#never seem to factor into the worlds politics?? what do THEY think of not being able to warn their other family

[timeisacephalopod]

Y'all are aware of that 10 hour Harry Potter retrospective but the thing that gets me the most out of that whole thing that I never considered when reading the series is that wizards can obviously chose to adhere to the Statute of Secrecy but like... Magical creatures can't make that choice and Fantastic Beasts literally starts with Newt chasing down a rogue niffler, meaning that muggles probably frequently encounter magical creatures. There's no way that muggles and magical creatures could reasonably be segregated- Hermione's cat is half magical creature so how many muggle cats are also half neasel?

Like why on earth would you invent a world in which you have scores of animals, and also plants, that cannot reasonably consent to secrecy from muggles and the excuse of witch trials falls flat when actual magic exists that should factor into how those witch trials play out but never seems to come up. Anyway, the most unrealistic thing about a universe with magic and dragons and shit is that muggles would somehow never run into and remember a magical creature, there's zero way the wizards could catch every muggle who has seen something and obliviate them that's a herculean task designed to fail I refuse to believe no nifflers have ever stolen some muggles shit enough that they'd know what them little bastards were.

[skipppppy]

No offence but I feel like some people got a little too comfortable with telling people to touch grass and swung all the way round to just straight up shaming anyone who might have a less active social life than them to feel better about themselves. “She should be at the club” was a really funny meme until people started acting like fucking middle school bullies towards people who don’t go out with their friends a lot. All those drinking/drugs/sex milestone polls were fun to engage with until it became a wierd circlejerk making fun of people who haven’t done those things before. People on twitter are once again dogpiling someone for wanting queer social spaces that don’t revolve around alcohol or loud music and telling them it’s their own fault for not having friends.

Like I get that nightclubs and sex have strong ties to queer culture and are often the first targets in the hellscape of respectability politics. It’s important we remember our roots and protect these spaces from conservative scrutiny. I mean that. They are important. But just on a surface level it seems like people are starting to see having an inactive social life as some kind of moral failing which…it’s not. I feel like an insane person for feeling like I have to say this on the fucking queer autism website but like. You aren’t inherently a bad person if you don’t have friends. You aren’t “falling behind” if you haven’t had your first kiss in your 20s or never done drugs. The real world isn’t a movie. And if you see someone who doesn’t go out much and instinctually think “wow what a terminally online loser. I bet their social life sucks because they’re a sheltered creep and not because of systemic barriers beyond their control” you need to have a long hard look at why you feel that way.

There are very real barriers that prevent isolated people from finding community and connection. Do you think you’re superior for being able to breach them? Time, money, sobriety, accessibility, none of those factors were a problem for you, so it shouldn’t be for them, right? Right?

[lucystark12]

we might be witnessing something

obviously we all know how much i love byler, and what im about to say is going to sound like “gen z walking away from the white house on fire with hayloft by mother mother playing” but i have to speak my truth here- i think byler being canon will go FAR beyond the fandom and casual watchers of stranger things. we might literally be the early adopters of a pop cultural phenomenon that could go down in history as one of the most important moments in media history.

stranger things is a really bizarre phenomenon in the grand scheme of things, because it is SO famous. it’s popularity has been compared to shows like game of thrones, but it goes even beyond that, because EVERYONE watches it. i’ve been watching it since i was eleven. my mom watches it. my uncles watch it. my best friend watches it. my grandma watches it. it’s viewership is so wide because there are so many aspects of it that appeal to so many different people. the impact this show has sent a song released forty years ago to number one on the charts practically overnight and it STILL plays on the top 40 radio to this day.

think about american politics as they are right now- we’re bearing witness to one of (if not THE) most important election in american history. the difference between trump and kamala is the difference between potential dystopia and nuclear fallout and peace and progressiveness. if trump wins, he will pull all of our aid from ukraine, letting russia push forward into western europe, and we all know what happens when a country tries to push into western europe. trump’s agenda in project 2025 imposes potential laws that will take us back hundreds of years in lgbtq+ rights, rights for people of color, and women’s rights. this election has caused a huge amount of dread and fear in the american people especially as the days push on. and what do people historically cling to in moments of fear like this? art.

think about music during the vietnam war, movies like “red dawn” during the cold war, or mccarthyism during world war two. when people are afraid of the real world, they tend to turn to popular media for escapism. we’re already seeing it, as ridiculous as it sounds, in things like brat summer or the debate edits to chappell roan songs. it might not seem like it’s happening because everything about it is different today in the digital age versus sixty years ago when tvs were boxes, but it is. this is only the beginning. and with the release of the next stranger things season, it’s possible that it could only grow more.

picture this: it’s next july. trump has been sworn in as 47th president of the united states and is six months into his second term. there’s already talks of him overturning obergefell v. hodges (the supreme court ruling that gave us gay marriage), there’s now a nationwide abortion ban, and political opponents of his are slowly seeming to disappear and go inactive. but hey! the 2020’s most beloved tv show is airing its last season this week.. it’s an easy way for us all to feel nostalgia about a time (wether that be the 80s or summer 2019) when our country was progressing forward instead of so drastically backwards as it is now, or to just watch a cool sci-fi show with one of the highest viewerships of any show ever, second only to game of thrones. everyone is turning on their tvs at midnight to watch these new episodes and suddenly- the main couple consisting of the two main characters of the show breaks up, the boy leaving the girl for his childhood best friend, whom he has been in love with for years but been forced to ignore because of the way society views gay people?

and everyone is seeing this, even 40+ y/o homophobes who watch the show for the nostalgia factor and never suspected a thing. the public is outraged. fox news is going on about the gay agenda. but the shock of the news is turning heads. people are changing their minds because… people being gay actually hasn’t only been a thing for the last ten years??! gay people might not actually be lesser humans? ANYBODY CAN BE GAY? what is happening! we know everyone watches this, so people of all backgrounds all across the world and more specifically the country are reacting to this in different ways. but no matter how you look at it, everyone is talking about it. it’s all over everyone’s for you page, SNL is parodying it, anderson cooper is talking about it on CNN, trump is denouncing it on twitter, there’s a push for it to be banned in florida.

suddenly, the democrats are picking up on this, because isn’t this everything we’ve been fighting for this whole time put at the forefront of a mainstream show? this is forcing everyone to confront the implications of having a gay ship be the focal point of a show with the viewership of stranger things, and the democratic party and it’s supporters pick up on this, turning it into a symbol and essentially a martyr of the party as a whole. whatever song (and you know there will be a song) that’s used in the scene where byler becomes official is immediately topping the charts. people are walking around wearing t shirts with byler quotes on them like we’re seeing now with the kamala brat t shirts. hundreds of people are influenced by it and we may even see an increase in support for politicians who advocate specifically for gay rights or are gay themselves.

this all happens because when people who are being spotlighted by pop culture speak out, everybody hears it. it’s the same reasoning behind why an endorsement from taylor swift could outright win kamala this election. a huge part of our population has quiet beliefs that they’re just waiting to dive into until somebody in mainstream media tells them that it’s a good idea. in making byler cannon, stranger things could be changing the trajectory of popular culture and american politics as a whole for years to come. it’s all about the domino effect. if people see this, all it does is open a gateway for other stories and conversations to happen, because something so outrageous as making byler canon during the early stages of project 2025 will turn the heads of every politically inclined person in america, from every maga cap wearing trucker to every blue haired barista, and when heads are turned things are changed.

[backjustforberena]

Haha rephrase then, do you think had she met Addam and Alyn when they were young, when her own children were alive and children, Rhaenys would have been more or less accepting of them?

In TV Canon that is, in book canon I think it's implied she would have burned most of Driftmark for the betrayal of it.

Rhaenys is an interesting personality to try and figure out.

Okay, anon, you got me at a good moment because I'm a couple of gins down, settled in for the night and I really like getting inside Rhaenys's head, so let's give it a bash. With the caveat that this is all, obviously, speculation on my part and very, very, very changeable by each and every factor in this scenario.

Because the question is, what do you mean by "accepting them"? Do you mean accepting their existence, just in general, with the idea that she's not going to do something absolutely crazy or vengeful? Is this a scenario where she just has Corlys tell her, to her face, that these are his kids?

Rhaenys isn't a cruel character. She's not rash, she's not particularly vengeful. She's pragmatic to the point, sometimes, where it's like she's cut out her own heart in order to serve some greater good or greater peace or purpose or security. She's also incredibly merciful and logical. She won't see the transgression as something committed by those boys. She wouldn't see, I don't think, any fault or blame with the mother, either.

So, it's all on Corlys. He's the wildcard because it depends on what he's asking of her. What he wants her to do and what position he's putting her in. And when, as well. And how.

My gut is that if Corlys just confesses all, then she'll work through it. She won't force Corlys to punish the children or the mother - nothing like driving them out of their home or forbidding him to see the boys (though he can bloomin' well end the affair, I'll tell you that for nothing).

However, things drastically change if Corlys wants to give them anything more. If he wants to put them in the succession. If he wants to have them in High Tide, with their kids, then that becomes just a massive deal. Just, in society, that's shameful to her. I mean, goodness, he'd have to go to one of her family to get those kids naturalised. Proclaim it, to the world, that not only did he cheat on her, but the hers that she gave him are not worthy.

If they become a threat to her children and to their rights, then she's going to keep them at arm's length. I think that's sort of, a little bit, what we see in her treatment of the Velaryon boys in Episode 1x07: she's so aware of the danger that those boys represent, as much as she loves them, it's something that cannot be ignored and she will not allow her personal feelings to ever get in the way of a politically good move, especially surrounding the idea of succession. She has to protect herself and her children even if that ends up doing harm (not real, bloody harm, just things getting a bit ugly and little kids having feelings hurt - which is never nice).

Obviously, the idea of naturalising Alyn is different in Season 2 because Corlys desperately needs an heir, especially one suited for wartime.

I do want to clarify, I don't think any of this would happen. Corlys just isn't that guy, we know that. I don't see any world in which he'd do this, want this, or even suggest it (this being presenting his bastards to Rhaenys, or proposing to have them in High Tide). One thing that seems to be repeated and very present is the idea that he's ashamed by this. He won't talk about it. He doesn't like it, and he particularly doesn't like it in the context of it threatening the relationship with his wife. He's not waltzing around saying: look what I did!

What the state of the marriage was when the boys were conceived/born or whatever, we don't know, but with the characterisation we have... Corlys doesn't want any of this scenario, oddly enough (because, seriously, dude, two??). He seems to be deeply shamed by it and in deep denial. Corlys is also a big stickler for "the rules" and tradition and all of that, so his treatment of his illegitimate sons would be in line with whatever the order of the day was. Plus, Laenor and Laena are great and his in-laws have dragons... that man's not stupid (much).

It's funny, looking at the quote from Mushroom: "Princess Rhaenys, his wife, had the fiery temperament of many Targaryens, Mushroom says, and would not have taken kindly to her lord husband fathering bastards [...] Only after the death of Princess Rhaenys did Lord Corlys at last feel able to bring his bastards safely forward" - because it's all speculation. Whilst it's clear that F&B is different from HOTD, looking at this, we could say it STILL holds up.

Rhaenys does have a fiery personality. It may not be burning High Tide to the ground but she has a lot of emotion within her and the capacity for great displeasure and anger. She doesn't take kindly to Corlys's actions (low bar, Mushroom, no one would) - but she's not wrothful. She's heartbroken. And the idea of Corlys fearing her reaction is really intriguing in this version because he expects her to be exactly as Mushroom describes, almost. He expects her temper. So much that he strikes out with his own first, like something wounded, lashing out.

We turn from a Corlys scared his wife is going to burn his backside, to a Corlys concerned about just what it will do to her. What it will do to their marriage. And isn't it just so interesting that Mushroom focuses on the potential for a woman's anger than he does for a man's shame? The stereotype of a scorned woman. It's definitely an intriguing interpretation that we have, now.

I think, actually, looking at your question, we sort of have our answer. Rhaenys has known about Alyn and Addam. She probably has for years, including a time when her children were alive. This is not new information to her - only putting some of the information together is new to her (I can't really work out the specifics, as whether it's Alyn's name or his face or his role in Corlys's near-death or what - I think we can only gather that she's never interacted with Alyn before, in this context and at the age he is now, and she's never met his mother).

So is she accepting of them? Yes. Insofar as she acknowledges Corlys's actions and the fruit of them, and hasn't done anything cruel about it. Insofar as she's aware of everything but chooses to still love her husband, build a life with him, have faith and trust in him and she lets that pain and that wound simply scab over.

She accepts insofar as she's able to recognise it and face it when she has to, even as it does break her heart. If she had lived, would she be best mates with her husband's sons by another woman? No. That's ridiculous. But, I believe, from the small scene we have with Alyn, that a relationship could be formed that would be, at least attempted, forgiving. She could mitigate the pain, to serve that end goal.

As Rhaenys says: Alyn's past is no fault of his.

And as Eve says: "And that’s a classic example of her yet again putting aside her personal grief and her feelings. I think inside, she’s broken and devastated. But always doing the right thing."

Hope that covers it ;)

[artfilmfan]

I don't think i've ever despised US politics more (i've always been critical of the foreign policy under basically any US president during my lifetime - even under Obama it was disastrous, but this has gone now beyond all acceptable limits), BOTH parties. The DNC is the display of everything that is wrong with the US political system (basically two right wing parties that follow AIPAC guidelines, one of them pretending to be left while it hasnt been for ages, a few issues alone and waving lgbt and minority flags doesnt make you progressive if you allow genocide to happen to people that look different than you or follow a different religion) and just how incredibly one sided they are about the whole thing. Hosting exclusively hostages from one side while forgetting there are many more Palestinians hostages in prisons (or torture camps as even the more decent Israeli journalists call them) without any evidence, children included. Palestinians don't even exist for them, their suffering doesnt exist and they are not allowed on that DNC stage to even say how THEY feel about it all, or their POV. They are still giving a blank check to Netanyahu (who is a wanted war criminal by international law and with all the ICJ rulings) to do whatever he wants including sending more military aid while Palestinian children and other civilians are literally being blown apart, after destroying basically everything in Gaza and killing more than 10 percent of the entire Palestinian population (those numbers could be even much higher after all is examined). Anything that happens on US election day is totally on them. Anything that happens out of disgust of enabling all this is totally on them.

At this point i dont think i have anything else to say on this matter, my words wont change anything, even far more important people cant do anything about it as it seems, i'm done talking about it. We will however never forget or forgive this and we will act on it as much as we can. Boycotts (the financial consequences of them are already working worldwide and its only the beginning), disrupting events of any kind that feature the enablers, letting anyone involved in this know how an entire generation of people feels about it all will be the least we can do. The young and future voters (that they are alienating more and more, that's why they fear tiktok so much) will one day be the decisive factor and they too will not forget what they did when it mattered. Sooner or later there will be a boomerang effect. And then maybe there will be some kind of justice, although far too late for the present generation of Palestinians going thru the worst anyone could ever imagine. Almost one year of all this and the powers that be still pretend its nothing. The world really failed you Palestine and i'm truly sorry and embarassed i'm part of this world that let it happen and go on for this long. The protests and the epic scale of them is the only good thing that happened because of it. I hope they continue on many levels until there is true justice for Palestinians.

[houseofbrat]

Remember ten days ago when Trump was almost assassinated?

What will the political landscape look like ten days from now?

Things are moving and moving fast.

Walter & Matt do the best breakdown of the last 24 or perhaps last 96 hours.

But as Matt wrote in his substack post today, "Who's Running the Country?"

WHO’S IN CHARGE? After Biden’s cryptic letter came out yesterday, a slew of elected Democrats, including rumored potential candidates like Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, California’s Gavin Newsom, and both Bill and Hillary Clinton, all swiftly endorsed Harris. Harris instantly had her own campaign site, suggesting significant lead time and planning. Even JoeBiden.com immediately became a mirror to the Harris site, while Biden’s Twitter face page was refashioned to feature a Harris 2024 banner. For all the world, it looked as if the party had unanimously decided to throw its weight behind Kamala, and well before the weekend, too. However, Barack Obama did not endorse Harris, nor did Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, or Cory Booker. We’re being told in numerous press accounts by more “people familiar with the matter” that this is all a mere formality, and the party leaders are “firmly” and “without reservation” behind Kamala Harris. But are they? Some sources aren’t sure.

Although the top candidates seem to be publicly coalescing around Harris, I heard late last night this may be a temporary stance, held until the Democrats are sure Joe Biden’s $239 million war chest will transfer to Kamala’s hands without issue. The Republicans are preparing a legal challenge if Democrats attempt to pass on Biden’s cash, arguing the pair needed to be officially nominated before such a handoff could legally take place. “Biden can’t transfer his money to Harris because it was raised under his own name, and there is no legal mechanism,” said GOP lawyer Charlie Spies. Eugene Munin, a former General Counsel for the Chicago Transit Authority who’s worked on election law issues, said the status of the Biden funds represents a bit of a “gray area” legally. “I don’t think it’s definitive at all that she can just declare that she’s now a candidate for president and start spending that money as a candidate for president,” Munin says.

At least one Democratic consultant and several Republicans believe the fate of Harris is tied to two factors: how well the public responds to her in the next week or so, and whether or not the funds issue can be resolved quickly enough to allow her to begin aggressively advertising her candidacy. Despite the quick endorsements there have been signs of unease. Just this past Friday afternoon, Harris held a conference call for top donors to what was then still the Biden-Harris campaign. She showed up a half-hour late and said little except that they were going to win. “Everyone was pissed after the call,” one donor told the Washington Post, recalling the disastrous end of Harris’ 2020 run, also marked by internal frustrations about the future Vice President’s behavior (“I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly,” one Harris official wrote in a letter published by the New York Times). Rumors that have persisted since Biden’s own Hindenburg debate performance that top-level Democrats are less than thrilled with the prospect of a Harris run. The Times ran a long house editorial yesterday rejecting the idea of anointing Harris, hinting at electability issues and calling for a candidate to emerge from “process of public scrutiny” instead. Senior Democrats will watch to see how Kamala holds up under a few weeks of Internet fragging — millions are about to become introduced to the phrase “what can be, unburdened by what has been” — and then decide. How that decision is made, however, will tell us a lot about the question that matters more than anything right now: who’s America’s president right now? Obama? The Clintons? Politico’s “Why Biden Dropped Out”account claimed congressional leaders (“Chuck, Hakeem, Pelosi”) left the horse head in the president’s bed, while multiple Republican sources also pointed to Pelosi and Obama’s non-endorsements, reflecting a belief on the Trump side that the key to gauging Democratic strategy going forward will involve watching those two politicians. The only person we know for sure isn’t currently running things is Joe Biden.

But is Kamala about to get shanked in a week or two?

This is what the folks in my inbox don't seem to get.

As i noted earlier today, plenty of people behind closed doors don't think Kamala can win.

And it was less than a month ago that the Biden-Trump debate happened.

Things are moving fast folks.

Hold on to your seatbelts!

[slutcore-starships]

Hey you should tell us things about the Trojan Horse... 🥰🥰🥰

alright strap in because i have . Thoughts™️™️

so the way the story gets taught - especially when not actually being told through the iliad and the aeneid - is that the king odysseus built the horse as a trap for the trojans and offered it as a gift; however, the wooden horse was full of greek soldiers who erupted out at night and sacked the city. its spawned its own term, a trojan horse, for something that seems like a gift but is actually a trap - its even its own sort of computer virus!!

AND ITS COMPLETE HORSESHIT

the horse isnt a gift to troy!! its a gift to the gods!! and removing that detail, boiling it down, stripping it of that context, fundamentally robs the story of its meaning!! the /entire point/ of /every/ story of the trojan war is built around the same principle - the same principle at the heart of the majority of stories and folktales from the era - and its fairly obvious from the very beginning!!

the whole thing only begins because the goddess eris throws the goddesses of olympus into chaos by pitting them against each other in a glorified beauty competition, which leads to them seeking out a mortal mediator in the prince paris. hera aphrodite and athena each appeal to the prince to choose them in exchange for an incredible reward, and /this/ is where he fucks up!!

if he just says “i hold the utmost respect for all the gods of olympus, which is why i could never be worthy of judging any of you,” then he probably just gets sent home with an olympian gift basket and the whole thing stops there, but he doesnt!! he’s suckered into the competition and takes sides between the gods, which is an /obvious/ fuck up, and pursues the lust offered to him by aphrodite!! he sacrifices his humility and grace in favor of his boner, and in exchange, he is offered the hand of a /married queen/, helen!!

(btw this is why i think the version of the story where he kidnaps her from sparta instead of just having a hell of an affair is the most impactful and likely canonical . the whole thing starts with him pursuing something that was never his in the first place!! the whole point is about his arrogance and greed and having this woman as an active accomplice, even if under some sort of spell, robs the fall of troy of some weight)

and when the war begins in earnest, arrogance and ego and pride are the defining factors of the conflict!! it is a source of division on both sides, it wrecks the greeks, it underpins the politics of troy, it is the number one reason why the named heroes who fall in battle do so!! hand in hand with that, you have the relationship between the gods and mortals!! the majority of the gods in olympus take sides during the battle - with those closest to aphrodite siding with troy and the rest rallying behind the greeks - and leaving their marks on the battlefield!! the only one who can even begin to compete with them is achilles - the most powerful demigod in the world with several gods behind him in his own right - and even though he manages to best ares (who is, quite frankly, the embodiment of arrogance and hubris in this story), he is still felled by an arrow guided by apollo!! even the man closest to divinity is not above the gods, which gives you a pretty good idea for whats about to happen to troy!!

so, when it becomes obvious that greece isnt going to be able to breach troys walls of their own accord and a few too many of their best heroes have been slain, odysseus comes up with a plan: the greeks will move to pull out and leave behind a cornucopia of offerings to the gods - most notably, a giant wooden horse to athena, goddess of wisdom on the battlefield, personal backer of odysseus, and one of the main goddesses scorned in this entire affair. the greeks gather and burn their dead, set up their shrine, pile up the offerings, and sail away.

and /this/ is where the themes of the entire story collide and bring troy to its need. drunk on hubris and the taste of victory, inflated on an ego that could lift them high above mount olympus, the trojan leadership decides that, actually, if you think about it, they /deserve/ those sacrifices, they deserve those offerings, thats a /hell/ of a horse and it should belong to us!! the priests obviously recoil, you cant just /do that/, what the fuck are you talking about, and they and those closest to them feel the way the winds blowing and dont quite drop their guard

once the trojans have looted the offerings and brought them into the city, they proceed to get absolutely shitfaced and party until they collapse, leaving only those with their faith shaken awake and alert. and we all know what happens next: the greeks spill out, slaughter their way through the troops, call the ships back, and sack troy. those who didnt put their faith in paris flee and depart for calmer waters - eventually going on to help found rome. the arrogance of troy sees it burn and the greeks emerge victorious, though a mistake on the part of odysseus - now himself drunk on victory!! - will see his path twist and turn as he must learn the humility that troy so utterly lacked. the /entire point/ of every story told about troy is that you dont place yourself above the gods - no one is infallible and no one is invincible, not achilles, not paris, not odysseus, and certainly not you!! thats the entire point!! thats the whole point of everything!! and that most crucial of themes is always completely abandoned!! the whole heart of the story is left to rot!! the cultural context is stripped away, and for what??

anyways . just a reminder that its never too late to learn something new and that arrogance and greed will never lead to anything but ruin for everyone around you, i guess

[phoenixyfriend]

@jewishdainix commented on this post:

The thing is, israel must be dismantaled because it is built on xenophobia, nationalism and subjeugation of palestinians. I agree with you on the worry of jewish safety, but that needs to be done by fostering and building communities of both nations of people, where both are welcome and safe, not by keeping an opressive colonialist state with no interest in equality or peace in power.

And Im saying this as a jew who lives in occupied palestine, btw. I know co-existing eont come out of nowhere, but it can be built.

(New post because the original is very long.)

Thank you for commenting! Most of the commentary I'm getting seems to be from people who are as removed from the conflict as I am.

I think a major factor in the discussion that stemmed from my initial response to the first "r u pro Palestine" question was that I was... well, very tired and not running on all cylinders, for one, but also in an intersection of Tumblr that sees a lot of half-baked political reblogs where people just... share things they either don't know ANYTHING about or don't realize how much is our isn't propaganda.

I am not immune to propaganda, especially the subtler kind, as evidenced by my having to adjust my understanding of the Yemen situation.

But the thing is that like... that intersection means I've seen a LOT of takes that are extreme (like Hamas and the Houthis being entirely right about Israel and how to handle it, or that even the children in Israel, by virtue of being Israeli, are guilty) as well as a lot of people who are supporting extreme solutions without really thinking things through?

Like, the majority of the people I see talking about Dismantling Israel seem to be in favor of doing so quickly and without regard to what happens to the people there, Because They're The Bad Guys, or because they just don't realize that this is the sort of thing that takes time and management to do safely.

Like... when I see so many people parroting things with an underlying tone of hate and malice towards even the civilians, it makes me concerned that any expression of support for a position like "dismantle Israel" will be taken as support by both "do so slowly and responsibly with an aim towards integration and safety for all" AND the "boot out all the jews" sides, because when the first question is only four words, I can't also answer in only four words, because political slogans are never JUST what they actually mean.

That said, the discussion over the past few days definitely has me sympathizing more with the Dismantle argument, but I do wonder about how it would be enforced, and by whom. Like, the Israeli government has made it pretty clear they have no interest in ceasefire, let alone a dismantling, so... does the UN get involved? NATO? Is the US sent in to undo Israel, the way they're trying to undo things like the Houthi government (as I've been told they're functionally the government of 70% of Yemen)? What gives us people of the world the right to choose interventionism in Israel but not Yemen or Iran?

Just cutting US aid from Israel opens the doors to Hamas and Houthi and associated groups "managing" the dismantling, which is the situation I expressed so much concern over in the previous post, so that's not an option. It looks like we do need the UN to be involved if that goal of Dismantling to build something new is possible, but that's interventionism, which is bad because it violates self-determination, except when it's not bad because there's mass murder happening, except when it's still bad even though the mass murder already happened, and...

IDK

It's so complicated and I WANT to believe there's a solution but the political philosophy and practical implications are kind of. A necessary consideration even when the ethics are clear cut.

[shadeslayer]

in-visibility by Tobi Hill-Meyer, Mixed Up! #1 (2013)

"I think it's important that we acknowledge that all the folks in this group are wh-" He stopped himself and looked around the room, "Or that at least none of us are visibly people of color."

It had happened a dozen times before, but for some reason this time it didn't inspire feelings of shame. I didn't retract into thinking I'm not a 'real' person of color, or at least not real enough to count. For the first time, I responded with anger. "Who's this white guy to tell me whether or not I am 'visible'?" I thought to myself. "Just because you don't see me, doesn't mean I'm invisible."

Visibility is not a thing that I am, but an interaction I have with every single person I meet. It's not simply the inherent characteristics of my body, as if the rest of the world has no say in the matter. What happened with that guy was actually his inability to see me, rather than my inability to be seen.

For years I had focused on how the things I do impact how visible my race is: my hair length, my clothes, wearing cultural symbols or political slogans. Now, I'm realizing that the one factor that matters more than anything else is whether or not the person looking at me has any significant experience with Native communities. That is something entirely about them, and has nothing to do with me.

Just last year I had a very different experience at a queer conference. In a room full of a hundred people, an organizer of a two spirit group walked past everyone else to come talk to me and invite me to their group, because to them it was obvious that I was Native. Experiencing that shook up the narrative I had always been told about being invisible and I realized what had been true all along: among Native people I am very visible. The Native spaces I've been a part of have been full of folks who are mixed. And to my knowledge, I've never had a Native person assume that I'm white.

Dealing with what I pass as and how people read me has also been a big issue around my gender. Earlier in my transition, whenever I got called 'sir' or 'he' I felt a pang of failure, as if I had done something wrong. I would think "Did I let my voice get too low?" or "Maybe I should start wearing makeup even though it's not my style." After enough time, I reached a place where my womanhood seemed to me to be obvious enough. I stopped seeing it as my failure when someone couldn't see me as a woman, but as theirs. Now I laugh, waiting for them to correct themselves, rather than cringing and wanting to hide. I think I'm finally beginning to reach that same place with my race.

So the next time someone comments on my invisibility, I'm going to say "Invisible to who? You? Oh I get it, you just don't see race."

[weemsfreak]

The Board Pt 1: The Man

Summary: Anura Ricci works for the Outcast school board. They're struggling with many factors in life, quietly. They know so much, but can't seem to figure out exactly how to make themself happy. They befriend a certain Principal, and things begin to seem brighter for them.

Tw: Bit of angst

Note: I'm writing multiple fics at once lol. Again let me know what you think! All my fics will probably be based around the same thing. I like to write about things I am familiar with. ~620 words.

Larissa set her hot chocolate down on her desk and turned to her office balcony doors. She hesitated to open them as the cool wind of the fall seemed to be arriving. How she would miss the warmth of the sun, even if she didn't particularly like the hot weather. Opening her laptop, she looked through her few emails. Nothing caught her eye as she's lost in a train of thought, and she almost missed an email from the outcast school board, telling her to expect a start of the term visit from them in the near future.

The last time Nevermore had a visit from the board was second term last year, a mere 7 months ago that felt to Larissa like it could've been yesterday. Larissa didn't have a problem with the board as she was well respected as an outcast and an educated professional, until the last visit she had, which made her think about abandoning her job and Nevermore all together. Mind you, she didn't have to think twice, as she would never give up on her dear students so easily.

*7 months ago, February*

As soon as the man got a look at Larissa standing in the courtyard, he was belittled by her height, stature, and seemingly confident demeanor. "It's so nice to meet you Mr. Martell", Larissa held her hand out to him. He glared down at her gloved hands, but didn't reach out to give her his hand in return. He stared a up at her with a blank expression, "Likewise".

Larissa went on about the successes from the past few months and the new things that she was trying to implement this year, in hopes of bringing the outcasts closer to the normies that reside in Jericho. "Larissa, being alive as long as I have, as I am a vampire, I've seen this thing done time and time before. The normies will never accept us outcasts, and I don't appreciate you wasting our time and funding trying to prove what we already know as a fact." Larissa towered over him as she retaliated in a seemingly polite tone. "Mr. Martell, I do believe that as times change in the world for the better, we can become part of that change. I see many new opportunities for our younger generation in the near future, and as a vampire, I expect you are able to appreciate and want better times for our younger generation of vampires, seeing as they will be here for so long. Also, please refer to me as Ms. Weems if you will." Larissa tried to be professional, in charge, and to not back down to him or his beliefs or opinions. She had to learn to be strong as a women, and she had come so far.

The man turned around and walked back inside the building to take off his sunglasses. As Larissa followed him, he turned and stared in her deep ocean blue eyes, captivating her with his powers so his next words cut extra deep. "I forbid you to spend the schools money and time on the stupid dreams of a pretentious Hitchcock pin-up shapeshifter woman. You will do your headmistress duties here at the school and forget about events outside of the school, or I will write you up, Larissa." Putting his sunglasses back on, he turns and leaves, slamming the outside door on the way to his car.

Larissa didn’t think she came off as pretentious, although she occasionally had to summon a sense of fake confidence. Maybe this is why him saying her dreams were stupid hit so hard that day. There were no students around, thank god. It was a Sunday, and she was tired.

Pt 2: The Woman

[horizon-verizon]

While B&C is objectively horrifying, I’ve honestly never once felt any emotion when reading it… but Aerea’s death, oh my god, I was completely engrossed and taken back by the hideous, stomach-turning and repugnant description of her death.

👀

Aerea had to have had those fireworms crawl through her still-living body for days. Aerea's death was much more detailed, a lot more gory, and connects to one overarching and critical element, or "layer", of the ASoIaF series: the Targs' legacy with their dragons and the effect of the Valyrian's imperialism over Essos. Aerea's death brought a sense of doom because it alerted us and Jaehaerys of the Targs' vulnerability to forces that their own ancestors probably caused. And the account is very reliable, more so than most F&B accounts and certainly so for the Dance portion of the book. Its relater, Septon Barth, he's the one who tried to treat Aerea. And of all the "Faith-aligned professionals" we ever encountered in this world, he was the most dedicated to impartial study of the people and things around him. (Sincere about it, too, even though he does also factor in a few societal lens...because he still lives in Westeros and is still a septon.) So you know he was writing what he saw impartially.

Why do the Targs' relationship with their dragons & past AND their dragons' future matter? We (should) know and have read ASoIaF and read about Daenerys, how she becomes the Queen that she is meant to be to save the world. We have learned that something can hurt a dragon. We need dragons//fire for the Long Night & protect humanity. The Targs' assimilation into the Andal-FM pre-Conquest culture and subsequent refusal to better & truly incorporate their women into their politics--or just think outside of their own immediate needs for power, even with some being genuinely better people and leaders--have lead up to their own loss of said dragons, then their usurpation. It's a lead up to Daenerys in-world and re-contextualizes her role for the Long Night to come.

*However, reminder, yes the Targs' Conquest and reign still greatly reduced the thousands of years of constant warfare b/t the non Valyrian Westerosi former kingdoms. Two things, true at once.*

Whereas with Jaehaerys, the death served this one story to illustrate how far a specific group of people will go to destroy the other or get the other back for perceived/real wrongs done. Jaehaerys became a victim of a blood feud & another motive to keep that particular blood feud going. It's not even the first death, but a response to another's death done by the greens (Aemond), who decided to usurp the king-chosen heir, a woman, for their own ambitions. He is part of a succession of a drama. And while his 6 fingers generate some curiosity and inquiry as to what effects the magical connection to dragons have on disabilities/congenital conditions being more reduced--which Idk about, since the Westerosi have been marrying their cousins for centuries and most of the nobles we see aren't fugly nor have many congenital conditions to rival the Hapsburgs--this doesn't serve or inform us on the bigger story. Sad and tragic, but in terms of the scales of consequences, it had a simpler effect.

Ironically, he has less narrative importance than Nettles or Mysaria, whom some Rhaenyra & black stans try to argue was "just a plot device" 🙄 to use against Rhaenyra. Both within and out of Fire & Blood. Then there's the business of green stans being so overwrought & talkative over his death than the:

sack of Bitterbridge & rapes/murders (of refugees, of children, septas, old people, etc.)

sack of of Tumbleton & rapes/murders

Dalton Greyjoy's raping women and killing innocent peasants,

etc.

It is perhaps all of these that make Aerea's death seem both more harrowing and "important" than Jaehaerys'. Aerea's death is more shrouded in mystery, Jaehaerys' is not. Her death has a larger narrative purpose compared to his.

[seriousbrat]

If you were to modernise the dynamics of the marauders versus Snape to today’s landscape, how would it be? I think ideas and representations of bullies, popular kids, oddball kids, have all changed a lot - but they still find insidious ways to be mean to each other. Politics have also become more polarised and complex to navigate. Where would they fit?

This is an interesting question! I'm not sure if you mean if they were muggles, or just how I think the dynamics would be represented differently if the books were written today. I do think a lot of the themes are still very relevant today, and in some cases, even more relevant-- for instance the way Snape is a great parallel to the way modern day teenage boys fall down the alt-right pipeline online and become incels. Obviously young boys being radicalised isnt a new thing, but the reason the incel movement fits so well with Snape's story is because of how it's tied to his unrequited feelings for Lily, which seem to mirror the stereotypical narrative of the average sad loner incel who is eternally overlooked by the girl he likes. "Friendzoned" if you will, in favour of the "chad" "alpha male" James, which causes him to join a hate group in rage over the unfairness of life lmao. It fits so well that it's almost prophetic.

You can probably chart the changes in people's attitude towards Snape as time has passed. When DH came out, most people's (including myself) reaction to the Snape reveal was "aww, how sad, poor Snape" and he was viewed as romantic and heroic and tragic for loving Lily. At the time, if you think about it, the story of the shy loser nerd who is in love with and eventually gets the pretty girl was allllll over film and television, and people by and large sympathised with those characters and rooted for them and cursed the girl for not giving this nice guy who loved her soooo much a chance.

In a post-gamergate world, however, we've seen the consequences of male entitlement, because the incel movement is based on the belief that all men inherently deserve access to women. Very often, these consequences are violent. We're incredibly jaded by this and nowadays those sorts of characters are viewed as creepy, entitled, and given little sympathy. as it should be, imo, but you can definitely see how this has altered fan perception of Snape who is generally reviled, particularly by younger fans.

Personally, though, I think this modern lens can make his story more powerful, because it's not about whether Lily should have given him a chance (she shouldn't have) it's about the fact that his actions in the end were truly selfless, the opposite of entitlement. Lily's death was the catalyst, but if it was just about Snape's selfish desire then what is the motivation? She can never love him if she's dead, and there are moments that prove his change of heart, such as his yelling at Phineas for saying "Mudblood" when he previously used the word freely. If it was written today (i mean who knows, it is jkr after all) I think there would probably be more focus on that aspect of Snape than the fact that he loved Lily, which simply doesn't have the impact it once did. people are unimpressed by that narrative, but I think the story of a sincerely reformed incel could still be powerful. Maybe. I think people are also less forgiving nowadays haha, but I still think that teen incels growing up and seeing the error of their ways is a good thing. They may not deserve medals for it, but it's still what we should want for them.

As for the bullying, obviously if they were modern day muggles the internet would be a huge factor, as social media is hugely important for kids nowadays and a lot of bullying takes the form of cyberbullying. I honestly think the themes of class differences and bullying in general are still just as relevant today as they ever were-- although I think we've seen how modern interpretations of SWM have changed. "James SA'd him" was not even remotely a discussion back in the day, I've talked about this before so I don't want to get into it, but it's a good example of something that might be different if it was written today. At the time, that would have just been a typical example of schoolyard bullying, but modern day sensibilities view it differently. The same goes for Snape's mistreatment of his students-- at the time he would have been an average 'mean teacher,' now we view it as abusive. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong, both offences are incredibly serious and should be viewed as such. I think particularly in the case of SWM it would be written differently today-- in the case of Snape's behaviour as a teacher there's a certain suspension of disbelief just because Hogwarts is a magical school and things there are less realistic. On the other hand, James was a minor and Snape was an adult, so irl different standards would apply.

Anyway, sorry that got so long, it's an interesting topic!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

What are your thoughts on accusations that atheists are "culturally Christian?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Christians

Cultural Christians are nonreligious persons who adhere to Christian values and appreciate Christian culture. As such, these individuals usually identify themselves as culturally Christians, and are often seen by practicing believers as nominal Christians. This kind of identification may be due to various factors, such as family background, personal experiences, and the social and cultural environment in which they grew up.

I'm willing to accept that there are aspects of Western countries that are derived from or influenced by Xianity.

There are certainly many fine things that emerged under Xianity. Art, sculpture, literature, music, various institutions. But I would argue that those things can be attributed to people operating in a world that was pervasively Xian, not to Xianity itself. It's sort of like saying that the US owes 5G to Donald Trump because 2019 is when it started rolling out.

If only because non-Xian societies produced comparable cultural artefacts and institutions without knowing anything about the Dark Lord Yahweh. We need look no further than China for thousands of years of music, art and education. The idea that Xianity can be credited with these things when Xianity was simply the law of the land is lacking in self-awareness.

Political democracy is derived from Greek thought, our numbering system is derived from Arabic, and Liberalism itself is culturally British - via John Locke - in its modern form, and Greek and Chinese philosophy in its ancient forebears.

It's kind of a bizarre claim to make. Every time the culture was changing, or tried to, Xianity was there to oppose it. Printing press? Abolishing slavery? Street lighting? Desegregation? Interracial marriage? Same-sex marriage? Rock and roll? Xianity has nothing to say on these any more - mostly, anyway - but they came in spite of Xianity, not because of it.

That's not to say I don't appreciate the contribution of a conservative (small c, "preserve the existing good") counter-balance. We currently live in a time of "progressivism" so intractable and regressive it's advocating segregation, hiring and enrolment based on race, denying evolution and making gay people straight.

But Xianity didn't say "here are the very good reasons why this isn't a good idea, why we should go slowly, or why we need more information before deciding." They said "tEh bIbLe SaYs" and "bUt gOd!!" and "yOu'Re gOiNg tO HeLL!"

I don't really mind or care if individual atheists say they regard themselves as being "culturally Xian." Apparently Richard Dawkins does. But the idea that all atheists are "culturally Xian" is presumptive, arrogant and seems to be a way to take unearned credit, along the same lines as claiming morality comes from religion.

And I'm not even sure what the point is. Even if I agreed - yes, I'm culturally Xian - so what? What are they going to expect or demand as a result of this? What do they think we owe it? Deference? Refraining from criticizing and mocking Xianity? It does nothing for the god question.

Worse, it seems to be what we might call an Appeal to Utility - an admission that Xianity isn't true, but it's useful. Lead is useful, but I don't want it in my paint. Like when believers surrender the truth argument and say, well, my faith gives me peace and community or whatever. Meth makes people feel happy too.

But what does it say about Xianity when, as already mentioned, not only has Xianity not guided us through our own betterment, but has opposed it, and we've had to fight and ultimately, disregard it? Why is it that Xianity does not reliably produce cultural advancement? Why is that at least since the Enlightenment began, all cultural development has been without Xianity, and in spite of Xianity trying to hold it back?

One obvious and likely answer is that cultural development was never a goal or intention of Xianity, it was tolerated only in as much as it could be used to glorify their god and reinforce their authority. That's what they expected science to do. The Enlightenment, science and the pace of cultural development made "god" and Xianity unnecessary.

And why is it that society is abandoning Xianity in droves, and Xians feel compelled to change Xianity to make it fit non-Xian values? Why are Xian values and ideals - at least, the ones Xians want us to know about - lead by secular ones?

What's that saying about science? Xianity ignores it, opposes it, then pretends it knew it the whole time.

If only because non-Xian societies produced comparable cultural artefacts and institutions without knowing anything about the Dark Lord Yahweh. We need look no further than China for thousands of years of music, art and education. The idea that Xianity can be credited with these things when Xianity was simply the law of the land is lacking in self-awareness.

I would argue thanks, but we'll take it from here.

[honeyriot]

"I went to law school because I wanted to change the world for women. One of the first things I learned there—something that pervaded my legal education whether my teachers, with exceptions, meant it to or not—was that in order to be a lawyer, it was necessary to strip oneself of passion, commitment, identification, feelings, community loyalties. Become objective, disinterested, fair, dispassionate. In a word: legal. The law is or should be neutral, was the idea, so a proper lawyer is a neutral instrument. Together with this was a view that the law is everything. To change society—or what is responsible for society being the way it is—change law. John Stuart Mill’s work illustrated the place of this idea in liberalism. In this view, women were subjected in society because they were subjected in the law of the family. Implicit is a notion that law is all-powerful. Lawyers have a particular investment in this idea; it makes us the primary social activists.

Law school also taught the opposite idea: that the law is nothing. All law does is reflect the way society is. To produce social changes, work at a social level, abdicate the legal arena, because it is only a passive tool in the hands of society’s manipulators. It merely reflects the way things are, the interests of those with power. Nothing can be done with it for the powerless.

Neither of these views seems adequate to the social system of women and law’s relation to it. As legal advocates for women, we do not, I think, have a theory of what we are doing in the specific political context of sex inequality. Yes, the law is powerful in constructing social options. Yes, the law reflects forms of power that exist. But we need to devise what I would call a feminist theory of the state that looks at law from women’s point of view, to see what can be done with it from there.

This may sound simple, but it is profoundly difficult and complex. Systematically, it has never been tried. Looking at the law from women’s point of view has, of course, to embrace all women including all our sisters who are not with us today, each of us in our complexity, ambiguity, and divisions in our identifications, along with our attempts to reject the stereotypes we have been saddled with. “All women” includes not only those who do not identify as feminist but also those who deny that women and men are socially unequal. It includes women who embrace subordination to men. To have a feminist theory of law, hence a theory of our role as lawyers, we need to examine the law from the standpoint of this “all women.” Quite obviously, this must encompass Black women, Latinas, all third-world women, including those, for example, who believe that if they still have a clitoris, they are ugly and unclean, and those who bound their own and each other’s feet because they thought that it was (and it was) essential to their attractiveness and future. If they are not here, our equivalent to them is; participation and complicity in our own oppression is hard to avoid.

I pursue this task here through three issues: rape, sexual harassment, and pornography. These issues were chosen because I believe that women’s sexuality is at the core of the way we are socially defined and therefore denigrated as women and because sexuality has been largely ignored as a factor in women’s inequality to men. This means that the way the law treats issues of women’s sexuality is a crucial indicator and determinant of women’s status as a sex."

readcatharinemackinnon.com

[eddsworldbish420]

Hii pooks :ppp gotta rant for a sec ─┉┈◈◉◈┈┉

imagine saying “W based” to a fucking tragedy because they have an identity that doesn’t align with the conservative masculine culture that you were forced to follow 🫤🫤🫤

(justice for nex bennedict)

It’s kinda weird yk, because it’s hard to tell if they’re being satire or not. It still doesn’t even matter though, bc even if their trolling or not, they’ll never stop because it’s funny to them and idk if they’re sick or what but it has been part of the internet for so long it feels very sadly inevitable that people would do this. And the fact it’s so unfairly politically charged as well 😕😕😕

Why is it that any other meme is unfunny, but when it’s about the death of a trans kid or ‘game is game’ it’s suddenly unanimously funny?

why is it that any other person dies, it’s a tragedy but when they’re gay, it’s funny?

─┉┈◈◉◈┈┉

Erm anyways😍😍😍! Rant out of the way, rate these ships :3 (I included my personal thoughts.)

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

TomTord. (VodkaGun)

Interest factor: 8/10

plausibility factor: 6/10

Fans: 4/10

personal comments: Enemies to lovers is some how overrated yet underrated. Such an interesting ship to think about, two guys who have had such a long and complicated history—first friends, then frienemies, separated, then enemies, then somehow lovers—they must feel kind of weird and awkward if they actually have a relationship.

Id think they’d actually forgive each other, like:

“Why would you forgive me for something that almost killed you?”

“Stupid fuck ass, Matt did it better.”

”Wtfdym???”

“Matt was a zombie and took over the city, killing thousands. Your pathetic ass only killed like one person…”

Really fun to think about on its own but the fans are kinda goofy asf, the creation of dear star boy is enough proof. Overall: 6.8/10

EddMatt (ColaMirror) Interest factor: 5/10

plausibility factor: 7/10

Fans: idk their usually TomTord shippers so 5/10?

personal comments: might have a cool dynamic with the fact that Matt pretty much took over the world two times. Don’t really fw this ship tbh. Overall: 4/10

[1/?] (copy and paste if ur lazy :33)

For the rant, I've blocked every person who I've ever seen say shit like that (my block list is pretty full)

AS FOR THE SHIPSSSSS-

Tomtord (Norska)

Interest factor: 7/10

Plausibility: depends on the timeline

Fans: 8/10 or 4/10

Personal comments: I really depend on the eras for shipping these two, 2004-8 is some silly playful enemy friend secret love type beats, 2016 is SO full of angst and makes me cry if I use it right, and future.. chefs kiss, I love slowly rebuilding divorced arcs

Overall: 8.3/10

Eddmatt (colamirror)

Interest factor: 5/10

Plausibility: 4/10

Fans: 6/10

Personal comments: this is one of the safest but most common ships in the Fandom, I can't get myself to be a huge fan of it too because they have a more best friend relationship to me. It's a cute ship but it seems forced due to tomtord being so popular

Overall: 4.5/10

[mesetacadre]

I agree posts are unserious and not 1:1 reflective, but I do think despite not being organised or falling under organising, the sum total of Posting in the present social media driven age probably should be taken slightly into account as a relevant factor in the world given how much of real life is now the internet, although I have no idea how this would be done, given its definitionally decentralised nature.

Not merely because of public impressions either. I’ve met a lot of auto-communists who seem to have lost sight of their positions through persistent immersion in environments of ‘frustrated’ and ‘joking’ political commentary, including offline—even actual orgs are not immune to this, given the type of people who gravitate to them most often.

I’m not saying Posting is counterrevolutionary or people shouldn’t Post and/or joke or even advocating for an explicit position of moderation—but I do think there should probably be some consideration among auto-communists for adopting a Rakhmetov-like seriousness to their words and actions as an alternative to the typically endorsed divide between real and fake/meaningless/harmless spheres.

I really think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Online communists with 1000 followers on twitter or 300 on tumblr are neither defining the public perception on communism nor are they acting in the same way when organizing, the terminally-online people you may have met are an exception and any half-decent Party will eventually educate them out of it. Regarding your "auto-communist" term (idk if you did come up with it but it's the first time I see anyone use it so):

You defined it as the following in a second message I asked for you to send:

Auto-communists are self-identified communists. There are not presently communists because there is not currently a Communist Party (the organ of class action consisting of the most advanced/class conscious and resolute/class will of the proletariat dedicated to the historical task of revolutionary class struggle/victory).

I think you are taking the concept of a non-organized communist, then both exaggerating its presence in online spaces and the severity of it, to the point of not considering them real communists, or "presently" communists, however you may want to call it. A communist is a person who subscribes to the broad ideological framework of communism. Organizing in order to follow these principles is what communist thought generally prescribes in order to effect the change we want. The ability to organize can be limited by outside forces, though no fault of the communist, and still achieve some practical work through other means that are not the vanguard party.

Besides this argument, which I'm not that invested in anyway, I just don't think there is any utility in branding non-organized communists as a special type of person, there are much more useful, less confusing and not needlessly sectarian than "auto-communists". Especially when there are actual groups of people who do consider themselves communists but don't hold any of the positions, frameworks or do any praxis (eurocommunists spring to mind).

Besides, I'm especially vocal about being organized in a ML party but I'm not the only one, and many blogs on here that never mention it do a lot more work within their party than they publicly care to state.