#left discourse

[wolf-tail]

Most annoying type of internet leftist is the person who seems to have absorbed years worth of antisocialist propaganda and unironically believes it, but seems to think that all the things that it accuses socialists of doing are good things.

Capitalists: The socialists will take everything from you and make you become another mindless worker and you will have no nonessential happiness or culture ever. They will also take all small business owners and anyone who owns a video game that costs above five dollars away to be tortured in labor death camps forever.

Fucking Weirdos: This is an objectively ideal situation to put human beings in, and anyone who disagrees with me is on the same level morally as Jeff Bezos.

[opashoo]

I'm absolutely losing my mind seeing "We need to not treat men and masculinity as inherently evil and worthy of hatred, and not fall back into biological and gender essentialism because that hurts everyone, including trans women" being misinterpreted as "Women need to stop oppressing men", "I think trans women are actually men" or "You specifically who have trauma around men need to get over it because men are the real victims". It's so willfully disingenuous. It makes me sick how willing people are to read in bad faith, especially how willing other trans women are to suddenly start harassing and dogpiling another trans woman.

I am a trans woman too, I understand what it's like to feel unsafe, but it helps no one this cynical attitude that crops up every time someone suggests being kind to men in our lives. "You could save a man you know from falling down the alt-right pipeline" is not the same as "It's your fault that men murder you". "There are people who could be on our side if we don't meet them with immediate hostility" is not the same as "You need to shut up and stop criticizing power structures for the sake of your oppressors' feelings" (I promise there are a lot of people who can be taught about their complicity in oppression without immediately shutting down but you need to work with them). This kind of attitude isn't somehow more informed or correct. It's just lashing out to avoid considering one's own agency.

Making a better, safer world for ourselves requires all kinds of work, but it's always work. It's hard to try to reach out to people who could very realistically harm us, it's work that not all of us can afford to or are able to do and that's fine because we're all just trying to survive. But some of you would rather condescend, tear each other down, and make more enemies before even considering it a possibility.

[vigilskept]

this whole idea in both the fandom and the games themselves that being a people attached to their past & a lost civilization is a failing whereas a celebration of the present is something to strive for wrt elven & dwarven culture is something that reads as fundamentally western & liberal to me.

[gingerswagfreckles]

The thing is, we've been seeing Qanon level reality denial from the left for over a year and a half now when it comes to Hamas, Israel, Oct 7th, the history of the Jews in the Middle East, the existence of antisemitism, etc etc etc. It's become increasingly mainstream and become increasingly frightening and dangerous for Jews. But what was distinct about this type of reality denial is that the consequences for it started and ended with putting Jews in danger. In other words, the people engaging in it were never really going to feel the consequences of their own actions.

I feel like this sudden mass delusion that there's no evidence Iran is/was developing nuclear weapons is a tipping point in terms of how far the general population is willing to take reality denial in order to maintain their belief that literally anything The Jews do ever is evil and wrong 100% with no nuance. The reason I feel like it's a tipping point is because while the motivation for it is still clearly antisemitism and the desire to fit literally everything into a Zionists vs. The World narrative, the consequences for this denial are clearly now moving beyond a minority group you already hate getting hurt.

What I mean is. People are now willing to deny obvious facts that potentially could endanger them, not just The Jews. They're so committed to this that they're willing to en mass pretend that there's no evidence of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, something that would have massive global impact. We are really screwed when people are willing to ignore facts that endanger their own personal safety, just to keep their oppressor vs. oppressed narrative 100% clean and tidy. I really do feel like we are at another tipping point.

[johanna-swann]

The thing is that the reasoning behind Eddie picking this fight doesn't even make sense at all.

First of all Eddie and Hen talk about Buck and how he almost obsessively worries about his friends which makes Eddie worry about Buck. So originally Eddie is concerned for his best friend because Buck is paying so much attention to other people.

In that same convo they also mention that Buck was trying to figure out how Eddie is handling his grief, so they have talked about Eddie's grief. Maybe Buck didn't go about it in the most sensitive way, but he genuinely wanted to know how Eddie is doing and asked a ton of questions.

But apparently Buck is still selfish because he didn't specifically ask: "Hey, what was it like for you getting that phone call?" As if that's a normal question to ask. As if you can just casually pepper that into a conversation. You can ask: "How are you holding up?" or "Are you okay?" and then you let the other person talk about whatever detail bugs them most. Which Buck did! They did have conversations about Eddie's grief.

And Eddie has been talking to everyone who will listen how he's "sorry I wasn't there" and "I feel guilty I wasn't there" and "maybe I could've done something". It's not like Eddie has been bottling these things up, he already expressed that feeling to Ravi and talked about it more with Hen and Karen.

Then they have a conversation where Buck reveals he knows about the job offer and is slightly miffed he didn't hear about it from Eddie himself, but still congratulates him and this just sets Eddie off in such a way he does a complete 180? Suddenly Buck is making everything about himself again and being selfish and doesn't care that Eddie is grieving too? If Eddie had got annoyed that Buck is still somewhat passive aggressive about the moving to El Paso thing - okay, kinda makes sense at least. But Eddie is the one who suddenly makes this about Bobby and his grief while completely ignoring that Buck basically just lost his surrogate dad. Eddie and Bobby were friends, good friends, but he was not Eddie's father figure. And he just keeps yelling and yelling and even gets physical with Buck.

As previously established - Buck did care about Eddie's grief. He did ask questions. Eddie is choosing to ignore that and verbally attack his best friend instead. And that's not even the end of it.

The next morning, not in the heat of the moment, but after Eddie had a whole night's sleep to cool off and after Buck has already apologised Eddie apparently still feels like he should mess with Buck's feelings further. Why? What kind of purpose does this action serve except hurt Buck? Eddie already confronted Buck, already said his piece, already got an apology. What the hell else does he want?

I wish the show would for once frame this behaviour in a way that clarifies Eddie isn't in the right. Because somehow these fights always end with Buck apologising and Eddie doing nothing, but they're besties again anyway. To me this signals that Eddie is right, Buck is childish and selfish, yelling at your friends is okay (you don't even need to apologise) and Buck deserves this treatment. I don't think this is what the show wants to say, but it's what comes across.

[askmeaboutmyoctopustheory]

sometimes when i see asoiaf discourse and i’m just like. you know this was all made up by a white man from new jersey right. let’s take a deep breath.

[pastafossa]

"Oh, so he/she/they played THAT type of character, so they think this is ok-"

I am begging you to learn what the word 'acting' means, Susan.

[mayaoftheflowers]

When certain activist Jewish spaces start borrowing heavily from neopagan frameworks- casting circles, somtimes literal avodah zarah, rewriting liturgy not for inclusion but like just for funsies, etc- it’s like, borderline self-colonization imo. Judaism already has a deep mystical and embodied tradition (kabbalah, niggun, mikveh, shekhinah, etc)

I'm all for learning from other traditions- and to be clear- Judaism is adaptable and evolving, but it's not infinitely plastic.

[your-worst-boy]

It always totally baffled me how there could be people who, with complete sincerity, thought "awh, I can't vote for Bernie?...damn. guess I'm going Trump then." Because...yknow...they're literally the antithesis of one another lol.

HOWEVER...I just connected the dots recently:

They think Bernie is a centrist lmao.

They think the Democrats are the "radical far left," & that Bernie is the rational centrist guy. And their reasoning is "he's one of the biggest critics of democrats!"

Bernie is far left lmao. He's your scary socialist boogeyman. He's like almost all the fucking way on the other side of the spectrum as Trump. U.S. Democrats actually skew center-right on the political spectrum, when compared to other governments globally.

But they have no fucking fluency in political labels, & they don't talk to actual leftists (not liberals) who have LITERALLY BEEN CRITICIZING ESTABLISHMENT DEMOCRATS FOREVER, so they assume Bernie must be the rational solution to these "radical leftists."

I'm sorry conservatives but if you like what Bernie was campaigning for, you liked leftist/socialist policy lol. I hate to be the one to break it to you. But I also love to because yall actually proved what I already suspected: most people, when you don't attach a political label or buzzword, want leftist policy.

[thejolteonmastertj]

I really need ppl to understand 99% of the reason why Rulie's portrayed the way he is in fanfics is a combination of two factors:

1.) Jojo actively encouraged the fandom to write fanfic long before she even decided to make an actual long-form comic of her own.

2.) During this time period, & for quite a while after that, the majority of what the fandom had to work off of for Rulie's personality is from this doodle page, & this description for his personality literally straight frm Jojo herself.

... 2.5.) It should also be noted Jojo hadn't played Adventure Of Link until about halfway through the Sunset arc, as evidenced by this post (we know this is Jojo's sister b/c the official LU tumblr credited her for one of the goofy Sky panels).

Now, since then the way Jojo portrays Rulie didn't change drastically overnight, the Magic Sword comic did happen beforehand for instance... but I do think the level to which Jojo plans to focus on particular traits from Rulie's original design has evolved over the course of development for the comic.

More recent (and, uh, mostly discord-exclusive, so I can't give too many details here) commentary from Jojo indeed emphasizes plans to highlight Rulie's determination above all else, quite contrary to how she used to describe his character (it hasn't changed, probably, it's just a matter of plot-driven emphasis).

Fanfic writers aren't stupid, we're literally just working with what we have-AND, Rulie himself, as a very nuanced & layered character, is going to be portrayed in wildly different manners depending on context & genre.

If you want to see more of Rulie's sassy side,

1.) Read more recent fics (Alas you will likely have to search by recently updated, as the first wave of popular fanfic tends to get enshrined forever at the top of the list when searching by kudos & comments.)

2.) Don't read angst (Sorry not sorry but angst & vent fics are going to make up the majority of works in any fandom, & in these fics a character's vulnerable side tends to get spotlighted. Don’t like don’t read.)

3.) Respectfully Ask for recs instead of barging in & just straight up telling fanfic authors what to do. That's rude.

[sapphosclown]

ellie’s grief in the show is different than in the game because the show is on a new timeline.

ranty/rambly character analysis kinda idk

i keep seeing discourse ab this show and. i’m trying so hard not to care bc it’s all annoying to me lol but the one that keeps coming up is ellie wasn’t angry enough. but, the reason it feels that way and that maybe she’s “happier” in the show is because the timeline is different

in the game, joel dies, ellie is on her revenge path after a few days. in the show, ellie is physically hurt. she cannot go find anybody right now, she’s being held in the hospital while she recovers. also, she just lost the most important person in her life, she’s being kept under as much surveillance in that hospital as they can get. this whole process takes three months. that’s three months that ellie has already been actively grieving. all that rage is building inside her, probably venting in very strange ways as she’s being held up, but ultimately she’s trying to suppress it. why? she wants to leave, because she wants to fucking kill abby.

that’s why they make her talk to gail before she goes. that’s why she’s happy as a clam during the whole conversation. if you genuinely watched that and thought “wtf why is she so okay right now” i fear you were not the intended audience for this show. it’s been said over and over which is why it’s fascinating that people are still missing the whole point.

Ellie. Is. Lying.

She is lying to Everyone. she is fucking livid. she’s heartbroken, so much so that she’s numb. she’s coasting. the whole time she’s just coasting, waiting for the moment she explodes—the moment she finds abby.

that’s why you think she’s “out of character”—but she’s not. think about how she acted in season 1. she was silly and aloof and chatty and witty; and she was grieving. she had just lost her best friend and first crush and first kiss, the most important person in her life at that point had just died. but she put on that face. that goofy smile and stupid puns, that is the face she puts on while she grieves because she doesn’t want her devastation to be anyone else’s business. this is also interesting when you look at her behavior after the david situation, she is not herself. she’s fully dazed over and quiet. that was the tipping point for all this trauma that she just shut down. she couldn’t hide all of it anymore

you can also see it in the flashback episodes. she becomes more and more reserved (not necessarily angry, but certainly pulling away a lot) as she begins to really sort through truth and lies. that anger does come back until it has a reason to (eugene).

the timeline of ellie’s grief is so important because is shows that she has had ample time to put together a version of herself that works publicly. that falls apart when things start to get real, because what’s real is she is murderous and she is going to do terrible things (which she will end up regretting but that’s a whole other thought i have). dina’s “pep talk” wasn’t explaining to ellie why ellie needs to be angry, it’s her explaining why she, dina, wants to be a part of this. ellie knows why she is there, but she doesn’t want dina to be apart of the horrible acts she’s going to commit, she wants dina to remain her safe place and her sense of self—the self that still had joel. but selfishly, she can’t make dina not go, because she wants her there.

i also think that’s why ellie wasn’t mad about the pregnancy like she was in the game. it’s been months, the grief has settled into being familiar at this point, she’s not constantly on the edge; unlike the game where the wound was still fresh and that news was shocking, so since she’s hurting, she reacted hurt. but since in the show she has a bandaid on, she was able to avoid the hurt reaction.

lastly, to act like game ellie was constantly the worst version herself every minute she’s in seattle is just so dramatic and wrong. ellie and dina have nice moments, ellie has moments where she is sad and happy and angry and bittersweet. her grief is not simply rage—it’s human. that’s how the show is doing it too. it’s weird when someone you love dies because somehow, the world keeps spinning. it feels unfair, how dare life continue without someone i cared about with me. but it does, which means even as you miss someone you’re going to have happy moments, and excited ones, and silly ones. that doesn’t mean everything is ok, it just means something is right then in that moment.

anyway. i think the show is fine, it’s entertaining, it has solid enough plot, and more than anything it’s goal is to provoke thought and feelings, the same thing the game wanted. if you don’t like how they did it that’s fine, you can play the game. but if you’re giving the show a chance, give it a real one. contextualize s2 within the show, not the game, because they are different and if you keep mixing up content then yeah, it’s going to feel like a bad show. so everyone chill out and just have fun watching a little show damn

[kunosoura]

Man it’s crazy how there’s always a plausible reason for why the terms Trans women use to identify each other and talk about their particular issues are either evil or actually belong to everyone. CAGAB terminology is misgendering and Transfem belongs to everyone and “Tranny” can be reclaimed by everyone who’s trans and “Transfem” can be used by anyone who feels it describes them and so for that matter, can “trans woman” (and saying otherwise is intersexist), TMA/TME is binaristic/misgendering/whatever.

Like I’m a very relaxed person in general and I have zero interest in policing lgbt slur reclamation or individual identities or anything but like is it not glaringly obvious who is being systemically deprived of the language to discuss their particular circumstances here

[eye-may]

people cats come in all different shapes and sizes and I just think thats beautiful ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

behold: literally the original mistoffelees wayne sleep

behold: dane wagner (la mirada)

behold: ceril faller (RCCL7)

(on the left out of costume)

[louferrignojrofficial]

you have one writer saying this….

and another saying this:

🙃

[lady-corrine]

THEY ARE GASLIGHTING THE PUPLIC 😭😭 kory really just let him like on Tamaran they have no rule against manipulation, gaslight, gatekeeper, bossgirl all acceptable 🗣️🗣️

Honestly they were having the time of their lives, they are genuinely the couple who would read all those comments and convos fighting over "Starfire and Nightwing" vs. "Starfire and Dick Grayson" and laugh and giggle over it all.

Like the press and public are crazy about them and the drama they invented in their heads about this relationship 😭

The reporters are genuinely loving this whole mess, they're invested 😭

(It's giving old Hollywood scandal 😭)

At its core though, the mess of this entire arc and the jokes aside, Dick's desire to be himself with her and to be seen with her without any masks or pretenses came from a very genuine place:

He genuinely wanted to be able to be himself while being with the love of his life, no wigs or fake names or pretenses.

This is honestly a very interesting arc to explore and I'm sure that we would have had much more of it and much more in depth if their planned wedding wasn't mandated. It's a very fun aspect of their relationship and it also deals with Dick's deep desire and longing to be himself, without masks, while being with Kory. The plan was a mess but Dick's hope for it to work and publicly declaring his love for Kory was very sweet.

It also makes such great material for the funnier and more comedic side, especially considering Kory's fame. I truly hope that someday in the future this will be revisited if they ever get together, or even by the fandom lol. It's a very underrated aspect of their relationship that really shows how complicit and hilarious they both are as a couple. It's lovely 😭

[wageronancap]

reminder it is always appropriate, most efficient, and objectively correct to reply to leftist longposting with memes, the simpler the better.