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Why are agriculture classes the first time I've learned extremely basic info about nutrition and how digestion works. Why isn't this stuff in health textbooks or any easily accessible resource about healthy eating.

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I think I can even defend Edelgard's Hopes design.

Like @randomnameless recently pointed out, Edelgard is a lot more concerned about PR in Hopes. That she wants to create this image of her being someone who will save those who side with her, and as such will turn around and save Lonato in order to maintain that image. She's not doing it because it's the right thing to do, but because it stands to benefit her. It's just another layer of manipulation she uses.

After all, the ideals she starts this war over are that people need to learn not to rely on others and instead on their own strength. That's what it means for her for people to become strong, and it's these ideals she reshapes Fodlan with in Safflower's ending. The whole "independent" line is read in Japanese as her making a world where people don't rely on others, not that she's making them free, which in turn means that her big speech against Rhea was just for show (much like offering Rhea a chance to surrender while privately saying she needs to be destroyed). According to Edelgard's ideals, if her vassals rely on her it's just showing her how weak they actually are. How they lack merit, which would in turn justify her removing them from power. This is despite how her reforms in Hopes seem to coddle the nobility according to Hubert's supports, with the promise that they'll be free to do whatever they want. But at the same time, Edelgard realizes in Hopes that without the Agarthans she needs the support of her vassals, so her reforms are at the same time anti-commoner despite her promises of equality. But then again, considering she consolidates power on herself post-Safflower everyone else might be equal after her victory if only because they possess no real power themselves as Edelgard being labelled a hegemon means her influence and authority is enough to dominate others.

Edelgard is still manipulating others in Hopes. She's still the same person she was in Houses, and even she knows well enough not to trust her according to the Shadow Realm chapter. So, the infamous sailor fuku plays a role in the manipulation of players.

We all know Japan has issues when it comes to women. It's a very patriarchal society, one where women being dominant is not seen in the best light. There's that infamous scene in Bakuman, where one of the leads explains that the cute girl who gets average grades is smarter than the girl who gets the best grades in the class and thinks highly of herself. Hell, women are expected to leave the workforce when they marry and have kids even if their pay and status within the company is higher than that of their husband. Women are expected to be cute, innocent and vulnerable, that they should inspire the feeling to protect them otherwise known as moe.

So, think about Edelgard according to the devs in Houses. She has two sides of her, emperor seeking conquest and cute girl. This duality is what they cite as giving her "depth," with the emperor seeking conquest (as well as villain role) being a twist to shock players. This would imply that the player is supposed to see Edelgard first and foremost as a "cute girl," explaining why the option to side with her is labelled as "protect Edelgard" as she's supposed to invoke moe. How harsh Rhea comes across in White Clouds also plays a part in this, Rhea is supposed to come across as the domineering woman in contrast to Edelgard's moe.

But, again, Edelgard being the villainous conqueror is the twist. When we rescue Rhea from her, Rhea looks a lot more vulnerable after being imprisioned for five years. Meanwhile, Edelgard dresses like she's the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland (which then gets cranked up when she becomes the Hegemon Husk in Moon). Edelgard looks a lot more dominant than she did as a student. Edelgard's post timeskip design is supposed to inform us that she is the villain.

In Hopes though, once again we get the game trying to call attention to Edelgard's manipulations. This time, her outfit looks more like Little Red Riding Hood, a far more innocent design. An innocent design to go with Edelgard's public image in Hopes, where she promises to save people while keeping her true intentions a secret from them. Or, in other words, the sailor fuku design is meant to accent this depiction of Edelgard who makes more of an attempt to look good for support. But, the Hegemon Husk form is still in the game, showing that Edelgard is still serving the same toxic ideals she fought for in Houses.

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what if i told you that a lot of “Americanized” versions of foods were actually the product of immigrant experiences and are not “bastardized versions”

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Reblog if you think a woman can be complete without children

Y’ALL HAVE TIME TO REBLOG THIS. IT TAKES LESS THAN FIVE SECONDS.

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“If a society puts half its children into short skirts and warns them not to move in ways that reveal their panties, while putting the other half into jeans and overalls and encouraging them to climb trees, play ball, and participate in other vigorous outdoor games; if later, during adolescence, the children who have been wearing trousers are urged to “eat like growing boys,” while the children in skirts are warned to watch their weight and not get fat; if the half in jeans runs around in sneakers or boots, while the half in skirts totters about on spike heels, then these two groups of people will be biologically as well as socially different. Their muscles will be different, as will their reflexes, posture, arms, legs and feet, hand-eye coordination, and so on. Similarly, people who spend eight hours a day in an office working at a typewriter or a visual display terminal will be biologically different from those who work on construction jobs. There is no way to sort the biological and social components that produce these differences. We cannot sort nature from nurture when we confront group differences in societies in which people from different races, classes, and sexes do not have equal access to resources and power, and therefore live in different environments. Sex-typed generalizations, such as that men are heavier, taller, or stronger than women, obscure the diversity among women and among men and the extensive overlaps between them… Most women and men fall within the same range of heights, weights, and strengths, three variables that depend a great deal on how we have grown up and live. We all know that first-generation Americans, on average, are taller than their immigrant parents and that men who do physical labor, on average, are stronger than male college professors. But we forget to look for the obvious reasons for differences when confronted with assertions like ‘Men are stronger than women.’ We should be asking: ‘Which men?’ and ‘What do they do?’ There may be biologically based average differences between women and men, but these are interwoven with a host of social differences from which we cannot disentangle them.”

— Ruth Hubbard, “The Political Nature of ‘Human Nature’“ (via gothhabiba)

Yes.

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I feel like when people compare Akechi to Light Yagami, they fundamentally misunderstand his character. Their similarities really end at their designs, and Light is the kind of person Akechi would despise. Light Yagami lives a pretty privileged life at the start of Death Note. He has a stable home, with two parents and a sister who care about him. He's a successful student. There isn't really inherent tragedy to his life. The whole reason he starts using the Death Note is a mix of curiosity and a jaded worldview, and when it works it empowers him, very quickly goes to his head, as he believes he is one who can be a god of a "new world" once the shock of his initial kills wears off. While his first kill was to help someone, that altruism didn't last. He is in charge of his choices, while Ryuk mostly vibes and maybe eggs him on a little. Fundamentally, Light has something Akechi lacks: agency, and a comfortable life he took for granted. Meanwhile, Akechi is someone who lived on the bottom rung of Japanese society. His very existence is shameful there, between his mother being a sex worker, his status as an illegitimate/"throw away" child, and his mother's suicide. Years languishing in a foster system that is notoriously inhumane, in a country where 90% of the adoptions are grown men for inheritance and patriarchal reasons, while very few children in the system find permanent homes. When Akechi awakens his power, he approaches Shido not because he wants to kill people but for a stupid revenge plan cooked up by a traumatized child who's been nudged along by a malevolent god. He wants to build Shido up so that at the height of his power, he can expose him for the monster he really is, while another part of him genuinely wants to be useful to Shido, as Cogkechi later calls out. His feelings are a mess of contradictions, and so it's no surprise that Shido was able to mold him into his assassin at only 15 years old. It's also worth noting that Akechi only approaches Shido with his ability to cause psychotic breakdowns. Shido is the one who teaches and instructs him to do shutdowns. He's still complicit, very sunk cost with his revenge plan, but as I spoke of here, even if he wanted to quit, he couldn't alone. Shido's cleaner and control of the law and ability to effortlessly turn him in would render the Metaverse his only safe haven. I think people look at 11/20 Akechi and Akechi in the early parts of the engine room and assume that's just his "true self," when in reality it's another mask. Royal makes it very clear because in Rank 7, he outright warns Joker of what's to come via a pool metaphor and offers an out (though he's MUCH happier if you don't take it/stick to your principles), and in Rank 8, he goes on that big "I hate you" speech... while Sunset Bridge is playing. Y'know, the song that plays at the end of most confidants to reaffirm bonds. So when he smiles as he shoots what he assumes to be Joker, that doesn't mean he's genuinely happy. More likely, he's an emotional clusterfuck, given he also is disoriented enough to namedrop "Shido-san" over the phone, and in the subsequent meeting with Shido, tells him not to kill the Phantom Thieves and that Morgana is "just a cat." Yes, he says they'll make them fear for the rest of their lives, but remember, he's talking to Shido. The things he says are likely all incredibly calculated to sound appealing to Shido. And when you consider that he planned to utterly destroy Shido's reputation after the election, the "delay" makes even more sense.

Later, Akechi goes on about how the people he induced shutdowns on were deserving of their fates, but I don't think he believes it so much as it's the only way he could convince himself that it was worth it, and given how much society failed him, and given how many of the people he targeted were likely rivals/competitors or rich fucks, I think he'd be less inclined to assume good faith. Kunikazu Okumura was not an innocent little victim, after all. He was one of the people who requested breakdowns and shutdowns the most. I think Akechi enjoyed killing him not because of how it'd hurt Haru, but because of catharsis. Because Okumura is just as monstrous as Shido, so why should he feel remorse? However, I don't believe he feels the same about Wakaba, as when he discusses her with Shido, he mentions how her fate was because she refused to willingly work for him. It's another justification, but I personally think Wakaba's death was the most painful for him because he was effectively making Futaba just like him. That's why I think his reaction to Sae threatening Sojiro's custody was genuine. Anyway, evil grinning Akechi is just another mask, as I said. Keep in mind, this is someone who laments not meeting Joker years ago, someone who Morgana outright points out is lying about his hatred. And that's the thing. Light Yagami, while a really fascinating character, is not someone who had all this childhood suffering or lack of agency. He does not regret his actions in the slightest and goes down due to his own hubris in both the anime and the manga. While you can argue that Ryuk set him up by dropping the Death Note, Light was the one who picked it up and chose to use it. Any nudging from Ryuk didn't coerce Light into doing it because Light seized the opportunity. No, if Light Yagami is like anyone in Persona 5, it's Masayoshi Shido, not Goro Akechi. Both believe they are god/god's chosen, that they are the ones who will reshape the world to their ideals, and to be frank, both use and abuse women to serve their own purposes. Goro Akechi goes down sacrificing himself for the Thieves and pleading with them to stop his father and again in Maruki's reality when he refuses to let Joker accept a gilded prison of a world for his sake when he knows better than anyone what it's like to have no true freedom. If you max his confidant, you see him in the postcredits, leaving his survival entirely possible, and I think it works because at the end of the day, Akechi was meant to be a victim and a foil. Light is a villain protagonist and a cautionary tale. Though its his POV we follow, he isn't someone we're meant to root for, but I definitely don't think enjoying the character is a bad thing at all. He's really interesting! I just think that a lot of the Akechi and Light comparisons are surface level at best.

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Subtle World Building in FE3H

I saw a post recently that reminded me how integrated Fire Emblem Three Houses was as a world and story. Everybody makes fun of the "please don't eat the weeds" scene, but that little interaction shows so much about the world!

Weed is unwanted plants, and what's unwanted depends on your society. Grass used to be weed, and people didn't have decorative lawns. Instead, dandelions and other plants now considered weeds would be cultivated because they are edible.

Dimitri is from Faerghus, which has food issues, and even nobles go hungry. It is very likely what is considered weeds in Garreg Mach is not considered weeds in Faerghus.

Dedue comes from the more fertile Duscar. So it makes sense that he doesn't get why Dimitri would want to eat weeds. But dandelion salad is probably how Dimitri survived his time on the run!

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"In a historic “first-of-its-kind” agreement the government of British Colombia has acknowledged the aboriginal ownership of 200 islands off the west coast of Canada.

The owners are the Haida nation, and rather than the Canadian government giving something to a First Nation, the agreement admits that the “Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai” or the “islands at the end of world,” always belonged to them, a subtle yet powerful difference in the wording of First Nations negotiating.

BC Premier David Eby called the treaty “long overdue” and once signed, will clear the way for half a million hectares (1.3 million acres) of land to be managed by the Haida.

Postal service, shipping lanes, school and community services, private property rights, and local government jurisdiction, will all be unaffected by the agreement, which will essentially outline that the Haida decide what to do with the 200 or so islands and islets.

“We could be facing each other in a courtroom, we could have been fighting each other for years and years, but we chose a different path,” said Minister of Indigenous Relations of BC, Murray Rankin at the signing ceremony, who added that it took creativity and courage to “create a better world for our children.”

Indeed, making the agreement outside the courts of the formal treaty process reflects a vastly different way of negotiating than has been the norm for Canada.

“This agreement won’t only raise all boats here on Haida Gwaii – increase opportunity and prosperity for the Haida people and for the whole community and for the whole province – but it will also be an example and another way for nations – not just in British Columbia, but right across Canada – to have their title recognized,” said Eby.

In other words, by deciding this outside court, Eby and the province of BC hope to set a new standard for how such land title agreements are struck."

-via Good News Network, April 18, 2024

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Background Events: Persona Experimentation

Unethical experimentation on Persona Users has been happening since the beginning. But how has it evolved until now?

Warning: Some speculation will be involved.

TW: Human Experimentation

The Beginning

We don't have an exact date for when experiments related to Personas and the Collective Unconscious began. Phil and Nyarly's bet had been going for some time by the time IF took place. However, if we had to place a true beginning to the experiments, we would have to go with Stephen and the Demon Summoning Program. Along with Kyouji Kuzunoha, he's the only SMT character who's also canon to Persona. Makes sense, considering his weird transcendent nature. The tale may vary between franchises, but the Persona version goes like this:

By unknown means, Stephen managed to create the Terminal System to travel through computer networks. Since he's in a wheelchair in IF, then this Stephen also managed to connect to the Expanse (located in the Collective Unconscious) with the Terminal System. Since he didn't have a way to communicate with the demon who crossed and no Persona to defend himself, Stephen was was attacked and subsequentaly crippled. All of this had to have happened before 1996 for the timeline to make sense (Side Note: This also tells a lot about Stephen, since the incident had the perfect conditions for an Awakening).

The incident led Stephen to create the Demon Summoning Program, probably for personal use, since there was no upcoming war to prepare to (that Stephen could have known of). For some unknown reason, Stephen chose to upload the only copies of the program in the computers of Karukozaka High School. Was he an alumni? Did Stephen realize teens had more probability of connecting with the Expanse? Were Karu High's computers just that good? Who knows. Only Hazama and Tamaki took the program serious enough to use it, even if it was against each other. But that's a story for another time.

Like St. Hermelin would in a few months, Karu High briefly made the news before the entire incident was forgotten. That is highly suspicious on itself. My assumption is that there truly were some experimentation going on before this, amd they made sure to silence the press and make sure the students didn't snitch. Since Tamaki managed to hide among the student population as another victim (probably with Stephen's help), they never questioned her on her abilities nor disappeared her.

But who are they? Well...

SEBEC

The first formal organization seeking to gain a foothold in the Collective Unconscious was the Japanese branch of SEBEC, leadered by Takahisa Kandori. Their story goes like this:

When Kandori took over as head branch of SEBEC, they began to undertake the creation of a device capable of transporting matter from one place to another. Kind of like a portal. This had the main objective of helping to lower freight costs of imports and exports. Maybe even erasing them entirely. Key contributors were Setsuko Sonomura (an engineering specialist) and Dr. Nicholai (a scientist). Kandori kept the project so under wraps that those involved basically lived in the installations. Together they created the Dimension Variable Accelerator System, or DEVA System. However, they also pulled a Backrooms and accidentally connected to the Collective Unconscious.

It is probably at this point that Kandori awoke to his Persona, which was hijacked by the real Nyarlathotep. And thus, Kandori became a puppet in The Great Bet while believing he was achieving world domination or something like that. "But, Kati," I can hear you saying, "all of that was about the Collective Unconscious. Aside from Kandori, there were no Persona Users working with SEBEC".

Oh? OH? So quickly you forget about him?

Takeda. The man, the myth, the barely remembered NPC. All we know about him is that he is Kandori's right-hand man, the head of security at SEBEC and a Persona User. We don't even know what his Persona is, only that its couldn't handle the combined forces of the St. Hermelin students. His existence does imply something deeper: SEBEC is already employing Persona Users to their cause. They probably didn't know much about the phenomena (understandable, since they had just finished the DEVA System) and didn't have a definitive way of figuring out who could be a User and who couldn't. For all they knew this could be random. And so, a not-so-stellar security guard rose to become the second-hand man of the main antagonist. Just because he had the same power as him.

As we know, Kandori and SEBEC failed. But what was the fate of the staff that worked on the DEVA System? What about the little knowledge of the Collective Unconscious they had?

New World Order

Due to Nyarly's meddling, the NWO was founded in 1979 after they found Kiyotada Sumaru's head. They might have had supernatural advice from an ancient head and the backup of one of the most powerful beings in the Persona Universe, but no real Persona Users. Not one of those people had their shit together. The closest thing they had was Chizuru Ishigami, who was a sorcerer (most probable given true power by the Rumor Curse). When the time was right, we can assume Nyarly guided them to the remnants of Kandori's fuck up. The NWO revived Kandori and began their recruitment of the now-lost scientists and inventors. The NWO gave more freedom to their researchers than SEBEC did, which eventually led to the beginning of true human experimentation.

We don't see the worst of it unless you play Tatsuya's Scenario, where the hints they leave us are enough to call for a second Doctors' Trial.

Yikes. And this was only one known experiment.

Like SEBEC before them, the NWO also fell. But they weren't the only ones running supernatural and unethical experiments in 1999.

Kirijo Group

With the creation of the Dark Hour, demons shadows weren't only a danger of the Collective Unconscious anymore, at least, as far as the Kirijo Group knew. Now those in the know had to watch themselves every night to avoid being attacked by them. They couldn't always rely on the perfected version of the Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons. That must have been the moment when they began to hear rumors of supernatural events in Sumaru City, which led them to the crumbling NWO.

As it turns out, the entire Death Incident a couple of months ago left a huge vacancy for their supernatural research division. And these guys seem like they have fresh ideas that might just solve their self-created problem! A secret scramble must have taken place where the Nanjo and Kirijo Groups tried to covet all the info and personnel that had anything to do with the NWO. Those who weren't important enough to know the truth behind Kiyotada Sumaru's head and their self-proclaimed high-class greatness could have become the precursors of the Conspiracy.

And so, the Kirijo Group now had better scientists, inventors and researchers than before, and more willing to dab on unethical territory. With the need for defense, the former NWO scientists must have suggested they try to create their own Persona Users, like the ones who kept barging into their labs back in Sumaru. Thing is, no one there knew how a Persona User came to be. They did seem to have the power to control a shadow to do their bidding... maybe all they had to do was link (whatever that meant) a human with a shadow. The survivors of these experiments would become bodyguards for the Kirijo Group's excursions to Tartarus. No one would last long, though.

Skip a couple of years and the unexpected happened:

A natural Persona Awakening.

Note was taken of the factors that had to do with the event: the User was a child and she had been in a highly stressful situation. This is how the Kirijo Group rounded up the 100 children they would experiment on to create Artificial Persona Users. All of them dying except for three: Takaya Sakaki, Jin Shirato and Chidori Yoshino (and Sho Minazuki). This violation to the Nuremberg Code probably fell to the side when Mitsuru found and recruited two natural Persona Users on her own. Nothing like flushing dozens of children's lives down the toilet.

We must remember that the Kirijo Group didn't know everything about Personas, and so believed that the stressful situation with a dash of fear of death was necessary every time the User wanted fo summon their Persona. And so Evokers were created. Better not think of the trial and error that led to those inventions. Nor the one that helped create Persona Suppressants.

Who cares if three failed lab rats ran away? Now the Kirijo Group had true Persona Users with them.

A lot happened after that, but that is a story for another day. What about the hypothetical precursors to the Conspiracy formed from the high-profile members of the NWO? The ones that fell through the cracks during the power vacuum?

The Antisocial Force

For once, this wasn't Nyarly's fault. The basic rich bitches would have remained basic rich bitches if it wasn't for Yaldabaoth. The creation of the Shadow Operatives and the less restrictive hold on Kirijo Group employees probably made all that Persona and Collective Unconscious experimentation more of an open secret in the science community. And like hypnosis, this is one secret that most didn't believe until they witnessed it themselves. Not all were skepticals, and those interested were recruited by Masayoshi Shido for the creation of the Antisocial Force.

They would be the new oppressive entity in this area, suppressing information and giving stitches to snitches. This wouldn't stop "Cognitice Psience" from becoming an increasingly popular field. Who knows what kind of experiments happened in and out of the Antisocial Force. They couldn't have been the only ones.

If there is one thing the new Kirijo Group managed to contain, was the knowledge of the creation of Persona Users. The Antisocial Force didn't even have the research from the original NWO scientists that would help them create Artificial Users. Yaldy had to put an already-Awakened Goro Akechi in Shido's path for them to have a User. And even with an actual User, they couldn't replicate the circumstances that could have helped create more. I doubt Akechi was very helpful with that, though. Can't have any potential substitutes for his job.

Nah, the Antisocial Force's forte would never be Persona Users, but rather humanity's cognition.

So, what was the order of events?

Stephen created the Terminal System and began working on the Demon Summoning Program.

SEBEC began working on the DEVA System.

Stephen completed the Demon Summoning Program.

SEBEC finished the DEVA System and, after Kandori's Awakening, began to recruit Persona Users (at least one other than Kandori).

After SEBEC's fall, the New World Order recruited the staff that worked in the DEVA System.

The NWO began to experiment with demons and humans.

The Kirijo Group hired all the scientists and inventors from the NWO.

The Kirijo Group began to create Artificial Persona Users.

After Mitsuru's Awakening, the Kirijo Group focused on children experimentation.

The Antisocial Force began to recruit experts in cognitive psience for personal experiments.

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the phrase ‘this is my first time being alive’ has done wonders for me recently. Yeah, I don’t know how to navigate this situation! It’s brand new to me and I’m learning on the fly, aren’t humans such wonderfully adaptive creatures?

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Daily reminder that we do not actually live in a dystopian movie put the apocalypse down and back away slowly. You know when your cleaning a room and you pull everything out of it's draws to sort through it and you're like "what the fuck have I done I'm never going to be able to tidy all of this" I think that's the stage we're at in the world. Thanks to social media we've pulled out all the messed up shit from the cupboards of the world, it was always there but now we can see it and we're going to have to sort it all out we made this mess and we can fix it. Falling to the floor sobbing will not clean a crusty room. A group of people working systematically (preferably with music in the background) will.

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If you're fifteen or older an still sleep with a stuffed animal please reblog this.

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This makes so much sense

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anyway i will always remember my freshman year world history teacher who spent a whole day teaching us about the development of hinduism and its cultural impact and the next day came into class and (basically) said “alright so who guessed that everything i said yesterday was bullshit?”

the thing i took away from this was

when learning about a culture You Are Not A Part Of in a class full of liberals, they will accept everything as fact

if something historical sounds simple and widely agreed upon, especially religion, its probably bullshit

you are not smarter than experts. and experts can fucking lie to you anyway.

american non academics have been and will continue to butcher greek mythology and sell it to you like the bible. please. PLEASE. remember those things can be fun but your bullshit detectors should be on.