#petty little fascist

[lost-carcosa]

[aprilmr]

Something not important but i feel a little giddy about it lol

So, I've been sending out lots of complaints on twitter considering az*eri fascist scum. I would send a complaint, block them and move on. The results of my complaints I couldn't access because twitter was kinda buggy UNTIL TODAY. I clicked on a complaint result expecting to see another unloaded empty page but! I saw the actual result! And the result was PERMANENT FUCKING BAN for the fasc twitter acc! And started looking through others, almost going back to november. AND THEY ALL WERE ACCEPTED. And i was like "wait a second...twitter support actually WORKS??". Wild! 1 or 2 accs were completely annihilated, others were temporarily banned until they delete hateful tweets. And here's the best part.

I was banned on twitter once (wrongly👁️👁️. I promise i'm not insane enough to be banned rightfully) and I know what a nasty feeling it was to log into your account and see that you basically can't do shit with it. And now imagine some fascist scum in Ba//ku, logging into their account, preparing to spew some more vile hateful shit towards armenians and instead they see that they are suspended for hate speech. And the only way to get out of this is to delete their armenophobic tweets. Man. Man, i just know that their ass burned so bad, you could see the flame of it in the fucking space. AND I AM VERY HAPPY ABOUT IT.

[iberiancadre]

I've talked about this before but I have a deep dislike of sentiment like this within "leftist" circles, regarding unions. And it's practically always from USamericans, go figure.

(Before anyone interprets this post on bad faith, which is inevitable, I am not against being in a union and I am not telling people not to join a union, it's the most inmediate form of protection workers have and that is, in fact, good)

It's this overbearing insistence on joining unions, treating it like the best (and only) way of achieving workers' liberation, and I think that shows either a bad understanding of what unions are or a bad understanding of how capitalism works. Unions are bargaining bodies for workers, that's it. They aren't revolutionary, and they aren't going to kill your boss. And I want to really hammer in this point. They aren't revolutionary. Precisely because their role is to bargain, and to achieve better conditions within the system of salaried work.

You are never going to "liquidate the ownership class" by getting longer breaks, paid holidays and an excellent health plan. Keep in mind, bargaining with the capitalist is necessary, and that in itself isn't non-revolutionary, not necessarily. But the only purpose of a union is to bargain. I really don't think people get this. A union's only purpose is to bargain, it is to negotiate. Negotiations also necessarily imply compromises and unsatisfactory deals. Unions are not a magic key to not being exploited, and they especially are not the way to liberation.*

I think this is especially prevalent in the US because of two things:

Their labor movement is so fucked that any kind of opposition to capitalism is by default radical. And therefore some people feel it's enough to just tell people to join a union. However, this isn't unique to the US and many places have it much, much worse

Living in the imperial hegemon makes it very easy to ignore any other place outside of their little sphere. People can go years engaging in left-of-DNC circles but without ever leaving their USamerican community, they end up not knowing who James Baldwin is, to give a topical example. This affects the US labor movement by allowing them to ignore other places' struggles, so it's very easy to see anything they do as the horizon of political action. They only need to look to their own country for examples in action, and the truth is that the labor movement in the US has been largely very mild. In the cases when it has not been mild (notable exceptions include the Black Panthers), it's largely forgotten, demonized or revised in bigger circles.

So you get people who call themselves communists just for being unionists. But a communist is someone who identifies the core of exploitation to be the very structure of capitalism and work and attacks it. You are not a communist, however, for believing the core of exploitation is your shit boss who refuses to pay for dental.

And what's funny is that 90% of what people on here claim to be communist and anti-capitalist is just the norm on most of the world. People will hype up the DSA or VoteSocialist2024 as if they're breaking ground, and then you read their programs and they're just socialdemocrats. They are nothing more than reformists, just another manager of capitalism.

My father works for one of the biggest textile manufacturers and distributors in the world, and unionization is the norm, it's a "union job" but it's still shitty and exploitative. There are in fact 3 unions, and they engage in petty electoralism within the workplace, only sometimes actually protecting worker's rights, and that's a country-wide norm. This is what unions end up becoming when they become established, especially with a friendly government in place.

CCOO was a union created in the late fascist dictatorship in Spain, and they were genuinely fighting (with guns!) against the dictatorship. And the moment the dictatorship ended and they became the largest union in the country, they slowly became less and less radical, and more complacent. Last year they signed a labor reform that legalizes highly precarious and inconsistent forms of work contracts. That's not "liquidating the ownership class", that's just social-democracy when it doesn't need to be the opposition anymore

To wrap up, a note on syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.

Unions are by their very nature an organization that only operates within one aspect of the life of the working class, the workplace. Sure, it's the main one and the part that defines us as a class, but it isn't the only one. In order to actually "liquidate the ownership class", you have to take power by force, and that will have to involve intervening outside of the workplace. What syndicalists used to claim is that unions can be the base of a socialist society and organize the entire working class to destroy capitalism. However, at that point, you have created a party and called it a union. And not only a party, but a myriad of them, each with their own characteristics and desires. So a multi-party system. I will not get into the viability of multiple parties in socialism in this post, but they are not unions in anything by name.

Footnote under the cut:

*I know I'm repeating myself a lot these days on this topic, but if you live in an imperial core country, there is no way to have prosperity (as the example above puts it) without some of that wealth coming from imperialism. It does not matter if your particular country never had colonies, it does not matter if your country is stereotypically nice (fuck the Nordic countries). And no, the expoliated wealth does not only remain within the capitalist class, there is always at least some circulation of wealth from the capitalist to the workers within any welfare program. If your workplace can afford to have long breaks, that is at least in part because your capitalist is profiting from the exploitation of the third world, and because the entire economies of imperial core countries uses the wealth extracted to support their deficits and to stabilize their currencies.

It's not a hard concept. If you can understand that it's basically impossible to manufacture batteries for renewable energy without exercising violence on places like the Congo, it's not that hard to understand the same is true for most things.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

DeFascist is an idiot. A petty little nervous man that dreams of being a fascist bully boi.

[lily-orchard]

You once said something along the lines of "No one joins an ideology of fascism cause the good guys got a little violent. They were already fascist. " Does that also apply to interpersonal discord?

Like, my ex started saying lies about me when I broke up with them. And all those things he said about me were minor squabbles at best and downright revisionist history at worst. So I keep thinking like "Did you already hated me, or can someone REALLY be this petty and vindictive to try to smear my name over somebody simply telling them:""I'm not in love with you anymore""?"

I was recently introduced to the concept of "Splitting" where someone copes and seethes by inventing this ultra-cartoonish Disney villain personification of the person they're angry at. My sister's been doing it for months now, arguing that I was "born evil" like the fucking antichrist as an explanation for how a 7 year old could supposedly be guilty of sex crimes.

This is becoming increasingly common. When social media attention is on the line, people lie to make themselves more sympathetic.

[saintsenara]

Penny for your thoughts on:

Aberforth / Voldemort

Griphook / Ollivander

Xenophilius Lovegood / Rita Skeeter

thank you very much for the ask, anon! a top-tier selection of unhinged ships!

aberforth dumbledore/lord voldemort

an incidental detail about voldemort's life which i find perpetually amusing is the fact that - much like hermione does when organising the da - he gets caught out when he turns up with the death eaters in tow prior to his job interview by going to the hog's head rather than the three broomsticks.

[another incidental detail i love is the idea of dumbledore being wrong when he dismisses voldemort referring to these men as "friends", and that dolohov genuinely was thrilled to be getting the pints in with the lads.]

aberforth being the perfect combination of a messy gossip and sufficiently lacking in business sense to go out of his way never to retain a single customer is funny enough on its own.

but it's all the better if we imagine that he decides to be a petty little bitch about voldemort turning up in his pub [after all, he doesn't get along with albus, so the only reason he'd go running to his brother is if he hated voldemort more] because this is the first time they've seen each other since august 1945, after the newly-graduated riddle was forced to stay at the hog's head during his post-hogwarts job search because he didn't yet have the capital to secure a lease on a flat and the two ended up in a begrudging month-long situationship [which aberforth would loathe because of its similarity to what happened with albus and grindelwald...], which ended in a spectacular argument when voldemort complained about the bedbugs, the fact the lines are never cleaned, and the goat-fucking.

[he'd tolerate two, but not all three.]

griphook/garrick ollivander

ollivander is one hundred percent the sort of wizard who vehemently believes that non-human magical creatures shouldn't have the right to carry wands.

[i will always be obsessed with his exquisitely creepy vibe in the books - especially the fact he still finds the idea of voldemort possessing the elder wand exciting after the man has spent a year literally torturing him.]

he undoubtedly thinks griphook's an untermensch. griphook thinks he's a fascist. maybe they are forced into a bit of hurt/comfort in the malfoy cellars, but i think it's more likely that griphook is passing his time in captivity thinking about how he'll murder ollivander and ollivander is hitting on luna.

xenophilius lovegood/rita skeeter

canon.

this, for example, is very much giving "i'm not still hung up on xenophilius! he didn't have a bed! he slept on a mattress on the floor! he's a jobless stoner and i'm a luxury bitch with a master's degree!"...

“I’m guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?” she said. “Twenty-five Ways to Mingle with Muggles and the dates of the next Bring- and-Fly Sale?” “No,” said Luna, dipping her onion back into her gillywater, “he’s the editor of The Quibbler.” Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked around in alarm. “‘Important stories he thinks the public needs to know’?” she said witheringly. “I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag.” 

sure, babe. sure.

[whining-ylthin]

"Thousand Sons are so arrogant"

I mean

They're just academics-but-fascist-supersoldiers. Academic culture is 100% decent people next to educated fools and the biggest assholes you've met, and even those nice people can be a little stuck up their own ass and obsessed with titles because they operate in a strongly hierarchic structure that is theoretically based on knowledge and merit but can often be gamed through exploitation and favoritism or warped by broader political influence, and they're simultaneously expected to do research, fight snake oil salesmen and educate people on a shoestring budget. Cross it over with the esoteric nature of psykery and Warp study, the high-risk nature of 40K's majicks, the besieged fortress mentality (where constant backlash and hostility towards psykers causes TSons to dig in and double down, ignoring potentially valid concerns out of overblown pride, but also fear that they'll be weaponized against them) and Imperium's fascist obsession with rule of power, and you get an entire army of arrogant scholars flexing their physical and psychic biceps at each other while also desperately trying not to shit themselves from fear of failure and what it entails.

Also, expertise in a field fucks up your perception of non-experts, see also: that one XKCD comic about geologists.

Not defending TSons over this BTW, they can be absolutely obnoxious or stupid, but... yeah, I get them. I get where it comes from. I got that MSc and called it quits. I've seen some petty drama and toxic behavior at my uni. I've seen the PhD course pay. I was the gifted child and uni student with scholarship.

I'm still picking up the pieces.

[lord-squiggletits]

Actually re: the last post about IDW Optimus and politics and moral grayness, if anyone here has read The Wheel of Time series, I actually compare IDW OP to Rand al'Thor in my head a lot. They have sort of the same background of "normal guy gets singled out by a person of Great Authority and put on a path to saving people" followed by a path to leadership hinging on "I became the Chosen One so even though I just wanted to save people, now I have to get involved in these bullshit politics where people are more concerned about securing their own power or spiting their enemies instead of uniting against evil."

Then there's a part of WOT where Rand becomes way darker and edgier, where basically as a result of a severe incident of betrayal and trauma, he goes "You know what, fuck you people, I tried to be nice and you just stabbed me in the back and tried to literally use me as a tool for your own ends" and he basically became a major hardass. To the point where I think there was at least one point (if not multiple) where after Rand extended some sort of diplomatic solution and got rejected, he was basically like "fuck you," fought an entire city on his own and won, then made himself the ruler and went "your armies belong to me and you're going to prepare to fight the Dark One like you SHOULD BE DOING." That phase is sort of comparable to Orion working under Zeta (OP flashbacks, Autocracy trilogy), in which OP's ideals are buried under disappointment and he's seeing these complicated, shitty political realities playing out where it seems like nothing is getting better and his attempts to work with the Decepticons only end in (from his perspective) being blatantly lied to and having his goodwill taken advantage of.

That's really what my ideal phase 2/3 story for Optimus would've been lmao. Still with the same idea of "gee you ARE fighting for the greater good but aren't you going a little far," but balanced out with a rightful dose of "I tried to be diplomatic and nice but no one listened, what else can I do but use force/politics/manipulation to make people see reason if they won't stop backstabbing and betraying each other in time to fight the Actual Evil Force who's going to kill us all."

WOT Rand even had a part of his character arc where he went so far into "humanity sucks, they would literally rather get slaughtered by the ultimate evil than set aside their petty bullshit long enough to work together" where he almost committed murder-suicide in a fit of despair that maybe humanity wasn't even worth saving at all. Only for him to be saved from the edge of despair by realizing "Wait, the world SHOULD be saved, because even though humanity sucks and so many people are evil, good still exists in the world and we can still fight to make the world a better place than it is."

LIKE IN A WAY RAND AL THOR IS BASICALLY IDW OPTIMUS in terms of the general shape of his character arc. Just the difference is that Rand got written as just a character with flaws and virtues coping the best he can under immense pressure and trauma. Whereas IDW OP got written more as "God the world fucking sucks and Cybertronians might just deserve to die bc we colonized people" and also everyone is constantly calling him a fascist and even the titles of his story are comparing him to an actual genocidal tyrant who killed 100 billion+ people. No joy or humanity just a scapegoat for evil living in a shitty world where everyone is miserable and "maybe our entire race IS doomed and we DO deserve to die" is like, a repeated motif of the entire story all the way to Unicron. As opposed to being treated as an obviously shitty worldview that the characters grapple with and go "no actually the world can be a good place and our society can recover from war and we don't deserve oblivion because of the cycle of violence we're trying to escape."

[mariacallous]

It's simultaneously disheartening, frustrating, and aggravating to see just how many people online have exposed themselves as little more than just another flavor of puritan with a progressive/leftist/whatever-ist coat of paint whose only real interest is to find a new way to thump their chests and screech at each other for not being holier and purer/about how pure and more morally correct they are, even as their intended actions only show that they'd willingly sacrifice the greater good for their own pettiness.

Like, it shouldn't be this difficult to recognize that:

Hamas is a terrorist organization who has and is causing great pain for Gaza and Palestine.

That Israel's government under Netanyahu is openly committing genocide and inflicting horrific atrocities on the people of the Gaza strip.

Biden has made poor/questionable decisions in regards to the I/P conflict, and that there does seem to be signs that he is trying to do something but is being roadblocked at many turns due to how dysfunctional the US government is.

And that we still have to accept the reality that he might be the only candidate that we can go for in the 2024 election against Trump, who will no doubt be even WORSE than his first term if he gets the presidency again since he'll be driven by revenge and a desire to ensure he never gets imprisoned, AND the far right establishment is actively trying to turn the USA into a fascist theocracy that will definitely make situations like the I/P conflict and Russia/Ukraine worse than they already are now.

It's like, there is NO morally pure option here, and trying to do so in order to win e-clout and praise from your fellows online is the epitome of arrogance and callousness when so much is on the line.

Have we learned fucking NOTHING from the past decade?

No, we haven’t, which is the problem.

Someone reblogged a post of mine recently and left this very very long discursion about voting and how abstaining isn’t always bad even if the outcome is evil, or something to that effect (sorry I’m not going to read all that) and I’m sorry, but it is.

Fundamentally, you look at two - and yes, I’m being American-centric, and yes, sorry, there are only two viable options in the US, particularly at the federal/national level - options and you see which option causes less harm. If you do not support that option, through action or inaction, you have chosen to empower the greater amount of harm. You can moralize, justify, explicate, propound, and temporize as much as you’d like, or cloak your action or inaction in the fauxbility (faux nobility) of purity and alleged principle, but at the end of the day, you have either followed the grey falcon or the black lamb.

That’s also assuming that people have an accurate understanding of both politics and reality, which is not a given these days.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

What would he have made his priorities after being the king? I mean politically? If he had worked at all that is.

GREAT QUESTION it frankly drives me kind of insane that we never get any hint whatsoever about how he’s running the country while he does briefly take over from S&S through R&R. Like what are his POLICIES!! What is he DOING??

But also, realistically, he is not going to cancel wars with the Shadow Fold threat lol. Like that is only the beginning of a really long and drawn out foreign relations catastrophe. I talked about this a little bit in a different context awhile ago but he doesn’t strike me as a character with a firm end goal… ever. There’s always going to be more to do.

But like a civil war is going to fuck up the country no matter what. So I’d assume, regardless, there’s going to be a fair bit of immediate picking up the pieces economically. He doesn’t at all seem like he cares about public opinion, beyond being scary enough so people know not to fuck with him. So he’d probably have no qualms with making drastic and highly unpopular reforms lol.

We really don’t know enough about his stances but he seems to be primarily: a nationalist, an autocrat, prioritizing military strength, distinctly favoring Grisha interests, and also shdhfgfd against industrialization and technological advancement. He also favors the perceived good of the many over the interests and well being of any individual, and is very happy to make sacrifices of many, many lives to achieve fairly petty goals. He's a fantasy fascist basically.

The books somewhat superficially equate him with Russian revolutionary figures. But I don't think there's enough... actual ideology to back that up very much. And rapid industrialization and transitioning the Soviet Union from a primarily agrarian based economy was itself a key part of it? So... he's not much of a Stalin. If we're trying to sus out his policies I could see him being something of an anti Peter the Great, where instead of forced Westernization, you have an incredibly set in his ways immortal autocrat trying to drag everyone back to the values and traditions of his youth. (Which would also make narrative sense, considering Nikolai, as the Darkling-lite foil, seems to have def been based on some aspects of Peter the Great's youth and interest in innovation, if not his personality)

So for example, he seems like he'd favor isolationism. His idea of "peace" is "don't fuck with me or I'll make my monster filled interdimensional rift eat you." And we know Ravka is in intense debt! I could easily see him seizing the nobility's wealth and using it to pay off any debts owed to foreign countries. And then if anything's left over to stockpile resources towards making Ravka more self sufficient. Maybe even melt the gold and silver out of churches to that purpose.

(I forget which historical figure literally melted down church crosses dfghj but that was a thing! iirc incidentally he also stripped the silver from the currency, absolutely destroying its value...)

By RoW he seems to have embraced the entire like religious propaganda side of things. But in the trilogy proper he seems to hate the church. So resources going to it in any way will probs be diverted. And I could even see him gradually trying to repurpose the buildings for other things. They're on the tail end of a civil war, there's probs a lot of displaced people that could be put there for a start.

S&B meanwhile establishes that he has some pretty distinct opinions about how all the Grisha need to pretend to live like peasants so as not to forget their roots or whatever. I think he *would* enact really harsh regulations and reforms on court life just because he hates it so bad lol. Taxes on parties, insane sumptuary laws for everyone but his favored Grisha soldiers. He's had centuries and centuries to hate changing social norms. I think he'd go nuts if given the opportunity to dictate everything. Generally I think there would be a mix of skyrocketing taxes and reforms to an actual purpose (bolstering the economy and stripping material power from the nobility) but also just to be a petty, temperamental autocrat.

Def also criminalizing dissent and making examples of any opposition immediately. Can't have another revolution threatening his revolution. Again, here I'm annoyed by how little the world is fleshed out, because we get nothing about the nobility. Noble families with any sort of longstanding ties or known friendship with the Lantsovs would probs get executed day one. Stripped of titles and lands etc and then taking those and giving them to his own supporters. (Who are they? Good fucking question! He has one Ivan and then even he fucking dies. But realistically... he would have... supporters?)

He'd probs want to get a firmer grip on West Ravka stat, and maybe invest in some military expansion to control more ports. An issue I forever have with the Grishaverse worldbuilding is that it's just so small? There are only like five countries? Trade and foreign policy just aren't going to Look Like That or mimic a nineteenth/twentieth century vibe if there are only five fucking countries dfghjkl but whatever. Whatever.

I could also see him favoring exports over imports. Stopping all trade seems destabilizing af so I doubt he’d go there but seems likely he'd try to decrease any dependency Ravka has on other countries in favor of self sufficiency and isolationism. Maybe taxing imports so bad that it's just not worth it. Regulating the exact details of what can be imported, when, why, etc.

Speaking of the earlier impending foreign relations catastrophe. I think if he’s scary enough he might manage to avoid an all out war on all fronts? Might. Because there’s also a really good case to be made for attacking Ravka while its still weak and reeling from the civil war. But if he’s lucky, the surrounding countries will take a “wait and see” stance. But like there will be consequences eventually. Consider the Shadow Fold an in-universe fantasy nuke in the hands of a power hungry ruler who has zero qualms with any scale of loss of life or just murdering civilians for the lols. He’s proven himself to be unstable and unreasonable so even if there isn’t an immediate declaration of war there is going to be a response to that. No one’s going to be chill!! And like SoC and KoS context tells us that there is parem on the horizon, along with the Grisha super soldiers in Shu Han, the druskelle getting wayyyy more sophisticated and a general trajectory of rapid military industrialization and advancement through out the world. Those are playing pieces that would be on the board regardless, but it’s just going to get so much uglier under those circumstances. And especially with the knowledge and context that the Darkling is completely fucking unreasonable and ready to war crime anyone who looks at him funny.

I guess siding with Fjerda in S&S could hypothetically be advantageous to him here actually? Like we do not know the terms of that alliance at all, and I doubt it would hold for long. But it breaks up the framing of everyone vs Ravka. And opens things up for anyone else to respond by trying to get on his good side against their own enemies. And once again. There are only five countries lmao. So a tense balance of powers situation might be feasible, but I think it would hinge on him not looking like he’s completely insane. Possibly ironic, but the fact that he seems to have only war crimed his own damn country is likely also useful here. Other governments typically don’t care/won’t get involved to a degree of outright declaring war over that. And it leaves some room for arguing that he’s capable of some restraint. So how quickly things go to hell probably depends on whether he goes back on any alliances or makes good on/is cornered into making good on his Shadow Fold threat.

So I don't know, basically I think there's a ton you could extrapolate from his personality, actual world history, and like fascist takeover 101 sdfghj but it's also somewhat unsatisfying to speculate about because it's impossible not to constantly run into thin points in the worldbuilding. But basically I think he would probably rule with an eye for sweeping, harsh reforms, consolidating power, and chipping away at any opposition or potential adversary, with a general decided disinterest in the popularity or lack thereof of any of his policies. And I also think unless someone got him to take a deep breath and chill out for five minutes and relearn the value of diplomacy things would get. how you say. really fucking bad.

This was incredibly unorganized I hope it answered your question at all sdfghj

[nerves-nebula]

!!!!!!! IVE FINDALLY FOUND A FELLOW MANDELA CATALOG DISLIKER

I've been into the ARG/Unfiction genre since like. 2015. And literally I've understood the hype around almost every unfiction project to some degree, EXCEPT for Mandela catalogue. Like. I've never understood the hype. Maybe it's just because I found it to feel very formulaic but like. Some of the faces used for this that are meant to be slightly unsettling are just,, not perfectly proportional and are badly lit?? Like literally that's it. Like there are real people who look like that. Fix the lighting and it's just gonna look like your neighbor of something. It's not very scary

But also like, for real? On your points abt how the series itself gives off A Lot if proto-fascistic messaging,

when I first watched it I was like "oh! That's the point! This is abt how fascist governments use media like TV to influence and misinform the public in service to facism and paranoia. Like these doppelgangers aren't actually real! They're just made up boogiemen to incentivize the public to turn on their neighbors/to attack people who are disfigured or disabled" and I thought that I finally was maybe getting why people found it interesting and that I had judged it too harshly

And then it wasn't that and instead was like "yeah no. There IS a secret boogeyman group who aren't (side eye to that) who are gonna steal your children via television (even Bigger side eye), and nearly off of them are just like, slightly photoshopped pictures of Real People but now they're just disfigured/disabled/literally just slightly non proportional features

This series could be very cool, but its just a thematic mess and is (intentionally or not) communicating a lot of facistic/eugenic sentiments

Idk if this anon is well phrased but like. You're so right it's unreal

-Gonzo

HAHAHHHHH YESSSS. YESSSSS. ITS SUCH A MESSSS.

LIKE. what is the POINT. half the "scary" ppl look like someone I'd see on the bus. the intruder looks like the homeless guy who asked me for bus fair a while back.

CRUCIALLY I don't think any of the bigotry was intentional, however it's SO thoroughly interwoven into Alex's worldview and the world he's created that it's like. at the fucking center of everything. it's insane to me how full grown adults analyze it on youtube and somehow manage to do that without comparing and compiling all the tropes it uses to make its point (whatever it's point even IS)

whenever me & my friend talk about it we somehow manage to keep tripping into different kinds of bigotry!! we'll be talking about ableism and how Adam's arc is very similar to many changeling tropes, which were (and to some extent still are, see: Star Children/Indigo Children) often used to abuse neurodivergent or mentally ill/disabled children. and we'll realize that Adam arc ALSO mirrors the Tragic Mulatto storyline too and it's like wow!! Two in one! you've done it so bad!!

a lot of the issues with it are small little things that could be excused as a coincidence- EXCEPT THERE'S SO MANY LITTLE THINGS THAT IT BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE.

it's like- ok imagine this: you're having an interaction with someone and they do a microaggression at you, right? not outwardly bigoted, just kind of ignorant. and you're like, ok. fine. nobody is perfect, they probably didn't mean any harm. it's not worth kicking up a fuss about.

but if it keeps happening EVERY SINGLE TIME you talk to this person, it starts to build inside you and it's like. it's hard to even say why you hate them because you'd need to drag out every shitty tiny thing they've said and at that point you feel like maybe you're just being petty- BUT IT'S NOT PETTY IF IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE TIME AAA

ok sorry i started writing an essay again. i think my bud's gonna like this tho he's gonna be so happy other people did actually notice

[bestworstcase]

If watts is from mantle like you say that honestly makes him even more of a bastard, because much like cinder or Adam he took what was a slight against basic compassion as a personal attack against him specifically, and was perfectly happy massacring his fellow mantle citizens to get his petty payback against ironwood,

At the end of the day while he may have come from humble beginnings, he’s still an egotistical self obsessed prick

so anyway another thing about watts is the narrative conspicuously separates him from the volume eight tussling over what salem really wants. the reason that interests me so much is that watts is extremely comfortable around salem—man swans up to her teleconference grimm to obnoxiously knock on its head and heckle cinder, immediately after lionheart quaveringly promised not to waste her time. he’s indirect and dramatic about telling her qrow found the spring maiden (“a little birdie told us”) and salem’s reaction, of turning to lionheart and telling him to explain, suggests that watts is just like that. in volume six his response to her implication that cinder survived is to scoff and say “you’re joking, how could you know that?” and the only reason he backs down is because tyrian flies off the handle about it.

the only time salem herself reprimands him for any of this is when she tells him off for being cruel to cinder, which she handles rather politely (“dr. watts, do you find such malignance necessary?”). QED, watts does not modulate his shitheel behavior with salem whatsoever because he knows that she 1. doesn’t care, and 2. will calmly tell him when he’s crossed a line with her. there is a level of casual trust here that no one else in the inner circle exhibits.

watts is also the only one of salem’s cabal whose personal goal is obfuscated in, frankly, much the same way that salem’s is; he hates atlas but there is no specificity as to his emotional motivation for wanting to proverbially burn it down. the narrative lines up enough pieces to suggest he’s from mantle, slips in the fact that he faked his own death to get out of the atlesian military, and then brings out his fury over ironwood’s exploitation and disrespect to underscore the point. the fandom focuses on “you chose that fat imbecile over me!” to the exclusion of everything else in order to confirm the pre-existing feeling that watts is just a petty, arrogant asshole, but the picture rwby is actually painting here is of a man who violently ripped himself out of the proto-fascist machinery of the atlesian military and dedicated the rest of his life to getting rid of it completely. the penny project is merely the focal point. a singular concrete incident that has become an emotional shorthand for everything else.

anyway the point is, i don’t think watts knew precisely what salem intends to do with the relics, but i do think he had a fairly accurate understanding of who she is; his irreverence and casually obnoxious antics come from a place of recognizing that she doesn’t give a flying fuck—that she will, at worst, calmly push back if he does something she is unwilling to tolerate and that a certain show of deference is occasionally necessary to placate her deranged assassin—and likewise his scrupulous loyalty and respect feel considered in a way that the rest of the cabal’s do not.

hence the necessity of removing him completely from the plot point about how nobody really knows what salem is after. watts is kind of the anti-tyrian in that he is every bit as dedicated to her cause but his reasons for being so are wholly unexplained to the audience even though it is entirely obvious that he does HAVE ironclad reasons—which leaves the sort of people who refuse to ascribe agency or interiority to villainous characters unless it’s spelled out in bold print grasping for the wildly silly reading that watts is being led around blind by a petty grudge and actually salem doesn’t respect him or his contributions at all, never fucking mind that disrespect for him and his work is exactly his grievance with ironwood, and never mind that out of everyone in her cabal, watts is clearly the one salem holds in the highest regard

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Clockwatchers (Sprecher, 1997)

I think this movie really gets the alienation of the young, inexperienced contract worker. The way that the rules of the workplace, explicit or unspoken, are wielded against you by those with a modicum of power, real or perceived. The way that your only real friends are the other young, inexperienced contract workers, and the way you bond over your disaffection and disdain for office bullshit, even if forming your clique makes you the target of the rest of the office. Moments like the protagonist being told to wait, left unattended for hours, and then being chastised for waiting unattended for hours, are funny because they’re accurate, and maybe sting a little if you’ve been put through similar indignities.

If you want a bit of storytime, my first “real” job after graduating was as a contractor for a project. Like in this movie, my only real friends at the job were other contractors on the same project. And because the project had us embedded with other teams to execute the project, which would enforce a relatively minor change on one work artifact they had to produce, the people in those teams decided to take it out on me by booking my desk out from underneath me (as a contractor, I didn’t have access to the booking system), and was kicked out of the free desks by a more senior person complaining that I was typing too loud. So I learned pretty early just how childish people could be in a professional setting and the way that the setting enabled such pettiness. So the ambient feelings here certainly rang true, even if the specifics differed from my experience and these characters didn’t seem quite as desperate to find or hold onto their jobs as I think people seeking entry level jobs are these days.

And I think the movie nicely realizes these sentiments into the tactile experience of being in the office. The deadening false cheer of the ugly coloured walls. The fascistic geometry of the furniture, where having a cubicle, let alone an office, is wielded as a status symbol over those with more open desktops. In my current job we’ve recently started to have to book our desks in advance, which is much more painful than anyone realized. I’m pretty sure some of my coworkers would kill for even the crappy open desks the protagonists have here.

I do think this is a relic of the ‘90s, but not necessarily in a bad way. I imagine a more recent take on this premise would more explicitly spell out the conditions of late capitalism that result in such a work environment, something that no doubt would be articulated as leadenly as possible given the state of modern cinema. Here, the movie makes room for introspection with respect to the heroine’s career prospects, which makes it a sort of companion piece with Office Space, even if the latter movie has a more pronounced absurdist streak. (And if you want some reading material to go alongside your double feature, The New Me by Halle Butler hits satirical similar notes and is a nice and breezy read to boot.) And the performances here are quite strong, although as you can guess from its inclusion in the Criterion Channel’s Parker Posey series, Parker Posey steals the show.

[potuzzz]

I want more leftists to ask themselves how they might be of fascist character by being raised in the West.

I don't care about the broad strokes, all the social issues we're all familiar with. Yeah, yeah, you support XYZ people, that's great.

What about internally? This fascist culture breeds narcissism. It breeds dopamine addiction, black and white thinking, guilt by association. It breeds fear, constant fear. It substitutes revolutionary fervor with apathy, laziness, and contentedness. It emphasizes hyper-individualism, and encourages us all to (ironic to this post) focus not on external problems but internal, to "love ourselves," to get therapy and talk to a friend. What about when the friends, family, and self help videos are all fascist? What about when your own mind, your own understanding of yourself and your spirituality, have been perverted by decades living in Crypto Nazi Germany?

We're all made to be wicked little beasts here. There's nothing to be guilty about, it's not your fault or my fault. But I wish people could be more conscientious about it. Stop being so petty, so fearful, so ignorant, so hateful. You are illustrating yourself to be, by your character, little different than the open fascists.

[exitpursuedbyavulcan]

What about arguments like you should not be allowed to write about glorifying pedophilia which is a lot of work on ao3 unfortunately

I'm assuming this is in reference to this post that I reblogged literally 11 minutes ago. Oh boy, I was not prepared for this so soon after waking up.

My stance is, basically, there should be no limitations or censorship on any kind of writing. There has never been a period in history where censorship like that hasn't been the first step in a wider fascist uprising. Putting limitations on creative arts like that is barely a half-step away from censoring people's thoughts.

Are there things I find gross and morally iffy at best? Yes. My solution to that? I don't read them.

There's been a lot of talk in the US recently about books "glorifying" certain subjects. But "glorifying" is a very vague and often inaccurate word. Do the Little House on the Prairie books "glorify" living in a dugout? Does To Kill a Mockingbird glorify racism? Does Lolita glorify pedophilia? No, that's simply something that's included in the plot. The Little House books take place in a time when living in a dugout was a part of like. Mockingbird takes place in the South during Jim Crow. And Lolita includes pedophilia because it's about how gross and creepy pedophilia is.

I've said this in several arguments with conservative family members regarding the banning of books in American schools: "There is a stark difference between a book 'glorifying' something immoral and it simply being a part of the book."

The only book that comes to mind that actually glorifies something morally bad is Gone with the Wind, which glorifies the pre-Civil War American South and the horrible practice of slavery. Do I think we should ban or otherwise censor that book? Or the movie that's based on it?

No.

Not only is Gone with the Wind and important piece of American literary history (and the movie is arguable even more important), it is, despite its faults, a good book. It's a tale of female perseverance at a time when women were expected to just get married and have babies. It's about how female friendships are more important that any petty romantic squabbles. It's about how not everyone deserves a happy ending.

For the movie, HBO and TCM (I am a devoted TCM fan) have filmed a ~15 minute disclaimer video to play before the movie discussing it's faults and how we, as a modern society who now agrees (mostly) that slavery and racism is wrong, should view the film. Jaqueline Stewart hosts that video, as well as a very interesting panel discussion about the movie here that I highly recommend.

All this to say, it is important that we acknowledge the faults in literature. But I have never encountered a book, even though it may have many faults, that I think should be banned.

And I have the same philosophy about fanfic. I may think it's gross and icky, but I do not have the right to tell someone what they can read or write.

And... I do think we should acknowledge the irony of you sending this ask to a blog that has literally written 200k words of a fanfiction focused on the romance between two first cousins. Just a thought.

[hxhhasmysoul]

SukuIta and SukuGo for the ship bingo :D

I'm very surprised that you're asking about the first ship, the second one not so much because it's for the meme. But the first one I know you don't ship in any way and you've already been a good sport about sometimes letting me talk about it XD.

Also I'm not sure if you meant just one of the bingos or both so it did both. Either way.

SukuGo

What I will say about my attitude towards this ship is meant to be treated lightly because I don't give a shit about what people ship. Like whatever makes you happy and floats your boat.

I don't ship Gojou at all, I find his personality so off-putting that any shipping of him for me could only happen if he successfully achieved quite a significant character development arc. Which he did not in canon. The way he is I find all potential queer ships with him queerphobic, any het ships with him misogynist. Like no one deserves to have to deal with Gojou because canon has proven over and over again that Gojou can't be arsed to actually consider anyone else's needs, especially emotional needs, than his own. We've talked about stsg at some point (me nad cursed vibes not some royal we XD) and I agree with you about that, yes, he can have that dumb edgy fascist but I'd rather not think about it too much.

And someone can accuse me of hypocrisy here. They can say: but Sukuna is also evil, and a supremacist etc etc. And they'd be 100% correct, this is purely pettiness and spite. And the fact that og form Sukuna is the sexiest character in JJK and Gojou's generic by the dozen white boy blue eyed couldn't bore more.

Also in canon Sukuna has aroace vibes, don't force him into relationships, he doesn't want that!

But you ship him with Yuuji, or with Uraume.

When it comes to shipping him with Gojou, Sukuna is aroace hard canon and people should just leave him alone!

I marked the little star on the platonic, because as the true hypocrite I am, I am planning to write a scene with them in one of my fics. And they will be in fact on friendly terms and it's going to be kinda goofy and lighthearted because that's my comfort fic. And someone actually mentioned Gojou by name, saying they hope he appears and I had an idea of how I could incorporate him... though I'm not sure people who like him will appreciate. That being said the more spite or pettiness I put into my Kurapika, the more their fans love them. And Gojou fans might be like that.

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SukuIta

On the consume/create bingo I took certain liberty with how to interpret the tiles with "only". I interpreted it that I'd consume/create fics/pieces art which solely focused on the thing, and not that I'd only like to read/see works with that particular thing. Because that'd make it impossible to get bingo on certain lines. I mean "nothing" makes it kinda impossible on two already.

A double bingo on the first one, a triple on the second. Not bad for a ship I stumbled into through the process of elimination. And considering that initially I was only interested in finding a ship for Yuuji I could find enjoyable fics for. And while I like Sukuna as an antagonist, I didn't really care that much about him. Recently I really stared to like him more because Gege is finally developing him as a character and it's fun and also close to what I imagined him to be like.

And there's also a large difference between what I'd read/look at or have read/looked, and what I'd write or have written.

But this ship is so good because done well it's extremely high intensity.

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Ship bingo template.