#a good portion of what exacerbated the problem is that I have a very good feeling that most of how those people are acting

[redhotarsenic]

It’s so fucked that the main source of unease I felt building up over the past several months was me feeling pressured to perform femininity to be seen as desirable to other people. It was never ever said said out loud in that space but I could FEEL it and I never knew until it was pointed out to me.

[littlefeltsparrow]

There’s a problem with the way Sarah J Maas depicts physical abuse/intimidation in ACOTAR

The fact that Tamlin’s physical abuse of Feyre being communicated through a magical/emotional outburst is problematic in the sense that it undercuts the reason why abuse happens. Incorporating magical concepts into a portrayal of domestic violence muddles the issue at hand and makes the abuse an accidental consequence of involuntary magical impulses as opposed to a deliberate tactic of intimidation and control. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that Feyre too, experiences an uncontrollable magical/emotional outburst during the High Lords meeting due to Beron’s provocative remarks. To be clear, I don’t view Tamlin as detestable or as an irredeemable abuser, but the text very much does. What I want to comment on is the problematic framing of Tamlin’s actions that are meant to characterize him as an abusive partner to Feyre.

So, I’m going to compare and contrast a scene from ACOMAF with a scene from ACOWAR, both of which depict magical outbursts that are brought on by intense emotional stress or rage.

ACOMAF

Here, Feyre objects to Tamlin’s protective measures he had enacted earlier. She expresses how suffocated she feels and how she wishes that she had the breathing room to cope with her new reality and that Tamlin’s actions are making her suffer. Furthermore, Feyre introduces her doubt in their engagement and expresses her reservations. Tamlin then goes blank, reacting explosively with his power blowing the room into splinters.

This is a good first step towards characterizing Tamlin as an abusive partner (despite the leaps it took to get there) But, where it goes wrong is the emphasis the text puts on Tamlin's blank expression and subsequent magical response. He loses control momentarily, but the issue about this portrayal is that abuse is not "losing control" or accidental, it is a conscious decision made by the abuser. But here, Maas makes it seem as though Tamlin really was not in control, that the heightened emotions made him react that way.

It gives Tamlin an out and consequently undercuts the message Maas is trying to communicate. Bringing magic into the scene takes away Tamlin's agency and removes a portion of his culpability in harming Feyre.

This scene should not have been Tamlin simply losing control of his temper, if Maas wanted to enhance her abuse narrative, she should have taken Tamlin’s temper and had him weaponize it. Intimidation is a possibility, one that would work towards making Feyre feel scared about voicing ver true feelings on their relationship. But Maas doesn’t go all the way, she doesn’t lean into that interpretation and instead plays it straight.

This is also undercut by Tamlin's second magical outburst in ACOWAR. Feyre intentionally provoking him does nothing for Maas's abuse narrative and actively undermines it by strengthening the idea that Tamlin's destructive outbursts really were caused by overwhelming emotions. Once again, it gives Tamlin a way out and dilutes the message.

The notion of an involuntary magical outburst is applied again in ACOWAR

Beron’s inflammatory remarks provoke an immediate reaction from Feyre, she goes blank so to speak, and can no longer focus due to the intensity of her emotions. This manifests in a fiery outburst that throws the meeting into disarray and injures the Lady of Autumn accidentally.

She’s so angry that she can’t think straight or logically, and it manifests in an attack. Though this isn't exactly the same, Feyre's "blinding fury" is so powerful that it cannot be restrained and ends up harming an innocent party. This moment strengthens the case for magic manifesting strong emotions as external attacks, characterizing it to some extent as involuntary.

Ultimately, the magical element removes the agency of the individuals in question. It frames their violence not as a conscious act designed to inspire fear, but as a genuinely accidental reaction to intense emotions. This is why the "Tamlin is an evil abuser" narrative is so weak. Because it dilutes the severity of the violence and makes it seem as though these kinds of emotional outbursts are an element of possessing magical powers. It gestures at a larger issue of Maas picking and choosing when and where she wants to apply real-world standards to her characters' morality. It makes events less believable and hypocritical, making allowances for certain characters, but condemning others without adequate narrative set-up.

This is why Maas is fundamentally incapable of recognizing the abusive dynamic she constructs with Feysand. It is a combination of double standards, authorial bias and a misunderstanding of how abuse manifests.

[itsclydebitches]

I’ve recently joined the Twitter RWBY fandom(a horrible choice, really) and a lot of them hold this regard that Ironwood being a Military Man aswell as Atlas Academy being a pipeline to the Military being foreshadowing and, I can’t really understand that? No where in the show is any of that implied as bad. I was thinking about it a little bit and came to the inclusion that despite Remnant’s worldbuilding calling for a positive outlook on the military, because this is an American anime mostly 1/2

I've thought the same for awhile now, anon. RWBY, for all its many pitfalls, is trying to be a progressive show and that includes taking a hard, critical stance against military might—an argument that, yes, is very much born of America's history. I'm not going to turn this ask into a history lesson (one I'm by no means an expert on anyway), but suffice to say there's indeed a lot to criticize and thus it's no surprise that the queer friendly, unity-focused, American show about an individual "simple soul" would want to paint militarism in a negative light.

Personally, I've got no problem with that thesis. That's actually a show that I would love to watch. Thus, the problem is not RWBY taking a hard stance against a fictional military, it's—as you say—its failure to convey why Remnant's military is worthy of criticism. The work is simply not there. I could write you a novel-length meta on all the ways RWBY dropped the ball in that regard, starting with the world building question of, "Why is a military seen as oppressive when they exist to fight souless monsters instead of other people?" through "Not a single detail in RWBY implies that people are coerced, manipulated, or left behind once they align themselves with the military," circling around, "You spent six Volumes writing Ironwood as a flawed hero, gave us a few episodes as a misguided antagonist, and then a few hours in-world as a villain," straight on through to, "The group coming upon Atlas' battleships is meant to exist as a stand-alone argument of evilness—look at what Ironwood has done in the name of safety!—which is a problem all on its own, but the same image of battleships hovering over Vacuo is meant to exist as a stand-alone argument of celebratory unity and do you see how that doesn't work?"

RWBY wanted to write an anti-military story. They did not write an anti-military story until Volume 8, by which time it was WAY too late to undermine all the positive implications and unanswered questions we'd gotten. However, many viewers—particularly American viewers—picked up on those not-so-subtle hints (hi there, cartoon Ironwood) and ran backwards with the argument, ignoring everything that didn't support it in previous Volumes, or, in a few extreme cases, outright lying about what happened in the show until portions of the fandom heard it often enough that they started misremembering things. Then they passed those simplistic, inaccurate readings on, all of which is exacerbated by many viewers' real feelings towards the military and the knee-jerk assumptions they have if others appear to be promoting it. Even if "promoting it" just means saying something like, "This fictional character in this radically different fantasy world maybe isn't pure evil because the show forgot to establish why creating the means to destroy the literal non-metaphorical monsters is a bad thing."

Which is why it's so difficult to discuss RWBY's failure in this regard because the fan at the other end of the conversation has to acknowledge the nuance of, "Yes, I personally agree with this thesis, but it's a thesis that doesn't exist in RWBY. I'm not arguing that dictators are good, actually, I'm arguing that Ironwood never was one." The moment you talk about anything related to Atlas, Ironwood, their military, etc. and by extension start discussing the ways in which the show canonically wrote those all these as positives in Volumes 1-7, or at the worst flawed necessities, many fans simply jump to, "Oh, so you're okay with Ironwood shooting minorities? Got it." Most in RWDE (that I've come across, anyway) are discussing the depiction of the military within the show—what actually wound up on screen, regardless of the writers' intentions and regardless of our own, irl politics. In contrast, most non-RWDE fans are discussing what the military is meant to represent irl, despite the fact that this representation fails on nearly every level and, as a result, doesn't really exist. That's a huge disconnect that I doubt the fandom will ever get past, especially when these subjects hit close to home for so many and, frankly, it's far easier to toss out accusations that imply a real-life failing than it is to acknowledge that a favorite show is not only badly written, but thoroughly bungled a subject you deeply care about. (Insert the same problem with RWBY's queer rep here.)

[youareinbarbados]

Careful now (Non-Neville)

I think it's important to be careful who you're getting information from. We live in a pretty crazy time and the world seems to be getting a little crazier by the day. I wonder what they means for us, individually lol #eiypo

It's disappointing to see such well known figures slowly lose it. Politics is rotting the minds of the people and even those who are well known practitioners of "the law" are finding themselves falling into these traps and it's awful to see.

A pretty well known ex-Mod of the Nevillegoddard subreddit, and YouTuber seems to be one of those people. She often had great information as well as insight. This is fine. She's a wealth of knowledge in terms of the law and it's operation. Seems innocent enough. The problem, however, is tainting of one's understanding of the law with one's political beliefs. This, at it's face, may seem innocuous enough, but it often leads to pretty ugly places

After watching near all of her videos, I noticed she started going on and on about certain authors and public figures that she loves. Which is fine. The issue is that most of those people she praised, were on record doing and saying some pretty awful things. Politics and morality aside, we all live in what we want to be a civil society, and that society has fundamental social contracts that we silently agree to. Openly calling for violence or the disparaging of CERTAIN people of the population, doesn't fly. It's not good, and we know that. Engaging in mental gymnastics to justify such statements just exacerbates the problem. If you're a reader of Neville, he states very clearly to imagine the best you know. To give the gift of hearing and thinking the very best of people, as this is mediating them, to God. He talks about the golden rule. Neville had a specific moral code that he adhered to, and actively encouraged people to adopt for the betterment of society.

After looking into nearly all of the individuals she suggested, they were nearly all guilty of something pretty nasty. Crying about "cancel culture" and other mindless, unhealthy functions of politics only distracts you. This Ex-mod / YouTuber started linking to the YouTube channels of these individuals as a silent endorsement of them. Some of these people were caught using their "teachings" to steal money from followers, some were "canceled" for calling portions of the population "inherently violent" and calling for those people to be "segregated" from greater racial society, some were guilty of certain types of physical abuse, etc. Pretty obviously bad things. When reading some of her YouTube comments, it's clear that some people were understandably asking why she endorsed such individuals. she responded an uncharacteristically incoherent way, blaming "media shills", citing "canceling people", asking "why everyone is asking me about this ?", and promptly **closed** her comment section *again*, after reopening it from being closed for a long time. She'd recently decided to grow her YouTube Channel after using it as a sort of video journal for quite some time.

I know it's easy to feel even more disconnected from others once you start using the law, but one needs to remember; Everything in connected. You don't injure one without injuring yourself.

The trend seems to be to use Neville Goddard as s gateway to a bunch of new age material that one gets so entangled in, that they lose direction. It states this in the first few pages of "Feeling is the secret". This is what a lot of YouTubers do. They give you some "Neville" and then slowly branch off into their own thing that may have nothing to do with Neville. I understand that one can draw parallels between authors and philosophy, sure. But this becomes harmful when you started posting links in your videos to people with ties to hate groups, or to people who's faces are used to advocate for said groups.. This kind of hyper-individualism is damaging to one and many. This is heartbreaking and massively disappointing, as she had very good things to say in regards to her becoming a millionaire, and dealing with body image.

We need to be careful not to take on the poisonous politics of those with "good ideas".

She seems to have what everyone in the manifestation community wants.

She is engaged to her SP.

She lost weight and has her "dream body"

She's a Millionaire.

All these qualities she has seem to make her seem amiable. She might very well be. Just please don't see her mindset as inextricably linked to the grifters and hatemongers she may marginally indulge in. It serves as a pipeline to poor mental health. Even successful people can be wrong. Even if you're older than your audience.

Be kind.

Hurt no one.

Think the best you can about people and situations.

If you've truly read and understood Neville, this is obvious.

Please stay safe and have a good day.

[evilhue]

something that’s been on my mind

(i was about to make the above-cut “quick thots” but this is the entire opposite)

now this doesn’t plague me or anything because frankly i don’t really gaf like that but at the times i do think about my appearance i spend a large portion of it debating whether i am actually attractive in other people’s eyes (which sounds stupid as fuck to say/type now that i’m looking at it LMAO)

and i’d like to reiterate it really doesn’t weigh on me that much! i don’t beat myself up for not looking like a model it’s just i see so many beautiful people in my life and i have never placed myself in those ranks. and neither have i bothered asking either cuz 1) i know i’m not lol 2) i’m not looking for pity which is how it usually comes across.

i don’t deem myself classically or conventionally attractive tbh but i think i have the general proportions and positions that (if not for injuries leading to asymmetry) would put me at a very normal cute level (which to me is attractive. and this is the point where i realize i never defined attractive which is funny cuz i don’t experience attraction like that. so i guess i mean not harsh on the eyes!) i’ve never been upset with the size/placements of my eyes/nose/mouth etc. i have beautiful lips! my eyelids are “big”. i love my nose to death unevenness and all!!

my “ugliness” comes from asymmetry which used to weigh on me a lot because it all stemmed from childhood injuries… my eyelids are beautiful… individually lmao. if they matched, both looking like my left or both looking like my left, i would be unstoppable! my eyebrows are uneven again bc of those injuries! my jaw is hella uneven bc of braces/palate expansion trauma, but my left side looks snatched as hell. but also bc of unevenness there, my lip corners and teeth aren’t even on the same axis. all this has made my face veeeeeery asymmetric, plus existing scoliosis problems exacerbate this asymmetry lol. additionally my skin is clear (ie no acne + scars) but my eczema has been so bad before that i’m still recovering from discoloration in weird embarrassing areas.

if being privy to thoughts on the interwebs has taught me anything it’s that everybody has insecurities they fixate on that /i/ literally don’t notice. which i assume means nobody else notices! (but also, i must disclaim that it may just be my not noticing because i don’t care like that lololol). i feel like all my friends are so normal (/good /pos) in appearance but then they’ll rant about their insecurities with eyebrows or nose size or something and it’s like dawg! i ain’t even notice that. meanwhile in more photos than not, i find my own appearance very unflattering - the way i deal with this is to simply not take pictures of myself 🤣🤣

i know the angle (singular) that works for me which becomes quite apparent once i go to look at the pics i actually like of myself LMAO. i am unable to take selfies! i genuinely think i look my best when i’m having a laff or am just cheesing really hard - candidly! anything i pose for looks weird, my RBF looks terrifying with the asymmetry. again, it’s whatever. i’ve come to accept it, albeit reluctantly over yeeeears of dwelling on it.

but the thing that stays confusing to me is that people DO call me hot, find me attractive enough to attempt to flirt at least lol. and idk if it’s a personality thing? or if they are tricked by my one single angle where i look güd? or if they somehow see a different picture of me (highly likely) but have spun it into a version where i am hot (which i can’t believe)? certainly i don’t think photos do me justice which is a shame in this day and age.

so yeah i’ve never really gotten any concrete answers from people who like me about what exactly they like about my appearance. sure my body is conventionally “skinny” (i still have insecurities about this tbh) and people say i dress nice (which is. lol. i guess i try). when i really try my makeup can look pretty slayyyy (in most circumstances i do not try because a) effort b) idc that much c) it requires looking at myself which i find extremely difficult (i probably should have started this post with that fact huh)). i don’t think i’m hot (a word i have heard more than others like gorgeous, beautiful) and in fact more times than not consider myself on the ugly side of the conventional spectrum.

but. eh not sure it really matters all that much to me. especially since it isn’t so much an insecurity as much as an observation of my self-image over time. i don’t think it’s a self-esteem thing either. also it’s not as if i care about making myself look pretty enough to other ppl to want to date/know me or whatever.

tl;dr: to me it’s quite simple; i’m not thaaaat cute! so it becomes bewildering that people do seem to like my unconventional face (and claim it, or me overall, to be attractive), which to me is the wrong kind of unconventional since it has everything to do with asymmetry in every aspect

EDIT and ik it’s a bit weird to say this post-post but: i strongly believe “attractiveness” goes beyond physical attributes! which is why i’m not sure anyone is actually talking about my face, physically, when they say i’m hot lol

[madamscream]

Personal angry ranting below, pls ignore.

I am presently at my dads house after regrettably agreeing to stay the night. My sibling drove us here, and I have no options to leave. I have not slept for a great many reasons, admittedly a good few of which were just poor choices on my parts, but decidedly not most of them. My sibling took the spare bed, both of us assuming I’d be able to sleep in the recliner. They had been long gone when I realized that was no dice and I subsequently realized my only other option was the dusty ass floor, but I didn’t bring a pillow and was not given one. I knew they had some vague plans today, but had no info on what those plans were, and didn’t wanna wake them up because they have a life and do things, so I figured I’d just take the L and hang out until I could go somewhere I can sleep. That would have been fine. I would have been a bit crabby, mostly because my back hurts very badly, but it would have been fine.

But then they woke up and forgoing any kind of greeting opted to chastise me about not sleeping. Okay. Cool. Now I am well beyond crabby. They go to the bathroom. Come back. Double down, telling me they understood I was probably trying to be nice but I should have woke them up because I was apparently supposed to know whatever plans they had without having been told and I have now caused problems for everyone because if I try to sleep I’ll be in their way. Cool! Great!! I wasn’t planning on trying to sleep here! I WAS planning on letting the first lecture slide but now you’re staring at me like you expect a response and I’m now Angry! So as politely as I can tell you I’m rather irritatable but it shouldn’t be an issue for you guys that I didn’t sleep because I’m not going to go get in your way and was just planning on staying where I was and I would appreciate it if you left me alone a while. I don’t know why the absolute fuck you thought the best choice of reaction was rolling your eyes with a derisive snort before leaving, but now I am LIVID.

Also thanks for telling me I’m on my period, even though I’m not. Like we’re both afab buddy, even giving you the benefit of the doubt and choosing to believe you misunderstood my speculation that I’m due for one, it’s a p low blow. Also appreciate you spending a good portion of the night egging on our meth addicted father in pointless arguments even though you’re perfectly aware even thinking too much about him triggers me in fun ways that EXACERBATE MY WELL DOCUMENTED SLEEP ISSUES. THANKS MY DUDE.

So any ways I’m rage crying on the toilet now after spending half the day too tired to make myself crawl onto the floor because I’m aware of how my body do and all it would have accomplished is making me dusty and in more pain.

[wintgun]

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[cryptonature]

Seeking Peace while the Work is Unfinished

As I continue my lifelong work to understand my own mind, I've been thinking about the difference between constructive and destructive mindsets. The difference between fighting and building. Opposing and cultivating. Condemning and celebrating. It's no secret that we need our destructive mindsets to oppose injustice, fight those who do harm, and speak out against abusers, bigots, fascists, etc. We also know that social media uses our innate prioritization of threats to hold our attention and keep us scrolling. And yet... I think it's clear that what makes the world (and the inside of our skulls) a joyful, livable, sustainable place to dwell requires constructive mindsets. Building shelter. Building communities. Food. Art. Education. Childcare. Science. Medicine. Fun and leisure. For me, it seems that the default structure of our current media/cultural climate pulls toward a destructive mindset. This pull is very hard on my mental health. However, it's a nuanced thing to discuss because the forces I want to resist legitimately should be resisted. It feels complicated because both reason and a respect for my own sense of wellbeing tells me to intentionally turn toward a constructive mindset, but in doing so I must make an active choice to turn away from unaddressed threats/problems/injustices. Like many issues that feel complex, the problem arises from dichotomous thinking. The idea that we dedicate ourselves solely to one or the other, to constructive or destructive thinking. It's a false choice. We can't do two things at once and we need to make room for both. The balanced approach seems simple enough, but I think finding that balance requires me to acknowledge that there are vast, sophisticated tools/algorithms/financial interests pressing down on the 'destructive mindset' side of the scale. The problem is exacerbated by the abstract, placelessness we feel as citizens of the internet and people who have been cut off from our physical contexts by the pandemic (and other factors). We become inhabitants of social media. It becomes our environment. Threat as place. So, the deck is stacked against us when we seek ways to exercise constructive mindsets, to find hope and pleasure. But, here's the thing. I suffer from painful, chronic depression which, paradoxically, gives me some interesting tools to fight back against these forces. I am well acquainted with insidious pressures trying to steer me toward hopelessness. I am well acquainted with having to make a conscious effort of will to turn toward positivity, to go outside, to recognize when my dread stems from forces beyond my immediate control. Revolutions may need to fight, but they also need to feed people, to make life worth living, to present a vision of a world that feels worth inhabiting. Destructive mindsets have their place, but we miss the point when we let them define our identities completely. So, I seek out things that make me feel hopeful. I stubbornly allow for the idea that many of my fellow humans are good, are smart, are worthy, are interesting, are enriching the world. I recognize that social media isn't a trustworthy representation of our reality. I adopt the self-care stance that in this flawed, complicated, temporary world, the local trees and birds are also deserving of a portion of my undivided attention and that giving it to them is neither a surrender to evil nor an immoral act of self-indulgence. We are all different and we need different things. But I argue that, regardless of context, each of us deserves/needs rest and peace and pleasure. Sometimes, the portion of nature for which we are best positioned to care and preserve is ourselves. Yes, I think we should oppose evil. We should take action. We should do good works. But if you find yourself living in a state of constant dread or hopeless anger, I want to recommend that there is a healing balance to be found between destructive/constructive mindsets. We are all fundamentally worthy of seeking this balance. Of finding our hope. Of rediscovering our place and peace. Of forgiving ourselves for what we do not control. Of allowing ourselves to be simple, natural animals enjoying the beauty of this flawed, lovely world.

[shihalyfie]

I think Jeff Nimoy and Bob Buchholz are the ones most responsible for ruining the 02 dub. They like to claim that it was Saban and network interference that made them add all those "jokes", but I think they're two-faced liars. Nimoy has bragged in various articles about how much fun he had in adding all those terrible one-liners to the movie, even though he also says that they were "forced" to do so. Which one is it, Jeff?

I think both are true. Or I suppose another way to put it is that while I think Jeff and Bob were definitely proud of the things they added, on the other hand, the situation was also very obviously exacerbated on the Saban/Fox end and would not have improved a single bit even if completely different writers were in charge. Mainly because of the following:

The biggest obvious one is that this practice was extremely common not just to Jeff and Bob but also a vast number of other writers and companies in the industry. This was just "the accepted norm", and not doing this might have gotten your work pinned as unusual or boring (by others in the industry at least, I think the kids would have been fine). There's a reason 4Kids is the one with the infamous reputation of doing this, not Saban, and you can probably notice how fandoms like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragon Ball will have similar original vs. dub fights.

If you know anything about Haim Saban (the CEO of Saban Entertainment and later Saban Brands), you can find a whole bunch of unpleasant things about his attitude about the Japanese material he was working with (in particular, he was basically mocking the same tokusatsu he was adapting to Power Rangers). The issue goes way beyond just Jeff and Bob.

Notably, when Jeff worked on Digimon for any other company besides Saban, the dub changes got significantly less off-the-rails. Digimon dubbing shifted to Disney in the last portion of Tamers, and said portion of Tamers, all of Frontier and Data Squad, and the fourth through seventh Digimon movies (which were done during this period) are much closer to the original, and at the very least are not at the level of severe "character became unrecognizable and plot fell apart" that Adventure and 02 got even if a few jokes and tonal changes were added here and there (Jeff’s background from that era of dub writing still shows, so that’s why it’s apparent he does somewhat enjoy this style of writing). There's very good reason I've seen dub-only people cite that Davis still felt strangely different and "unusually nice" with Revenge of Diaboromon and Kizuna -- because the disparity between Davis in the original 02 dub and Davis in dubs that were obviously closer to the Japanese version was that apparent. Also, Frontier was still done in the same era as the others, so you can't even pin this on changing of the times alone...

...especially since Digimon Fusion, on the other hand, was completely off the rails even to the point dub-only people in Digimon fandom often don't have it in them to defend it, despite having been done in 2013. By this point, Saban was infamous for being stuck in the past and doing these kinds of outdated dubbing practices (see their handling of Power Rangers and PreCu...uh, Glitter Force in the same era). That one was squarely Saban, albeit technically rebranded from Entertainment to Brands, but nevertheless still under original leadership, and there's no other explanation why this particular company had to be so completely off the rails with what it was doing in an era where most others weren't.

Incidentally, Power Rangers fans can also apparently attest that there was a massive shift in direction from Saban to Disney to Saban again (although you’d be better off asking a fandom member there since the wars over which era was best can get pretty nasty), so there is undoubtedly some corporate or directional culture going on here no matter how you look at it.

In the end, when a problem is systematic like this, I don't tend to concern myself about which person specifically was responsible for what, because it's too obvious changing only one part of the process wouldn't have helped -- like, for instance, some of the tri. scriptwriters have said some honestly kind of appalling things about the original series, but we also have it on record that even when they were trying to be conscientious, the director still rejected their scripts anyway, so the end result is I can only conclude "it is what it is, and all I can do is deal with the fact the end product exists no matter what else I do." It's not like we ever have a chance of getting a redub given how much the fandom worships it (and the only comparable situation I can think of is Sailor Moon, which is on a completely different scale and still has people refusing to acknowledge the new one because it's not the one in their childhood). This is why I'm personally less concerned about trying to point fingers at who was responsible and more about the fact that even 20 years later you still have people claiming the dub didn't have significant changes or didn't have severely adverse effects on how well 02 holds up (or get kind of culturally insensitive at times). I really do understand the feelings of people who have it so close to their hearts that they can't completely dismiss it, regardless of whatever negative things went on back there, but I think the fandom way of putting it on such a sacred cow's pedestal -- to the point you're not allowed to have criticisms about its impact on the series without being taken as making an attack on people who like it -- really didn't need to be dragged out for 20 years, and I think that's a fandom problem more than it is a problem with the original source that we can't do anything about.

[arizonaconservativegal]

Biden Claims His Agenda Has ‘Helped Not Hurt’ Effort to Combat Surging Inflation

Refusing to take responsibility for the dramatic domestic price increases of the last year, President Biden insisted Tuesday that his administration’s policies are alleviating rather than exacerbating inflation.

“I think our policies help not hurt. Think about what they say. The vast majority of the economists think that this is going to be a real tough problem to solve but it’s not because of spending,” Biden told reporters during a press briefing on the economy.

Despite the explosion of fiscal stimulus passed since Biden took office, such as the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill, which many economists have said fueled inflation, he dodged on the inflationary consequences of his unprecedented spending and instead blamed the supply chain crisis and Republicans in Congress.

Production and shipping delays triggered by the pandemic are still plaguing the country, Biden suggested, which his administration has addressed by bringing together labor and industry to “improve operations at the port, to speed up the transfer of products from abroad to the location where they’re going to be used.”

To be fair to Joe, a good portion of the reckless money printing did happen while Trump was still in office. But not only was ol' Joe fully in support of that, he continued it, and has done nothing to alleviate the very predictable effects.

[earthly--truth]

What I believe in

These are my beliefs as someone who aligns with democratic socialism and progressivism. Feel free to critique it, challenge it, even just a few sections, whatever, but this is what I believe will make the world a better place, because people (and animals) deserve to live the best possible lives they can live with the only chance at life they got. This is going to be super general and long, and not get into nearly everything, but I hope it sheds a positive light on leftism.

Strong unions so that workers (the majority of people in society) have the ability have better footing to negotiate better wages, work hours, vacation days, benefits, etc. I also believe that in instances where it’s pragmatically viable that there should be a push for more worker co-op’s, in which every employee has a stake in the company they work at, and the ability to give their input (all companies should strive for more democracy). Both of these contribute to healthier, happier, and, and better payed people.

Raising the minimum wage in the U.S to $15 an hour. The current wage of  $7.25 is way too low. It’s just not a livable wage. There’s a reason why McDonald’s and Walmart are called corporate welfare queens, and it’s because they’re employees require welfare to survive, despite being the biggest corporations on the planet with multi-billionaire CEO’s. The richest in society should also pay more in taxes.

Stop investing so much in the American military, cut it by a third if you can. (Firstly this frees up a lot of money for other things) Get the military out of the middle east, and create other more peaceful avenues to ensure it doesn’t crumble like every single time the military pulls out and doesn’t try to actually fix the mess they created. The people in the middle east deserve to be able to rebuild and they’ll need help to do that (just not the type of help where america installs their own leaders).

Healthcare should be universal, paid for by taxes. Every developed nation is capable of doing it. Many developing countries are doing it. Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than so many other countries, yet a trip to the hospital still can put you in debt for the rest of your life. That is inhumane, and people shouldn’t have to choose between crippling debt and their health.

There’s also an argument to be made for free/way cheaper university, since countries like Canada or America force people to get a degree if they want to live a decent life, yet in order to do that you have to pay $15,000 a year for university. A system like that either forces people to skip out on uni, or again go into major debt. If Europe can figure it out, I think the U.S and Canada can figure it out too.

Black Lives Matter. To be more specific, I want police/criminal justice/prison reform. I want police de-militarized and to stop acting so abusive towards to civilians and real justice for the police that do, I want an end on the war on drugs (this helps drug addicts get help and delivers a blow to gangs and the cartel). I want an end to mass incarceration and laws that make it easier to throw people in jail for years for basically nothing. I want an end to for profit prisons. I want an end to the policy of retribution rather than rehabilitation for inmates (countries who rehabilitate are way more successful at non-returning inmates). I want an end to treating prisoners like slaves so corporations can get cheap labour. I also want the government to actually start caring about the poorest communities, many of which are predominantly black and latino (in cities anyways). (Also the indigenous in Canada). Better infrastructure, better public works programs. These all contribute to the proliferation of these communities and helps lessen the potential for criminality by making their lives better.

The dismantling of gender norms and roles, and de-stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people. I want people to be whoever they want to be. For far too long we have expected men and women to act a certain way. Women have come a long way, but there are still remnants of the old way of looking at things. We still have a lot of social stigma about how women should look, and that they are not worth even paying attention to if they aren’t conventionally attractive. We still have social stigma about sexuality and sex work. We hyper sexualize women in the media, yet shame women as sluts if they have a lot of sex. We shame women who choose abortion as murderers, yet don’t offer any support for the mother once the child has arrived. On top of that, the positions of power are still predominantly very old men. I also believe in helping men. Men are lonelier, men are increasingly staying sexless (not by choice), men are getting more suicidal. I want to address this two ways. One, by tackling toxic masculinity (not masculinity itself, just the bad parts). TM is telling men to man up and not to cry, TM is telling men not to act feminine or gay. TM is telling men to bottle up their emotions and resolve their problems through violence. The second way to address this is through my beliefs about workers. Men are the most suicidal in countries where there is a heavy work culture, like Japan and South Korea. Where they can’t have lives, and live to make money for the company they work at. That isn’t good.

When it comes to LGBTQ+ people, we need more positive representation in the media. We need people to see gay, trans, and non-binary people as normal people. When it comes to trans people specifically, we need to end the constant wars against them. Whether you’re talking about bathrooms, or sports, or children/teens receiving trans affirming healthcare. Let trans people be the gender that they say there are in the places they want to be, and allow them to receive the healthcare they need which is just the overwhelming medical consensus. This, combined with more supportive parents. all goes a long way to reducing the suicide rate amonst trans people.

The proliferation of the developing world. I want developing countries to be more autonomous, and to stop being under the boot of western corporations. I want an end to sweatshop labour or borderline sweatshop labour. I want the west to stop treating these actual people like their robots for pennies to produce our ungodly amounts of junk, and to actually pay these people decent wages. I want the world bank to stop giving money in an exploitative way to poor nations so that they cave to western business interests. These are people, human beings, and they deserve to develop and live good lives just like us. I also want them to fight for democracy in their countries.

Environmentalism. To go off the last section, 100 Corporations are contributing 71% of greenhouse gases. That needs to change. Corporations are participating ungodly amounts of devastations to eco-systems and the atmosphere. Ecosystems destroyed, and the exacerbation of the climate crises. I want a green and blue earth, and that can start by a) changing to green energy as much as humanly possible; solar, wind, and even nuclear (and whatever we come up with in the future) are far better than the fossil fuels we use now, which we’ll run out of anyways. And second we need to hold corporations accountable for destroying the planet. If we don’t do this, we risk the climate crises getting really bad. Oceans rising which will flood coastlines, creating millions of refugees, more periods of extreme dry (no water/bush fires) and extreme cold (look at what happened to texas). Something needs to be done about it.

Finally, veganism, for many reasons. One, the switch to veganism will be a big contributor to saving the planet. Whether you’re talking about the devastation we do to places like the Amazon Rain forest and other ecosystems to clear the way for animal farming, or whether you’re talking about reducing emissions. Most emissions and waste from agriculture are from the production phase of animal farming. So much food, water, and energy is wasted by giving it to billions of animals that we purposefully breed into existence, then slaughter, rinse and repeat, every single year, when we could just grow food and give water to people and skip out the middle man (think about how many people are hungry and without water in the world).

Philosophically, it is also wrong to kill a living creature that desires to live, that is able to connect with other living things and it surrounding, to form bonds. A cow, pig, chicken, lamb, sheep, are no different than a dog, cat, or rabbit, and they should not be killed, exploited, and tortured (confinement, abusive conditions in industrial farms) for pleasure. I know it’s pleasure for most people, because vegans are living proof that you can live happy and healthy lives without animal products. Vegans are statistically healthier than non-vegans, and we can get all the nutrients we need, even on an inexpensive diet. There are exceptions of course. A very small portion of people literally cannot eat plants and can only eat meat, and the developing world doesn’t have the same access to vegan products as the developed world does. Those people are valid, but many many people can make the switch and they should, especially in the developed world

All I see from this is making the world better. Hopefully you can too.

[stillness-in-green]

Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Introduction and Part One)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front

INTRODUCTION

The title states my premise here: the breezy way My Hero Academia presents and resolves the mass arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front is ludicrous. If taken as presented and allowed to stand without being further addressed, it serves as a breaking point from which the series will be incredibly hard-pressed to recover. Why, you ask?

From a logistical standpoint, it strains credulity. From an ethical standpoint, it suggests deeply troubling problems with the state of Hero Society. From a thematic standpoint, it unravels whole portions of the narrative’s spine. I’ll be looking at each of these facets in turn to discuss the questions they raise which My Hero Academia has not yet seen fit to answer. Many in fandom don’t seem to be thinking about it too hard, so I’d like to lay out—in exhaustive detail—all the reasons I find this plot element so wildly out of touch with causal reality.

Please note that while they are discussed when relevant, this essay is not principally about the named characters in the League of Villains or the erstwhile high command of the Metahuman Liberation Army. The sorts of consequences Shigaraki Tomura or Re-Destro would and should be facing in a courtroom are orders of magnitude beyond what Random Liberation Warrior X would be, but it’s the mass numbers of Random Liberation Warrior Xs that this essay is most concerned with, as they are the ones most in danger of being swept under a rug and forgotten by the series in its current state.

Further, be advised that this essay in its full form is both very long (about 21K words excluding Sources and Further Reading) and will contain extensive discussion of real-life Japan—comparisons to historical events, minutiae of its legal and carceral systems, and general cultural views on criminality. This will include references to imprisonment, government oppression, and incidents of terrorism both real and in the context of My Hero Academia.

Being as it is about quite a recent event in the series, it will also contain heavy spoilers all the way up through the most recent chapter as of this writing, Chapter 310. It likewise contains spoilers for the spin-off series My Hero Academia: Vigilantes up through Chapter 95.

The essay will be posted in parts on tumblr and in full on AO3. For the tumblr posting, I will provide links to other tumblr posts as I reference them; however, as I would like this to actually show up in the tags, outside links containing my sources and further reading will be provided in a separate post following the conclusion of the essay.

Lastly, I spent an entire month writing this as a fan who is sympathetic to the villains in general and the MLA in particular. If your response to the very concept of this essay is anything to the tune of, “Who cares what happens to a bunch of disgusting quirk eugenicists?” know that you and I have radically different views on the MLA, and the role of the justice system in general. You are, of course, welcome to read the essay anyway, but, having said my piece about the MLA and their relationship with quirk supremacy elsewhere, I will not be engaging with arguments or gotchas on that subject here.

PART ONE: The Facts at Hand

Before we get too deep into things, let’s lay out the basic facts: how many people are actually involved in the arrest, as well as some comparisons to real-life events to contextualize that number and provide some referents for the issues the arrest raises.

Re-Destro gives the numbers of the Metahuman Liberation Army as 116,516. A lot of people go on to die in Deika, though we’re never given a solid count. The biggest batch we see killed in a single go are the press of sixty or so people Shigaraki decays, then the sixteen-ish Toga drops, though some of those might possibly have had quirks that allowed them to survive. Any number of people certainly died as well simply in the moments we didn’t see, and who even knows how many were caught in the radius of Shigaraki’s last attack.

Further, there may well have been a measure of organization bleed when the MLA became the PLF (though I imagine trying to leave was a very dangerous proposition, giving an additional reason to stick it out on top of the general cult-like mindset the MLA displays); likewise, I find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t have been some deaths at the Gunga Villa, be it from Gigantomachia’s departure, Geten cutting loose, or combatants—be they hero or comrade—overcompensating somewhat in the middle of a chaotic melee.

I suspect it’s overestimating the depletion, but for the purposes of simplicity, let us call it 115,000 remaining members at the time of the raid.[1]

We are told that, in all, 16,929 people were captured at the villa—just about 17,000. 132 escaped in the confusion; this is a fairly negligible number, save for the fact that it includes high-ranking advisors, but not Machia and those of the Front that were with him.

We are further told, and I quote, “Their bases scattered around the country were hit too, and the sympathizers rounded up.” Horikoshi did not provide any solid numbers for this,[2] but if we’re to assume that it is just the rest of the group (more on the logistics of that bit of spycraft later), “the sympathizers” would be 98,000 additional people.

However, 98,000 may be a significant underestimation. It’s based, after all, on a number Re-Destro cites to describe “warriors lying in wait, ready to rise to action.” This begs the question: is Re-Destro quoting the entire membership of the group, or only those who actually are ready to take action? In other words, does his number account for non-combatants? Is he counting young children? I tend to assume the MLA doesn't have a retirement age as such,[3] but if they do, does his number account for the elderly?

How many more people might be “sympathizers” to the PLF insomuch as they are e.g. the six-month-old infant daughter of an MLA couple? What about the ninety-year-old man in the retirement home whose only real act of war these days is tying up the phone line at City Hall to complain about repressive quirk use laws? How about the fired-up fifteen-year-old that was going to get their official code name next month, just in time to join the first wave of attacks? If he’s being literal in his usage of “warrior,” the actual count of the MLA could easily be twice as high as the number he actually gives.

But okay, maybe Re-Destro’s number does include absolutely everyone. Maybe he’s just being rhetorical—maybe, in his mind, even the six-month-old is waiting to rise to action; she’s just going to have to wait a bit longer than the rest, is all. For simplicity’s sake, let’s stick with the numbers we have: a low-end of 17,000, a high-end of 115,000, captured not merely in a single day, but allegedly in the span of a few hours.

I’m sure I don’t need to stress that that is a lot of people. But how many people is it, practically speaking? Is there a precedent? Anything we can look to for guidance on how this kind of thing would go in real life?

Comparative Analogues

The PLF is tricky to categorize for the purposes of real-life comparison, especially compared to how they’re treated in-universe. In some lights, they resemble a protest movement; in others, a terrorist group. Just looking at the way the government reacts to them—and certainly in terms of their combat capabilities—they might as well be an all-out insurrectionist uprising! Below, I’ll examine a handful of historical incidents that cover that spectrum; they will continue to provide useful reference points throughout the rest of this essay.

The March 15 Incident

In the first half of the 20th century, Japan saw a huge uptick in socialist and communist activity, much to the general dismay of the ruling powers. In response, they passed a series of laws commonly referred to as the Peace Preservation Laws, designed to better enable authorities to suppress political dissent and freedom of speech, particularly that of leftists and labor movements.

The Japanese Communist Party was founded in 1922, but outlawed in 1925. This merely drove members underground, however, from which position they pointed supporters towards the numerous other parties with more legally tolerated leftist policies that had cropped up in the wake of the JCP’s dissolution. Following the February 1928 General Election (the first in Japan held with universal male suffrage), those parties supported by the JCP saw enormous gains in representation in Japan’s National Diet. Alarmed, the Prime Minister declared the mass arrest of known communists and suspected communist sympathizers. Accordingly, on March 15, 1,600 people were arrested throughout Japan.

Over the course of twenty years, some 70,000 people would be arrested under the auspices of the Peace Preservation Laws, the majority of them in 1925 through 1936. The laws would eventually be repealed by American occupation forces after WWII, and the JCP allowed to operate openly once again.

The Rice Riots

In 1918, an inflation spiral had driven the price of rice out of control, exacerbating economic insecurity and hardship. Farmers were being paid a pittance of the market value of their crop by rice buyers and government agents, while urban consumers were being charged an exorbitant price for the staple food, as well as a great many other consumer goods, and their own rents. In response, a series of riots ripped across Japan in late July through September. Beginning with peaceful protesting in a small fishing town in Toyama Prefecture, the unrest escalated to involve riots, strikes, looting, even bombing in demonstrations that reached major cities like Tokyo and Osaka. The scope was and remains unprecedented in modern Japanese history, seeing some 25,000 people arrested.

The Sarin Gas Attacks

If you’ve heard of any of them, it’s probably this one. On March 20, 1995, members of the cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas on five different Tokyo Metro trains in the middle of morning rush hour. Thirteen people were killed and over 5500 injured, about a fifth of them moderately to severely so. If not for small errors in the production of the gas and the rudimentary distribution method thereof, loss of life might easily have been catastrophically higher.

Aum Shinrikyo was a doomsday cult, but the motives for that particular attack were much baser than bringing about the Apocalypse: at the time, the organization was under police investigation for its involvement in the kidnapping of a public official. Its leader, Asahara Shoukou, hoped that the attack would divert police’s attention from a planned raid.

It did not do so; police executed raids on numerous of the cult’s compounds, arresting many of its senior members both immediately and over the course of the following months as the investigation unfolded. In all, over 200 members were arrested of an organization that counted its membership prior to the attack as numbering 11,000 people in Japan.[4]

The February 26 Incident

There have been a significant number of uprisings and violent protests in Japan’s modern history; when looking for a representative example, I focused my attention on the military coups of the 1930s and 40s, largely because they took place in what was closest to the modern Japanese legal context.[5] Of that subset, I chose the February 26 Incident for the severity of the government response. The others disintegrated before they could be properly carried out or were met with sympathy for the dissidents despite the obvious illegality of their actions. The February 26 Incident, however, was when they finally became too troublesome to dismiss, and the Emperor himself ran out of patience.

In this period, the Japanese military had become drastically factionalized into two main groups—an ultra-nationalist group, largely powered by a group of young officers, which supported the Emperor and wanted to purge Japan of Western influences, and a more moderate group mainly defined by their opposition to the above faction.[6] Occurring in 1936, the February 26 Incident involved the young officers, believing that they had tacit approval from higher-ranked officers of their own faction, launching assassination attempts against the nationalists’ most prominent enemies in the government (six assorted Ministers and former Ministers in the Emperor’s Privy Council and the Diet) and a bid to seize control of the administrative center of the capital and the Imperial Palace, after which they planned to demand the dismissal of more officers and the selection of a new Cabinet.

The seven ringleaders had convinced eighteen other officers to lend their forces to the attempted coup, a total of around 1,500 men, calling themselves the Righteous Army. Several of their assassination attempts failed, however, and while they succeeded at taking the Prime Minister’s residence and the Ministry of War, they did not manage to secure the Palace. The outraged Cabinet demanded the Emperor take a hard line with the rebels, and by the 29th, the Righteous Army was surrounded by 20,000 government troops and 22 tanks. In this hopeless situation, the officers dismissed their troops; two committed suicide (a third attempted it unsuccessfully) and the remainder were arrested by military police.

International Examples

For obvious reasons, I prefer to limit my examples to events that happened in Japan. However, I will also be briefly referring to a few international incidents of mass arrest, taking place in India, the U.S., and Egypt, respectively.

In the following parts, I'll use these facts and comparative analogues to take a closer look at what readers were told became of the Paranormal Liberation Front.

Part Two

-----------------------------------------------------

Footnotes (Part One)—

[1] Over three months’ time, they likely gained some new blood also, simply in the course of their usual recruitment tactics. You don’t get an underground organization that size by sitting back and waiting for people to come to you, after all. I don’t know a practical way to calculate that, though, so just bear it in mind for when I talk about new members later.

[2] Possibly because he was aware that 17,000 people captured in one fell swoop was difficult enough to swallow without adding on more than five times that number.

[3] We do, after all, see some very aged people fighting in the streets of Deika.

[4] They were considerably more international than you may have heard. They had 50,000 members at the time, some 30,000 of them based in Russia.

[5] The Meiji Constitution was ratified in 1889; universal suffrage (for men) was granted in 1925. The modern constitution was enacted in 1947.

[6] More moderate, mind, in the context of the Imperial Japanese military. Neither of these factions had any time whatsoever for leftist movements, hence all those suppressive crackdowns.

[mbti-notes]

XNTJ here. Recently I've been preoccupied with food (i.e. my mind wants to keep eating when my stomach is full, using food as a reward for waiting for it, etc). I think this is because I feel restricted in life. My career is not progressing and I don't feel that I'm improving enough in skills I'm trying to learn. I understand why the restrictions in my area are there, but things like masks and closures don't help this feeling. While I've taken steps to prevent overeating (1/2)

[con’t: (eating a balanced diet, stopping when my stomach is full, etc) a part of me feels that I've just made more restrictions for myself. It's like there's this psychological hunger that's building and building and I'm scared of gradually losing control. I want to stay healthy and I've struggled with my weight in the past, so thinking of food and eating so often is especially concerning to me. How do you prevent a Te-Se loop/Se grip? Thank you in advance.]

It seems that you are using food to ameliorate negative emotions - what people often refer to as emotional eating or eating your emotions. When life isn’t going well - perhaps you feel frustrated, sad or empty - food is one common method of distraction, even if it is just a fleeting satisfaction. When you feel like shit, yeah, even one moment of feeling good counts for something. 

Human relationship to food is very primal and also very symbolic. Being hungry is not only physically uncomfortable, it’s a sign that your existence is in danger. Feeling full is not just about filling the stomach, it’s also about comfort, security, satisfaction, and enjoyment. Eating your emotions means that you’re not just eating to live, you’re using food to obtain an emotional benefit, a symbolic win. But food isn’t the right solution to emotional problems because it doesn’t actually address any problem except for physical hunger and the need to survive. A better strategy would be to address the emotional problem directly, rather than try to escape or distract from it. Unfortunately, that’s not always easy to do because circumstances do not always allow it. For example, if you are trapped in a pandemic lockdown or if you’re poor, you have far fewer opportunities to tend to your emotional well-being.

Many people struggle with weight in the best of times. There are many contributing factors to the problem, some you can control, some you can’t. It’s not just a matter of individual choice about when/what to eat. Environment plays a crucial role in the formation of physical habits. It’s much harder to have healthy habits when your environment sets you up to develop unhealthy habits (e.g. cheap junk food, easy access to junk food, psychological and chemical manipulation of physical cravings, etc). A lot of people overlook this important factor when they’re trying to address diet problems. The more your environment sets you up to fail, the more you have to rely on personal “restrictions” to keep yourself under control. Human will is very limited and it easily falters when your emotions get the better of you. Imposing more restrictions only serves to sap your will and erode your emotional well-being further. Nothing exacerbates a temptation more than turning it into “forbidden fruit”, right?

Thus, the realistic strategy is compromise, to find some middle ground. You can have diet rules to follow, but you must also allow room for SOME indulgence. Food is made to be enjoyed, after all. Common strategies include: taking a cheat day once a week, portion controlled unhealthy snacking, scheduling your eating so that your body doesn’t get hungry at bad times, using healthy diversions when you feel emotionally compelled to eat, only buy as much as you want yourself to eat, etc. Be creative about it.

Whatever plans and rules you make, it will be far easier to follow them when you do a better job of tackling your emotional problems. As long as your underlying emotional problems continue to fester, your will is weakened and temptations grow stronger. You mentioned that the real problem is your lack of progress in life. Be sure to keep addressing that. Perhaps you can find other ways of feeling progress. Perhaps you need to change your perspective a bit and be less hard on yourself. Perhaps your expectations are unreasonable and you should relax them a bit to allow yourself room to breathe and find enjoyment in the present (balanced Ni-Se).

[shmegmilton]

Can you explain how Aaron and Alexander stopped being friends and started fighting?

They were never really ‘friends.’ I assume you got that idea from the play, but I have no idea why the play tried to push that narrative. Civil? Sure, but that was necessary. New York was less than 50,000 people at the time, and they were both accomplished lawyers & statesmen who had to work and interact with each other on a daily basis. Politics is politics, look at how people are acting right now during our election. 

As for your question, it’s a long line of policy & personal disagreements, mostly. They were on opposite sides of the aisle on pretty much everything. Lots of small things, but a lot of big, BIG things.

     Burr was (ironically) kind of a pacifist; he kept mostly to himself, didn’t really speak much publicly & didn’t necessarily go out of his way to confront people unless he’s been pushed long enough (everyone ‘snaps’ at some point, y’know?)

But that’s why the ‘Burr is an evil mastermind’ myth is so pervasive today. Burr just… didn’t bother defending himself, or correcting anything, because he (mistakingly) had faith in the inherent goodness of people that someday people would see him for his true character. So for that reason, we don’t really have a good timeline from Burr’s perspective as to how he felt about Hamilton—but BOY howdy did Hamilton never shut up about Burr.

----

Trespass & Confiscation Acts  (1782ish)

     During the Revolution, the British confiscated the property of patriots that fled the city. New York did the same thing, & for a while it was this game of: ‘Oh, you’re gonna take my stuff? **draws a line in the dirt** Well, everything behind this line is mine now.” It was all very bad, and after the way Tories & Loyalists faced a lot of honestly very fucked up discrimination & forfeiture of their rights. Hamilton (like most Federalists) was pro-British, so he represented a lot of these people in court. I’m sure it wasn’t purely out of the goodness of his heart--most of his clients were loaded--but the sentiment is there. On the other hand, there are multiple records of Burr buying up property around this time, most likely confiscated Tory property, which he would usually flip or give away to people that he knew, so he was taking full advantage of this. Burr also, most likely, went head-to-head with Hamilton on a few of these cases, because Burr tended to work with the ‘common folk.’

French Revolution (1789ish to 1799ish) & Proclamation of Neutrality (1793)

     Burr (like most Democratic-Republicans) was pro-French, so much so that he took in French refugees fleeing the Revolution into his home. He was very sympathetic to the cause.Hamilton was not. He basically saw it the same way that right-wing Conservatives see the Black Lives Matter movement is the best way I can explain it. He also hated it for the amount of immigrants that were now fleeing to the U.S.

Burr Gets Chosen For NY Senate (1791)

     Key word: chosen. As in, he didn’t actually run. That wasn’t how politics worked back then. The Hamilton musical just fucking lied outright about that, let’s be clear. He also never switched parties. Ever. Back then you were nominated by the people who were already in government--usually by one of the powerful families like the Clintons or the Livingstons, or yada yada. So Burr didn’t actually do anything. He didn’t even really want the position either, if I recall. But back then if you were ‘called to serve,’ you were obligated to do it. Hamilton was furious either way because it meant that Burr was replacing his father-in-law, Phillip Schuyler, meaning that he wouldn’t have that extra ear in government that he wanted. Burr also had a lot of views that were considered ‘extreme’ at the time, like getting extra rights for women, immigrants & black people, but I have no idea what Hamilton thought of those individual policies other than he just didn’t like women, immigrants or black people.

1792 & 1796 Presidential Election

Burr wasn’t really that serious about either of these elections, I don’t think (in ’92 he wasn’t that well-known & barely got any support, but it’s worth noting the fact he was nominated to run at all was really impressive. He’s tied with William Jennings Bryan as being one of the youngest people to ever receive an electoral vote, at 36 years old.) In ’96 he faired a little better—he got 30 votes, which is nearly half of what you need to get the ticket nomination, also very impressive.Hamilton was super staunchly opposed to both of these runs, though, and did his typical Hamilton thing of openly campaigning about how the people shouldn’t vote for Burr, yada yada.

Jay Treaty (1794)

     I highly suggest looking up supplemental information on this because it’s a bit complicated, but it was basically a treaty between us and Great Britain to reaffirm that we were going to continue to not mess with France, as well as a couple of other weird hang-ups. It was not popular, at all, especially with the Demo-Republicans. There is a specific instance (that is actually kind of insane) where Hamilton gave a public speech in defense of it, and the Democratic-Republicans in the crowd started pelting him & the other Federalists with rocks. Hamilton got SO mad that immediately challenged a man to a duel, and threatened to fight each of the Democratic-Republicans one-by-one.  

Reynolds Affair (1797)

     Burr had a personal relationship with Maria Reynolds; he was her divorce attorney in 1793/1794, helped her out financially, & successfully petitioned (+paid for) her daughter Susan to attend a boarding school. I believe they also stayed in his him with him during the divorce proceedings, but don’t quote me on that. He never said anything publicly that I could find, but Burr probably had a personal investment in the Reynolds Pamphlet, since it painted Maria in a really damaging light.

Alien & Sedition Acts (1798)

     These were some of the most worst laws ever passed in the history of the country. Like, these were AWFUL. It not only limited immigration, but it limited the freedom of the press and freedom of speech (ESPECIALLY immigrants, my god.)

Burr was right on the front lines helping defend people in court, he actively opposed it & is probably the thing that propelled him into Jefferson’s orbit as a potential Vice President.

John Barker Church Duel (1797)

John Barker Church had accused Burr of taking bribes (which was unfounded & untrue) and they ended up dueling. JBC was the husband of Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton’s sister-in-law.

Neither was injured (though, JBC apparently put a hole in Burr’s coat), but it supposed infuriated Hamilton & his associates so much that they would send out fake letters “from Burr” challenging people to duels.

The Manhattan Company (1799)

    Burr was getting sick of the difficulty he was having getting loans from the Federalist-run banks and decided to do something about it. There had been several seasonal epidemics of yellow fever—caused by mosquitos but, at the time, it was thought to be caused by improperly treated water, miasma (‘bad air’) or (if you asked Hamilton) stinky evil immigrant refuges who were fleeing France and Haiti. Burr saw this and spearheaded a campaign to get a proper water treatment plant, even getting Hamilton to help him. Through some really weird loophole that I don’t quite understand, Burr was somehow allowed to use the ‘surplus capital’ for banking, which essentially turned it into a bank. The actual water treatment portion of the company was plagued with problems due to improper management and things like that.     We’ll never know his exact thought process on this (people normally assume it was malicious trickery because people are biased to hate Burr anyway) & I highly doubt that Burr knew the extent of the issues (he was on the Board of Directors, but so were a dozen others--INCLUDING John Barker Church) so I don’t entirely think it’s his fault, but the fact of the matter is that it most likely exacerbated the existing problems & indirectly led to more people getting sick/dying until they finally fixed the problems.I would say that it’s completely justifiable for Hamilton to be mad at Burr, but, as we established, Hamilton hated both poor people & immigrants (two groups most likely affected by this) so he wasn’t actually mad at him for the reason a… y’know, a normal person would be mad at him. He was mad at him because Burr destroyed the monopoly that Federalists had on banks, making it easier for Democratic-Republicans & others to get loans. He was literally mad at him for making the economy fair.

1800 Election & 1804 NY Governor Election

  These two are self-explanatory, I think, and I’ve already been writing way too long, lol. My hand hurts.

[serialreblogger]

some of your post/reblogs were so relatable to me that more and more I think I may have ADHD (I'm like, at least 70% sure of this and the 30% is me searching for a psychiatrist/therapist that I can trust/afford, anyway) so, since your how to essay post Im talking myself to ask if you have some study tips or tips to focus, anything to help, really. I'm in college and I can't focus to read 2 paragraphs which makes me anxious and makes me procrastinate because I can't study and I HAVE to study so I avoid everything but then I think NOW I have even less time to study and I got stuck in this circle. And because I can't read anything I also cant bullshit my way writing papers that I have to so I don't do this too, so I'm just spiraling more and more with this which also doesn't help with the depression. And I'm so, so SORRY to dump my problems on you (this isn't my intention here) but if you have some tips or don't mind talking about what you do to study I really appreciate it with all my heart.

oh friend, i’m so sorry to hear you’re goin through that, it’s EXTREMELY relatable tho. everything you just wrote basically sums up my entire first year of university (just add in a couple dozen spiralling panic attacks on the basement floor and you’ll be me), and while i wish i had advice i could promise would solve the issue, i don’t... know? that i would recommend doing exactly what i did? because while i made it through university with ridiculously good grades, i also exacerbated a pre-existing anxiety disorder to the point where i literally could not bear being alive for a while there.

but for whatever it’s worth, and bearing in mind that you need to prioritize your own well-being WAY above whatever grades you get on a stupid piece of paper, here’s some tips on how to get through course readings, based on what i’ve learned through blood, tears, trial and error:

don’t read the full two paragraphs, to start. ADHD makes reading academic articles hell, but (and i genuinely don’t know if this is possible for anyone else, the chemical cocktail of debilitating anxiety that was my brain at the time made me do things i otherwise couldn’t and definitely shouldn’t) i did manage to finagle a way to make it work for me.

See, the thing about academic papers is that they’re very nicely organized. every paragraph is dedicated to making an individual point, which is introduced at the beginning and summarized, more or less, towards the end. this means you can get a very handy-dandy trick, because here’s the thing about ADHD brains: we’re VERY GOOD at making connections.

so here’s the trick: you don’t actually have to read the paragraphs. Not the full ones, anyway.

Let’s break it down:

First, what is the overall reading meant to address? What’s the title of the book or article? Is there a heading or subtitle to provide you with extra information?

Second, what is the thesis statement in your paragraph? Yes, every essay has a thesis statement, but every paragraph also has a specific point to make, which is stated in a sort of mini-thesis, typically right at the beginning.

Once you know this thesis statement, the rest of the paragraph is just fleshing out and providing evidence for that statement. You can keep reading if you need more information to understand what the author’s getting at, but once you’ve got that thesis statement, the rest is just there to get in your way.

For neurotypicals, I think, it’s maybe necessary to read this stuff all the way through? I don’t know. What I do know is that, for ADHDers, we tend to be very, very good at making extrapolations from very minimal information, based on all the surrounding context.

You don’t need to do the full readings. You just need to read the first sentence, process what it’s saying, and skip over the rest.

(if the first sentence of the paragraph is nonsense to you, don’t panic. often the first sentence or even the whole introductory paragraph is intentionally confusing, so if there’s something you don’t understand, disregard it and move on to the second sentence, or the next paragraph.

this happens often, because a lot of academic writing is just a power play on the part of the writer. “Look How Smart I Am Compared To You, You Have To Work So Hard To Figure Out What I’m Saying,” etc. Don’t buy it, tho--the true measure of intelligence isn’t how thoroughly you can confuse someone else, it’s how effectively you can share the knowledge you have. Intelligence is useless if you can’t share it.

Do whatever you can to make it through essential readings, but don’t be intimidated by them. If you can’t understand them, it’s not because you aren’t “smart enough,” it’s because they’re badly written.)

Final notes: this process is meant to walk you through reading papers, but it also lowkey applies to a lot of insurmountable tasks in academia.

You look at a 5-page paper, look at your attention span, and immediately despair because yeah, that’s impossible. The solution is not to expand your attention span, because that’s also impossible. So, instead, don’t look at the 5 pages.

Look at an impossible task, and break it down into its smallest pieces.

Don’t look at the 5 pages, don’t even look at the first two paragraphs. Make a plan for how reading a single paragraph might be possible for you (in this case, break the paragraph down into its own components, and skim over most of them in favour of reading only the most necessary portions). Then focus on finding those one or two sentences you need in the very first paragraph. That’s doable.

You do that, and then you move onto the next.

It’s extremely difficult, especially for ADHDers, to limit your mental vision to the most immediate task and stop looking at the big picture, but it’s also necessary. If you can find a way to make the smallest tasks possible for you, you can break the big, impossible ones down until they’re made of tiny chores. You can do tiny chores. You can read one sentence, take five minutes to process it, but you can read it. That’s all you need to be able to do.

Read one sentence. Skip the rest. Move on to the next paragraph. Repeat.

That’s the real secret, the one that got me through university. It’s impossible to complete a biology lab, it’s impossible to read this entire interminable textbook, so don’t think about the impossible tasks. Think about the single step directly in front of you, focus entirely on that, and eventually, the impossible tasks will be done.

(The other thing I recommend is not taking a full courseload. Please, please, please make sure that in addition to getting your schoolwork done, you also have enough time left over for you to truly relax, and not feel guilty for doing so. If you’re getting intrusive thoughts halfway through an essay, but instead of terrible things you’re thinking about your latest favourite TV show and feel like your brain is thirsty to watch it? You’re working too hard. Take it from someone who ignored their own mental needs until it wrecked them past the point of continuing--burnout is not fun, and you deserve to protect yourself from it. Take it slow. Your wants are just as important as your needs, and both are way more important than your schoolwork.)

[sageblogsthings]

Do you have any tips on how to write characters with scoliosis in a respectful/accurate way?

Thank you so much for asking! I smiled like an idiot when I saw this ask. :) Let me preface this by saying that scoliosis can vary a lot from person to person depending on the severity of curvature, location of curvature, treatment methods, etc. So I think that, as with anything really, getting a wide range of viewpoints and voices on the issue will make it easier to write! Honestly just scrolling through the scoliosis tag on tumblr will give you a good sense of what it’s like for some people too. With that being said, I’ll talk a bit about my experience, and how I wish that characters with scoliosis were portrayed. Just know that my answer is far from universal amongst those with scoliosis. Also, medical treatment where I live is pretty shitty so I may have some other undiagnosed stuff that I’m attributing to scoliosis who knows lol. And I’m still learning a lot about it myself! Ok, with that caveat out of the way, here we go!

I’m gonna put a tw here for discussions of scoliosis, chronic pain, anxiety, and depression

Also, for those who don’t wanna read about my experiences with scoliosis, if you scroll down there’s 13 tips on how to write characters with scoliosis (a lot of these tips apply to chronic pain in general tho). :)

To talk about my own experience a bit, I was first diagnosed with scoliosis when I was about 10 or so. When I was first diagnosed they told me it was minor and just to watch my posture. Scoliosis runs in my family but for most of my family members it’s pretty mild so I didn’t worry about it and went on my merry way. In hindsight, not the best way to deal with that but ah well.

Flash-forward to college. I had been having back pain and headaches for awhile, but I just figured it was studying for prolonged periods of time, carrying a heavy backpack frequently, and not watching my posture when I studied. I never connected it to scoliosis because I hadn’t had a check-up since that first diagnosis. Again, not the best idea but life happens.

I just finished my junior year in college, and I have had almost non-stop doctors appointments all year. It started after I had some sharp pain in my lower back, and got x-rays to see what was going on. Several doctors appointments and an ER visit later I find out that my scoliosis has gotten significantly worse, and that I have a fractured L5 as well. One thing I don’t see mentioned a lot with scoliosis is that it significantly weakens your spine (usually lower) because your weight distribution is thrown off. I had a job that involved some pretty heavy lifting, and voila fractured L5. 13/10 would not recommend btw.

My curvature (I can’t get consistent answers from doctors) is somewhere in the 20′s in my lumbar region and in the upper 20′s/lower 30′s in my thoracic region. At least with the neurosurgeons I’ve spoken to, they don’t consider you a candidate for surgery until the upper thirties or forties, unless you have significant neurophysiological symptoms. Treatment options vary widely depending on where you live, what you can afford, and what your doctor will give you a referral for, but most doctors will recommend physical therapy off the bat. To my knowledge, most doctors do not recommend bracing anymore, though I think in children that might be different (not so sure on that). So currently, I am waiting on an appointment with a pain management specialist and will go from there. 

Even though the curvature in my spine is relatively minor, I still experience significant symptoms. Some of these symptoms include sciatica, pinched nerves in my arms, legs, and back, muscle spasms in my upper back and neck, swelling of my hands and feet, and numbness or pain in my hands and wrists. Also, because my spine curves more in the upper portion of my back, my left lung cannot expand as much as my right lung. This isn’t always a problem, but I get shortness of breath pretty easily, and any respiratory infections make it super hard to breathe properly (pneumonia sucks a butt). There’s also the obvious bit of scoliosis where I stand a little crooked. Another thing I think that not a lot of people know is that how “lopsided” you are can vary from day to day. This doesn’t mean that the curvature is changing day-to-day, but the muscles may be more relaxed or tightened on some days.

So that’s my experience pretty much (bless you if you read all that!). But, to show an example on the opposite end of the spectrum, my friend had (I think) a 30 degree curvature in the thoracic region and 50 degree curvature in the lumbar. He had immediate corrective surgery (I’m not sure exactly what kind) and now aside from the scar on his back and that he looks like a table when he bends over (his words lol i’m not being mean) you would never know. And even weirder, he had no significant symptoms before his surgery aside from occasional sciatica. So your symptoms don’t necessarily depend on the degree of curvature, where the curve is located has a lot to do with it. Typically, more curvature in the upper spine is more painful but that’s by no means always the case.

Ok, so how in the heck does this all apply to writing characters? I promise it does, I’m not just rambling (well, maybe haha).

13 Things to Consider When Writing Characters With Scoliosis:

Their symptoms may vary from day to day. This may mean that some days they can do activities like running or baseball, and other days they can barely type or walk without pain.

They may have no, mild, or severe symptoms, depending on the location and severity of curvature, and other factors.

What is medical care like where they live? Dealing with doctors, neurosurgeons, physical therapists, etc. is just a part of having scoliosis, and very often an incredibly draining aspect. This is especially true if you have anxiety or other factors that make going to the doctor even more unpleasant.

Were they misinformed about scoliosis? Unless you go to someone who specializes in scoliosis treatment, you’re probably gonna get inaccurate information about something. For example, I was told constantly as a kid to watch my posture. Yes, this can have an impact, but more and more research is showing that scoliosis in many cases is influenced more by hormones (especially in teenage years) than posture. There’s also more egregious examples of this, such as a neurosurgery PA who recently told me not to ever use CBD to alleviate pain because it’s a “gateway drug.” This is literally impossible. So for writing, this could translate into frustration or even anger for your character. But it could also make for some funny situations later! I wrote down everything that crazy PA told me and it still makes me laugh from time to time.

Don’t give them a back-breaking job. It will literally break their back lol. I’m not saying they can’t be active, but if someone is impacted by scoliosis on a daily basis they probably aren’t working as a professional wrestler. Or maybe they are, and your story is trying to explain how that works lol

What do they do to manage the pain (if they have it)? For me, the symptoms are typically inflammatory in nature so things like ice, heat, turmeric tea, and anti-inflammatory medications help relieve the symptoms. This is one of those things where getting other viewpoints is good though too!

Is their spine visibly crooked? If so, are they self-conscious about it? This varies a loooot, and may even vary with symptoms. For example, maybe some days when the pain isn’t bad they wear a cute dress that shows their shoulder-blades. But then when the pain is bad, they just want to look like a hobo. I say this from experience lol.

Have people treated them differently because of it (positively or negatively)? Some people may experience bullying if their scoliosis is more visible, especially as a child. They may also be treated differently by adults, who are trying to look out for them, but nevertheless it still makes them stand out from other kids.

Do they make jokes about it? For example, I can be found frequently saying “my spine said yeet!” or “straight spine? idk her” or my personal favorite “my spine is about as straight as I am.” Scoliosis sucks, but living with it you learn to find humor in it too.

Are they going to get surgery for it? I can’t speak on this part since I haven’t had surgery, but I would imagine that there is a psychological aspect to this that you would want to mention for your character, as well as any logistical aspects like finances, dealing with trash insurance companies, etc.

How does scoliosis impact their mental health? This is one of my pet peeves, and it’s entirely founded in a lack of resources and education, so I’m not aiming this at anyone specifically. But scoliosis does impact your mental health, especially if you have pre-existing conditions like anxiety or depression already. It can be incredibly depressing to want to do something as simple as going for a walk, but you’re in too much pain. It can also really impact anxiety. For example, when I found out about my curvature change in college I had one of the biggest anxiety attacks I’ve ever had. There is also the added issue of not being able to breathe properly at times, which can make a panic/anxiety attack much worse (in intensity or duration). Of course, mental health issues can also be exacerbated by the environment you’re in, so that is definitely something to consider for your character.

What was their diagnosis like? What factors impacted their ability to get a diagnosis? Lack of adequate medical care or having crappy insurance is a huge problem, and it makes it really hard or even impossible for some people to get a diagnosis. And for most neurosurgeons or specialized treatment facilities you have to have that diagnosis and referral for them to be able to do anything. There may also be aspects of your character’s home life that prevents them from getting a diagnosis. Do their parents think they’re faking it, or that they just need to sit up straight? Is your character trans, and/or wears baggy clothing? I’ve heard several stories of undiagnosed cases because of this, so it’s something to consider.

Ok, I think this is the last thing (huge huge thank you to anyone still reading this!!). But please, if you’re writing a character with scoliosis, or any chronic issue/disability for that matter, avoid the trope of you’re still beautiful to me/you’re beautiful anyways/I don’t see your disability. Some people might not get what I’m saying here, so let me explain a little. If you have a character with significant scoliosis, to the point it impacts their daily life, and they meet another character (potential friend, love interest, whatever) and this new person grows to love them in spite of their scoliosis/disability, that is a huge red flag. It implies that they are seeing them through a lens of not having the disability, and they love that version of your character. But that is not your character in reality, because your character in reality has a very real disability. In general, just try to avoid the “I don’t see __,” in writing and real life. That could be applied to a disability, or the character’s race, sexuality, etc. In all cases, it dismisses a fundamental part of who that character is, and what experiences have shaped them into who they are. If your character has scoliosis and it has shaped who they are, it is important for other characters to recognize that as well, otherwise they aren’t really seeing that character in their “full glory,” if that makes sense. I’m rambling a bit at this point and I’m sure there’s other posts that make this point better than I have, but the takeaway is just please don’t write scoliosis as “you’re beautiful anyways.” Scoliosis or no scoliosis, it’s just “you’re beautiful.” Full stop. But part of how your character may come to recognize that beauty within themselves, or how others see it within them, may be influenced by their experiences with scoliosis.

Phew, I did not expect that to get so long but it’s a topic I’m passionate about and I haven’t seen information on scoliosis geared towards writers before, so hopefully this will help! Again, a lot of this is based on my own experiences so please do not take any of this as a universal guide to scoliosis, it definitely isn’t. And if I’ve said anything that people disagree with (or even agree with!) or have questions about, I am always open to polite discourse and discussion. :)

I hope that this answered your question some, and if not feel free to let me know! Thank you so much for asking this!