#Suppression and Control

[opercursocomplexodeumamulhe-blog]

In 2020, amid national uprisings following the murder of George Floyd and widespread calls to reimagine public safety, the local Democratic establishment revealed the contradictions of a party attempting to straddle progressive rhetoric with centrist, establishment-serving governance.

Pro-Development, With Caveats

The San Diego County Democratic Party endorsements spoke volumes. In the 2020 mayoral race, the party backed Assemblymember Todd Gloria, who advocated for increasing housing density and transit-oriented development as key strategies to address the region's housing crisis. Gloria's approach aligned with statewide Democratic efforts to upzone urban areas, often at the expense of local control.

This endorsement reflects a broader trend within the California Democratic Party: support for market-driven, developer-aligned strategies to solve the housing crisis, often branded as "affordable housing" despite lacking sufficient guarantees for affordability. The local party's tacit alignment with these priorities' places it firmly within a neoliberal development framework, despite community pushback against gentrification and displacement.

"Policing Reform" or Political Cover?

Following intense protests in the summer of 2020, the San Diego County Democratic Party responded with a series of resolutions presented as a pivot toward accountability but were ultimately symbolic.

They lacked enforcement mechanisms and had no direct impact on budget allocations or police operations. In June 2020, the San Diego City Council approved a $27 million increase to the police budget, raising it to $566 million for the 2020–2021 fiscal year. The approval came despite mass public opposition, with many residents demanding divestment from police and investment in community services.

Resolutions often serve as political cover, allowing parties to gesture toward progress while maintaining the status quo. They signal values without committing to structural changes. In this case, they enabled the Democratic Party to absorb grassroots energy without challenging the institutional power of the police.

Toni Atkins and Institutional Alignment

Toni Atkins, as the Senate leader and a key figure in San Diego politics, did not break with the broader Democratic consensus that ultimately continued to expand the police budget.

Atkins' record in 2020 reflects the party's broader positioning: embracing reformist rhetoric while maintaining institutional relationships with developers and law enforcement. Her leadership serves as a lens through which to view the limitations of Democratic reform politics in a city experiencing both social upheaval and real estate speculation.

Suppression and Control: COINTELPRO Echoes

In this contested landscape of 2020 to 2021, anyone — whether individuals, grassroots groups, or organizations — that failed to align with the Democratic Party's politics often found themselves caught in the crossfire. Reports from advocates and organizers suggest that covert operations reminiscent of COINTELPRO tactics were deployed to siphon momentum, undermine dissent, and reassert Democratic Party control over narratives and resources. These covert efforts served to neutralize independent political activists and reroute community power back into party-aligned structures, perpetuating cycles of surveillance, isolation, and burnout within local movements.

Conclusion: A Party of the Establishment

The San Diego County Democratic Party's political stance in 2020 once again reveals the limits of progressive gestures within a centrist, establishment-serving framework. The party continued to support increased police funding and development agendas shaped by corporate interests.

Despite its progressive branding, the Democratic Party increasingly reveals itself to be a vehicle for co-opting movements and consolidating establishment power — not challenging it. Its symbolic resolutions, developer alignments, and deference to police power show that it is not an alternative to the Republican Party, but a parallel structure maintaining the same status quo by different means.

Calls to dissolve and dismantle the Republican Party are common in leftist spaces, but the same scrutiny must be applied to the Democrats — a party that sells hope while enforcing hierarchy. Without a substantive break from both major parties, movements will continue to be absorbed, defanged, and redirected away from the systemic change they seek.

[chandralia]

oh he’s really NOT okay

[platoapproved]

It was an outrageous request.

[twinkens-art]

hey do u guys ever think about how the OVA technically characterizes metal as "simulating sonic's soul to the point where he doesn't even know that he isn't really sonic" and how that essentially means, real or not, theres a version of sonic thats trapped inside metal. do u guys ever think about that. do y

[jesuis-assez]

Tim unconsciously sending/showing signals of his feelings for Lucy

[fortheloveofexy]

oh omegadrew.... how i missed you

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

It's DNA

I was watching Smough's video, and he featured this sacred seal from the Erdtree peoples who were inspired by the Hornsent peoples.

The Land of the Tower (Hornsent) considered helixes as some kind of divine geometry/symbol. The double helix is notably calls to mind either the Caduceus symbol of medicine (twin snakes in a double helix - wink nudge nudge) OR...

It looks like a strand of DNA.

The Crucible wasnt just the primordial form of the Erd Tree. It was the primordial form of Everything - all living beings. To be Crucible blessed like the Hornsent is to acquire a mixture of active genes that would be have been recessive otherwise- thats why you get wings, horns, tails. (We share 90% or so of our DNA with like flies or bananas!)

Everyone is technically born from the Crucible and (as Marika proves by birthing OMEN sons) the Hornsent/Shaman are the same species!! Again recessive genes that get activated maybe?

And guess what? Splicing, grafting - that could be done to trees... or DNA... Godrick's prized practice is essentially a revised version of what the Crucible does naturally to living creatures.

The Crucible = The Gene Pool

[frameacloud]

A Masterpost About Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs)

During the upcoming presidency, it is likely that people in the US will lose many options that keep them from getting pregnant (contraceptives). The right-wing Project 2025 is against birth control pills, abortion, emergency contraception, and the government-provided health insurance ("Obamacare," Medicaid, and Medicare) that helps people afford these.

If you or your partner are concerned about the possibility of losing access to those options soon, you can ask your doctor or Planned Parenthood about getting a Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC). The two kinds of LARCs are IUDs and the implant. If you get a LARC right now, it can protect you for years, without you having to do anything to maintain it. A LARC isn't permanent, so you can get rid of it if you later decide that you're ready to have a baby.

Hormonal Intrauterine Device: 3, 5, or 8 years of protection, depending on brand

An IUD is a T-shaped object that a nurse or doctor puts into your uterus. It's tiny, just a little more than an inch. The procedure for getting an IUD isn't surgery, it lasts just a few minutes, and it goes much better if you ask for an anti-anxiety medicine and the right type of painkiller.

Hormonal IUDs work because they slowly release progestin. That's the main hormone in birth control pills. Like pills, they can make your periods get lighter or stop, which is helpful for people who need to get rid of cramps and PMS.

Of the brands of them in the US, the FDA currently approves of using Kyleena for up to five years, Liletta for eight, Mirena for eight, and Skyla for three. Kyleena and Skyla are smallest and therefore easiest to insert.

I have more info in my tags about IUDs.

Copper IUDs: 12 years of protection

The other type of IUD is a copper IUD. Instead of changing your hormones, it works because copper makes the place unfriendly to sperm. Another difference is that this kind can make your periods heavier. Its brand name is Paragard. The FDA approves of using it for ten years, but studies show it's still good at twelve or longer. More info in my tags.

The birth control implant: 5 years of protection

It's a rod the size of a matchstick. A nurse or doctor uses an applicator to put it under your skin in your arm. There, it will slowly release progestin to protect you from getting pregnant. It can make your periods get lighter or stop. The FDA approves of using it for three years, but a study shows it's still 100% effective five years later, and so does another study. Its brand name is Nexplanon, which has improvements over the older Implanon, such as being visible on X-ray. More info in my tags.

Some honorable mentions

There are some other contraceptives that last a long time but aren't considered LARCs. The diaphragm and the cervical cap are two kinds of plastic cap that you put on your cervix each time before sex, and you can keep using the same one for two years. The birth control ring, Annovera, lasts one year. Each injection of the birth control shot, Depo-Provera, lasts three months.

Only barrier methods such as condoms, internal condoms, and dental dams can protect against sexually transmitted infections. The right wing wants to stop people from getting condoms, too. That's another problem, but LARCs can help us get through the next four years without unplanned pregnancies.

[pynkhues]

we have different understandings of the characters, but your posts are still super interesting to me. i think louis needs control in his life, for sure, but i think if s2 suggests anything, it’s that having sexual control doesn’t translate to having real power or control over his actual life. i think his dynamic with armand very intentionally contrasts with loustat’s dynamic, and was also very much a consequence of lestat being a more dominant partner and louis believing that taking on this role himself would empower him, would prevent him from being abused again—but of course, that’s not how it works.

and while i think it’s true that lestat struggles with self-control, so does louis, especially when he’s with lestat and when their relationship is at its best—it’s basically the whole point of 1x07, and it’s very clear that he enjoys it, that it creates this internal battle, because it triggers his issues with his sexuality and masculinity (and all of this intersects with his social position as a black man), because it leads him to hurting claudia and so on. i also think part of louis relearning to trust lestat will have to involve lestat getting a better grasp on his self-control, whereas louis will have to learn to let go of the composed facade he put on in dubai.

This might be controversial, but I actually think the fandom massively overstates how much Armand and Louis' dynamic is supposed to contrast with Lestat and Louis'. It's there, of course it's there, but I see it more as Louis' relationship with Lestat informing his relationship with Armand, as opposed to directly contrasting, and I'd add to that that I think it's as informed by Louis' relationship with Claudia as it is by Lestat. I think it's very pointed in the show that Louis only chooses Armand when it becomes clear that Claudia no longer needs him and he knows Armand does, which I actually lowkey think parallels with the fact that Louis only wants Claudia when he loses his business in New Orleans. Like I said in those tags, I think Louis needs to feel like he's taking care of someone - it's specifically how Lestat seduces him back when he can still read his mind, by asking him to protect him from the wolves of New Orleans when we all know how little he needs protecting in that sense - and I think there's a lot to be said in the loss of The Azaelia as being the loss of his self-image as provider, given Lestat doesn't have a job, and he literally breaks up with Lestat before bringing back Claudia who will, of course, need him as a child.

I also don't actually think Lestat and Louis had a D/s relationship at all back in Rue Royale. I think Louis probably did feel Lestat had a degree of sexual dominance, but I don't think that was tied to positions or 'roles', I think it was tied to Lestat being an older vampire, white, the perception of more experience, and also bisexual, the latter of which I think Louis had enormous issues with. He viewed Lestat as having more control in life because he did. Lestat could move through life in a way that Louis couldn't, and the thing they shared - their queerness - was, I think, undermined for Louis by the fact that he felt Lestat could leave him for a woman. Lestat's sexuality, to him, in the era that he is from (and I say this is as someone who is bi!) marks for Louis a path to social acceptability that Louis feels entirely denied.

His taking on the role of Dom to Armand's sub is, yes, about perceived power and control, but again, I don't view it as in contrast to his relationship with Lestat, sexual or otherwise. It's informed by it, yes, but it's also informed by Claudia and, crucially, the era and the country Louis' just escaped. Louis was denied independence, power, his sexuality, and his masculinity (I'm not going to get into it here, especially because I know it's a hairy topic in this fandom, but I view Louis' issues around his masculinity as primarily external to his sense of self, unlike most of his other issues). Again, there's no indication that Lestat and Louis ever played into those relationship dynamics back in the 1910s through 30s, and so it's ultimately not about Louis taking on Lestat's position in the relationship in a sexual sense, but in him feeling like he's shedding a broader identity to step into someone with a greater degree of both social and personal power.

But also I agree that sexual control doesn't translate to having actual control in a relationship, but at the same time, Armand never actually gives him control in the way that I think Lestat does. Yes, of course, Lestat has more power, just as Armand does, but if you want to argue that the show is intentionally contrasting their dynamics - which I think it is to an extent (although again, I think that extent is overstated by fandom broadly) one of the clearest examples is that Louis asks both Lestat and Armand to turn someone for him, and while neither of them want to, Lestat's the only one who does.

Lestat gives Louis that power over the make-up of their family unit, Armand won't even do that for Louis when it'll get the daughter he loathes away from them. In fact, he'll kill that daughter instead.

I agree though that Louis struggles with self-control. It's actually one of the things I love most about him, haha, but I think he's always working towards control as a personal strength and a personal goal. I don't think Lestat is, and I've got to be honest, I'm a little baffled by you using 1.07 as your argument because - - Louis' very much in control throughout that? It's all good and well for him to feel like he's slipping into the well with no bottom, but Louis' very much on the winning team. That's kind of the point. He does kill Lestat. He slits his throat. They're only 'at their best' as a family unit because they're playing a game where Louis knows what's happening. He might try and diminish his role in all of it to Daniel, to imply that he's ceded control to Claudia, that he's wooed again by Lestat, and maybe he does in part, maybe he is, but the fact that they're 'at their best' as they're plotting his death, and Lestat submits to death only for Louis to save him, exerting absolute control over that situation, I think pretty fundamentally undermines the idea that 1.07 is a submission of anything on Louis' part.

Louis sparing Lestat's life is him striking like the hand of God, just as Lestat told him he could be in 1.02. In many ways, it's absolute power, it's absolute control. He kills him, he saves him, and he'll hurt their daughter to do it, especially when she thinks she's the one with the power.

[fumifooms]

Makima, devils and self-fulfillment

Dumping some Makima and CSM thoughts after a part 1 binge bc I think about her forever and ever. I’m sure I’m forgetting some devil lore, feel free to correct what i get wrong/what’s been confirmed. On the table of contents there’s why & how Makima got fixated on Chainsaw, her revealing liking for the country mouse and discussion of her nature & emotions & desires. Was the scorpion doomed to be a scorpion?

The most of this post was thought of during a conversation with @saccharineomens and I don’t think it makes sense to jump into the spiral it sent me on without first laying down the interesting groundwork theorizing she did:

"Thinking about how makima herself wants to be deified. I wonder whether she recognizes the difference between Love As Worship and the love that Aki, Power, and Denji had. She says she wants to help humanity by having Chainsawman eat the “bad” devils, but why does she want to help humans? Because she was ordered to by the Prime Minister? No, her drive seems much more personal than that, it seems like she teamed up with the PM for contractual reasons. (In the most recent chapters we see governmental members wanting certain devils to be eaten, too. What was Makima’s relationship with them? She’s too independent to just follow THEIR orders, she’s Control.)

So is she wanting to better humanity for the accolades, or out of the goodness of her heart? She sees the big picture. She sees any small sacrifice as worth it for the end result, and she’s ruthless. Perhaps she thinks that a more sedate human race would be easier to control? But Makima doesn’t loathe humanity. She never acts like she sees all humans as lesser. She loves humanity’s creations, like good food and movies. She just wants Good Things all the time

She says she prefers the country mouse BUT adds a story where she helps exterminate country mice like vermin. She likes the simplicity yet rejects the idea of being simple. Makima the complex individual you are"

~

The story itself seems to prefr the country mouse. Well- it strikes a balance, shows that a risk to live good & fully can be very worth it, but still that stability over ambition is preferable, proning having a simple happy life over fame, a simple job instead of a dangerous one, etc etc. And I do find Makima’s answer on this so so interesting, she prefers the country mouse, but this preference isn’t out of affection or sympathy but because of how relaxing it feels to exterminate them when they cause problems.

Order satisfies her. Her order satisfies her. She likes the action of rooting out disorder. Maybe this is the devil part, like how Power especially wants blood and drinking it, I feel there’s an itch to every devil, and for Makima it’s a very rigid world view/morality/standards & making things follow her rules and submit to her order.

And maybe this is why she’s attached to humans too, why she felt it was worth it to stick with the government- because devils are chaotic by nature (it’s a whole plot point that hell is essentially a free-for-all battleground for example), meanwhile humans are the species that universally rule Earth with systems they invented and instilled. They made then enforced rules, complex and intricate webs of them. She feels alienated amongst devils but she understands the humans’ need for an orderly organised society, and now she wants to be part of it. Control and conquest require social dynamics after all, requires civilizations or groups. War is chaotic while peace is, well, peaceful— Makima resents her sisters for being death, famine and war, things that throw the world in such chaos. She wants a world of perfect order, no matter how much collateral damage there will be if the end result is control.

This is even more interesting if you consider that yes, Makima is untouchable of her own design, she deifies herself with her omnipresent amount of control and the sway over others that she seeks and encourages— There is this urge to dehumanize her for it, that yes, she is the devil of control and that means she was never going to be any different, have any more feeling be any less uncanny. And I love part 2 so much for this, because it shows us the war devil and the famine devil and we see how frankly uncharismatic with poor self-discipline they are, Nayuta too, and it helps us realize just how much Makima’s success was self-made.

She admires Chainsaw Devil, the Hero of Hell, because he had his own code and his own rules and he made Hell, the chaos pit, submit to them unfailingly. Wherever he goes he decides what he does and what happens to the people he encounters but does so consistently, he has his mechanism and his rules that he always obeys, and he fulfills them every time. It’s still a mystery the why of Chainsaw Devil’s behavior back then and how it works exactly, maybe Pochita left hell because he was tired of these rules he lived by like chains, but still, he was a servant to his code. Makima would have been glad being killed and eaten by Chainsaw Devil because it’d have been becoming part of his design, his conquest, his domination, she’d have been part of that —his— order. Through her death she would be shaping his world and be part of a conqueror’s making history. Like how she appreciates the country mice that die for the sake of order. Like how sacrifices must be made to herself, like listing the name of every person whose life was lost to the Gun Devil— All for the ~greater good~, for her vision for the world. Conquest always thinks its reasons are justified.

And she does mention with the country mice thing that she goes out to a friend’s farm every year! She has a human friend?? That she visits yearly and she genuinely likes it?? Ultimately she lives a busy city life because of her goal and drive and her urge & satisfaction with overseeing shaping the world herself, but part of her, like so many characters including Angel and Aki and Reze, wishes she could live a slow peaceful country life. Moviegoing and dogs and mice in a farm- Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if Makima could find fulfillment and happiness in being a farmer, in keeping control of her own farm, getting satisfaction from exterminating vermin and expertly getting everything right, the right crops grown at the right time on the right soil? Here, too, in a way it’s trying to have full control of an ecosystem, but her goals would be easier to achieve and better, without ceaseless sacrifice or much pressure. But Makima wants grandiosity and her goal does matter to her on a fundamental and moral level, she does think she knows what’s best for the world, and with the power to change it why wouldn’t she strive to? Visiting the farm is just a break, just something she does in fall to help out and just in time to see the vermin extermination. It calms her, then it’s back to actual work.

In capitalism, even the one at the very top of the ladder is ultimately alienated from others and often unsatisfied by their lifestyle, always wanting more and more power because surely that’s the extra edge they must be missing to be content— like how Makima thinks she wants to dominate Chainsaw Devil instead of being his equal. And she says it herself too, she likes humans the way humans like dogs…….. And she keeps so many dogs :( Makima prefers the country mice because they’re calming to root out, maybe because she usually mainly deals with city mice. It’s very easy to equate humans to the mice in this allegory because it’s pretty direct and she’s already likened humans to lesser animals compared to her. She’s self-isolating by design for her design but she still craves relationships and contentment, and the dogs are the embodiment or her want for bonds and occasional simplicity because there is no possible ulterior motive, no way they tie back into her wider plan. They’re her personal life— something that feels so alien when speaking about Makima. Personality and individuality and likes and preferences and friends they visit every year. She likes how easily she can train a dog and how they become putty in her hands, at her beck and call, how much they love her and how much she enjoys their love. How simple and straightforward and easy it is. She keeps them because she likes being loved by them and loving them, and she’s gotten and raised so many. A conqueror always wants more and more and more, is never satisfied.

Devils and agency

Like Power the blood devil wanting blood and having a fixation on drinking it like with Denji’s, or how it was shocking that the violence devil was pretty tame and nice and how he himself theorized it was because he was a fiend and possessing a human body… There’s something to be said about nature vs nurture with the devils. The way they reincarnate and always embody their fear makes it seem categorically like nature, that they always always end up fulfilling the role they were named after and born to fill… Outside influence they’re helpless but to conform with. Like the humans accepting their spot in the social ladder and the shittiness of their living conditions and job under capitalism. Makima craved being equals with someone despite being the control/conquest devil, Angel Devil despite claiming to be a devil who likes to see humans dying was haunted by their deaths and wanted to avoid ones like Aki’s. The Ghost Devil being ironically haunted by Himeno, seemingly helping Aki in her memory out of… Lasting affection? Or maybe it was less about being haunted itself and more about it recognizing how Himeno haunted Aki, and acknowledging that, with the memento, paying her respect to the ghost of her. It’s Angel Devil’s devil nature that makes him like human suffering, so then is it his angel nature too to still care about their deaths? Is there truth to this or is that just personality, just our confirmation bias haunting every part of their identity like it might in their own view of themselves too? We do know different reincarnations of devils do have different personalities after all.

Yoru, war devil, is the most interesting one when talking about the nature vs nurture debate with devils. There is how through her we see the perhaps the most the consequences of a devil stopping being feared— we see a horseman for a concept as universal and horrifying as war be reduced to some bird who needs a contract with a human to have any power even just on the situation when meeting Asa. And through the story we get to know her better, and it becomes clear that her goal is fueled in good part by simply wanting to be remembered and respected through fear. Liked, validated, seen a powerful. But what is more isolating than war? Or control? We also see Nayuta accepting others’ house rules. If part 1 shows perhaps the futility of running away from the truth, with Denji’s memory, with escapist coping mechanisms, with passivity and denial under a corrupt system and with abusive relationships- running away from your own feelings and from the reality of things and from all that you are, more complex than simply human or devil or both or neither— part 2 builds upon the theme of cult of personalities, the chainsaw church, etc. The apocalypse is coming, but this celebrity superhero might save us all, or doom us all uh, dunno. The hero of hell reliving the cycle of pressure from responsibilities and expectations, maybe the part will end with Denji running away like Pochita did~

But yes, on the reverse, I think Famine is a very interesting example of how a devil’s namesake may be more innate than coerced by circumstances. One would think that a famine devil would only like inflicting famine upon others, not being famished itself, but Famine has a bottomless stomach that can never, ever be satisfied, sated. I struggle to find a psychological explanation for this, except that maybe instead of her being hungry it’s her feeling empty when she’s not eating, tasting and having that high sensory experience that releases serotonin in humans, sort of like drugs? But I do take this as a step towards the compulsion theory overall, feels like a reach in the consistency otherwise. And compulsion does not mean it’s something that they like nor that it’s something that they fight against, pretty neutral, just a nature that nudges you towards one path. Maybe it’s even just their go-to for entertainment. Maybe it’s the only thing that makes them feel right and whole. But still the debate remains, what is it, a compulsion or an urge or an itch or an active desire or a conscious chosen want? Does it change anything in practice?

And because of all of this earlier, devils being self-fulfilling prophecies with their role is not in unsignificant part nurture, because doing their atrocities is how they stay remembered— feared, powerful, known— hell and devils are a very isolating place and breed after all, and we do see devils can want companionship. Existentially, it’s their purpose and how they justify their place in the world, in the terrifyingly vast and unknowable cosmos.

We still know so little of what makes Chainsaw Devil so special, why his carnage is so self-controlled. Despite a chainsaw maybe being possibly one of the most "nature" thing you can be— a tool to cut things, a human tool that can be helpful for many things, something to be wielding by another at their judgement on what they decide, but mainly something to cut, a tool suited for carnage, to hurt and to destroy. A blade with a toothed chain, spinning around and around and around endlessly on the same road at the same pace. Such a…. Innately circular concept. And yet the Chainsaw Devil is his own, not driven by an urge or by chaos but his very own brand of order, his own unique assigned purpose, a "if you call i’ll come running to help" policy equalizing everyone. He chooses to withhold his destruction and interference otherwise, and then he chooses to be used. If it’s a choice, of course.

Maybe this is what inspired Makima so much, that Chainsaw Devil could decide what to make of himself despite expectations or innate role. Because even Hell he decided & managed to subjugate under his will and whim, with a precise vision and process. When Chainsaw Devil acts like Denji or is defeated, Makima clicks her tongue and loses her admiration and respect. Makima admired and liked Chainsaw Devil, but only as long as he matched her great image of him in her mind, as long as he followed he rules for what she thinks he should be like. She admired him for his unrivaled self-made success, but once he stepped out of that to truly embody self-fulfillment and agency, disappearing from hell to live on his own road at the beat of his own drum… Well. Surely that was a mistake she has to correct. However their second battle ends, the better conqueror will have prevailed and she’s happy about that, all in the spirit of domination and subjugation.

Imo Makima’s biggest tool, similarly capitalism’s most helpful effect for its own purposes, is complacency. Resignation and passivity helps uphold the system and go along the flow of the will of the people in power. Aki and Reze go along with orders even when knowing their job is trash, etc. In Angel Devil especially we see him go along with the flow uncaring about anyhing, and we discover it was in part due to Makima taking away memories that motivated him. If every devil decides this is just how things are and how things should be that’s what they’ll continue to be and do mindlessly, not pursuing a better life like Chainsaw Devil and Denj and not seeking to change the world like Makima. I think even Makima veils herself to a lot of things, she doesn’t like to think deeply about some things, like her desire for connection, or how making bad movies disappear is strenuous and unsustainable and requiring sacrifices at best— how her judgement is as subjective as anyone else. How liking the country mouse and her friend back at the farm and her dogs could be not devoid of sentimality. Wanting bad movies erased is her one biggest show of selfishness, of pettiness and individuality, it’s about her tastes, simple as. About how she can have tastes, and cry seeing a scene of people hug, and want things that aren’t logical, her ideology and mind twisted into a pretzel to avoid acknowledging that she doesn’t live and breathe purely for the mission she’s made a single-minded robot out of herself to accomplish. Nayuta is assertive and selfish and loud, Makima is manipulative and strategically both for her goals and for coping hollow.

Everything in her plans and goals she says is for the greater good, necessary evil, manufactured happiness the way she’ll have decided for people— and that’s the thing isn’t it, like with War, it’s the crack that shows it was all truly about herself after all. Her self-made deification still had the flaw that a self made it. Makima is not omniscient, and it’s not Chainsaw Devil the not-so-fellow-kindred-soul conqueror who gets the best of her, but a city mouse, a dog, someone she would have never thought to respect, Denji.

[gayladygrey]

im going Feral about how charles' mutation is always treated differently from everyone elses. charles (rightly) gets a lot of flack for only taking in the pretty mutants, but i think thats bcus he knows how isolating it is to have a power that is considered inherently a violation of consent. unless charles is 100% 24/7 a paragon of self control, hes GOING to hear your thoughts. asking him to stay out of your head is like asking him not to look at you, its just one of his senses like any other. and i think also thats why he snowballs so easily into huge violating acts like memory wipes and segmentation of identity - if everyone reviles him anyway for his natural, unconscious sensing of surface thoughts, feelings, vibes, traumas, etc etc, then why not do the huge messed up stuff they will also hate him for? he has to keep everything he knows about everyone a secret anyway, so as not to damage their sensibilities, whats one more horrendous secret? one more violation? and erik, of all people, who tells mystique not to cover up, who tells beast to be blue, tells charles "get out of my head".

[stormyoceans]

CROWD GOES BATSHIT FUCKING CRAZY INSANE OUT OF THEIR MINDS AT THE SHEER HIGH ROMANCE OF IT ALL

[delawaredetroit]

Not being able to understand another person who isn't hurting you is not an excuse for making their life a living hell for a decade. Bakugou would have been well within his rights to avoid Izuku if he was unnerved by him or their values just couldn't align. And if he just pushed Izuku down in the sandbox and told Izuku he couldn't play with them anymore, Bakugou would still be a little brat but nobody reasonable would be calling him abusive.

But that isn't what happened. Even from Bakugou's own words, he actively beat Izuku down again and again. Because he one-sidedly decided Izuku was looking down on him without ever speaking about it, he terrorized an already marginalized person. This isn't about whether Bakugou should have liked or gotten along with Izuku. It's about Bakugou believing he had the right to violently suppress the people around him that didn't fit into his narrative.

Bakugou clearly had deeply rooted insecurities that needed addressed that weren't handled by the people around him because in their society, physical strength is extrapolated to strength in all instances. But that in no way excuses the harm he committed towards others.

[nutnoce]

Fire suppression p.1 & p.2: “Flame Retardant” & “Building Potential” Inspired by the PEM's ‘Our Time on Earth’ exhibit

I was gladly surprised to see the exhibit’s various optimistic installations, especially the building materials of the future. As a forestry student I am beginning to understand our relationship to our forests differently. In the US, forest policy which aimed to suppress wildfires has contributed to a century-long build up of fuel that would otherwise have been cleared by controlled burns or small spontaneous ground fires. Indigenous peoples shaped the forests of the Americas to require these controlled burns. More and more I realize that indigenous knowledge and collaboration is a necessary part of the stewardship of future. A concept which is present at large at the museum but also specifically within Our Time on Earth. Getting a ‘sustainable’ amount of lumber from our forest still disregards the health and purpose of these trees to a diverse and complex ecosystem. It is essential that we diversify our building material, to include carbon-negative things like mycelium! Natural resources that are close by, and at hand in our local environment, which doesn’t require chopping down a tree 3000 miles away and transporting it to the US. We need local resources whose collective cultivation lead to a sense of community and collaboration. A better future!

My thanks to lane.m.artin for collaborating with me for p.2!

[goldengodcannibal]

ohhhh so that's what that feels like