#basically choosing safety over freedom

[myheartismadeofstars]

For Clover: ✨ and because my weird little mortician brain wants to know all about everyone’s funeral whether they actually exist or not: 🌓

- @heylittleriotact

🌓 - What would your OC’s funeral be like? Would they prefer a tomb, cremation, or to be given back to the earth? 

Okay so first thing you need to understand about Clover is that she's more Druid than Ranger, and her mother is a retired Cleric of Chauntea. She's also half wood Elf lmao.

She's very much a "return me to the earth" girly. Don't even put her in a coffin, she wants to nurture the land with her body. She wants her friends and family to gather to remember her fondly, not mourn. Don't cry because I'm gone, smile because you got to know me, type. There should be music and her favourite foods for everyone to enjoy.

Plant a tree or flowers or something to mark her grave, visit her often and have picnics there.

Honestly she's pretty chill about death as it is, seeing it as just the next part of life. And honestly, presuming this happens a century+ after the end of the game? She's literally fought Myrkul... she's not afraid of death

[gothhabiba]

An Appeal to Our Food and Hospitality Community to Take Action Now for Gaza

Dear Industry Friends, 

We have come together as chefs, farmers, media makers, business owners, beverage professionals, and food workers from across our industry to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. support for Israel’s war crimes. We must break the silence around the genocide in Gaza. As of today, more than 7,000 Palestinians have been massacred in less than three weeks. Nearly half of them are children. Over 8,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza, killing a Palestinian every 5 minutes. After hospitals run out of fuel,  the death toll will rise exponentially. Every second we choose to stay silent, without demanding that our government stop arming Israel with billions of our tax dollars, we allow another massacre to take place. 

We can prevent this violence by refusing to allow our government to fund and arm Israel’s decades-long military occupation. History has shown us that peace and safety for all in the region cannot come from the violent subjugation of Palestinians. We grieve the loss of all innocent life. However, violence begets violence, and we know this latest eruption did not occur in a vacuum. For 75 years, Palestinians have been killed, imprisoned, tortured, and robbed of their land and homes. In Gaza, 2.2 million people — more than half of whom are children — have been living under an inhumane siege for almost 17 years, and are cut off from the world, without access to water, food, or basic amenities needed to live a dignified and healthy life. For those living in Gaza, the last decade has been a slow genocide. 

As cultural stewards in this country, we have the power to counter the dehumanization of Palestinians. Israel has long weaponized food, erasing Palestinian people while claiming their cuisine. Here in the U.S., the appropriation of Palestinian foods as “Israeli” has led to more than Israelis profiting off of Palestinian culture; it is an erasure that has had real implications for Palestinians. It allows us to negate their cultural currency, and turn our attention away with more ease when we see Palestinian death. 

We must join our voices with Palestinians pleading for justice and protection right now. The situation is dire, and no amount of media coverage has discouraged Israel from its policy of ethnic cleansing and land theft as the U.S. government continues to protect Israel from global pressure for a ceasefire. We have been called upon by Palestinian civil society to join their struggle for freedom by joining the global movement for divestment and cultural boycott of Israel until it ends its horrific human rights abuses.

We ask our fellow food and beverage community to take a stand against genocide and ethnic cleansing and commit to three actions with us:

Call your congressional representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to unconditional U.S. funding of Israel. 

Divest from products, events, and trips that promote Israel until it dismantles its apartheid system and military occupation. 

Invest in events and projects that promote justice for Palestinians, whether connecting to a local organization to learn how to support, or amplify Palestinian voices and support them to share their food and culture on their own terms.

We recognize that this may be difficult given the frightening pressure put on us to remain silent. McCarthyist tactics cannot marginalize and divide us – we know we are not alone as the whole world is rising up against injustice and genocide. Thousands of artists worldwide have publicly endorsed BDS and the cultural boycott of Israel, including musicians, DJs, filmmakers and actors, visual artists, Black artists, Latin American artists, and countless others across all fields and continents. This is in spite of efforts made by Israeli government-linked lobby groups to suppress this solidarity. 

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are all in this industry to affirm life and dignity for everyone. As those who care for others, it is our moral imperative to actively contribute to the care that Palestinians need right now as they struggle to survive and get free. Food and beverage colleagues – it’s time for our community to extend our hospitality and join the movement for a Free Palestine.

Add your name – sign the pledge

[wheelie-sick]

Things to research before getting your first custom manual wheelchair

one of the biggest things I can recommend to anyone getting a new custom chair (but especially a first custom chair) is to understand all of the parts of a wheelchair and what they do. I decided to make a guide with wheelchair parts to research and places to look for information to make this process a little bit easier. additional link suggestions are welcome.

General resources:

Permobil - The Wheelchair Handbook

Motion Composites - Preparing for Your Wheelchair Evaluation: Before the Evaluation (Part 1)

Motion Composites - Preparing for Your Wheelchair Evaluation (Part 2)

1. Frame

Motion Composites - Folding vs Rigid Wheelchair Frames: How to Choose

Permobil - Manual wheelchairs: rigid and folding frames. How do you choose?

GTK - Oh what’s in a frame? Comparing Multiple Materials

Motion Composites - Wheelchairs: Carbon Fiber Versus Aluminum

2. Front frame angle

Motion Composites - Understanding the Impact of Rigid Wheelchair Front Frame Angle

Sunrise Medical - Rigid Frame Wheelchairs – Frame Angle and Inset

4. Seat dump

Permobil - Ergonomic Seating and Manual Wheelchairs

Spinlife - Wheelchair Back & Seat Angle

5. Caster size, style, and position

Motion Composites - Front Casters for Manual Wheelchairs Practical Guide

Sunrise Medical - Front Caster Position in Manual Wheelchairs

6. Caster forks

New Mobility - Caster Wheels and Forks

Sunrise Medical - Maneuverability in Manual Wheelchairs - What Fork to use?

New Mobility - Innovations: Emerging Trends in the Wheelchair Market (information about single sided forks)

7. Footplate

Motion Composites - Footrest Options to Support Function and Mobility

When Tania Talks - Active User Wheelchair Footplate Options

8. Calf strap

Spex Seating - Lower Leg Support Considerations in Wheelchair Seating

9. Seat pan

Permobil - Solid Seat Insert for Wheelchair: Taking a Closer Look at Cushion Components

10. Seat cushion

Permobil - What to Look for in Seating & Positioning Products

Permobil - How to Choose a Cushion in Long Term Care

Permobil - Cushion Geometry: Linear and Contoured

Freedom Mobility Center - Wheelchair Seat Cushions: 5 Tips for Choosing the Right One for You

Mobility Basics - Seat Cushion Rigidizer

Motion Composites - Selecting the Right Cushion for Your Wheelchair a Clinicians Guide

Motion Composites - Covering the Basics of Wheelchair and Back Support Covers

11. Seat belts

12. Clothing guards

Sherman Oaks Medical Equipment - Wheelchair Clothes Guards / Side Guards Guide

13. Arm rests

United Spinal Association - Wheelchair Armrests What Do They Really Do?

Spinlife - Wheelchair Arm Rest Choices

Motion Composites - Armrests: Getting the Support you Need

14. Back supports

Motion Composites - Solid vs Upholstery Backs

Mobility Management - How to Choose the Right Back Height for your Client

Freedom Mobility Center - Why a Solid Back is Preferred Over a Sling Back

Mobility Basics - Back Supports

Sunrise Medical - Tips for Selecting Prefabricated Wheelchair Backs

Motion Composites - Covering the Basics of Wheelchair and Back Support Covers

15. Head supports

16. Push handles

Motion Composites - Push Handles: Pushing Around

17. Wheels

Motion Composites - Rolling Along: The Importance of Rear Wheel Selection

Sunrise Medical - Comparing Wheelchair Wheel Spoke Options

Mobility Basics - Manual Wheelchair Wheels

18. Tires

New Mobility - Everything You Need to Know About Selecting the Right Wheelchair Tires

GTK - Solid versus Pneumatic Tyres

Mobility Basics - Manual Wheelchair Wheels

Motion Composites - Tire Selection: Balancing Performance and Maintenance

19. Brakes

Motion Composites - Wheel Locks: Unlocking Safety and Function

20. Push rims/Hand rims

Motion Composites - Getting a Grasp: Understanding the Impact of Hand Rims

DME Hub - Wheelchair Hand Rom Options and Factors to Consider

21. Anti-tip wheels

22. Camber

Motion Composites - Camber - Degrees of Performance

23. Center of Gravity

Motion Composites - Rear Wheel Position 101

[ceilidhtransing]

In light of recent and ongoing UK fuckery, I am so sick and tired of the idea that extremely transphobic things “aren't really transphobic” because they are coming from people who “probably mean well” and “don't hate trans people”.

Yeah, because bigotry can only be perpetrated by people who are actively, consciously hateful, sitting in their villainous lairs and dreaming up new innovative ways to be evil. (Obvious sarcasm.)

Transphobia is not just “when you actively and knowingly hate trans people”. Transphobia is also

A paternalistic attitude that says that trans people can't really be trusted to know themselves or what they want and so need to be gatekept from healthcare by cis “experts”

A refusal to listen to and take into account trans expertise; hell, a denial that trans expertise even exists

The idea that while some trans people existing in society is fine, ideally we should be limiting that number as much as we can

The idea that transition - social or physical or both - should only ever be a last resort after all other “possible avenues” have been explored, because being trans is fundamentally an undesirable inferior state and ideally we should be protecting people from transition for their own good

An attempt to clamp down on the use of “dangerous unregulated private healthcare” and an insistence on “safety” and on “doing things the right way” that manifests in reality as a denial of care because no viable alternatives to such “dangerous” options are actually provided

A carving out of exceptions to the basic principle of bodily autonomy whenever a body happens to belong to a trans person

A total dismissal of the concept of harm reduction when it comes to trans people; the only harm reduction that really matters is making sure no cis person accidentally does anything trans, and that end should be doggedly pursued no matter how many trans people it will harm along the way

An expectation of ludicrously unattainable standards of evidence and success for any healthcare involving trans people, that you would never demand of “normal” healthcare - a >15% regret rate for some common surgery is fine; a <1% regret rate for something trans-related is a national scandal that calls for an immediate inquiry into care standards

The refusal to change policies and approaches that have been demonstrated time and time again to harm trans people, because you view the status quo of cis authority over trans bodies as more important than the survival of the people those bodies belong to

The demand that cis people as individuals, and cis society at large, deserve to have their opinions taken into account regarding how a trans person chooses to live and what they choose to do to their body, and that trans freedom should hinge on cis approval

An assumption that segregation between “normal healthcare” and “trans healthcare” is just natural and necessary, even when it is literally the same procedure or treatment

The welcoming of openly trans-hostile voices into conversations about trans issues to the exclusion of actual trans people, because “it's really important that all views are aired” (apart from the views of trans people, obviously)

The attitude that, no matter how ignorant of, detached from, irrelevant to, and unwilling to learn of trans people's lives you are, your personal consent and satisfaction must be obtained before any progress around trans equality can be made, and trans people must only move at the pace of your willingness to understand and get on board

An insistence on endlessly rehashing the same basic points again and again and preventing any forward movement by repeatedly dragging the conversation back to square one, forcing trans people and their allies to debunk the same nonsense again and again and defend the same well-proven, well-established truths again and again

The denial that transphobia even exists or is a significant problem that needs to be addressed - it's not bigotry, it's just conflicting views! After all, gender identity is a polarising issue!

and so much more besides. Transphobia is a social system, a way of thinking, a set of baked-in assumptions, an institutionalised bias. Conscious, active “hatred” is not a prerequisite for anything listed above, but they are all transphobia, and at the root of all of them is a casual indifference to trans survival, a prioritisation of cis comfort and cis interests over trans lives, and an instinctive valuing of cis existence over trans existence. A lot of cis people don't even recognise these things as transphobia because they themselves hold those casual prejudices and therefore see the extensions of them as natural.

And at this point, I don't care about “good intentions”. These things are all manifestations of the insidious and deeply evil web of transphobia that prevents trans people from living full lives as equal participants in society. People who keep holding these attitudes and doing these things aren't “basically well-intentioned”; they're just bigots who don't know or care that they're bigots.

Transphobia is not just “when some hateful fanatic says they want all trans people dead”. Transphobia is all around us. Start seeing it.

[bonefall]

Is there a list of all the jobs the cats can have?

I gotta make a whole thingie on this but here's a short list of the new job expansions, as a quick summary before I get around to it;

All heads of the patrol expansions report to the deputy. Patrol expansions also have apprentice chores that need to be carried out-- like dishwashing for Kitchen Patrol.

Official Jobs: Tasks that a cat can volunteer for or be assigned to for the day.

Kitchen Patrol Tasked with preparing meals. This includes processing prey from carcass to meat, making all the cats feel as full as possible on the food they have on-paw, and general preservation. NEW Position: Head of Kitchen. Oversees these operations, ensures fair ration distribution, decides the communal meal for the day, works directly with the other two heads to provide building materials (leather, bones) and discuss hunting quarries.

Hunting Patrol Very similar to canon; tasked with catching prey or patrolling the border. NEW Position: Head of Hunting. Tasked with managing prey populations and overseeing the types of animals that are being brought home. Has the freedom to levy "limits" on species and organize big game hunts. Is also expected to keep tabs on the territories and populations of other predators, especially vixens and how many cubs they're having in a season.

Construction Patrol An expansion of canon's unofficial builder roles. Tasked not only with building itself, but weatherproofing based on the season, comfort of the dens, and collecting materials. NEW Position: Head of Construction. Oversees projects and manages safety. Works intimately with the Head of Kitchen especially, responsible for taking the skinned pelts and processing them into proper leather, and cleaning spare long bones (especially of rabbits) for use as beams and supports. In ThunderClan, they are also responsible for maintaining the spears.

Educator A cat in charge of giving all kittens all their basic skills and a simple introduction to history, before their mentor and the elders eventually take over. Teaches kits how to understand glyphs, the names of certain animals, the leaders of their Clan, etc.

Unofficial Jobs: Tasks that a cat chooses to do, sometimes also asking permission to do it professionally or permanently.

Chaperone The "perma-queen" position. Helps out in the nursery and attends the needs of the queens. Doesn't typically do a lot with the kittens themselves, between their Mi, the Educator, any Bas or family they have, and the elders. Raising kittens is communal, so the Chaperone focuses more on the parents themselves. (Chaperones are generally rare, as they are redundant if you write the clan as a proper social unit, imo...)

Trader A cat who brings things to the border or to gatherings in order to swap them for other goods. Becoming more popular as peace between the Clans grows. Not a "position" but more of a hobby, or a talent. The Clans are currently running on bartering, between borders.

Crafting Weaving, tanning, toymaking, instrument creation, etc. Not so much a singular position rather than a blanket of various hobbies Clan cats can do in their off-time, now. While Construction Patrol often has to do these as chores, they can be done just for fun or personal gain.

In addition, the Leaders, Deputies, and Clerics have significant expansions as well.

Leaders are now given 9 lives to USE, and are expected to function as "the ideal warrior." They are at the head of dangerous missions, patrols, and are brave responders to natural disasters. They are blessed by StarClan itself, carrying a piece of a star to display their holy rank.

The Deputy is now expected to be the one who handles the "busywork" in the Clan so the leader is free to lead by example. The final decision always goes to the leader, but the deputy has MASSIVE influence over the day-to-day functions of the Clan now.

And the Cleric is the healer and spiritual authority of the entire Clan, only outdone by the Leader itself. Only a Cleric is allowed to interpret signs and omens, with Clan Culture now having the concepts of blasphemy, dark magic, and demonic influence.

[thedomesticanthropologist]

In one of my playthroughs, my Tav is having a TIME with Astarion, and it's a version of his romance I don't see represented online as much and I want to talk about it.

If you choose more lightweight dialogue options, if you don't dig into his mind at the bite scene, if you get his Araj confession instead of his impromptu one,

Then by the end of Act 2, you do *not* have a secure relationship AT ALL, he has never said he's in love, and everything feels REALLY rocky.

All through act 1 he lays on the seduction heavily, but in act 2 a bitch is MAD. He is stressed, he needs to figure out his scars, he feels hunted and un-safe and because of this, he starts to take it out on Tav a bit.

SPOILERS FOR ACT 2:

when Raphael shows up to talk to him, he snaps at Tav saying "don't get in my way". When you do his quest and kill the orthon, you have to PRY a thank you from him by literally telling him to parrot your words ('thank you for helping me, it was very... Kind') and he spits it out like he really, really wasnt intending to say anything in the form of gratitude.

When you talk about what to do about Cazador, my Paladin chose 'youll never be free while he lives' because it's true. If he runs, cazador will hunt him. If cazador lives, he will never stop looking over his shoulder. His reply 'i hate that you're right'

Even when you say you'll join him to hunt his master down, you can watch his facial expressions and see: he's not convinced. Of course he isn't. He's terrified. And is he grateful? Yes, but again, it's guarded.

I then went to moonrise and talked to Araj, and I defended his autonomy 100%.

When his Araj-confession happened, it was absolutely NOT a LOVE confession. It was more like:

"thank you. This made me realize I was still acting like a slave even in freedom, and you supporting me there made me feel like I can start to snap out of that kind set. Sooooo... I should tell you, since you did me a solid, that I was using you for protection and manipulating you up until now"

If you DONT choose the top options, the MOST he tells you about how he feels about you is a single line of dialogue

'imagine my surprise when I started to actually feel... SOMETHING... For you'

This could be friendship, crush feels, etc. It's VERY vague, and important things to note is while WE THE PLAYER know more about him and what he may feel at this point or what he's gone through, YOUR TAV DOESNT.

He does not apologize for using you. He states his regret that his plan failed because he started to value you as a person instead of a tool for him to be used. That admission is his gift back to you for defending him in front of Araj.

If you then choose 'what do YOU want' he approves, but says he doesn't know. And then he defends that 'isnt it nice not to know?' You still get soft faces, your hand held. He's trying to *silently* communicate what he can't bring himself to say, but he *DOESNT* SAY anything to affirm you two are a couple/in a relationship/etc. Just a vague 'lets not talk about it but see where it goes'

Honestly, based on this experience via dialogue choices for this character, it almost seemed to me like "sounds like you need a friend not a lover" makes the MOST SENSE. Of course this is my Astarion Romance run, so my Paladin instead said, basically, I'll wait for you until you're ready. (She chose the 'what do you want,' and let it lay there as is)

Afterwards you can ask about your relationship with him and again, he's flustered, he's hedging, he's defensive, and he brushes it off. He's not ready to talk, he's not ready to commit, he's fully focused on Cazador and his safety.

You enter this waiting period where Tav has been manipulated, spoken down to, snapped at, bitten, and responded to without gratitude, but is ALSO given just the faintest, BAREST glimpse at the vulnerability beneath the surface. The player is being asked at this point to REALLY trust and WAIT without ANY evidence that this relationship could become healthy, or could turn into love, or could because a real relationship. And that's SO NEAT

If you don't romance anyone else and aren't put into the position to choose him, you never get a confirmation of dating. If you get the Araj scene and don't choose hug, and don't force him to confirm he was attracted to you etc, you can literally end the talk on "thanks for defending me, also haha I was using you this whole time just so you know, thanks for being nice about it"

From a Tav point of view, this *could* be fairly devastating, and even if Tav decides to wait and keep supporting him, at this point, even post "confession" there is VERY little evidence that things are gonna get better between you.

We know it does. WE do. We get the access to other dialogue and choices or the other confession IF we chose that. But this, this scene, these dialogue choices REALLY emphasize his Act 3 confession

"you were patient. You waited, through blood lust etc /even when it was an objectively stupid thing to do etc"

Cause yeah. He's RIGHT. If you don't choose VERY specific dialogues to get more out of him, most of his romance up until the Act 3 confession,most of how he treats you, most of how he responds to your decisions in game (if you're playing fairly good and not evil/durge) gives Tav no reason beyond faith to continue to pursue him.

I think he knows this, and it's why he's surprised when you state you don't want him for sex. Because up until Act 3, he KNOWS how he's been treating Tav and even HE wouldn't have stood for it if the roles were reversed, so h thinks 'it must be because I'm good in bed'. Then he takes the sex away and you still stay? Even when he's chasing power, hunting for revenge, snapping at you, refusing to commit?

It's a powerful story line. It's so engaging. And it has room for SO MUCH ANGST

Anyways thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

[lovelydork505]

Platonic yandere! Uncle Iroh x reader

(tw: yandere, dark fiction, implied obsessive behaviour, mentions of manipulation)

This is just a concept, I actually haven't thought about it much this is basically just a word vomit.

No matter how you two meet, I feel like it's no surprise that he's not overbearing.

In fact, compared to ozai, he is pretty nice and reader probably won't even notice the rise of his tendencies as a yandere.

Uncle Iroh chooses and values humility over pride so he's pretty chill. He is wise and takes great joy if he manages to get reader to laugh with one of his jokes.

If you aren't a part of the royal family, maybe you originally meet him at a tea shop you frequent or work at.

How long he knows of you will also depend if you are from the fire nation or Ba sing se

His fixation probably starts if you reminded him on anyway shape or form of his deceased son. Even as wise as he is, Uncle Iroh is not imune to grief and it's sorrowful claws, which sometimes leads to some irrational paranoia (not that reader or anyone else is aware).

With that, he wishes to be by your side no matter what, it's enough to just bask in your presence and to know reader is safe and sound at all times.

I see him carrying something you own with him 24/7, so if your favourite necklace is suddenly missing don't worry to much about it. Oh? You're sad about it? He'll buy you another one so you'll always have with you something to remind you of him

He's actually really sweet period

Even though he's just an old man, don't let looks deceive you, he is pretty powerful, a general and brother of the Fire Lord Ozai, when it comes to you and your safety, if it's necessary he won't hesitate to use any of his titles, although he prefers peace over battle.

Teaches you a lot os things like how to brew tea property. Loves to make you tea and other blends

If you don't know how, he'll also teach you how to play pai sho

As we all know, he is great at giving advice when you come to him with your problems, he loves listening to you. If reader has any activities they enjoy he'll absolutely insist to participate.

Best emotional support and company, you'll find it easy to talk to him about anything and everything, and in the middle of your excited rambles you won't even realize the amount of personal questions you've answered and the kind man who is mentally memorising it all, drinking it like the golden liquid of the gods

He tells you stories of his time as a general, tales of the spirit world and shares his knowledge of culture from other nations.

He doesn't care if you can bend or not, you being you is enough.

His yandere side doesn't really shine through that much, he lets you have all the freedom you want but you'll come to notice that he's always near, seemingly afraid to stray too far.

Like a father, he praises you for everything not just because of his tendencies but because he's genuinely proud of you.

Even if he doesn't like it, he'll subtly manipulate you to stay with him or to not leave permanently without him for another path of life .

Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, once reader ceases to be oblivious of their situation some things are bound to change.

[evidence-based-activism]

Feminism is for equality, it's not necessarily against the male gaze. There's nothing wrong with giving men what they want, as long as women can get what they want as well.

Also rape is not about emotional intelligence, it’s just that men feel attraction more than women, so it’s harder to resist, so they are more likely to rape.

You could argue that for rape potentially, but what about porn? Clearly people don’t watch porn for power, since it’s virtual, so how would you explain that men watch porn a lot more than women, if not because they feel more attraction?

"Feminism is for equality"

Feminism is for the liberation of women from men and the patriarchy. (See this post for a preliminary description of the modern day patriarchy.) The ultimate result of this would be equality between male and female people, but the lens is different (i.e., an active fight against an oppressor vs an passive attainment of an ambiguous goal).

"it's not necessarily against the male gaze"

The male gaze is "usually refers to the sexually objectifying attitude that a representation takes toward its feminine subject matter, presenting her as a primarily passive object for heterosexual-male erotic gratification" [1, emphasis mine]. Therefore, the male gaze – by definition – objectifies ("to treat somebody/something as an object, without rights or feelings of their own" [2]) women and is, therefore, incompatible with feminism.

"There's nothing wrong with giving men what they want"

There is if what they want is power, control, and domination over women. There is what they want is incompatible with basic human rights and dignity. There is if what they want prevents women from getting what they need.

"as long as women can get what they want as well."

Moreover, it really isn't about want. It's about need. Women need physical and emotional safety from men. Women need freedom from oppression and discrimination. Women need a world without the patriarchy.

"Also rape is not about emotional intelligence"

You're right. Rape is about choice. Men choose to rape.

"it’s just that men feel attraction more than women"

No, they don't. [3-6]

The first two source [3-4] describe how in actual research samples, approximately equal numbers of heterosexual women and men report a higher level of sexual desire than their partner (and many couples report no discrepancy). The next source [5] goes even further and discusses how "sex differences in self‐reported sexual behavior were negligible ... [when] participants believed lying could be detected, moderate in an anonymous condition, and greatest [when not anonymous]" indicating "sex differences in self‐reported sexual behavior reflect responses influenced by normative expectations for men and women". The final source [6] reviews the literature and concludes "many gender differences in sexuality are smaller than researchers once thought, ... that within-gender variation is larger than between-gender variation in reported sexual behaviors and attitudes" and that "societal power differentials and social pressures" play a role in any remaining differences.

"so it’s harder to resist, so they are more likely to rape."

Men make the choice to rape.

The idea that men are a mindless slave to their desires is ridiculous. And I honestly cannot think of anything more insulting than the suggestion that you (the male sex) are incapable of not being terrible, self-centered, out-of-control rapists.

Is this really what you want to argue? Would this somehow be better than a (large) portion of men making the active, entitled, choice to harm women?

"You could argue that for rape potentially, but what about porn?"

... argue what??

"Clearly people don’t watch porn for power,"

No, this isn't clear to me. Tell me, what else could be a greater expression of power than the ability to search for, find, and masturbate to videos of women and children being raped and degraded? What does this tell men about their place in society? (To have their every sexual desire fulfilled instantly, over-and-over, by a limitless supply of women? To see women as objects? To demand this availability from the women around them, from the women in power over them, from their wives and girlfriends?) What does this tell women about their place in society? (To be a receptacle for men's desires? To see themselves in a position of inferiority, of humiliation, of degradation? To have the men around them, their family and partners and bosses and subordinates, send them these images, "jokingly" suggest their participation, demand they imitate the acts?)

What is this? If not power, then what?

"since it’s virtual"

Lots of things are virtual. A rape threat emailed to a congresswomen is virtual. A tweet calling for the rape and murder of classes of women is virtual. A man's manifesto cataloging every perceived slight from women and his desired – violent, graphic, sexual – punishment for them is virtual.

And it's still power. It's still a man saying: "See this, you know what we can do to you, what we want to do to you, what we are doing to you. I know and you know but right now I want to make you remember, because you rejected me, because I disagree with you, because I can."

And that's power.

"so how would you explain that men watch porn a lot more than women, if not because they feel more attraction?"

Because porn is designed for men. Because it's produced by men, using women, for men.

Because men are socialized to express more sexual desire, and women are socialized to suppress and hide their own [6]. Because women don't want to watch themselves being humiliated and brutalized [7, 11]. Because women do not divorce their morals from their sexuality but men do [8-9].

And, notably, despite the stereotypes, "the neuronal response to visual sexual stimuli, contrary to the widely accepted view, is independent of biological sex" [10]. Despite this, far fewer women than men report any pornography use, and when women do use porn they use it far less frequently and primarily in the presence (at the request?) of their male partner [11].

Clearly, it is something inherent to pornography, not to men and women, that makes men want to watch it and women want to avoid it.

References:

Eaton, A. W. (2008). Feminist Philosophy of Art. Philosophy Compass, 3(5), 873–893. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00154.x 

Oxford University Press. (2024). Objectify. In Oxford Learner's Dictionaries from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/objectify

Davies, S., Katz, J., & Jackson, J. L. (1999). Sexual desire discrepancies: Effects on sexual and relationship satisfaction in heterosexual dating couples. Archives of sexual behavior, 28, 553-567.

Mark, K. P., & Murray, S. H. (2012). Gender differences in desire discrepancy as a predictor of sexual and relationship satisfaction in a college sample of heterosexual romantic relationships. Journal of sex & marital therapy, 38(2), 198-215.

Alexander, M. G., & Fisher, T. D. (2003). Truth and consequences: Using the bogus pipeline to examine sex differences in self‐reported sexuality. Journal of sex research, 40(1), 27-35.

Petersen, J. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2011). Gender Differences in Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors: A Review of Meta-Analytic Results and Large Datasets. Journal of Sex Research, 48(2-3), 149–165. doi:10.1080/00224499.2011.5518

Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1-13.

González‐Álvarez, J. (2017). Men dissociate sexual attraction from moral judgement more than women. International journal of psychology, 52(5), 381-388.

González-Álvarez, J., & Cervera-Crespo, T. (2019). Gender differences in sexual attraction and moral judgment: research with artificial face models. Psychological reports, 122(2), 525-535.

Mitricheva, E., Kimura, R., Logothetis, N. K., & Noori, H. R. (2019). Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(31), 15671–15676. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904975116

Carroll, J. S., Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & Brown, C. C. (2016). The Porn Gap: Differences in Men’s and Women’s Pornography Patterns in Couple Relationships. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 16(2), 146–163. doi:10.1080/15332691.2016.1238796 

[fischlcatgirl]

i fucking love when a relationship is severely fucked up. and i think that the matter of scara's autonomy in the context of his relationship with nahida is INTERESTING AS FUCK. because he has been associated with two other archons before right and one of them abandoned him and the other one was his. boss basically.

so in both cases within that relationship there is a general perception of scara as an object or a tool. in ei's case he was. seen as a faulty tool but the point stands. in his betrayal backstories he is very often doing physical labor. he is kept around because he is useful. and so because that is the way he has spent basically his entire life being told that is how his life is going to be, he holds the belief that the only reason anyone associates with him at all is because they want something from him.

and i think there IS room there for a nahida who helps him heal from that. i think there is room for a nahida who sees him as a friend and affirms to him that they are friends and that she does not see him as some kind of errand boy.

however.

Nahida is god. and she is an exceptionally patient and forgiving god, but she is NOT practiced at friendship. she is not familiar with being in any sort of respectful relationship with anyone. She is LITERALLY an immortal little girl who was given all of the information in the world to entertain herself for five hundred years and she was LONELY. and now she has POWER.

i want you to look me dead in the eyes and tell me that if you were an inhuman creature made of knowledge with godlike powers in the body and, to a degree, mind of a preteen girl that you would not choose to tie yourself to the only boy your age you've ever met, the only person who you believe may ever have the ability to ever understand you.

because ive said it before and ill say it again but scara is nahidas nahida. she sees him in the same way she sees herself, lonely and betrayed by people who were meant to take care of him.

so there is such a real real real possibility that there is a nahida who, against anything he could ever want, takes his heart and eats it. who connects the two of them. because the thing is that in order for this relationship to really mean anything to scara there has to be a degree of freedom involved with the safety of a place to come back to, he has to know that he CAN leave and CHOOSE not to. being tethered to nahida would make him FUCKING MISERABLE.

and nahida KNOWS that, and knows that what she is doing is creating another cage. but she can't hear it over the idea of never being alone again.

RATTLING THE BARS OF MY CELL. NAHIDA SELFISH HOURS.

[ase0ny]

Chainsaw Man Spoilers

I like how the Angel devil is someone who’s meant to parallel so many different characters in csm, he is a representation of both duality and a lot of the major themes throughout csm despite being a side character

Starting off with Reze, who personally I think is the most obvious parallel as they’re both the two main focuses of the bomb girl arc, Angel are Reze both represent the ‘country mouse’ mindset in which they would rather live a life of comfortability and “simple pleasures” in exchange for not getting to experience every luxury the world has to offer. Those two specifically choose the country mouse because of their dislike of the city. Reze is bound to the Soviet Union and is forced to risk her life in order to carry out her missions, while Angel is forced to live a life in public safety with no actual freedom. Reze offering to run away with Denji to away from public safety is later paralleled in chapter 74 when Angel tells Aki he should “run away to the other side of the world”. Angel and Reze represent the desire for freedom and (in my opinion) love, as the actions they take near the end of the arc revolve around who they wish to be with or protect. Reze goes back to the cafe to find Denji, while Angel kills her to protect Aki from having to kill a women. It’s the only time they interact despite being so similar, Angel is forced to choose his own desire to protect someone he cares about over Reze’s freedom with Denji.

Denji and Angel also have a lot of similarities which I believe mainly lie in 1) food and 2) ignorance. Denji is someone who’s been starved his whole life, food is both important and scarce to him, in comparison to Angel who shown to always be eating something like ice cream, or even other devils. I’ve seen many interpretations of food in csm being a representation of basic happiness as well as love. Whenever Denji eats, it’s clear he honors what he’s eating no matter what it is (ie. him always eating power’s vegetables so they won’t go to waste), and him eating Makima at the end of part one is said to be an act of love—he honored her even while destroying her. Angel, despite eating so much, doesn’t seem to have much thought on what he consumes. It’s clear he likes the food he eats considering he makes a comment about how a dead devil looked like it’d taste good while on patrol with Aki, or the copious amounts of ice cream he’s always holding, but he doesn’t care about it as much as Denji. In his first appearance, he only takes one bite out of the zombie before carelessly throwing it off to the side, and if we use the idea that food represents bliss and love, it could be said that Angel eats so much because he’s trying to find to chase a feeling of comfort through food. He doesn’t care about food in the long run, but he still eats because of the idea that it might give him a small dose of contentment or pleasure. If we look at the topic of ignorance, Denji has to ultimately choose between ignorance or awareness, while Angel is forced into a life of ignorance through his memories getting erased. I believe that Angel, similar to Quanxi, represents a possible future for Denji if he chose to be Makima’s dog; he’d forget what made him feel human and content and only be seen as a devil to be used by public safety.

I’m not going to say much about Aki because it’d take forever and a day to go over the whole situation between them, but basically him and Angel parallel each other as people who seek comfort within each other after spending a lifetime of pushing others away for the sake of their motives (Angel basically not wanting to hurt anyone with his powers and Aki neglecting those who care about him to chase after the gun devil).

Himeno and Angel, to me, are two sides of the same coin. Himeno copes with the devil hunter lifestyle through alcohol, cigarettes, and sex; short pleasures that only get her by for a little while and don’t actually help her adjust to the life she’s living. Angel does something similar with food, but he also copes with isolation because a large part of his issues lie in the fact that he believes he is fundamentally evil. The parallels continue with the way they care for Aki, both of them wanting him to run away from public safety. This goes further with how they don’t believe they are worth saving, and that he has a better chance of getting out than them.

Makima and Angel have a dynamic that more so lies in the religious imagery used in csm. Makima is god, while Angel is Lucifer. Angel would probably be considered Makima’s “favorite” devil, mostly because of his unique powers, which is similar to how God favored Lucifer for his beauty and overall loyalty to him. Angel, just like Lucifer, strays away from the control of his superior. Lucifer ended up in hell after trying to overthrow god, while Angel ends up back in hell after trying to kill Makima.

[skelekins]

Swapfell Facet - Sans (gemStone)

Rough Concepts (with a Muffet ;A; cause I love her and need to set aside some time for her sometime. Shes about 15-20ft tall UwU)

Decided as Stone for his nickname.

Some info to go with his bro. Ive had a bit more trouble with him obviously. I have many notes on these nerds but Ill try to keep it briefish.

His armor is his royal guard kit. Because their world lacks in metals his armor is made from crystal, with the facets done in a way to deflect blows. This also results in his armor being extremely heavy.

Sans is highly leveled and is close to 10ft tall, more than double his brother's height. He's fiercely protective of Papyrus and basically has devoted his life to his brother's safety. He likes to brag about Papyrus but only to others in Snowdin. He tries not to let anyone know Papyrus exists past Waterfall for safety reasons.

His more purple outfit is a concept for when hes younger/at home. He joined up with Muffets crew and works second to her (he is also second in guard. He likes not being in top charge since it gives him certain freedoms). Despite working with the guard he still works with Muffet. Legally he's in charge over Snowdin, but realistically Muffet is.

Sans' magic is erratic and unweidly as a side effect of his high level and also for posturing. Its not uncommon for him to have sparks of magic around him. When he activates Papyrus' shortcut you know he's coming because it feels like lightning is about to strike.

Due to the excess magic/LV spikes he has to burn it off regularly. As it builds up inside him his body trembles more which frustrates him. He'll wear his gauntlets for the last week or so before he takes care of the problem, since the weight keeps his hands from trembling.

Has manic moments and when fighting others / hyped up he will drool excess magic.

He's less skilled with trap magic than his brother is but he's far better at gravity magic. He's developed his own style of traps that combine the two: areas of kneeling and repelling. Kneeling causes whats on the tin, you won't be able to stand due to the pressure until the trap is released. Repelling won't let you in and if you try hard enough you'll be expelled with the same force.

The green scarf was a concept for something Papyrus may have given to him after learning silkweaving from the spiders.

Tassels are a symbol of Muffet's crew.

:) thanks for reading

(ps I almost called him Indigo but theres a Swapfell Indigo and I thought that'd be confusing. For fun though: if he meets others he'd go by Indigo as a joke for the other colour names, but he chooses (gem)Stone to match his brother.

[rain-ghoul-appreciator]

turn my headphones up real loud

i yapped more about this post because i couldn't stop thinking about it

2345 words of me projecting onto rain coming right up 😼

under the cut or on AO3

being topside for the first time is most definitely a huge adjustment. especially for rain. his first most hated thing about being topside is the fact that he cant live in the water full time anymore, meaning he was drying out way quicker than he would have liked. not even the lotions that mist had given him really helped sooth his dry and cracked skin. at least there was a lake nearby.

second on the list of rain's current most hated thing about being topside is the amount of freedom he has to do basically anything he wants. he's still trying to get used to the fact that he can just eat whenever he wants, wherever he wants, and he gets to choose what he eats. because of his new found freedom, the pop tarts have been hidden for his safety.

the final thing rain hates the most about being topside is how much stuff he has to figure out so he can build a personality around it. all those ice breaker questions on the piece of paper copia handed out to help the ghouls get to know their new pack did absolutely nothing for him. he had no idea what his favorite movie was. he didn't even know what a movie was. he was clearly falling a little behind the swiss, who came crawling from the pits with him. swiss had accumulated to topside life very quickly, although hesitantly. and all rain could do was sit in the lake and maybe learn a bit of human manners from mist.

despite all his hatred for being topside, rain wanted nothing more than to find something he liked so that he could be just a bit more interesting, because as of right now, he was about as interesting as a piece of cardboard. he didn't count the fact that he took an interest to bass as a part of his personality because thats what basically all water ghouls summoned topside are here to do.

he started by trying to find a favorite color, but quickly found that he was to mesmerized by the way zephyr dragged the paintbrush across the canvas to get a good look at the colors of the paint. so he abandoned color for now.

then he moved on to movies. he tried to sit through the whole hunger games series with mountain, he really did. but yet again, he got distracted, this time by how shockingly beautiful finnick odair was. so he abandoned movies for now.

he tried to find a hobby next, which went well for the first few days. he got pretty okay at stick figures and cats, but backed away from drawing when he learned he would have to use color eventually to learn more about art. and seeing that he abandoned color for now, he abandoned art as well.

rain stopped himself after about three weeks of coming up empty on things he liked. so he sat in his room, staring at the blank walls. he tilted his head to the side, trying to imagine his walls covered in stuff he found interesting, like ifrit's room was. but all he could envision was the miserable looking cat drawing he had kept after he had given up on art.

he laid his head against his pillow and looked up at the ceiling, head empty. until something hit his ears. music. obviously he knew what music was, he was summoned to be in a band. but he had never truly listened to it.

rain stood up quickly, following the sound into the greenhouse. he found mountain there, jamming to whatever was playing out of the speaker. he silently sat down on the little bench in the corner, watching mountain curiously.

"what are you listening too?" rain asked, effectively startling mountain, who hadn't noticed his arrival.

"queen," mountain replied simply, going back to whatever he had on his work bench. rain tilted his head to the side.

"queen?"

"yeah, it's a band." mountain looked back at rain, smiling at his confused face.

"a really good band," he clarified, reaching over to the speaker to turn the volume up. rain sat there for a second, just listening to the music. it was good, sure, had a nice melody, but it just wasn't it.

it didn't tickle his brain the way he thought it would. he sat there with mountain for a while, getting up once to help water some plants. eventually mountain turned off the music and looked back at rain.

"did you like it?" he asked, wiping the dirt on his hands onto his jeans. rain shrugged.

"it was okay," he mumbled, watching mountain wipe the dirt off his work bench. he stared at mountain unintentionally, lost in thought. he wanted to give up looking for music he liked, wanted to find something else he liked before eventually circling back around to music again. but something about it was different. maybe it was the musician piece of him that was programmed into his brain upon his summoning. maybe it was desperately longing for something to attach itself onto to make itself useful.

"you okay?" mountain asked, snapping rain out of his thoughts. "you spaced out there."

"im okay, just thinking," he responded, standing up from the little bench. he followed mountain out off the greenhouse, trying to figure out how he could find the music he liked.

after two full nights of thinking about what he should do about his music problem, rain decided to go to dew. the fire ghoul seemed like he knew his way around music, so he seemed credible enough in rain's journey to find something he liked.

he snuck into dew's room one evening, cautiously sitting on the fire ghoul's bed as he waited for him to get out of the shower. he could hear the music from here, and he was absolutely, positively confused. maybe it was just the sound being muffled by the wall, but rain was sure that he couldn't understand a single thing being sung. was it even singing? is he watching a horror movie in there?

rain sat for a little while longer, anxiously waiting for dew to get out of the shower so he could ask his questions. finally, dew walked out of the bathroom, sopping wet hair sticking to his bare chest.

"unholy fuck, rain, you scared me," was the first thing he said upon noticing rain sitting there.

"im sorry, i, uh...." rain trailed off, trying to find the words he wanted to say without coming off and rude or weird.

"do you need something?" dew asked, looking back at rain curiously as he worked on putting his laundry away.

"i just wanted to ask what music you were listening too," rain replied, biting the inside of his cheek. dew threw his phone on the bed, which was opened to his playlist.

"you can skip through it, see if you like any of it." so that's what rain did. he skipped through dew's playlist, concerned by the amount of screaming their was. he wanted to ask if dew was okay, but he didn't have the emotional capacity to listen to the smaller ghoul vent at the moment (if he was going to).

eventually dew flopped down on the bed next to rain, his hands behind his head. "what's that face for?" dew asked, looking up at rain. rain blinked and looked over at dew, shrugging slightly.

"why is there so much... screaming?" rain muttered, his brows furrowed. dew laughed and sat up.

"that's what makes it good," dew replied, wrapping an arm around rain's shoulders.

"oh," rain murmured, looking over at dew curiously.

"do you like it?"

"it's okay... just really loud."

dew laughed again and squeezed rain's shoulders.

"you'll get used to it."

he did, in fact, not get used to it.

rain's next target was copia. the cardinal was an interesting man, so rain assumed he had an interesting music taste.

he was not wrong.

when he tried to get music recommendations from copia, he was subjected to listening to the entire hamilton soundtrack, the entire little mermaid soundtrack, 15 different instrumentals from various movies, and the occasional 80s song. rain has never wanted to pull his ears off more in his life.

so now he sat in his room, on the brink of giving up on trying to find the music he liked. it had been two weeks, and it was slowly eating away at his mind. the urge to give up and try something new was strong. so so so strong.

one more day, he told himself before falling asleep, one more day before i find something else to do.

rain awoke the next morning to the smell of pancakes and the sound of music. but it wasn't what mountain had on in the greenhouse. it wasn't what dew damaged his eardrums with. it wasn't copia's eccentric playlist. it was something new, and different. groggily, rain sat up and rubbed his eyes, eager to find out what the hell he was listening to right now.

when he finally reached the kitchen, rain was met with the sight of aether and ifrit dancing around each other as they prepared breakfast. he sat down at the counter next to swiss, his eyes darting to the speaker sitting a couple feet away.

"you're up early," swiss commented, looking over at rain with a wide grin on his face. rain rubbed his eyes before smiling back at swiss.

"i heard the music and wanted to see what it was," rain replied, absentmindedly picking at his semi-glamoured nails.

"oh, was it too loud?" ifrit asked, looking up from the pancakes he was flipping.

"did we wake you?" aether chimed in. rain shook his head quickly.

"no! i mean yes- but i don't mind," he stammered, "i kinda like it."

aether smiled. "good!"

the kitchen fell back into a comfortable silence, aside from the music playing from the speaker and the occasional clinking of dishes. rain looked over at the speaker, trying to figure out what the hell it was playing. it was kind of like what mountain listened to, just with more guitars. but it wasn't as screamy as dew's music. after a few more beats of silence, rain spoke up.

"what are you listening to?"

"hm? what'd you say?" ifrit lifted his head up, tilting it to the side.

"oh, uh, what are you listening to?" rain repeated a little louder, cracking his knuckles nervously. he didn't know why he was nervous. he had no reason to be nervous. but the feeling was still there, lingering. however the feeling diminished as aether tapped his phone to see the song that was playing.

"it's called never to late, by, uh, three days grace," aether replied. rain nodded silently, processing what he was hearing. it was just the right pace and just the right volume for him. and suddenly everything clicked.

oh.

this was it. he finally found something he liked. he finally had something to say when someone asks about his interests. he can finally make playlists like ifrit does. he can finally ask ifrit to make a playlist for him.

throughout the rest of the breakfast preparing process, rain listened intently to the music playing, occasionally asking what the song was called. aether and ifrit were happy to provide answers, smiling every time rain asked.

"whats this one called?"

"november rain, it's by a band called guns n roses. you should check em out."

"how about this one, whats this one called?"

"it's called before i forget, by slipknot."

"what's the name of this one?"

"save today, by seether. one of my personal favorites."

eventually, aether just handed the phone to rain, not wanting to have to look at it every three minutes anymore. rain was content with this idea, curiously tapping at the screen every time a new song came on. this continued until everyone filed into the kitchen when aether called out that breakfast was ready. unfortunately, that meant the music had to go away. rain sighed, quietly passing the phone back to aether before moving to grab breakfast for himself.

he sat down in between mountain and cumulus, smiling at both of them before shoveling the pancakes into his face kirby style. he was to busy thinking about all the playlists he could make his pack mates with his new found music taste to care about whether or not he would get a stomach ache.

rain was the first to leave the dining room after everyone stood up to clean their dishes, darting to his room. his thoughts were running in circles, filled with all the happy tingles he got from the music. he immediately pulled a piece of paper out of his desk drawer once he got into his room, writing down all the songs he could remember hearing.

finally, he had something about himself that was interesting. he was practically vibrating in his seat, just staring at his list of liked songs. im not a piece of cardboard anymore!!

as the days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and months turned into years, rain listened to more and more of the bands he liked. he occasionally went to mist or aether if he needed more recommendations. he even went to dew once, who showed him some not so screamy music that he could actually get into. he made playlists that reminded him of his pack mates and playlists for his pack mates. and nothing makes him happier than returning to his room after a long day of chores to listen to music.

now he waits nervously as they prepare to summon new ghouls. he wants to be the one to show them music first. because nothing would mean more to rain than the music he listens to being the music that gives the new ghouls that tingly feeling in their brains. that oh, this is it, feeling. the feeling that altered his brain chemistry for life.

rain just really likes music.

[bestworstcase]

basically:

to humans, grimm are monsters

to faunus, grimm were tutelaries

(WOR grimm—narrated by salem—illustrates “grimm are lured toward negative emotion” with an act of violence. one person killing another. so when humans hunted the faunus…)

(grimm are “the greatest foe of mankind” and they “exclusively attack humans.” even in ‘judgment,’ which depicts the faunus as victims of a grimm attack, there is a noticeable juxtaposition between what humans seek [safety from the grimm] and what faunus want [to live in peace with each other, free of prejudice, so they can become their best selves]—and the conspicuous lack of a grimm problem on menagerie supports this mythical/cultural idea that the grimm do not hunt faunus)

(which doesn’t mean grimm-faunus conflicts never happen, but rather that faunus historically have a very different relationship with grimm than do humans)

faunus inclusion in human civilization was, and still is, conditional on faunus repudiating the grimm and adopting a humanlike view of them

the white fang grimm masks harken back to a time when the grimm were seen by faunus as protectors: ferocious beings who let the faunus be but appeared as if summoned to slay human hunters.

grimm are destruction incarnate

(destruction is change)

they were made by the brother who refused to condemn his creations for his own mistakes and accepted, even embraced, change as natural and inevitable.

when salem jumped into the pool of grimm, she combined infinite creation with infinite destruction and made a new kind of being

people on remnant do not ascend; they die and transcend, following the pattern of salem’s apotheosis-through-death.

salem died and became twice; the first transformation was spiritual (still human, infinite), the second physical (grimm, unbound). if she set the pattern, transcendence can follow two paths, both leading to a new life, as either human or faunus.

the grimm are the crossroads in this pattern

the shallow sea is real but it’s a metaphorical representation of remnant’s reincarnation cycle. do you leap into the black abyss or do you follow the golden path suspended over it? do you choose the freedom of change or the safety of what you knew?

ambrosius routed the evacuation through remnant’s afterlife

no corpses fell into the ever after; remnant’s cycle is not life -> death -> journey through the ever after -> rebirth. but if you’re alive when you fall through the abyss of remnant’s afterlife, you do land in the ever after because—unlike ascension—transcendence can only begin after death.

the tree is a river through which the souls of remnant’s dead flow; death to souls to become water but from water comes soul. thank you for coming to my tedtalk

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 30, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 01, 2024

This morning, Time magazine published a cover story by Eric Cortellessa about what Trump is planning for a second term. Based on two interviews with Trump and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisors, the story lays out Trump’s conviction that he was “too nice” in his first term and that he would not make such a mistake again. 

Cortellessa writes that Trump intends to establish “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.” 

He plans to use the military to round up, put in camps, and deport more than 11 million people. He is willing to permit Republican-dominated states to monitor pregnancies and prosecute people who violate abortion bans. He will shape the laws by refusing to release funds appropriated by Congress (as he did in 2019 to try to get Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to smear Hunter Biden). He would like to bring the Department of Justice under his own control, pardoning those convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and ending the U.S. system of an independent judiciary. In a second Trump presidency, the U.S. might not come to the aid of a European or Asian ally that Trump thinks isn’t paying enough for its own defense. Trump would, Cortelessa wrote, “gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.”

To that list, former political director of the AFL-CIO Michael Podhorzer added on social media that if Trump wins, “he could replace [Supreme Court justices Clarence] Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and 40+ federal judges over 75 with young zealots.” 

“I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles?” Cortellessa wrote. No, Trump said. “‘I think a lot of people like it.” 

Time included the full transcripts and a piece fact-checking Trump’s assertions. The transcripts reflect the former president’s scattershot language that makes little logical sense but conveys impressions by repeating key phrases and advancing a narrative of grievance. The fact-checking reveals that narrative is based largely on fantasy. 

Trump’s own words prove the truth of what careful observers have been saying about his plans based on their examination of MAGA Republicans’ speeches, interviews, Project 2025, and so on, often to find themselves accused of a liberal bias that makes them exaggerate the dangers of a second Trump presidency. 

The idea that truthful reporting based on verifiable evidence is a plot by “liberal media” to undermine conservative values had its start in 1951, when William F. Buckley Jr., fresh out of Yale, published God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom.” Fervently opposed to the bipartisan liberal consensus that the federal government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, protect civil rights, and promote infrastructure, Buckley was incensed that voters continued to support such a system. He rejected the “superstition” that fact-based public debate would enable people to choose the best option from a wide range of ideas—a tradition based in the Enlightenment—because such debate had encouraged voters to choose the liberal consensus, which he considered socialism. Instead, he called for universities to exclude “bad” ideas like the Keynesian economics on which the liberal consensus was based, and instead promote Christianity and free enterprise.

Buckley soon began to publish his own magazine, the National Review, in which he promised to tell the “violated businessman’s side of the story,” but it was a confidential memorandum written in 1971 by lawyer Lewis M. Powell Jr. for a friend who chaired the education committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that insisted the media had a liberal bias that must be balanced with a business perspective. 

Warning that “the American economic system is under broad attack,” Powell worried not about “the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system.” They were, he wrote, a small minority. What he worried about were those coming from “perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.” 

Businessmen must “confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management,” he wrote, launching a unified effort to defend American enterprise. Among the many plans Powell suggested for defending corporate America was keeping the media “under constant surveillance” to complain about “criticism of the enterprise system” and demand equal time. 

President Richard Nixon appointed Powell to the Supreme Court, and when Nixon was forced to resign for his participation in the scheme to cover up the attempt to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel before the 1972 election, he claimed he had to leave not because he had committed a crime, but because the “liberal” media had made it impossible for him to do his job. Six years later, Ronald Reagan, who was an early supporter of Buckley’s National Review, claimed the “liberal media” was biased against him when reporters accurately called out his exaggerations and misinformation during his 1980 campaign. 

In 1987, Reagan’s appointees to the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine that required media with a public license to present information honestly and fairly. Within a year, talk radio had gone national, with hosts like Rush Limbaugh electrifying listeners with his attacks on “liberals” and his warning that they were forcing “socialism” on the United States. 

By 1996, when Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch started the Fox News Channel (FNC), followers had come to believe that the news that came from a mainstream reporter was likely left-wing propaganda. FNC promised to restore fairness and balance to American political news. At the same time, the complaints of increasingly radicalized Republicans about the “liberal media” pushed mainstream media to wander from fact-based reality to give more and more time to the right-wing narrative. By 2018, “bothsidesing” had entered our vocabulary to mean “the media or public figures giving credence to the other side of a cause, action, or idea to seem fair or only for the sake of argument when the credibility of that side may be unmerited.”

In 2023, FNC had to pay almost $800 million to settle defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems after FNC hosts pushed the lie that Dominion machines had changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and it has since tried to retreat from the more egregious parts of its false narrative. 

News broke yesterday that Hunter Biden’s lawyer had threatened to sue FNC for “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” Today, FNC quietly took down from its streaming service its six-part “mock trial” of Hunter Biden, as well as a video promoting the series. 

Also today, Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s criminal trial for election fraud, found Trump in contempt of court for attacking witnesses and jurors. Merchan also fined Trump $1,000 per offense, required him to take down the nine social media posts at the heart of the decision, and warned him that future violations could bring jail time. This afternoon, Trump’s team deleted the social media posts. 

For the first time in history, a former U.S. president has been found in contempt of court. We know who he is, and today, Trump himself validated the truth of what observers who deal in facts have been saying about what a second Trump term would mean for the United States.

Reacting to the Time magazine piece, James Singer, the spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign, released a statement saying: “Not since the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today—because of Donald Trump. Trump is willing to throw away the very idea of America to put himself in power…. Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to democracy.” 

Tomorrow, May 1, is “Law Day,” established in 1958 by Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower as a national recognition of the importance of the rule of law. In proclaiming the holiday today, Biden said: “America can and should be a Nation that defends democracy, protects our rights and freedoms, and pioneers a future of possibilities for all Americans. History and common sense show us that this can only come to pass in a democracy, and we must be its keepers.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

WTA thoughts: Idealisation versus reality

One of the reasons I am sad the Red Talons often get played badly and therefore are nearly always banned as a tribe in online games, stems from how the tribe showcases idealisation in a unique way.

Red Talons go on and on how humans are soft and live too comfortably while the wolves live true to their nature and live free. While Talons have a point, the way they discuss the wilds is often tinged with rose-tinted glasses.

Living in the wilds sucks, not even in a 'nature is cruel' edgelord way. Living as a wild wolf, you are subjected to disease, parasites, hunger, injuries that can't be tended to and knowledge that your kids most likely will all die before adulthood. While this is how wolves must live as it is their normal, it doesn't mean it is pleasant. It is a rare wolf who dies gently in the woods of old age. Most will succumb to disease, starve to death, get killed by prey or fellow wolves.

Red Talons don't have to worry about all that. If they are sick or injured they just shift to another form to heal. If they are hungry they use their human-mind to catch prey. Unless the Talon is particularly orthodox, most don't see death of disease, injury or starvation as anything but foolishness.

Yet the Red Talons decree that the way wolves live is the correct way, not seeing their own hypocrisy. If one were to ask the actual wolves, though, they would choose medical care and safety for their pups over some idealized 'freedom.' Because to wolves, the optics don't matter, only survival does.

Red Talons and many other tribes all have this rosy view of actual wolves mostly because they can look at them at a distance. After all, a Red Talon's job is to be a garou. Any sort of involvement with their families is mostly offering food and protection. If there is a raid to a Hive, you are seen as a coward for staying back to watch the kids. That's the job of kinfolk, after all.

There is this mentality in both fiction and real life, where going without is seen as more noble than having safe access to food and medical aid is. This isn't related to living with nature in peace, it is about a total rejection of comfort and safety. Basically, asceticism by the way of toxic masculinity and romanticism towards a 'simpler' life.

The way the Red Talons paint regular wolves is this, even if the 'tough guy' act isn't something they are aware of. Because the tribe refuses to engage in deeper human thought, they aren't aware of the way they stereotype wolves into clean boxes. While tribes like Get of Fenris pride themselves on living on the edge and taking no comforts, they do it knowing it is a choice. To the Red Talons, it is seen as how things should be.

Red Talons as a tribe have so many other ways to create an interesting play, outside the 'raarr kill human' and yet they end up as that because people rarely consider what they are actually saying.

[bizlybebo]

For the ship chart you should do navyseal :p

giggling because im gonna end up filling the entire left corner with these but AAAAAAAA

this is another ship that took a really long time to grow on me,, but like. post ep 53 and especially episode 87 was where they started infecting my brain and now theyre basically my main riptide/albatrio ship (except maybe polypirates). THEYRE SOOOOSUFHSLIUGAEFHGUESIFLGHSE

like. theyre designed and pitted against all odds to be enemies in some form. gillion is the moon’s child and jay is the sun’s. but instead of following those molds when they cant fit them,, they fucking. choose each other instead.

and gillion, the guy whos all about honesty and honor, who nearly fought someone to the death (ep 15) over a lie, forgave jay when she lied.

mega spoilers (ep 53) under cut

AND. HE FUCKING WENT DOWN WITH A SMILE. ITS BEEN LIKE 4-5 MONTHS SINCE I LISTENED TO THAT EPISODE AND IT STILL FUCKING HURTS. HE WENT DOWN WITH A SMILE BECAUSE IF ANYONE WAS TO KILL HIM, WHY NOT JAY??? HE TRUSTED HER TO SINK THE ARROW INTO HIS CHEST DESPITE KNOWING SHE WASNT IN CONTROL— THAT IT WOULD REALLY KILL HIM. HE WOULD GIVE UP HIS LIFE FOR HER FREEDOM AND I AFUUUGSHRGGLIUSGrhlisrghiluz

The jrwi navyseal dynamic, like ive said before, is literally just—

“I’d give my life for you”— defending her until he goes down, and even then it is with a smile. Just tell me what it is, Jay, and i’ll fight for it.

“I’d give my life for you”— sacrificing her freedom for his safety, and whispering goodbye with what little she has left. I lied, i love you, im sorry.