#lesbian philosophical questions

[napping-sapphic]

Telling people i’m too shy to start talking to people and dating only for them to tell me to just meet people online like bestie i’m shy online too😭😭

[gonchillunchis]

fully automated luxury communism in space

[deathspoems]

It the phrase goes like

iTs AdAm AnD eVe, NoT aDaM aNd StEvE

then what's the lesbian version of that?

Is it like Amanda and Eve?

[rthko]

Earlier I talked about people who don't neatly fit within a cis/nonbinary/trans paradigm. It's an expensive, sensitive topic a lot of academics and activists are already talking about. Here's an inconclusive list of people to whom this may apply:

-Lesbians with no particular affinity to womanhood beyond being lesbians

-Same but for gay men

-Same as the first two points but with a big emphasis on butch lesbians and drag queens

-Cis people who have trauma, even dysphoria, with their AGAB, but can't find another gender or label they'd like any better

-Cis people of color who are excluded from eurocentric norms of what it means to look, act, and be cisgender

-Immigrants who had different gender norms in their country or origin who no longer fit in

-Neurodivedvent people for whom gender is just another set of confusing social cues

-Nonbinary people who refer to themselves as their AGAB as shorthand in day to day interaction (similar to choosing a "Starbucks name")

-Nonbinary people who partially identify with their AGAB

-People who view their gender, not as something essential to them, but as imperfect language to refer to a complex range of expressions and experiences

-People who change labels over time but have overlying experiences that transcend these changes

-People who grew up before nonbinary identity really proliferated and still use the nomenclature theyre used to (even if they're not considered cis by contemporary standards)

-People questioning their identity

-People who don't relate to western philosophical notions of "the self."

-People for whom their gender is, well, kind of hard to explain.

Cis is still an important term when denoting power dynamics, especially on a broad sociological level. But on a personal level, this category very often falls apart. Language can only do so much. Anyway, there's a lot I still don't know but I just listened to an excellent episode of the Gender Reveal podcast with trans historian Jules Gill-Peterson where they discuss they question what it means to be cis (and how it applies to institutions vs individuals), along with so many other topics that I found fascinating. Give them a listen!

[ot3]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

What is it, and why you should read it.

(Art by purple)

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is a currently updating webserial by author Lurina. It's one of my favorite things I've read in a long while and I'd like to convince you all to give it a chance.

My elevator pitch is this: A time-loop murder mystery directly inspired by Umineko, with a lot of similar vibes to the Locked Tomb Trilogy - partially due to it's meditations on grief and mortality and partially due to it's far-future magical sci-fi world where we follow a fucked up lesbian necromancer on a task she is determined to see through to the end. A deeply complex, unique, and believable world that plays hosts to one of the best interpersonal dynamics I've read.

In a future so far-flung that it is past the heat death of the universe, humanity has constructed a new society that is post-scarcity but not post-stratification. Utsushikome of Fusai is one amongst a class of prodigious young medical arcanists (essentially grad students) who are invited to visit a recently legitimized conclave of top-of-the-line researchers studying immortality. Accompanying Su is her best friend Ran, a fellow arcanist. Over the course of the novel we begin to slowly unravel exactly what ulterior motives have brought them to this conclave and how events in their childhoods and years of working toward their shared goal has warped their relationship into what we now see. This relationship is the crown jewel of Flower's narrative, and getting to peel back the layers of it as you read is a delight.

Like Umineko, Flower is a murder mystery that prevents itself with in-universe Rules that dictate the murders' parameters, meaning there's a lot to chew on for anyone who likes solving mysteries. For those that don't, like myself, Flower offers instead a richly developed world and plenty of open questions about the sociopolitical and metaphysical implications of its own worldbuilding.

Below the cut, I'll go into more detail about the series (without spoilers!) for those of you whose interest has been piqued.

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is currently ongoing, updating every few weeks. It's several hundred thousand words, so if you're looking for something substantial to keep you entertained, you've got it. As you might expect from the length, the pacing is decently slow. I don't see this as a bad thing at all, because within this pacing Lurina dripfeeds the readers enough new and interesting information at a regular rate that it never feels like your time is being wasted. But if you can't handle slow burns, I wouldn't recommend this one for you.

If you enjoyed the Zero Escape series and liked that they stopped solving murder puzzles to infodump about fringe science, I think you'll get a lot out of Flower. Characters are frequently interrupting their life-or-death scenarios to have lofty, philosophical and political discussions. It's a ton of fun if you like reading characters argue.

'People have to sleep.' 'People have to work.' 'People have to die.' But those were just vague rules, phrasing I'd used because it had been easier in the context of that conversation. What really mattered, on the day-to-day level, was the idea that it was all for something. If someone invented a elixir that made people not to need to sleep, it would, in retrospect, recontextualize all nights everyone ever wasted sleeping as wastes of time. Not something that occurred for some inherent purpose, but whims of circumstance, a tragedy of when you happened to be born. If you accepted that all unfair things in the world could be removed, if only someone knew how - fatigue, labor, death - then to exist in the world we had now, with all its grotesque imperfections, was to know that you had been violated by fate.

Along those lines it's just got a sense of humor I really enjoy. Pretty dry and cavalier. It manages to keep the mood light without feeling like it's undermining it's own stakes. I'm particularly fond of Su's penchant for telling incredibly depressing suicide jokes that just Do Not Land.

The peer pressure cut into me like a hot knife. I hesitated a little, biting my lip. "Well, uh, okay. I'll just tell a quick one." I swallowed, my mind quickly scrambling. "Okay, so, there's a woman who runs a dispensary for second hand goods. She sees a man come in who's a regular customer. He's kind of a mess-- Has a big beard, a bad complexion. He buys a razor, and tells her he needs it to clean himself up, because he has a date." I could see that I now had Ophelia's attention and that Kam was looking pleased with herself, but Ran was watching me, too. I could see the look in her eyes. It screamed at me, with such vividity that it could be sold at an art gallery: You better not be telling a suicide joke right now, or we're going to have a talk. But it was too late. The wheels were already in motion.

As I mentioned up top, the relationship between Ran and Su is just one of my favorite interpersonal dynamics ever. Period. The author is playing some insanely complicated 5th dimensional yuri chess and I am absolutely here for it as someone who likes characters who are deeply devoted to each other in a way that is deeply deeply fraught. I cant emphasize enough how obsessed I am with what they have going on.

Additionally, as stated, the worldbuilding in Flower is top tier. The author clearly understands how every part of her world functions, which makes the moral quandaries and politics presented all the more impactful because they're very believable. It's hard to talk about Flower's world without spoiling too much of the specifics that get slowly revealed, but it doesn't fall back on any typical sci-fi standard fare and feels like a breath of fresh air amongst recycled and repetitive worldbuilding tropes.

A lot of really fun side characters. Strong voices for all of the supporting cast (♥♥Kamrusepa♥♥) and even though not every character gets their own arc, they all clearly have plenty of interiority. Once again, another thing that makes Flower feel very believable despite it's absurdities.

Autism

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary with anyone?" She eyed him. "Anyone who seemed tense?" "Saoite, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but half of our class is so autistic that they constantly seem tense. You might as well ask me to find a specific turd in a sewer." "Just answer the question, please," she replied flatly.

Guys it's really good just trust me I don't want to spoil you for the more intricate plot beats but they're doing some crazy shit here. It's never a bad time to support an independent author's project. If you're sick of corporate mass-media and stuff needing to be marketable, getting into independent works owned and supported by individual creators is a great way to push back against that. I highly recommend it.

[nyaagolor]

AA prosecutors and main villains ranked based on whether or not I think they’re homophobic

Klavier: No, and he’s extremely loud about it because it makes Kristoph really mad. You would think he’s slept with dozens of people before bc of his job but he’s actually such a perfectionist that he’s never actually gotten any action. He respects the hustle tho

Von Karma: No, it’s funnier this way. He thinks ur beneath him on principle, gayness has nothing to do with it

Simon: He’s not but his bird is

The Phantom: I’m not convinced he has any opinions beyond what’s required of him, but Bobby Fulbright owns no less than 4 shirts that say “JUSTICE DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE” on big rainbow letters so I think the phantom is an ally by default for the brief time we knew him

Godot: When asked for his stance on gay rights he gave an answer that lasted 20 minutes and misquoted no less than 6 philosophers. Turns out the entire answer was him complaining about Lana Skye and didn’t answer the question whatsoever. Jury’s still out but Maya swears Mia told her he was bisexual

Franziska: Yes but it’s bc she’s a lesbian with the world’s worst coping mechanisms. Realizing she was crushing on a girl in boarding school was the start of her villain arc and I think she needs to go to a gay bar immediately

Edgeworth: Yes but only to himself

Kristoph: Yes to everyone BUT himself

Dahlia: Yes but for gay men specifically bc they’re harder to manipulate. Women are fine. I think she’s a misandrist also. She reads toxic yuri

Matt Engarde: He’s the world’s most bisexual looking straight man. He lets a homophobic remark slip in an interview and then makes an apology video about it. Despite being homophobic I think he would have tried queerbaiting his fans on multiple occasions

Morgan: She’s an ally but only to Maya because she wants the main bloodline to die out and that’s way easier if Maya is a lesbian. It was only after the matchmaking failed for the 12th time that she finally gave up and pivoted to murder

[dazealigner]

hi hi hi

i have a request! could you write julien x reader where julien is obsessed (in a good way) where she only talks about reader in interviews and stuff

pls pls pls

and thank u

hiii anon !!! i’ve actually thought about this thoroughly in the past so i have a couple of hcs stirred up for you ! but i also wanted to say that @itsrorysstuff has also wrote for this same idea awhile ago and did an amazing job at executing it (:

jb talking about her gf in interviews hcs!

(i’ll preface by saying that jb’s girlfriend is a famous singer-songwriter in this scenario, just because interviewers would then ask about their relationship more frequently and i don’t get why julien would talk about her girlfriend excessively if she wasn’t exposed to the public eye like julien is. also to give some background, i’ll say that they discovered each other’s music prior to their romance and met through a mutual friend, lucy or phoebe perhaps)

because you two both listened to each other’s work way before you guys even started talking, julien definitely brought one of your albums up in the Records In My Life interview and even spends some time analyzing it as well before she’s subtly cut off given the time limit and their remaining questions

there’s occasional mentions of you here and there, to which you reciprocate until finally lucy/phoebe unites you two

and man oh man are lucy and phoebe third and fourth-wheeling because the entire night you two are trading ALL of the compliments and the analyses you’ve been itching to share since the moment you both discovered the other’s work

fast forward to julien and singer-songwriter!gf NOT beating the u-haul lesbian allegations, this is where julien really begins to excessively talk about you

philosophical question? she’ll mention your input on the matter. question about a lyric on the record that you helped with? oh boy that interviewer is in for a ride.

and there’s nothing more phoebe and lucy enjoy than teasing julien about you two’s relationship

“After the show in Dallas, me and Lucy went to grab something to eat, and—” “Wait, where was Julien again?” “You know where she was.”

and julien FLUSHES pink not just because the entirety of the camera crew were exchanging confused glances but because she herself knows where she was and more importantly who she was with

anyways you being known for having schemes up your sleeves when it comes to your albums, julien’s now getting asked about your music as well, and she LOVES it because she knows everything about your upcoming albums in secret and she’s now become apart of the scheming and teasing

if you announce a single release and you wanna hint at its title, let’s say you use the single title in your instagram caption, and then julien somehow finds a way to insert it smoothly into something she’s saying in an interview and lucy and phoebe are like “😏😏” cause they’re in the loop too

and then in the nardwuar interview as he’s handing out the most thoughtful gifts, in the back of julien’s mind, all she’s thinking about is how much you’d love those gifts

“Oh my god, me and my girlfriend were just talking about Trio. .” and phoebe and lucy are snickering from beside her as she goes on a rant about what specifically you two were talking about.

when the boys are on the red carpet for GQ Men of the Year and they’re already all rocking hickies and then they get into the conversation of dates when amelia interviews them…..

“What about you? Have you ever been on a date?” “A date? I’ve been on one.” “Recently, too.”

and on top of her remark, lucy’s eyes trail down to julien’s hickey. not that it’s noticeable in that exact moment, but fans inevitably notice

and finally when you do release any projects you’ve been working on, julien is so incredibly vocal on how well-deserved the recognition you receive is and how proud she is of you. she acknowledges every single hour you spent in the studio and its merit outcome.

and, of course, the level of affection julien shows is obviously reciprocated by singer-songwriter!gf

[she-is-ovarit]

By Sean Coughlan

BBC News

A diary written by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is being hailed as providing remarkable evidence of tolerance towards homosexuality in Britain much earlier than previously imagined.

Historians from Oxford University have been taken aback to discover that Matthew Tomlinson's diary from 1810 contains such open-minded views about same-sex attraction being a "natural" human tendency.

The diary challenges preconceptions about what "ordinary people" thought about homosexuality - showing there was a debate about whether someone really should be discriminated against for their sexuality.

"In this exciting new discovery, we see a Yorkshire farmer arguing that homosexuality is innate and something that shouldn't be punished by death," says Oxford researcher Eamonn O'Keeffe.

The diaries were handwritten by Tomlinson in the farmhouse where he lived and worked

The historian had been examining Tomlinson's handwritten diaries, which have been stored in Wakefield Library since the 1950s.

The thousands of pages of the private journals have never been transcribed and previously used by researchers interested in Tomlinson's eye-witness accounts of elections in Yorkshire and the Luddites smashing up machinery.

But O'Keeffe came across what seemed, for the era of George III, to be a rather startling set of arguments about same-sex relationships.

Tomlinson had been prompted by what had been a big sex scandal of the day - in which a well-respected naval surgeon had been found to be engaging in homosexual acts.

Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diaries provide a rare insight into the views of "ordinary people" in the early 1800s

A court martial had ordered him to be hanged - but Tomlinson seemed unconvinced by the decision, questioning whether what the papers called an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural.

Tomlinson argued, from a religious perspective, that punishing someone for how they were created was equivalent to saying that there was something wrong with the Creator.

"It must seem strange indeed that God Almighty should make a being with such a nature, or such a defect in nature; and at the same time make a decree that if that being whom he had formed, should at any time follow the dictates of that Nature, with which he was formed, he should be punished with death," he wrote on January 14 1810.

If there was an "inclination and propensity" for someone to be homosexual from an early age, he wrote, "it must then be considered as natural, otherwise as a defect in nature - and if natural, or a defect in nature; it seems cruel to punish that defect with death".

The diarist makes reference to being informed by others that homosexuality is apparent from an early age - suggesting that Tomlinson and his social circle had been talking about this case and discussing something that was not unknown to them.

Around this time, and also in West Yorkshire, a local landowner, Anne Lister, was writing a coded diary about her lesbian relationships - with her story told in the television series, Gentleman Jack.

But knowing what "ordinary people" really thought about such behaviour is always difficult - not least because the loudest surviving voices are usually the wealthy and powerful.

What has excited academics is the chance to eavesdrop on an everyday farmer thinking aloud in his diary.

Tomlinson was appalled by the levels of corruption during elections

"What's striking is that he's an ordinary guy, he's not a member of the bohemian circles or an intellectual," says O'Keeffe, a doctoral student in Oxford's history faculty.

An acceptance of homosexuality might have been expressed privately in aristocratic or philosophically radical circles - but this was being discussed by a rural worker.

"It shows opinions of people in the past were not as monolithic as we might think," says O'Keeffe, who is originally from Canada.

"Even though this was a time of persecution and intolerance towards same-sex relationships, here's an ordinary person who is swimming against the current and sees what he reads in the paper and questions those assumptions."

Claire Pickering, library manager in Wakefield, says she imagines the single-minded Tomlinson speaking the words with a Yorkshire accent.

There are three volumes of Tomlinson's diaries at Wakefield Library

He was a man with a "hungry mind", she says, someone who listened to a lot of people's opinions before forming his own conclusions.

The diary, presumably compiled after a hard day's work, was his way of being a writer and commentator when otherwise "that wasn't his station in life", she says.

O'Keeffe says it shows ideas were "percolating through British society much earlier and more widely than we'd expect" - with the diary working through the debates that Tomlinson might have been having with his neighbours.

But these were still far from modern liberal views - and O'Keeffe says they can be extremely "jarring" arguments.

If someone was homosexual by choice, rather than by nature, Tomlinson was ready to consider that they should still be punished - proposing castration as a more moderate option than the death penalty.

Tomlinson's former home was still there in the 1930s (bottom left), but has since disappeared beneath housing and a golf course

O'Keeffe says discovering evidence of these kinds of debate has both "enriched and complicated" what we know about public opinion in this pre-Victorian era.

The diary is raising international interest.

Prof Fara Dabhoiwala, from Princeton University in the US, an expert in the history of attitudes towards sexuality, describes it as "vivid proof" that "historical attitudes to same-sex behaviour could be more sympathetic than is usually presumed".

Instead of seeing homosexuality as a "horrible perversion", Prof Dabholwala says the record showed a farmer in 1810 could see it as a "natural, divinely ordained human quality".

Rictor Norton, an expert in gay history, said there had been earlier arguments defending homosexuality as natural - but these were more likely to be from philosophers than farmers.

"It is extraordinary to find an ordinary, casual observer in 1810 seriously considering the possibility that sexuality is innate and making arguments for decriminalisation," says Dr Norton.

Who was the writer of this diary?

Matthew Tomlinson was a widower, in his 40s when he wrote his journal in 1810 - a man of a "middling" class, not a poor labourer but not rich enough to own his own land.

"I try and imagine how he would have looked," says library manager Ms Pickering.

There are no pictures of Tomlinson, who is thought to have lived between about 1770 and 1850.

"Very dour," she suggests. And a "bit of a hypochondriac".

There are thousands of pages of handwritten journals - but some volumes appear to have been lost

"I imagine if you stopped him at his gate for a chat he'd talk about his gout more than anything else.

"I'd love to have a conversation with him about what Wakefield was like at the time," she says.

No-one knows how these private diaries, covering 1806 to 1839, ended up in Wakefield Library, but they were there by the 1950s and are presumed to be part of an earlier acquisition of old books and local documents.

There are three surviving volumes and at least another eight are missing.

But they show vivid detail about life in Wakefield in the early 19th Century.

Tomlinson, from his home at Doghouse Farm, recorded the life of nearby Wakefield

During elections, Tomlinson was appalled by the corruption, the rum drinkers having to be carried home in wheelbarrows and the "hired ruffians".

And at Queen Victoria's coronation he was sceptical about expensive ceremonies and celebrations, calling them all "humbug".

This was not a closed world. His social circle seemed to be avid readers of books and newspapers, following reports of revolutions abroad and riots and insurrections at home.

They saw elephants marching through Wakefield in a circus parade and military bands who had competed to hire the most talented black musicians.

We know where he lived - Doghouse Farm in Lupset, because he carefully wrote it on the front of his journals.

The farm, at the edge of the landowner's estate, is now under a housing estate and a golf course. All that survives are his diaries.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By; Andrew Doyle

Published: Feb 28, 2024

Many years ago I gave a talk at the London Metropolitan Archives in which I outlined my reasons for rejecting the then fashionable theory of social constructionism in relation to human sexuality. In the coffee break that followed, I was approached by a lesbian activist, who claimed to have chosen her orientation as a means to oppose the patriarchy. She demanded to know why I would not accept that sexuality had no biological basis, even though I had spent the best part of an hour answering this very question. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I’ve already explained why I don’t agree with you’. ‘But why won’t you agree?’ she shouted in response. ‘Why?’

Primary school teachers are familiar with such frustrated pleas. The anger of children is so often connected with incomprehension, a sense of injustice, or both. When it persists into adulthood it represents a failure of socialisation. We frequently hear talk of our degraded political discourse – and there is some truth to that – but really we are dealing with mass infantilism. Its impact is evident wherever one cares to look: online, in the media, even in Parliament. Argumentation is so often reduced to a matter of tribal loyalty; whether one is right or wrong becomes secondary to the satisfaction of one’s ego through the submission of an opponent. This is not, as some imagine, simply a consequence of the ubiquity of social media, but rather a general failure over a number of years to instil critical thinking at every level of our educational institutions.

To be a freethinker has little to do with mastery of rhetoric and everything to do with introspection. It is all very well engaging in a debate in order to refine our persuasive skills, but it is a futile exercise unless we can entertain the possibility that we might be wrong. In Richard Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion (2006), he relates an anecdote about his time as an undergraduate at Oxford. A visiting academic from America gave a talk on the Golgi apparatus, a microscopic organelle found in plant and animal cells, and in doing so provided incontrovertible evidence of its existence. An elderly member of the Zoology Department, who had asserted for many years that the Golgi apparatus was a myth, was present at the lecture. Dawkins relates how, as the speaker drew to a close, ‘The old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said – with passion – “My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.” We clapped our hands red’.

This is the ideal that so few embody, particularly when it comes to the unexamined tenets of political ideology. We often see examples of media commentators or politicians being discredited in interviews or discussions, but how often do we see them concede their errors, even when they are exposed beyond doubt? There is a very good reason why the sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer opened his First Principles (1862) by asserting that there exists ‘a soul of truth in things erroneous’; but such concessions can only be made by those who are able to prioritise being right over being seen to be right. Too many are seemingly determined to turn difficult arguments into zero-sum games in which to give any ground whatsoever is to automatically surrender it to an opponent.

The discipline of critical thinking invites us to consider the origins of our knowledge and convictions. A man may speak with the certainty of an Old Testament prophet, but has he reached his conclusions for himself? Or is he a mere resurrectionist, plundering his bookshelves for the leather-bound corpses of other people’s ideas? Hazlitt expounded at length on how sophistry might be mistaken for critical faculties, noting that the man who sees only one half of a subject may still be able to express it fluently. ‘You might as well ask the paralytic to leap from his chair and throw away his crutch,’ he wrote, ‘as expect the learned reader to throw down his book and think for himself. He clings to it for his intellectual support; and his dread of being left to himself is like the horror of a vacuum’.

The natural human instinct for confirmation bias presents a further problem, one especially prominent among ideologues. Anything can be taken to bolster one’s position so long as it is perceived through the lens of prejudgment. We can see this most notably in the proponents of Critical Social Justice, who start from the premise that unequal outcomes – disparities in average earnings between men and women, for instance – are evidence of structural inequalities in society. They are beginning with the conclusion and working backwards, mistaking their own arguments for proof.

Worse still, such an approach often correlates with a distinctly moralistic standpoint. Many of the most abusive individuals on social media cannot recognise their behaviour for what it is because they have cast themselves in the role of the virtuous. If we are morally good, the logic goes, it must be assumed that our detractors are motivated by evil and we are therefore relieved of the obligation to treat them as human beings. What they lack in empathy they make up in their capacity for invective.

Again, we must be alert to the danger of cheapening argumentation and analysis to the mere satisfaction of ego. One of the reasons why disagreements on social media tend towards the bellicose is that the forum is public. Where there is an audience, there is always the risk that critical thinking will be subordinated to the performative desire for victory or the humiliation of a rival. In these circumstances, complexities that require a nuanced approach are refashioned into misleading binaries, and opponents are mischaracterised out of all recognition so that people effectively end up arguing with spectres of their imagination. The Socratic method, by contrast, urges us to see disputation as essentially cooperative. This is the ideal that should be embedded into our national curricula. Children need to be taught that there are few instances in which serious discussions can be simplified to a matter of right or wrong, and fewer still in which one person’s rightness should be taken as proof of another’s wrongness. In the lexicon of Critical Thinking, this is called the fallacy of ‘affirming a disjunct’; that is to say, ‘either you are right or I am right, which means that if you are wrong I must be right’. One cannot think critically in such reductionist terms.

To attempt seriously to understand an alternative worldview involves, as Bertrand Russell put it, ‘some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think’. In the study of psychology this is termed the ‘cognitive miser’ model, which acknowledges that most human brains will favour the easiest solution to any given problem. These mental shortcuts – known as heuristics – are hardwired into us, which is why being told what to think is more pleasurable than thinking for ourselves. I remember an English lesson in which I had initiated a discussion with my students about the representation of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, a topic that routinely comes up in exams. I wanted to know what they thought, and why. One student was sufficiently bold to ask: ‘Can’t you just tell us what we need to write to get the highest marks?’

This was not the fault of the student; there has been a trend in recent years, most likely influenced by the pressures of league tables, for schools to engage in ‘spoon-feeding’. Schemes of work and assessment criteria are made readily available to the pupils so that they can systematically hit the necessary targets in order to elevate their grades. The notion of education for education’s sake no longer carries any weight. I have even seen talented pupils marked down by moderators for an excess of individuality in their answers. In such circumstances, even a subject like English Literature can be reduced to a kind of memory test in which essays are regurgitated by rote.

It is hardly surprising, then, that pupils who opt for Critical Thinking courses at GCSE or A-level often perceive it to be a light option, a means to enhance the curriculum vitae without too much exertion. Courses are generally divided into Problem Solving and Critical Thinking, the former concerned with processing and interpreting data, and the latter covering the fundamentals of analysis and argumentation. Pupils learn about common fallacies such as the ad hominem (personal attack), tu quoque (counter-attack) and post hoc, ergo propter hoc (mistaking correlation for causality), along with others derived from Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. The Latin may be off-putting, but in truth these are simple ideas which are readily digestible. If one were to discount arguments in which these fallacies were committed, virtually all online disputes would disappear.

That said, the existence of Critical Thinking as an academic subject in its own right might not be the best way to achieve this. As the psychologist Daniel T. Willingham has argued, cognitive abilities are redundant without secure contextual knowledge. Critical thinking is already embedded into any pedagogical practice that focuses on how to think rather than what to think. The increased influence of the new puritans in education presents a problem in this regard, given that they are particularly hostile to divergent viewpoints. Any institution which becomes ideologically driven is unlikely to successfully foster critical thinking, and this is particularly the case when teachers are at times expected to proselytise in accordance with fashionable identity politics. The depoliticisation of schools is just the first step. Critical thinking requires humility; this involves not just the ability to admit that one might be wrong, but also to recognise that an uninformed opinion is worthless, however stridently expressed. Interpretative skills are key, but only when developed on a secure foundation of subject-specific knowledge. This is the basis for Camille Paglia’s view that art history should be built into the national curriculum from primary school level. In her book, Glittering Images (2012), Paglia explains that children require ‘a historical framework of objective knowledge about art’, rather than merely treating art as ‘therapeutic praxis’ to ‘unleash children’s hidden creativity’. Potato prints and zigzag scissors have their place, but we mustn’t forget about the textbooks.

When I was a part-time English teacher at a private secondary school for girls in London, one of my favourite exercises for the younger pupils was to ask them to study a photograph of a well-known work of art for five minutes without speaking, after which time they would share their observations with the rest of the class. So, for instance, I would give them each a copy of Paul Delaroche’s ‘Les Enfants d’Edouard’ (1831), which depicts the two nephews of Richard III in their chamber in the Tower of London just prior to their murder. My pupils knew nothing of the historical context, but after minutes of silent consideration were able to pick out details – the ominous shadows under the door, the dog alerted to the assassins’ footfall, how the older boy stares out at us with a sense of resignation – and offer some personal reflections on their cumulative impact. To create, one must first learn how to interpret.

The kind of humility fostered in the appreciation of great art could act as a corrective to the rise of narcissism and decline of empathy that psychologists have observed over the past thirty years. According to the National Institutes of Health, millennials are three times more likely to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder than those of the baby boomer generation. Writers such as Peter Whittle, Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett have traced the rise of hyper-individualism in Western culture. One particular study revealed that in 1950 only 12 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement ‘I am a very important person’. By 1990, this figure had risen to 80 per cent and the trajectory shows no signs of stopping. One of the ways in which this trend manifests itself is the now common tendency for arguments to deteriorate into accusations of dishonesty. After all, it takes an extreme form of egotism to assume that the only possible explanation for an alternative point of view is that one’s opponent must be lying. In order to think critically, we cannot be in the business of simply assessing conclusions on the basis of whether or not they accord with our own.

An education underpinned by critical thinking is the very bedrock of civilisation, the means by which chaos is tamed into order. Tribalism, mudslinging, the inability to critique one’s own position: these are the telltale markers of the boorish and the hidebound. A society is ill-served by a generation of adults who have not been educated beyond the solipsistic impulses of childhood. At a time when so many are lamenting the degradation of public discourse, a conversation about how best to incorporate critical thinking into our schools is long overdue. Our civilisation might just depend on it.

This is an excerpt from The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. You can buy the book here. It’s also available as an audiobook.

[slashaer]

like this for a starter from one of my d.imension 20 muses. specify muse (s) from under the cut, there's a little blurb about each to help:

ayda augefort. half phoenix in her 3rd incarnation. autistic. logical / analytical. owns a library of spells on a pirate island. daughter to the dean of a magical high school.

lady amangeaux. once queen of vegetania, her title was stripped from her once her husband, the king, died. caring, compassionate, and willing to fight for what's right. thoughtful and empathetic, she's trying not to become bitter with the war. has telepathy and can communicate nonverbally.

king amethar. rightful king of candia. man made of rock candy. nearly assassinated. not very good at being king, but he's learning alongside his wife and daughters. good in battle.

prince andhera. prince of air and darkness. awkward, hot, and muscular. done trying to make his mother proud - he's going to make himself and his friends proud, instead.

barry syx. number six of the nine barry clones. lost all of his brother clones to barry nine, who killed everyone but syx. big himbo, but happy to be here. good with guns. cyborg.

cody 'night angel' walsh. works at hot topic. into black clothes, satan, and kickass rock music. has a good heart beneath all the spikes and dark colors.

colin provolone. born of the dairy isles. daddy issues. a very loyal himbo who tries to do what's right. did not want to be a part of a war, but destiny had other plans.

delloso de la rue. mistrex of ceremonies at the bloom for over a millennia. needs everything to be perfect. has never enjoyed any of the festivities. has been hiding themself for too long - they're finally ready to show who they really are, and start living.

evan kelmp. wizard going to school for magic, and staving off the dark monsters and magic within him. orphaned, homeless, and a sad boi. bad at making friends, and has a bad temper, but a good heart.

fabian seacaster. son of a famous swashbuckler. pompous and very wealthy. acts as if he's above everyone else, because that's how he was raised. cares about his friends, even if he doesn't say it. has a talking, demonic motorcycle. loves to dance.

garthy o'brien. anasimar pirate and impresariex of the gold gardens. they trade in a lot of fine goods, especially magical items, and are known for their ability to break curses. nonbinary and badass. calm and pretty much unshakable. everyone wants to be with them. a bit of a flirt.

prince gerard. the frog prince. turned human when he married his wife, but cursed to turn back because of his cowardice. has anxiety, but learns how to fight and overcome his fears. still has his frog powers when he's a man once more.

gorgug thirstlespring. half orc. adopted, by gnome parents. emo teenager who likes music. trying to fight better. became an athlete with two of his friends. kind of sad. just wants to belong. now an artificer and builds great stuff, just like his mom and dad.

kingston brown. the man who knows everyone. protector of new york city. do no harm, but take no shit attitude. loves his parents. slow to trust, but loyal once he does. magical. vox populi.

kristen applebees. grew up in a religious home, now constantly questioning her faith and deities. recently found out she's a lesbian. laid back and chill, most of the time. philosophical in nature. smart, but a little clueless. absolutely built. worships the goddess of doubt. running for class president.

kugrash. 5 foot tall rat who travels through the subways of new york to help people struggling with homelessness. friends with santa claus. cares deeply about people and wants the world to change. has the mouth of a sailor, but means well.

pete conlan. also known as 'pete the plug' because he's a drug dealer. uses a lot of his own drugs because of a bad breakup. trans man who is estranged from his family. just learned magic and is absolutely tripping out.

pib. trickster spirit. familiar trapped in animal form due to his keeper dying. mischievous and always ready for a scheme. likes money. loyal as long as he likes you. good heart underneath it all. will change back into a human when he finds someone new to serve, or frees himself.

pinocchio. not a real boy, and never will be. warlock who gets his magic from his strings. used to lie a lot, but he's trying to be better. likes to tell jokes, but isn't the best at it. not very serious. drinks whiskey and eats bubblegum.

riz gukgak. wants to be a detective, so he's always investigating. carries a briefcase wherever he goes. acts too old for his age. drinks a lot of coffee. is always willing to take the stress off of his friends.

ruby rocks. one daughter of king amethar. twin to jet rocks. princess, but would rather perform in the circus. wants to be a part of the people and help them. has wild ambitions. practitioner of magical tricks.

sandra lynn faeth. fig's mother. has issues keeping partners. brave and willing to protect the kids at any cost. 100% mom coded, down to the mom jeans. great with a bow. has a griffon familiar.

theobald gumbar. a giant, pink gummy bear. knight of candia. loyal to the house of rocks. good in battle, not the best at casual conversation, but he's learning. will fight until the death, if needed. needs to relax a little bit.

[orangerosebush]

People online refer to Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity frequently. Understandably so! But to understand the idea, it's valuable to not just rely on random people's (often well-articulated and helpful) presentation of their individual understanding of the theory.

All too often, the role of heterosexuality in gender performativity is ignored -- which is a pity. Understanding the link between "correctly" performing one's gender and heterosexuality is key in contextualizing how and why it was difficult historically to, for example, access any form of medical transition unless one played the role of a heterosexual during intake interviews with clinics. Ray Blanchard, the father of many transmisogynistic discourses today, specifically divided trans women into two categories: heterosexual trans women (whom he "pitied" and deemed "worthy" of a tenuous, conditional validation) and bisexual/lesbian trans women (whom he deemed as being incapable of "truly" being trans).

And this did not just play out in medical contexts, as I know I have somewhere on my blog Lou Sullivan's correspondence with another queer trans man regarding the ways in which their shared experience of queer attraction called their transness into question socially -- even amongst other heterosexual trans men, who saw their political brothers' attraction to men as somehow incompatible with masculinity.

I think that this article also highlights that the process of being 'taught' the kind of ways we should perform our gender occurs both in public and in the privacy of the family. This process is neither passive nor harmless, regardless of whether one is cis or trans. Butler highlights extensively that this process is key to assimilating each generation into patriarchal modes of relating to one another and patriarchy, sensu lato -- an example being how (many) little girls are punished throughout childhood within a family unit for not adhering to the specific roles they "must" play within the family; roles that, in fact, are not at all specific to any family, but rather are roles that are particular to the prejudices within the society they were born into.

To be clear, I do not take Butler's writing on gender performativity as a dogma with how this accounts for the historical complexities of politicizing and policing the body. Many academics, activists, and everyday people have built upon and transcended the ideas articulated in Butler's work here. However, I think it is always helpful to know the legacy we inherit from the thinkers who came before us!

"Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory" (1988)

“Philosophers rarely think about acting in the theatrical sense […]

When Beauvoir claims that 'woman' is a historical idea and not a natural fact, she clearly underscores the distinction between sex, as biological [...], and gender, as [...] cultural interpretation or signification [...]. [T]o be a woman is to have become a woman, to compel the body to conform to a historical idea of 'woman,' to induce the body to become a cultural sign, to materialize oneself in obedience to a historically delimited possibility, and to do this as a sustained and repeated corporeal project.

[…]

The contention that sex, gender, and heterosexuality are historical products which have become conjoined and reified as natural over time has received a good deal of critical attention[.]

[…]

Surely, there are nuanced and individual ways of doing one's gender, but that one does it, and that one does it in accord with certain sanctions and proscriptions, is clearly not a fully individual matter. Here again, I don't mean to minimize the effect of certain gender norms which originate within the family and are enforced through certain familial modes of punishment and reward and which, as a consequence, might be construed as highly individual, for even there family relations recapitulate, individualize, and specify pre-existing cultural relations; they are rarely, if ever, radically original. The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again”

[awellreadmannequin]

On narrative, Romance, and The Witch from Mercury

I’ve seen a bunch of posts bemoaning people who don’t seem to feel that the relationship between Suletta and Miorine is either explicitly romantic or that it’s final, married state makes sense given the events of the narrative. I find it absolutely fascinating that anyone can watch that show and not see how their relationship blooms into something very obviously romantic. Like, from the narrative itself, to the way it is structured, to its themes, one of the show’s main preoccupations is Miorine and Suletta’s romantic feelings towards one another (another is Suletta’s mommy issues, a thing lesbians are famously immune to). So in order to rectify what appears to be a major crisis of media illiteracy, let’s talk about narrative, romance, and The Witch from Mercury.

Let’s start with narrative.

In studying literature at the high school level, students in the Anglo-sphere world are often shown some variation of this diagram:

(Graham, 2014)

This diagram can be roughly broken into three sections: beginning (exposition, inciting incident), middle (rising action, climax), and end (falling action, denouement). Those who haven’t seen this particular diagram are likely familiar with the beginning-middle-end narrative structure, perhaps having even been told that this is the structure of all narratives (it isn’t, but that’s not really relevant here). The origin of this way of thinking about narrative in the western tradition is Aristotle’s Poetics, a treatise on aesthetics and tragedy. However, when we learn about this narrative structure in school, there is often an important aspect of Aristotle’s argument that gets left out. What he’s actually describing is not a narrative but rather an action. Actions, he argues, have a beginning, a middle, and an end and good narratives are ones that imitate one complete action. This process of imitation is known as mimesis (Ricoeur 1984, 33-34).

Reframing our beginning-middle-end structure with this context leaves us with two important takeaways. The first takeaway is that this structure views a narrative as a singular action which can be analyzed as having a beginning-middle-end structure. The second takeaway is that this structure is critical. This means that it has a valence of aesthetic judgement such that we can judge the aesthetic value of a narrative by its coherence with the structure. Now, this is not the only critical lens through which to view narratives, nor am I suggesting it should be. Rather, it is a relatively easy to understand structure that provides a useful frame of reference for interpreting the particular narrative we’re interested. Further, a narrative can itself be broken up into actions which can in turn be analyzed using this structure. Thus, with a work as complex as a television show, you have actions within actions all of which can be broken up into the beginning-middle-end structure. To expand on this account Aristotle (and Ricoeur, whose exegesis and analysis of Aristotle I’ve cited) provides, we have to next ask what ‘action’ actually means in this context.

To answer that question, I want to turn another philosopher, Hannah Arendt. In her excellent book The Human Condition she describes three kinds of things that humans do which define the human condition. The first is labour, which she defines as those things which must be done continually because they have no real end. Eating, drinking, and sleeping can all be thought of as kinds of labour on this view because no matter how many times we do them, we will still need to do them again. Labour alone cannot define the human condition because all living things also preform repetitive tasks to survive. The second thing humans do is work. Unlike labour, work has a definite beginning and end. However, what distinguishes it from the last category of human thing is that the end of work is always known before hand. Making a table is work because you start off without table, you finish with a table, and all along you know that you will ultimately have a table when you’re finished. The third and final thing is the one that Arendt believes most defines the human condition: action. Action has a beginning - a point at which the action is set in motion - but its end is undefined. Taking an action is thus a sort of risk. It demands we set out to do something without any certainty about the outcome and that we do so precisely because we are not certain as to the outcome. Without getting too far into the weeds, Arendt maintains that action can only exist within contexts structured by social relationships. Basically, taking action requires the involvement to some degree of other people. Actions also live beyond us. Their relational existence means that they have a ripple effect upon those who exist in relation to the actor. One action will inevitably beget further actions in response (Arendt 1998).

For our purposes, we need to understand how work, action, and art intersect. Art is a product of action but is itself a sort of work. The artist sets out to make an artwork with an idea of what it will be like, but often finds that it changes along the way. Further, the artwork lives beyond the artist, inspiring actions on the part of audiences and critics. However, the work of art itself has both a definite beginning and a definite end. Paintings have canvas edges, films end, and you eventually leave a building. So while being the product of action art can only ever imitate it. Thus, we find ourselves right back at Aristotle and the beginning-middle-end structure. Would it shock you to learn that Arendt was an Aristotelian? No? Good.

Okay, bluh, now you’ve read through a bunch of aesthetic and social philosophy as well as literary theory. As a reward, let’s apply the structure to GWitch.

Now, let’s start by asking ourselves what the overarching action the narrative of the Witch from Mercury is emplotting? I would argue it is Elnora’s attempt to create a new world for Ericht. Why? Well, the prologue sets up Elnora’s motivations, which are revealed as the tension ratchets up, and then narrative concludes when she fails. We know this is an action (thus worth narrativizing) because Elnora sets it in motion with a desired end in mind but no certainty that she will achieve it. She is taking a risk. For anyone wondering, this is one reason why Suletta and Miorine don’t get dramatic confessions or a marriage scene. The show is, ultimately, not actually about their actions, it’s about Elnora’s. However, the show seems to focus on Suletta, Miorine, et al because the overarching action cannot move through its beginning-middle-end structure without conflict, which the students provide. Thus, it structures the show by providing a ground out of which the rest of the characters actions can grow. These actions too can be understood through the beginning-middle-end framework and are worth examining as well.

The one we’re obviously most concerned with is the relationship between Suletta and Miorine. Wait. Is a relationship an action, in the relevant sense?

Yes.

Relationships require other people, so check. They involve both risk and uncertainty, so check. And they have no definite end, so make that three checks. In colloquial language, it might seem strange to call something as complex as a relationship an action, but in the technical sense we’re concerned with, it is. Isn’t philosophy fun?

Here, it’s worth remembering that while artworks imitate action, they are nonetheless still works. From Suletta and Miorine’s perspectives (as well as Elnora’s in her case), they are taking actions because they have no way of knowing the outcome of the social risks they’re taking. However, from our context as the audience, these actions exist within the context of work so we know that they will have a definite end. And after finishing the narrative, we also know what that end is. This means that while in real life, actions do not have foreshadowing to tell us how they will end (they exist in the context of genuine uncertainty), in art they do. In fact, actions in art only have one possible end, the one that the artist already created. Nothing that happens in art cannot be accounted for beforehand by the action of the artist. This means that the action of Suletta and Miorine’s relationship is diagetically defined by the necessary risk for action while at the same time already always having a definite and knowable resolution from an outside perspective.

Bluh, I am so sorry if this is getting difficult to follow.

The important point I’m trying to make is that since we know how Suletta and Miorine’s relationship will go or at least that it is going to go somewhere, we can therefore analyze it through the beginning-middle-end structure (because narrative imitates action) in order to… well… analyze it.

So what does this structure reveal to us? Let’s start with the beginning. The first defining moment of Suletta and Miorine’s relationship is when Suletta becomes the holder. This is the point at which they become entwined by the plot. Hence forth, they will exist within the rest of the narrative in relation to one another such that their actions going forward are all influenced by the relationship that here begins. By this I mean that their actions are always explicitly or implicitly framed relative to how they feel about one another. In turn, their actions have consequences which more often then not leave them thinking about one another. Time and again, they choose to return to the other’s side because they find it painful not to. This is borne out symbolically as well as literally, most notably when Miorine asks her father to fund the company and later when Suletta fences with Guel for the position of holder well after that position has become functionally obsolete. In both cases, each character makes a symbolic gesture that indicates their commitment to one another. In the latter case, this gesture has a pretty explicitly romantic overtone as Suletta implicitly indicates that she still wishes to marry Miorine even after she is no longer obligated to do so.

The mid point of the narrative both literally and structurally occurs when Suletta kills a person in the plant in order to save Miorine.

As an aside, this scene is just sublime. Excellent writing, excellent visuals, just some of the best goddamn story telling I’ve ever seen.

Narratively, this scene forces Miorine to confront Suletta’s biggest character flaws. It is clear from her body language and the way she initially distances herself from Suletta in the first part of the latter half of the narrative that Miorine is deeply uncomfortable with what happened. This leads her to make the first of two choices that help drive the second half of the narrative forward. The first is to make Guel the holder and thereby put a firm distance between her and Suletta. The second is to embrace Suletta in the wake of the traumatic events that occurred on Earth. What stood out most to me about her stated reasoning about the first choice was that it betrays the results of how she processed the events at the plant. Specifically, she frames what she’s doing as being for Suletta’s own good. Implicit in the reasoning she gives is the idea that she feels Suletta’s poor decision making skills vis a vis taking the life of another are in part the result of her self-destructive drive to do things for others. By trying to separate herself from Suletta, she is also trying to separate Suletta from the overarching action of the plot by ensuring she will not be put in positions where she’s forced to act relative to consequences of that plot. This of course fails because narrative very quickly comes crashing back into Suletta’s life as things begin to go very sideways at the school (again, I want to stress that Elnora’s action, the plot of the show, structures all of the other narrative threads, allowing them to intersect with SulaMio in ways that move the plot forward). Here, Miorine is acting. Uncertain of the best way forward, she choose a course of action that aims to separate herself from Suletta and Suletta from the narrative.

The direct result of this action sees her and Guel to Earth, where the overarching action of the plot (remember, Elnora’s plan) collides with her and with Suletta. This time, Suletta has an opportunity to act, to take a risk and to charge into the uncertain future. After seemingly being rejected by Miorine, she nonetheless decides to return to her side, going out of her way to reclaim the right to call her self the groom in the process. At this point, the ball is in Miorine’s court and it is her turn to act. And in the end, she chooses Suletta. Again and again. Over and over, Miorine returns to Suletta’s side. As they both grow and change - for better and worse - they find themselves choosing to seek each other out.

We don’t even need to cover the end, not really. The action of their relationship resolves with Miorine holding Suletta’s space suit after the Gundam has dissolved. She begs for Suletta to be returned to her and, after a beat, she is. In that moment, they once again choose each other. The epilogue just expands on what we already know: Miorine and Suletta are forever intertwined, the weight of their love forever moving each to towards the other. Three years on, they’ve grown and changed and healed and there they still are, choosing each other.

In case it isn’t obvious enough yet, this narrative - the action being imitated by the depiction of their relationship - is structurally a romantic one. Beat for beat, it follows the same structure as explicitly romantic narratives.

Not convinced? Let’s examine one.

In Akashi’s excellent yuri manga Still Sick, Office Lady Shimizu Makoto is a single, amateur yuri doujinshi creator whose hobby is discovered by a junior colleague named Maekawa Akane. (Spoilers for the plot ahead) Despite Akane’s hot and cold personality (which verges on possibly being a serious mental health issue), the pair grow close. After that inciting incident in which Akane discover’s that Makoto is a yuri otaku, the pair are faced by moments of conflict in which the choice to separate is ultimately undone by a desire to be together. Akane’s personality, um, flaws lead her to continually push Makoto away despite an intense desire to be with her. As the stresses of life mount, Makoto continually chooses to go back to Akane and Akane continually chooses to ultimately take her in (Akashi 2019-2020). Because, and say it with me, they’re in love!

Now, before you get all twisted in knots about how friendship narratives can be structurally similar, I will simply point you in the direction of this post I made about yuri in the context of Genshin Impact as well as the paper by Michiko Suzuki I cite in it. I have also co-authored an actual (potentially) forthcoming academic paper in which I discuss what yuri as a genre entails, so trust me on this one. Within the context of Japanese media depictions of young women, the line between friendship and romance has historically been and still remains an incredibly vague one. As the Suzuki paper discusses, this has intentionally been exploited by writers trying to tell stories about sapphic relationships without upsetting moral authorities for more than a hundred years.

So what is our ultimate conclusion? Well, it’s that The Witch from Mercury contains within it a narrative about a relationship between two young women that is structured like other, explicitly homoromantic narratives about the same and was created within a culture context in which certain audiences are primed to understand narratives about intense romance adjacent friendships between young women as actually being veiled stories about homoromantic relationships. If it quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and somehow avoids being immolated by pseudo-dragon fire like a duck, IT’S PROBABLY A DUCK, NO?

Don’t worry about that dragon fire thing, only real yuri heads will get that one.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Bibliography:

Akashi. Still Sick. Translated by Katie Kimura, vol. 1-3, Los Angeles: TOKYOPOP, 2019-2020

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Mrs. Graham. “Plot Structure,” on myriversideSD43.ca. Accessed July 16, 2023. Found here. Authors note: This diagram was made for a grade eight class in a school district about two hours from where I grew up in the year that I was in grade nine, which is both a bizarre coincidence and a nostalgic reminder of how simple I used to think literature was.

Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative. Volume I, translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

[ashtxeman]

WHY I LIKE GLASS JOE A LOT

I promised a lot of information about why I like Glass Joe so I wrote this in an hour with no plan, no proof reading, completely improvised. If I planned this it would probably be WAY longer lol but I'll spare you all the pain of that. SO. ENJOY MY REASONING.

Glass Joe. Glass Joseph. Fragile Joey. It’s a name that’s been uttered for centuries in many different forms, given many different explanations. Critics, theorists, philosophers alike have carved away at their lives trying to solve the answer to the universe's greatest question. And that is:

Glass Joe, good why?

I can answer that, absolutely.

HEY I LOVE GLASS JOE A LOT IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT ALREADY JUST GOTTA ESTABLISH THAT HAHAHA OKAY LETS GO. SHOUTOUT TO THE FUCKING RTGAME PUNCHOUT VIDEO YOU DID THIS TO ME.

POINT 1: HE IS HANDSOME.

I swear to God this man was hand-crafted by the hands of an incomprehensible deity because HOW is he this flawless. He’s 5’10, great height honestly I’m 5’3 I don’t want to be dating a skyscraper you know. He’s a skinny bastard but that’s okay, more on that later. His hair, oh my goodness gracious, lord above, help me Jesus. HIS HAIR. IS SO GOOD. If you put that skateboard ramp ass hairstyle on literally any other character they would look like a dumbass, but here, on this man alone, it’s the most delicately poised series of ginger strands I ever did see.

His hair looks SO soft. It’s unbelievable. It’s such a lovely shade of auburn with hints of burgundy. It must smell like cinnamon. He must take great care of it. A real Head and Shoulders, coconut oil, double wash kinda guy. A real bougie kinda guy. Yeah he’s not great physically in SPORT terms but in PUBLIC terms he’s absolutely stunning and stronger than anybody else. I wanna run my fingers through his silky locks so bad it’s insane and to understand this desire I’ll have to be strapped down and operated on. DONATE MY BRAIN TO SCIENCE GO AHEAD. THEY NEED IT. 

Not to mention it is SO fun to draw. SO SO SO FUN. Maybe I’m just lucky it’s such a wacky and dynamic hairstyle it transfers quite well into my artstyle, but it’s so fun. It’s easy, it’s fast, it creates an absolutely iconic silhouette, I love colouring it because it’s so damn pretty and ginger/red is such a broad colour scheme that can be put into a gradient so well (i love doing gradients with hair cause i hate when its just a block of colour). Nobody could understand the sheer joy i get putting that dumbass ahoge between the bridge of his fringe and the rest of his hair. That little ‘ right at the top ITS SO FUN. i love him his hair is great.

His face. Carved like the works of the finest artest. He’s a canvas of quality that can rival Van Gogh, for god sake. He’s got the jawline of a man on a lifelong mewing streak, STOP IT HE’S SO GORGEOUS I CANT EVENNNN. He is seriously so good looking. His eyes, the little pink-tinted eyebags that show he doesn’t need sleep because he’s so hardcore on caffeine, his gorgeous big ol nose i wanna kiss so bad, his super dynamic chin i wanna kiss so bad, his face i wanna kiss so bad. I wanna kiss him so bad. He is genuinely such a beautiful man its stunning, im literally a lesbian but if they somehow brought glass joe into the real world looking exactly how he does in those GOD DAMN CUTSCENES OOOOO i’d be bisexual so fast it’s crazy. He’s just that great. He’s got that power. I love his nervous little grin and the little creases on his face, cause he’s OLD AND SENILE. He’s 38 for god sake he shouldn’t look this good and sure, you can see his age slipping in a little with the eyebags and the wrinkles but that only ADDS to how stupidly divine he is in appearance. Stop that handsome man officer!! He’s breaking the laws of BEAUTY. GIVE IT TO MEEEEE. MEEEE.

His fashion sense although odd (ive never actually seen anyone wearing red trousers) just works. It wouldnt work on anyone else but it works on HIM. this is a theme. THINGS DONT WORK ON OTHER PEOPLE BUT THEY WORK ON JOE HE’S SO COOL LIKE THAT. his turtleneck kills me its so good it highlights what little figure he has and it contrasts his red hair so well cause its a really deep blue. SIGH. i wish. I have a turtleneck thats exactly the same but let me tell you i dont even breath the same air of fashion that he breathes. He’s so far ahead of the game he’s on an entirely different runway. He is not gonna sashay away anytime soon. On a constant shante. Unstoppable.

POINT 2: HE EMBODIES HIS CULTURE WELL.

Cats out of the bag, joe is a french stereotype. But. and dont quote me here. I find it very admirable HOW he is a french stereotype. Because he kind of.. Isn’t? He uses the characteristics of that stereotype sure, but he doesn’t engage with them the same way an actual french stereotype would. He likes coffee, he likes bread, he loves France like its his child, sure. But he doesnt have a twirly moustache, he doesnt wear a beret, he doesnt galavant around in black and white mime clothing. Even if that would be funny yknow it just wouldnt be as good. 

His admiration of coffee and bread is so relatable cause hell, I LIKE BREAD AND CAFES AND STUFF! He needs that coffee to keep him going you dont understand. If he misses a dose of caffeine he’ll deflate like the pyramids did in despicable me 1. He’ll be a puddle on the floor, he’ll quite literally cease to exist. Coffee is his golden idol, his hand of midas, his treasure. He has great willpower (more on that later) but coffee is that secret weapon he uses to push him just a little bit further. Plus he just thinks it tastes good and is happy to express that, you cant blame the guy for that. A good drink is a good drink. Even though i dont like coffee he’s so happy with it i respect it. He makes things i dont like respectable. Thats whats so real to me. What a goat. As for bread, bread is just great. Baguettes are yum. All the french bread i know about is usually close to white bread and autism behold thats like the only bread i can bear to eat so its alright with me man. You can go to joes house and he will have one of those fancy bread cupboards. He’ll pull out baguettes like he’s at a renaissance fair and they have a sword shortage. He’s on the case. You will NOT leave his house on an empty stomach. Like a very caring grandma, he will get you fed with the most immaculate 5 star meal you ever did eat. French food is great and theres no doubt about that, thats why he loves FOOD. I TRUST HIM. HE KNOWS WHATS GOOD. if mr glass joe turned around to me and said ‘broken glass is good food’ you bet your ass id be smashing windows and munch munch crunching all day long. 

Maybe his admiration of his country is a little over the top to some. You know the french landmarks in the back of his cutscenes, the ‘vive le france’ and singing the national anthem. But no. i dont think its excessive, i think its passionate. This is undeniably a man that is SO passionate about his culture and the lifestyle he’s grown up around, he’s not afraid to express it to other people until they cant stand it anymore. He’ll take as many hits as he needs to in the name of france. He is an embodiment of everything endearing about being foreign, honestly. An extreme love for the things his country has: food, landmarks, fashion, language, culture. EVERYTHING IS ON HIS LIST. NOTHING IS LEFT OUT. HE LOVES FRANCE AND I LOVE HIM. YES SIR!! VIVE LE FRANCE!! YES!!! 

Also he single-handedly convinced me to start learning french. I seriously didnt care about it before but after i started to like him more and really get into punchout i downloaded duolingo and i still have a streak going AND im actually convinced to try hard in my french lessons and exams because yknow.. I want this fictional french guy to be proud of me. :] 

POINT 3: HE IS DETERMINED.

OHHHHHH BOY. okay right im gonna get inspirational here. Play some dramatic orchestral music or something. 

The thing about Glass Joe is that he never. Gives up. Never. There is nothing in the world you could do to this man that could possibly stop him from boxing. They call Kaiser a fighting machine but boy have they not seen Joe. once that man stepped into the ring for the first time, he’d found a second home, and i think thats evident. 100 times this man has fallen down, brushed it off and gotten right back up. He’s had hardships, ups, downs, tumbles, falls. But everytime, no matter what, he’s back on his feet and ready to try again. And there is something so admirable and inspirational about that kind of approach being written into a CHARACTER THAT IS MEANT TO BE A FRENCH STEREOTYPE. ‘GHHHH FRENCH PEOPLE ALWAYS SURRENDER ACSHUALLY’ SHUT UP!! NOT THIS ONE!! I like to think Joe’s motto is ‘never surrender’. Yes he’s a little self aware how ironic it is thats hes french and doing all this but shhh. He knows whats hes doing and he’s happy to do it. Because like ive said again and again, theres nothing that can stop him. 100 kos, 200 kos, 300, 400… you keep cranking that number up and he’ll keep cranking the punches. Keep those lights up, keep those gloves on, you knock Joe down and eventually, no matter how long it takes, he’s back for more.

Now dont misinterpret that, he’s not a masochist like aran ryan, no sir-ee. He doesnt enjoy losing, nobody does. But the thing is he pushes past that disappointment and those hardships because he knows that eventually, if he keeps on going, things are going to change. He knows that if he lays down the gloves and walks away, there’s no possibility of succeeding. You could drop Joe off on the other side of the world and just like that immortal snail, he’s gonna find a way back. Even if it takes forever. Cause he is weak but determined, he isn’t threatening but relentless, he is stoppable but unstoppable. Glass joe has the strongest will out of any character i know. Cause if any of my other favourites went through 100 whopping losses like he did, they’d retire on a tropical island and never interact with the world again. But not joe. Never joe. My king.

POINT 4: HE IS ENDEARING.

THIS GUY IS SO DAMN CHARMING IT MAKES ME WANT TO EXPLODE INTO CONFETTI AND GLITTER AGHHHHH.

Come on. How can you look at his smile, his lovely little, subtle smile with those shy old eyes, and not immediately fall in love with him. He’s got some many little subtle things. Like the way his pupils dart around or his little sway back and forth when he’s knocked out or the way he bounds back and forth on his legs like an old-timey guy about to have a squabble. The way his mouth goes :0 so very subtly when he’s breathing. The way he always looks either shocked beyond repair, completely zooted or very confused. It’s all so perfect. IT’S ALL THESE THINGS THEY MAKE HIM BRILLIANT.

Im seriously looking for scraps here but i love finding meaning in otherwise meaningless things. I love analysing every detail until there is literally nothing else i could possibly say about it. He is perfect for this.

His fucking VOICE. OHHH MY GOD. it was so damn funny the very first time i heard his voice, because honestly it feels deliberate how they put his humble cutscenes before his first bit of dialogue so you expect this soft-spoken kinda light-voiced french guy only to be greeted with CHRISTIAN BERNARD’S DEEP ASS VOICE. OHHH KILL ME HE SOUNDS SO HANDSOME I WANNA SINK INTO THE FLOOR AND CRY WITH JOY. i wouldnt even mind if he was a soft-spoken light-voiced french guy but they really had to amp it up a little and give this lowly frenchman the most eloquent unnecessarily deep and silky voice ever. HE DIDNT NEED THAT. BUT THANK YOU FOR GIVING HIM THAT NINTENDO CAUSE ITS ONE OF HIS GREATEST QUALITIES. Plus french is just a really fun language to listen to. I could honestly sit listening to joe’s voicelines on repeat for hours on end and be fine with it. They’re so good. He’s so beautiful sounding. Its absolutely hilarious considering his voice in comparison to appearance. COME ON!!! AAHAHHGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHAGHGHS I LOVE CHRISTIAN BERNARDS VOICE I WISH I COULD HEAR HIM SPEAK IN ENGLISH. I NEED MORE OF HIS VOICE. AGGGGGHHHHH. 

POINT 5: WHATEVER ELSE

I erm i erm i just wanna say i love joe so much. The way he’s constructed, appearance, personality, physicality, dialogue, culture inspiration, story. EVERYTHING about him is just so cool and fun to think about and in my head it all weaves perfectly together to create the best character in all of fiction. It has now been over 2 unapologetic years of me yapping on about this guy. Whether it be his canon self and the things he does or the fanon version of him thats ive sourced from other peoples awesome HC’s or forged from my own lore. Any excuse i get, i talk about joe. Because it is so utterly fun. Yeah, he’s not the only boxer i love!!! Not at all!! I have several other favourites persay, but on the punch-out tier list joe is so good he has his own category thats about 4 ranks higher than what S rank is. And that is deserved. 

He loves his culture, he never gives up, he’s arguably a weakling and an absolute screwup but he never lets that get in his way because of her persistent he is, he’s gorgeous, he’s cool, he’d be a great friend, dad, boyfriend, husband, EVERYTHING. He’s got a weird hairstyle and weird fashion sense but somehow he looks great with it. He beat NICK BRUISER CANONICALLY?!?! He’s french, he’s ginger, which in a joking sense makes him the worst but against all odds he is the best. The french are lucky to be represented by him because he’s so utterly and unapologetically awesome and cool and fun and nice and inspiring and all that jazz. There is not a single thing that could stray me away from the path of Joe. my lore for him is SO deep. My admiration for him is INFINITE. Ive read through his wiki a pagillion times. Ive beaten him over 80 times in-game simple because i like seeing him so much and.

Well. i have entire shrine dedicated to him. let me know if you wanna see that....

[radfemverity]

‘The Lie’ is a speech Andrea Dworkin gave in October 1979, at the Women Against Pornography march on Time Square. You can read the full speech in Letters From a War Zone. Here are some excerpts.

The one message that is carried in all pornography, all the time, is this: she wants it. She wants to be forced; she wants to be raped, she wants to be brutalized (…) she likes to be hit, she likes to be hurt, and she likes to be forced.

The proof that she wants it is everywhere: the way she dresses, the way she walks, talks, sits, stands, she was out after dark, she invited a male friend into her house, she said hello to a male neighbor, (…) she asked her father a question about sex, she got into a car with a man, (…) she flirted, she got married, she had sex once with a man and said no the next time, she is not a virgin, she talks with men, (…) she smiled, she is home alone, asleep, the man breaks in, and still, the question is asked, "Did you like it?”

You keep saying no. Try proving no. Those bruises? Women like to be roughed up a bit.

Why did she want it? Because she is female and females always provoke it, always want it, always like it.

And how does everyone whose opinion matters know that women want to be forced and hurt and brutalized? Pornography says so. For centuries men have consumed pornography in secret – yes, the lawyers, legislators, doctors, artists, writers, scientists, theologians and philosophers.

Men believe the pornography, in which the women always want it. Men believe the pornography, in which women resist and say no, only so that men will force them, and use force and more brutality. To this day, men believe the pornography, and men do not believe the women who say no.

Some people say that pornography is only fantasy. What part of it is fantasy? (…) The acts of violence depicted in pornography are real acts committed against real women and real female children. The fantasy is that women want to be abused.

And so we are here today (…) to shout, to scream, to bellow, to holler – that we women do not want it, not today, not tomorrow, not yesterday. We never will want it and we never have wanted it. The prostitute does not want to be forced and hurt. The homemaker does not want to be forced and hurt. The lesbian does not want to be forced and hurt. The young girl does not want to be forced and hurt.

That is why we will fight pornography wherever we find it, and we will fight those who justify it, those who make it, and those who buy and use it.

And make no mistake: this movement against pornography is a movement against silence – the silence of the real victims. This movement against pornography is a movement for speech – the speech of those who have been silenced by sexual force, the speech of women and young girls. And we will never, never be silenced again.

[keep-tilting-at-windmills]

Born into an Anglo-Irish and Welsh family in London on January 1, 1897, Edward Morgan Forster was originally intended to be called Henry, though at his christening he was accidentally baptized Edward. This also being his father's name, young Edward became known in family circles as Morgan, so as to differentiate him from his father.

Considered one of the greatest English novelists of the twentieth century, E.M. Forster was educated at Tonbridge School, and later King's College, Cambridge; where, as an undergraduate, he became a member of a the Apostles; a society who met in secret to discuss their work on and about philosophical and moral questions; the group later being known as the Bloomsbury Group (sometimes referred to as the Bloomsbury Set). He advocated individual liberty and penal reform; opposed censorship; was President of the Cambridge Humanists, and also a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association; his views as a humanist, being at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society.

A gay man, Forster developed a long-term relationship with Bob Buckingham; Forster's circle of friends also including Benjamin Britten, Christopher Isherwood, Siegfried Sassoon and Forrest Reid.

E.M. Forster was elected an honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge; declined a knighthood in 1949; was made Companion of Honour in 1953; and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1969.

When Forster's cousin, Philip Whichelo, donated a portrait of Forster to the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GLHA), Jim Herrick, the founder, quoted Forster's words: 'The humanist has four leading characteristics – curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race'.

Edward passed on June 7, 1970. He was 91. His ashes, mingled with those of Buckingham, were later scattered in the Rose Garden of Coventry's crematorium, near Warwick University.

*

'Maurice' (1971; published posthumously): a homosexual love story set in early twentieth century England, which follows its main character, 'Maurice Hall' (played by James Wilby in James Ivory's 1987 film adaptation for Merchant Ivory Productions), through university, a tumultuous relationship with 'Clive' (played by Hugh Grant), his struggles to fit into society, and ultimately being united with his life partner, 'Alec' (played by Rupert Graves).

Ivory's usual writing partner being unavailable, he wrote the screenplay with Kit Hesketh-Harvey; who, like Forster, had also been educated at Tonbridge School and Cambridge University, and therefore knew the background. Ivory later said: 'What Kit brought to the script was his social background […] His knowledge of the British upper middle class was incredibly useful – the dialect, the speech, the slang, and so many other things. As an American, I could not have possibly written the script without him'.

The film was largely shot on location in the halls and quadrangles of King's College, Cambridge, including interiors in the college's chapel; the other interiors, primarily shot at Wilbury Park, a Palladian house in Wiltshire.

[i-need-some-advice-on]

I need some advice on some choices I'll have to make. My parents are very strict and religious people, their whole outlook into life always had a religious outlook. They're also very homophobic and sexist, and it's tied to their religion. They're also impossible to change the minds of. I tried (for much lighter subjects to them) to show them another view, backing it up with lots of information, philosophical points, even religious context and they wouldn't budge, all the books and research I referenced became "the west's propaganda", and "fake information", the religious points I made got ignored, everything I said got cut down to me being too inexprienced and young, I would understand when I'm older (I'm fucking 20, every other adult in my life has been telling me that I'm very mature and wise ever since I was eleven).

I'm bi and also a woman. Their sexism and homophobia is not subtle. My mother told me during the pandemic that she wished "COVID kills all the bad people, you know, the lesbians" and my father is expecting me, no arguing, to only work if it's a women only workplace which fucking impossible to find. I'm in college and I can't imagine what would happen if they knew I talked to male classmates, because simply talking to men is something they can slutshame me for, but it wouldn't be the worst they'd do. I know that no matter what I do, I will never be allowed to be myself around them, and that they will not accept me if I am being myself. I have reason to be scared that they would do more than just disown me.

I have three reasons for still not wanting to leave. 1) I know how it sounds but I still love them. I don't want to lose my family because leaving means that. 2) I may not be able to look after myself and I won't have the financial support of a family like some other people. The world is scary. 3) I have sisters that are younger than me. My dad already has some questions about us getting our educations and I'm scared if I leave the questions he had about my "woke university" "corrupting my soul" will be definite and he will not allow them to get their educations after I leave, the youngest is 6 now, it would take her 16 years to get a college education, assuming she doesn't take gap years. I would be 36. To me it's not a question to make sure they're also safe and at least have a college education, I will not sacrifice that. How do I get out of this, how do I survive. (I don't live in America, nor UK, nor Europe)

.