ideemthatsheyetlives

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

Thinking about this man again.

Hard to believe I thought I was a straight dude when I made this video.

Carl Greenwood fan edit

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

andor is about individualism vs collectivism. it's about finding personhood within a suppressive fascist system that doesn't want you to be any different than anyone else, and it's about giving up your personhood to join a movement for the sake of everyone around you. it's about navigating the degree of irrepressible selfishness we all have, while trying to service something beyond ourselves. it's about making sacrifices, both at our own expense and the expense of others. it's about taking things for yourself and giving things up for others. it's about learning to submit and learning to defy. it's about recognizing the ways you have been wronged by the things you have been taught exist to help you. it's about resistance, in every form, in every way

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

Nevada if it were written by Ayn Rand instead of Imogen Binnie

So some dumb stuff happened, Mariayn says, and then we broke up and I was like, well shit, the problem is that I’ve been trying to be responsible, and accountable to everyone else, and to make sure that nobody was freaked out by me or my feelings or desires or whatever. I was like, the solution is to remember that, to live, people must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of their lives: reason, purpose, and self-esteem. Reason, obviously, as their only tool of knowledge. Purpose, like, as in their choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve, or whatever. Self-esteem, as their inviolate certainty that their mind is competent to think and their person is worthy of happiness, all of which is to say, James H., that they are worthy of living. 

When I was a little kid, when I started to develop a personality and a gender and to express that personality and gender, everybody everywhere started socializing that stuff out of me. I was an observant kid, you know, I looked around and I was like, well shit, I’d better listen to these messages I’m getting from TV and from the grownups around me, instead of whatever the fuck my obviously incorrect brain is telling me. You know? Being completely checked out, that shit started when I was a tiny little kid. And the reason, James H., that I have a lifetime’s worth of unprocessed shutdown emotions is because I didn’t stay true to the values of reason, purpose, and self-esteem. It’s unreasonable to expect what other people have to think about me determine how I view myself when I am the best-informed person about what is true about me. My purpose was not to, like, make myself happy, as is my natural right, but to enslave my thoughts to a system of ethics preaching the sacrifice of personal joy. 

And, quite frankly, my self-esteem was fucked. 

It was not lost on James that Mariayn was calling him exactly what was written on his Wal-Mart nametag: a name that had been assigned to him by others, and not one that he had claimed for himself. 

Let’s not talk about capitalism or individualism or anything, Mariayn continued, except I do want to say that those things ended up being totally essential to my understanding of being trans and the ethics of government regulation within free markets and how that relates to the way that people allow society to dictate what you do, who you are allowed to be, and what you are allowed to want. Including kink. Especially kink. 

Whatever, Mariayn, James interrupts. What are your kinks? What are they telling you about what you want? 

The kind of rapture I’ve always wanted was the act of a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession of me. In a non-appropriative way.

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

New reaction image dropped

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

I guess I have to work on my audio editing skills next (my brother's got some experience there so shouldn't be too hard to get some pointers, actually).

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

Why thank you very much; I do try to use different video editing features I haven't used before when I make new ones of these, so that might account for the improvements so far.

King Ghidorah returns from his far-off travels. But perhaps he has stayed away from Earth for too long . . .

Song is The Storm (Gentle version), from the album The Gentle Storm, by The Diary.

Alternate version of this post is here:

@gangstasperidot

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

King Ghidorah returns from his far-off travels. But perhaps he has stayed away from Earth for too long . . .

Song is The Storm (Gentle version), from the album The Gentle Storm, by The Diary.

Alternate version of this post is here:

@gangstasperidot

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

I might have actually peaked with these ones. I'm not sure how I'll outdo myself.

Song is The Storm (Storm version) from the album The Gentle Storm by The Diary.

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

I love this.

Cinta x Maarva Commission

Mom: I don't know anything about Star Wars, but from what I was told by the commissioner, I'd be down for this crackship.

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

andor is about individualism vs collectivism. it's about finding personhood within a suppressive fascist system that doesn't want you to be any different than anyone else, and it's about giving up your personhood to join a movement for the sake of everyone around you. it's about navigating the degree of irrepressible selfishness we all have, while trying to service something beyond ourselves. it's about making sacrifices, both at our own expense and the expense of others. it's about taking things for yourself and giving things up for others. it's about learning to submit and learning to defy. it's about recognizing the ways you have been wronged by the things you have been taught exist to help you. it's about resistance, in every form, in every way

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

Erich Von Stroheim to Jean Renoir whilst making La grande illusion (1937): you know what this movie needs? old men yaoi

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

andor is about individualism vs collectivism. it's about finding personhood within a suppressive fascist system that doesn't want you to be any different than anyone else, and it's about giving up your personhood to join a movement for the sake of everyone around you. it's about navigating the degree of irrepressible selfishness we all have, while trying to service something beyond ourselves. it's about making sacrifices, both at our own expense and the expense of others. it's about taking things for yourself and giving things up for others. it's about learning to submit and learning to defy. it's about recognizing the ways you have been wronged by the things you have been taught exist to help you. it's about resistance, in every form, in every way

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

What you said the other day was right, @gangstasperidot: you haven't written any Shadow Weaver/Godzilla fics. Which means that, as the person who proposed the idea, I have to come up with a justification for how that pairing came about.

King Ghidorah has a favour to ask of Godzilla . . .

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

Andor is giving us the most Randian objectivist storyline in Star Wars since . . . probably 2017, I suppose (when Daniel Lavery wrote a canon Star Wars short story that he mentioned was explicitly written from a Randian-inspired perspective).

I'm talking about the Maya Pei Brigade storyline, where Cassian, after delivering a test TIE starfighter to a drop-off point, is captured by a stranded band of local rebels, with the band insisting that he pilots its members off world.

While I believe the show as a whole would not be able to be read through a coherent Randian objectivist lens, nor even those episodes, I do believe that this particular story arc fits well with the themes that Rand develops in Atlas Shrugged in particular.

mfw the rugged individualist is forced at gunpoint by the collective to use his ability to satisfy the needs of others who are restraining him from using his ability to satisfy his own needs, and the collective is formed of people who have sacrificed their individuality (by being part of a group named after another person), and also the collective is wildly incompetent, prone to infighting, ideologically incoherent, and unable to defend itself from outside threats or satisfy its basic survival needs without the coerced help of the individualist (Andor suggests that they create a perimeter and collect rainwater): holy shit Ayn Rand moment

Also, on a more vibes-based, less theme-based, level, the shots of the trapped members of the Maya Pei Brigade after Andor flies away in the TIE starfighter reminds me of the ending of Atlas Shrugged when the main characters are in a plane watching the lights of New York go out.

Made these edits a few days ago:

andor is about individualism vs collectivism. it's about finding personhood within a suppressive fascist system that doesn't want you to be any different than anyone else, and it's about giving up your personhood to join a movement for the sake of everyone around you. it's about navigating the degree of irrepressible selfishness we all have, while trying to service something beyond ourselves. it's about making sacrifices, both at our own expense and the expense of others. it's about taking things for yourself and giving things up for others. it's about learning to submit and learning to defy. it's about recognizing the ways you have been wronged by the things you have been taught exist to help you. it's about resistance, in every form, in every way

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

I'm not sure if people are ready to hear my "Andor is about individualism vs collectivism, but in a Randian kind of way" take (with regards to the start of Season 2, anyway).

andor is about individualism vs collectivism. it's about finding personhood within a suppressive fascist system that doesn't want you to be any different than anyone else, and it's about giving up your personhood to join a movement for the sake of everyone around you. it's about navigating the degree of irrepressible selfishness we all have, while trying to service something beyond ourselves. it's about making sacrifices, both at our own expense and the expense of others. it's about taking things for yourself and giving things up for others. it's about learning to submit and learning to defy. it's about recognizing the ways you have been wronged by the things you have been taught exist to help you. it's about resistance, in every form, in every way

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

This song came on the radio this morning and I heard the opening line and was like "???, this is really how this song starts?" and because it's a bank holiday this is the result, I guess.

Shadow Weaver x Godzilla; Yellow Diamond and Rihanna there too.

@gangstasperidot

[ideemthatsheyetlives]

Baby Face if it came out in 2012 and really committed to the whole Nietzche bit.