#not the system in theory

[the-catboy-minyan]

like I understand why Americans have this "acab" thing because the state of their police is absolutely abysmal, but have you considered it's a problem of execution and not concept and that this isn't the objective truth everywhere?

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[lemonsharkgirlfriend]

everyone's joking about a lesbian love triangle being the focus of rhaenyra/alicent/mysaria's stories in hotd s3 but that will literally be what happens when mysaria acts to uphold and support the image of rhaenyra as queen (or rhaenyra's duty) and alicent is kept prisoner (or a hidden but unavoidable reminder of rhaenyra's love). and so the love triangle will serve to represent rhaenyra's internal conflict between love and duty

[scumvillainess]

while i don’t really believe in the ‘shen yuan is shen jiu reincarnated’ theory, the concept of shen yuan insulting the person who’s body he’s currently possessing only to find out that was him later on in the novel would’ve been the funniest thing ever because damn you’ve really been insulting yourself this entire time

[probablyasocialecologist]

Everything we think we know about the world is a model. Every word and every language is a model. All maps and statistics, books and databases, equations and computer programs are models. So are the ways I picture the world in my head—my mental models. None of these is or ever will be the real world.

Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

[fins0up]

"unpopular opinion" (that should be popular): i think public schools should start teaching ab intersex people.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[gammija]

WAIT hang on, so. Connecting this post (suggesting that ep7 was an attempt at a Mass Ritual and that the military group stopped it) with this one (suggesting that 'Catalyst' from ep9 might refer to someone capable of performing a ritual) with my own post and other theories that the tapes from tma/U1 might in some form be in U2, here's a theory:

the tapes entered this world when the Fears did. maybe not complete, but with enough information to let everyone who was looking for it know, for sure, without needing millenia of trial and error, the exact steps needed for a succesful ritual:

- you need subjects (the victims);

- agents (the 'avatars', more or less);

- and, a catalyst.... an Archivist. Someone who can experience all the horrors without being used up, able to let them flow in them, through them, and out into the world.

The faction shutting down ep7, the OIAR response team, maybe the existence of the OIAR at all, is because the threat of a Ritual succeeding has had to be actively foiled for this universe to still exist without an active apocalypse. which would also mean that this world, at any given moment, is teetering on the edge of a successful ritual, and a new apocalypse

[monsterqueers]

Im just really annoyed about how people just fucking hate it when the kids they were jealous of and hated in school for not also getting bad grades also report being fucking traumatized by the school system.

Yeah sorry school traumatizes everyone, even the 'ex-gifted kids' you fucking hate because god forbid someone wasnt exploited and overworked the same way you were.

Sorry a group of predominately neurodiverse people experiencing burnout and how their upbringing of being only valued for their academic performance totally fucked their ability to function in the real world dare talk about this pain where you can see.

Its not being privileged and ~humblebragging~ to report emotional neglect from your parents centered around you having to get perfect grades to receive any scrap of love.

Wishing violence on them for talking about it and finding each other isn't cute either.

And because these people need it stated extra clear

This post is NOT saying other groups of people 'had it less bad'. This is about a specific phenomenon of vitriol towards a oft neurodiverse group of people commiserating about how they were screwed over by the system under the label 'gifted kid' NOT whatever else you are imagining im saying. <3

[dontfuckmylifewtf]

No matter how weird the questions are that Neil Gaiman gets (or for the matter we see because he answered them), I would like to remind everyone, that having around 80.000 asks in your inbox gives you a lot to choose from.

Meaning, that Neil Gaiman probably actively chooses from these 80.000 questions what he answers.

So for the love of god, stop bullying the people asking "cringe" questions. They probably didn't expect to get an answer anyways, and Neil chose to answer them.

[incorrectly-quoting-mxtx]

So I have theory about Luo Binghe’s fake jade pendant.

(Major spoilers if you haven’t finished the book btw)

I was just reading a fic and author pointed out something about Luo Binghe’s pendant and how it’s a metaphor for Shen Yuan.

Looking back at the book, there are a lot of parallels between Shen Yuan and the necklace.

The pendant is a counterfeit jade carving of the god Guanyin.

Shen Yuan is a counterfeit of Shen Qingqiu, a powerful Peak Lord who dresses in jade colored robes.

Guanyin is noted to be associated with compassion, and Shen Yuan changes the entire fate of the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way by being compassionate.

Luo Bingmei ends his story with his one fake jade pendant while the extras specifically note that Luo Bingge has several real jade necklaces in his possession. Those necklaces are even called out to be fine grade and best money can buy.

Obviously the real jades are a metaphor for Bingge’s harem of peerlessly beautiful women while the fake jade, which has infinitely more value to him, represents Shen Yuan, aka Luo Bingmei’s one and only true love.

However I think there’s more to it than that.

If you track the pendant throughout the book, you’ll notice that Luo Binghe is only ever in possession of the pendant when Shen Yuan isn’t there. In fact, he actually loses the pendant shortly after Shen Yuan transmigrates into Shen Qingqiu. For the rest of the book, the pendant is in Shen Yuan’s possession, only returning to Luo Binghe at the climax.

But here’s the thing that’s strange about that scene: for whatever reason the System could not load the pendant when SQQ tried to summon it. At no other point in the book has the System have a problem loading things in.

So why is it when it does load in, it’s right as Shen Yuan dies for the third time?

My theory is that Shen Yuan is the pendant itself.

Now obviously Shen Yuan comes back and Binghe still has the pendant, but in the last couple scenes of the book, Shen Yuan is always right by Luo Binghe’s side.

Now I know that Shen Yuan was an actual person before dying and becoming Shen Qingqiu, so therefore he isn’t the necklace given human form. So how can Shen Yuan and the pendant be one and the same?

Well let’s go back to the aforementioned climax scene where the System cannot physically summon the pendant until Shen Yuan dies.

Seeing as how the System is essentially an AI and/or a computer program, this kind of issue reminds me of how a computer cannot open a file if another of the exact same file is already running.

I think, that when inserting Shen Yuan into PIDW, the System needed a way to tie his soul into its program and Shen Yuan’s fate to the protagonist. The System needed a physical entity to tie him down so it linked his code/soul to the fake jade pendant. That’s why Luo Binghe loses the pendant so soon after Shen Yuan transmigrates and why the System couldn’t load it in until Shen Yuan’s soul left his body because they’re part of the same file.

This is also evidenced by how when Shen Yuan dies the second time, out of all of his items, only the Jade pendant is kept in his inventory when he wakes up in the Sun and Dew Mushroom body.

Not to mention that Shen Yuan and the pendant have the same effect on Luo Binghe! The pendant has the ability to essientially shock Luo Binghe out of a qi deviation, but is only a one time use. But during Luo Binghe’s first qi deviation, Shen Yuan is able to do the exact same thing but doing so kills him. The pendant reduces Luo Binghe’s anger, and Shen Yuan is the only person in the world Luo Binghe will ever be soft and submittable to.

Tl’dr; The System tied Shen Yuan’s soul to the fake Guanyin pendant.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

I've definitely said this in an earlier post but I want to repeat it: The mental image extraction machine in Milgram is quite literally intrusive thoughts horror, imagine basically being told "yeah we're going to use this machine that displays your deepest thoughts to decide whether or not you're a Good Person™ or a Bad Person™" I would die on the spot

[n3felibata]

Another reason why I don't think Stolas should abdicate is because he actually seemed very happy when Paimon explained his duties to him. He even started jumping up and down in excitement.

He was bouncing off the walls since the moment he woke up that morning because he knew that day is when Paimon tells him about his responsibilities. He only started crying when the hetero marriage part was brought up

Stolas enjoys his responsibilities. He likes astronomy, he enjoys showcasing The Harvest Moon Festival. It's his fuckass family that's the problem

And this isn't to say he likes being a prince as a whole, but he certainly enjoys some aspects of it and it's not fair to have to give that up. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

[sonicaspeed123]

If u enjoy sonic the hedgehog in any capacity and dont already know this then PLEAAASE listen to me

"Everything is canon" does NOT mean "All one continuity"

There is no one definitive "true version" here. Does Sonic have parents? Yeah sometimes. Sometimes not. Is Sonic chatty and extroverted or reserved and introverted? Well are we talking about Prime!Sonic or X!Sonic? They're very different people.

To me, this is the fun part about Sonic - seeing the same characters in different situations and seeing them grow and react differently according to their experiences. (AU fan brainrot a little, sue me)

If you see people getting annoyed or confused about others "mixing" continuities, that's why. It's been established for a loooong time, hell since the very beginning (look up sega of america's "Sonic Bible" from back in the day) that there are stories which are separate and very different utilizing the same familiar characters. "Everything is canon" means "Your favorite version of Sonic is just as valid as any other." It means multiverse theory wjdndjqbxkxn

-⚡️ & 🧭

[nemfrog]

Geocentric advocacy. Astronomy : a popular handbook. c. 1913.

Internet Archive

[fruitsofhell]

Something I really like about Rose Quartz's characterization is how dedicated the writers were to making what she did morally grey. Idk it would have been really easy for the twist to be she was Just Evil, especially learning she was related to the main villains, but no they created this very vague character who even in her appearances feels mysterious. If anything Rose is the one thing that is less clear to me after my rewatch, because now seeing the nuance in her character pulls me out of a black-ane-white view of her and into one that is just... foggy.

But a vibe I do get from Rose, is that despite clearly being incredibly compassionate, she's someone who lacks empathy in the case of the ability to fully realize others' autonomy and thought processes. There's just a lot of decisions she makes that feel aloof in an odd way, and when combined with how childish she can be it can give the impression she sees everything as a game. But it's still clear that she cares and is genuinely moved by the Earth, and when her entire truth is revealed you can see how ideologically honest she was. Even if it feels like her beliefs are just so she can have fun, but that is part of freedom, the freedom to vibe and explore and do silly things she couldn't.

That attitude clearly just comes from her position as Pink Diamond. It was an oppressive role emotionally, but not as literally oppressive as the lives of those around her. I think her relationship with Pearl is where I find the most of the part of me that sees her as compassionate but unempathetic. Pink can't fathom what it's like to have been born to be an obedient servant and how that would cloud Pearl's judgement. How telling her "I'm going to fight for this world but you dont have to" would mean nothing to her because she is still obsessed with her, how entering a romantic relationship with something while they're still effectively your servant is unhealthy, or how spending her life flirting with other men would probably tear your servant-to-lover-to-ex up inside lmao. With the first she obviously meant to be giving her a choice because she cares about Pearl, but she can't understand how to truly give Pearl freedom of choice she can't treat her like a fully freethinking person. With the second she doesn't understand how her power has an unhealthy impact on her bond with Pearl. And with the last it's not at all that Rose isn't allowed to move on, but I just always found she has a lack of awareness of Pearl's jealousy and misery that's a bit inappropriate. Not that you can't assume she has already let Pearl down easy or cares about her coping, but it's never shown, which feels like a deliberate choice.

I'm working on a more organized theory about Rose's characterization, but it is deeply fascinating. Her and Pearl's relationship is as well, I feel like it's sometimes characterized as just a mean jealous ex situation but like it's way more fucked than that, and is a great exploration of power dynamics, obsession, and grief. Love me some toxic doomed yuri.