unless, of course) the vaccine does not provide broad-based immunity to begin with (which is possible since Phase 3 long-term trials were never conducted).

So, why are the public health officials and the media lying about this matter, which is fairly clear-cut and uncontroversial? That is the question.

Yeadon concludes that there is something flagrantly diabolical about their denial. He thinks they are lying in order to dupe more people into getting injected with a substance that will either render them infertile, cause them great bodily harm or kill them outright. Take your pick. Here’s more:16

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power and this is a really artful way of getting you to line-up and receive some unspecified thing that will damage you. I have no idea what it will actually be, but it won’t be a vaccine because you don’t need one. And it won’t kill you on the end of the needle because you would spot that.

It could be something that will produce normal pathology, it will be at various times between vaccination and the event, it will be plausibly deniable because there will be something else going on in the world at that time, in the context of which your demise, or that of your children will look normal.

That’s what I would do if I wanted to get rid of 90 or 95% of the world’s population. And I think that’s what they’re doing.”

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power?” Has Yeadon gone mad?

Has the pressure of the global pandemic pushed him off the deep end or is he “on to something” big, something that no one even dares to even think about; a plan so dark and sinister that its implementation would constitute the most grievous and coldblooded crime against humanity of all time; the injection of billions of people with a toxic elixir whose spike protein dramatically compromises their immune systems clearing the way for agonizing widespread suffering followed by mountains of carnage?

There are others, however, who see a connection between the current vaccination campaign and “the eugenicists.” In fact, Dr. Joseph Mercola points to the link between the lead developer of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Adrian Hill, and the Eugenics movement. According to Mercola:

“Hill gave a lecture at the Galton Institute (which was known as the U.K. Eugenics Society) in 2008 for its 100-year anniversary. As noted in Webb’s article:17

‘Arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK eugenics movement.

The latter organization, named for the ‘father of eugenics’ Francis Galton, is the renamed U.K. Eugenics Society, a group notorious for over a century for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to ‘improve racial stock’ by reducing the population of those deemed inferior.

The ties of Adrian Hill to the Galton Institute should raise obvious concerns given the push to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine he developed with [Sarah] Gilbert the vaccine of choice for the developing world, particularly countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, the very areas where the Galton Institute’s past members have called for reducing population growth …

Emeritus professor of molecular genetics at the Galton Institute and one of its officers is none other than David J. Galton, whose work includes ‘Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century.’

David Galton has written that the Human Genome Mapping Project… had ‘enormously increased … the scope for eugenics … because of the development of a very powerful technology for the manipulation of DNA.’

This new ‘wider definition of eugenics,’ Galton has said, ‘would cover methods of regulating population numbers as well as improving genome quality by selective artificial insemination by donor, gene therapy or gene manipulation of germ-line cells.’ In expanding on this new definition, Galton is neutral as to ‘whether some methods should be made compulsory by the state, or left entirely to the personal choice of the individual.

… The Wellcome Centre regularly cofunds the research and development of vaccines and birth control methods with … a foundation (name withheld) that actively and admittedly engages in population and reproductive control in Africa and South Asia by, among other things, prioritizing the widespread distribution of injectable long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).

The Wellcome Trust has also directly funded studies that sought to develop methods to ‘improve uptake’ of LARCs in places such as rural Rwanda…’ LARCs afford women in the Global South ‘the least choice possible short of actual sterilization.’

Some LARCs can render women infertile for as long as five years, and, as Levich argues, they ‘leave far more control in the hands of providers, and less in the hands of women, than condoms, oral contraceptives, or traditional methods.’

… Slightly modified and rebranded as Jadelle, the dangerous drug was promoted in Africa … Formerly named the Sterilization League for Human Betterment, EngenderHealth’s original mission, inspired by racial eugenics, was to ‘improve the biological stock of the human race.’”

Does Eugenics Factor Into the mRNA Vaccine?

So, how does “eugenics” factor into the creation and distribution of the mRNA vaccine? Is there a link or are we grasping at straws? We can’t answer that question, but a recent article by Mathew Ehret at Off-Guardian provides a few interesting clues. Here’s what he said:18

“The fact that the organizations promoting the rise of this eugenics policy throughout Nazi Germany and North America included such powerhouses as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Human Sterilization League for Human Betterment … which have all taken leading roles in the World Health Organization over recent decades is more than a little concerning.

The fact that these eugenics organizations simply re-branded themselves after WWII and are now implicated in modern RNA vaccine development alongside the Galton Institute (formerly British Eugenics Association), Oxford’s AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should give any serious thinker pause as we consider what patterns of history we are willing to tolerate repeating in our presently precarious age.”

We’ll end this piece with an excerpt from a 2010 article by Andrew Gavin Marshall at Global Research, who presciently noted that:19

“Eugenics is about the social organization and control of humanity … (particularly) population control …

The ideas of Malthus, and later Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin were remolded into branding an elite ideology of ‘Social Darwinism,’ which was ‘the notion that in the struggle to survive in a harsh world, many humans were not only less worthy, many were actually destined to wither away as a rite of progress. To preserve the weak and the needy was, in essence, an unnatural act.’

This theory simply justified the immense wealth, power and domination of a small elite over the rest of humanity, as that elite saw themselves as the only truly intelligent beings worthy of holding such power and privilege.

Francis Galton later coined the term “eugenics” to describe this emerging field. His followers believed that the ‘genetically unfit’ ‘would have to be wiped away,’ using tactics such as ‘segregation, deportation, castration, marriage prohibition, compulsory sterilization, passive euthanasia — and ultimately extermination’ …

Sir Julian Huxley was also a life trustee of the British Eugenics Society from 1925, and its President from 1959-62 … ���Huxley believed that eugenics would one day be seen as the way forward for the human race,’ and that, ‘A catastrophic event may be needed for evolution to move at an accelerated pace’ … It is much the same with ideas whose time has not yet come; they must survive periods when they are not generally welcome.

The 21st-century technologies are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups.

They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them … I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

… Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system.

If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite …

A horrifying vision indeed; but one which builds upon the ideas of Huxley, Russell and Brzezinski, who envisioned a people who — through biological and psychological means – are made to love their own servitude. Huxley saw the emergence of a world in which humanity, still a wild animal, is domesticated; where only the elite remain wild and have freedom to make decisions, while the masses are domesticated like pets.

Huxley opined that, ‘Men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.’”

We must ask ourselves whether the current mass vaccination campaign is a science-based effort to relieve sickness and disease or a fast-track to a dark and frightening dystopia conjured up by evil men seeking to tighten their grip on all humanity?

SOURCE

[thescienceofapologetics]

Evidence for the Resurrection

It’s Easter time once again! A Sunday that marks the single most pivotal point of Christianity. If you want to prove Christianity is a hoax, all you must do is illustrate how the resurrection was a facade. It is absolutely essential to our salvation that Christ conquered death, for if Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead our hope is lost. 1 Corinthians 15:14 likewise states, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” Without the resurrection our belief is baseless, futile, unfounded, and foolish. So why is it we believe such an outlandish claim could actually happen, superseding the natural laws of earth? Here’s a few reasons...

The Bible is the most historically accurate ancient text in the world — When discussing the validity of history, it’s only reasonable to reference your source that has proven most reliable. The Bible is that source. No other record of ancient history has come CLOSE to matching the reliability of the Bible. If we say the Bible is untrustworthy, we must discard every other historical record as well because the Bible vastly surpasses every test of authenticity as no other book does. More on that here and here.

Yes, Jesus really died - Many people start off with the dispute that maybe Jesus wasn’t really dead. However, that neglects both the historical and circumstancial context. The Romans were masters at execution. They knew how to draw out suffering to the finest line between death and life, make it last for days on end. This was their art form. These men were proficient and practiced. Jesus was tortured, whipped with a scourge that often exposed bone and vital organs, tearing flesh from a body. Many people didn’t survive that alone. He was forced to carry a cross that could have weight up to 300lbs, and he crumpled under the weight, unable to bear it. Nails were driven through his wrist and through both his feet. Make note he would be unable to walk from the pain in his feet, his hands would be rendered useless. The way you hang on a cross causes death by asphyxiation, to breathe you had to push your self up with means grating your torn back against the wood and putting more pressure on the holes ripping your limbs. After Jesus died they speared his side to make certain he was dead and fluid came pouring out. The Romans checked thoroughly to make sure he was dead because they were shocked he died so quickly. He was bloated, swollen, and gored by death on a cross. Even if for arguments sake, Jesus was not yet dead, being in a tomb for three days would indisputably see to that. If blood loss didn’t kill him, infection certainly would. Additionally, Luke, one of eyewitnesses who recorded the events, was a doctor so his perspective is a notably authoritative one. (Luke 23-24).

The tomb was empty - There is no possible way Jesus, weakened to the point where the Roman masters of execution called his death, unable to use his hands or feet due to the spikes pounded into them, was able to roll away a MASSIVE boulder and over power two trained and able-bodied Roman soldiers. The idea that Jesus didn’t fully die on the cross and escaped the tomb is absurd. Furthermore, the guards stationed to prevent anyone from robbing the tomb and the Roman seal on the two-ton rock ensured that anyone who dared to even attempt to move it faced the death penalty themselves. If the guards themselves fell asleep they faced the same fate. There was a LOT at stake if Jesus’ body was taken, the Romans were taking no chances. Every other argument for the absence of Jesus’ body can quickly be dismantled by historical context and the circumstances by which these things took place.

It was prophesied - Isaiah talks about the particular circumstances of Jesus death, such as no bones would be broken, an unusual anomaly when it came to crucifixion. Jesus himself also foretells that he will rise within three days. Even smaller details like casting lots for His garments were spoken of hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Other prophesies like this show that Jesus’ death was no accident, God knew what He was doing. (Isaiah 52:13-53:12; John 18-20)

Eyewitness accounts - Jesus appeared to over 500 people after His resurrection, many of whom were alive at the time of the gospels being written and therefore could confirm or dispute their accuracy (1 Corinthians 15:6) Among those include the disciples, Mary Magdalene, and Paul the former murderer of Christians. The Bible records accounts of skeptism and unbelief, but they saw the scars on his hands, touched his solid flesh before them, heard his familiar voice, and they believed because of it. Paul became that which he initially DESPISED because of his encounter with Jesus Christ, that alone is a mind-blowing testimony. The man who hunted and killed Christians became a Christian who was willing to be tortured and killed because he so strongly believed in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The apostles went from hiding in extreme fear to preaching the gospel in the face of deadly persecution - When Jesus died the apostles went into hiding. They were TERRIFIED that the Romans, the other Jews, would come after them next. Yet, after Jesus appears, they’re fearlessly preaching the gospel out in open crowds of THOUSANDS. It’s a dramatic switch of perspective. To go from quivering fear to such emboldened confidence, surely seeing Jesus standing risen before you would give you that kind of intrepidation. There is little else to explain how these men were suddenly ready to risk everything after being afraid to admit they ever knew Jesus just days before.

Apostles willing to die for Jesus - Now some people say the apostles stole the body of Jesus to convince people to turn to Christianity. The Bible says that lie was started by the Romans in order to discredit the apostles. However, almost all of the apolstles died for preaching the gospel, and all of them were severely persecuted. Why would they exchange their lives, their health, their reputation, their livelihoods, their comfort for something they knew was a lie? It simply makes no sense. The only logical conclusion is that they believed Jesus was the resurrected Christ.

Appearing to a woman first was a dumb move - The testimony of a woman would not be as respected as than of a man in those times. If Jesus’ resurrection was a ruse, the logical thing to do would be to claim he was seen by a male dignitary of noble standing, not a woman who had been previously possessed by demons - a social blemish (Luke 8:2). “Unflattering” facts like this, the cowardis of the apolstles, their initial skeptism, not recognizing Jesus right away, etc. lend to the credit of the account because it demonstrates an accurate retelling, not a fabrication that was crafted to deceptively sway the masses into false belief.

Vision, hallucination unlikely due to number of witnesses and circumstances - Jesus didn’t appear to two people and then go back to Heaven. He appeared to over 500 in all sorts of different locations. People who weren’t looking for him, people who didn’t believe it was Him until they had proof. Proof so certain that they were no longer afraid, they were filled with unextinguishable hope. We must also realize the historical context of the time in which it took place. It’s much easier to fabricate this kind of illusion today with the technology and way by which we pass on information. The time period in which the resurrection took place adds merit that should not be ignored. News was circulated in a manner that was unique to our present day process.

Non-Christian historians record the resurrection - Josephus, a renowned secular historian at the time of Jesus’ death, writes, “On the third day He appeared... restored to life.” It should be noted there are many who debate the reliability of Josephus’ words regarding the resurrection, however, many historians find this evidence to support the Bible’s claims.

The persecution of the early church - Under Nero’s reign the early church suffered some of the most violent persecution, not to mention the Jewish leaders who also sought to kill the Christians. The steadfast resolve of a Church who was in its infant stage is astounding. The only explanation is that they all genuinely believed in the resurrection. They had nothing to gain and everything to lose by preaching the gospel, yet they did so freely despite the cost. If Christianity was based on a lie, it should have been easy to crush it as it was beginning. The fact that the force of the entire Roman Empire wasn’t enough to sway their devotion is incredible. The whole of the known world tried to annihilate Christianity in the cradle but couldn’t.

It is the accumulation of evidence that begs cause for belief - It is not for one singular reason that we believe Jesus rose from the dead, but rather the combined evidence that demands an explanation that only the Bible provides. The proven accuracy of the Bible, the eyewitnesses details; the historical records of Jesus walking, eating, alive; the unexplainable absence in the tomb despite all efforts to seal it; the prophesies fulfilled; the change in people’s lives, the martyrs, the flourishing of the church in the face of persecution. It all points back to Jesus rising from the dead as the only reasonable explanation. The Bible consistently presents answers to questions the world has no answer for.

More comprehensive analysis and sources

Within these sources you’ll find more Biblical references, breaking down arguments and evidence, and quotes from some of the world’s finest minds and historians.

The Resurrection of Christ: The Best Proved Fact in History

Resurrection: No Doubt About It

Biblical and Extra-Biblical Evidences

Is the Resurrection True?

Atheist’s Look at the Resurrection

Still got questions/comments? Shoot me an ask! I don’t usually reply to comments on long posts, but I’d certainly love to talk!

[buzzdixonwriter]

Closing The Window

In the aftermath of the election, I think there’s a major lesson for the entire country to learn with two big offshoot lessons, one for each party.

I think very few people voted for Joe Biden this year.

I think a lot more people voted for Donald Trump.

But I think there was one helluva larger number who voted against Trump than voted against Biden.

Catch my drift?

THE BIG LESSON:

Americans by and large are centrists.

They do not want their daily lives disrupted.

They resist change, but once change occurs and they see how little effect it has on their daily lives -- viz women voting, civil rights, LGBT+ rights, etc. -- they accept it and roll on.

Americans actively seek change only when something is going Very, Very Wrong.

Trump trailed in the popular vote in 2016 because most people correctly read his character:  Shallow, impulsive, self-centered.

They recognized he lacked both the temperament and the discipline to effectively lead a nation of 323 million people in a world facing rapid social, political, and climate change.

The next three years bore this out repeatedly, yet Trump managed to hold on despite his bunglings and betrayals simply by not adversely affecting the daily lives of the large minority who voted for him.

Trump’s base can most charitably be described as people anxious about their position in America, and Trump -- to no one’s great surprise, not even those who voted for him -- simply lied and promised to make everything better even though he lacked any clear plan for doing so, much less the actual talent and ability to follow through on his promises.

And for three years, it didn’t matter.

While others could see the great harm he inflicted upon America’s long term interests, by and large he let his base feel they were no longer slipping in their standing, that their lives were stabilized and ripe for improvement.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

To be 100% fair to Donald Trump, he neither created the pandemic nor could he stop it from eventually reaching America.

But he could have followed the effective pandemic response plan put in place by GWBush.

Doing so would have disrupted Americans’ daily lives, to be sure, but could be offset by the truthful claim it prevented an even greater disruption.

Most importantly, instead of nearly a quarter million dead Americans as of this posting, the fatality rate would be only in the tens of thousands.

If Trump followed the pandemic response plan, he would have cruised to an easy re-election victory.

But as anyone who observes him knows, he is incapable of the foresight and discipline needed to serve his own best interests.

Biden didn’t need to be better than Trump to beat him.

All he needed was to be “not Trump”.

This is why Biden didn’t have any coattails in this election.

The Democratic Party’s lesson:

Right now, America wants stability.

Trump’s cheesy theatrics aside, until 2020 he didn’t disrupt the average American’s life.

The bad things he stirred up were by and large just continuations of already existing bad situations, not new problems.

And yes, those already suffering from those situations continued suffering, and in many cases it grew worse, but it was not a new thing.

This doesn’t minimize or mitigate their suffering, it simply marks it was not a radical change from the status quo.

But killing a quarter million people through deliberate lies and bungling, then seeing the nation’s economy go into the dumpster due to lack of a coherent national response to the pandemic?

That disrupted a lot of people’s lives.

Right now the best thing the Democratic Party can do is create a semblance of order and stability in the face of the pandemic.

It won’t be easy, but it can be done.

The Republicans will try to paint them as radical leftists determined to undermine everything that makes America great.

This is because the far right in America has spent decades trying to shove the Overton window further and further to the right.

The GOP’s problem is this: They engage in magical thinking, presuming that if they wish for something rilly rilly hard enough, they can make it a reality.

The truth is the Overton window is not a rigid frame that can be repositioned but a stretchable boundary.

The reality of what the populace wants will not move greatly from its fixed cultural point.

And for the overwhelming majority of Americans that fixed cultural point means some form of health care available to all that doesn’t render people destitute if they get ill, some sort of social safety net for the elderly and those who want to work but can’t find employment, an environment as clean and as safe as possible to live in, and the freedom to live their daily lives unmolested so long as they show the same courtesy to others. 

These are all things the GOP claims represent progressive radical socialist COMMUNIST ideas.

That’s a lie, of course.

But today’s GOP leadership is nothing if not disciples of Josef Goebbels.

The Democratic Party must not rise to the bait.

The Democratic Party must present the political desires of the majority of Americans as what it is:  Reasonable and sane centrist policies.

It will be difficult, because the GOP will continue lying, and will be quick to blame every setback and mistake as a grievous failing of the Democrats, but success will lay in embracing those centrist values and making the Overton window snap back to its real position.

And the leftists and radicals in the party who chomp at the bit to push things really further to the left?

Just getting back to a true centrist position is going to address most of their concerns.

The Republican Party’s lesson:

There’s enormous potential for conservative gains among American minority groups.

Case in point:    Crime-plagued communities want effective law enforcement.

They do not want a police force that acts like an occupying army, treating every member of the community as a criminal suspect.

Learn that lesson, and you’ll peel off huge numbers of Democratic voters.

Right now the GOP thinks it holds the American center.

It doesn’t.

It holds a reverse Venn diagram, a wide circle that goes around the center but doesn’t truly occupy it.

It holds a few extremely wealthy plutocrats concerned only with making more money -- and keeping more of what they make, as well.

It holds so called “conservatives” who are so ultra-right wing as to shoot right off the scale of libertarianism and plunge into virtual anarchy -- only they lack the self-awareness to acknowledge that,

It holds a rapidly shrinking organized religion contingent that is rapidly losing members to uncommitted centrists or the new burgeoning pseudo religion of conspiracy fanatics.

It holds an increasingly aging and rapidly dying generation of mostly white voters who feel threatened by the inevitable change going on around them, and cling to any false promise that the America of their perceived fondly remembered childhoods can be restored.

It holds bona fide hate-mongers and bigots of a wide variety, all of them itching to inflict harm on groups and genders they don’t like and not particular about what policies are used to do so.

This is not the healthy formula for a long lived viable political party.

America can benefit greatly from a real conservative party, one that acts with fiscal responsibility and tries to preserve everyone’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It can’t benefit from the GOP as it’s currently constituted.

For the GOP to thrive in the remaining years of the 21st century, it needs to regain the ability to compromise and when necessary, embrace change.

It’s about to find itself outside a window that’s about to snap back to the middle, and if it’s not already there when the snap occurs, it’s going to have a hard time getting back in.

  © Buzz Dixon