Latest Posts by akuji05 - Page 9

To The People I Pass On The Train At Night - Jordan Bolton

My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is now available to pre-order! Get it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky

Still can't recover from this by the way.

"Oh, this idiot behind me? Who thinks he's funny? Yeah that's my man."

@pscentral​ event 23 ☆ arcs ↳ SHIBUYA INCIDENT ARC ❭ 渋谷事変編

“face the truth as it is instead” disintegrated him

The problem with house elves in Harry Potter.

Typical argument goes as follows: it is bad and irresponsible for an author to create enslaved people who love their enslavement and love their masters because of all the real world parallels to real slavery. Similar arguments were actually made about American slavery and every other slavery before or since. In our world such rhetoric is always propaganda. But in Harry Potter it’s portrayed as genuine.

For a children’s book especially, it’s not a good look. As a children’s book, Harry Potter contains too many dark and difficult topics and without satisfying lessons or conclusions it’s tempting to say – don’t introduce slavery into your story. Don’t create willing slaves, for starters.

But the problem is in the lessons or conclusions part, not the introducing part. And even willing slaves can be explored in interesting ways and really done justice when in hands of a competent writer with good politics.

How so? Well, don’t create such creatures just because. Make them into a coherent metaphor for something. There are several possible options, starting from less fitting:

1. House elves are dogs. Or children.

You can frame dogs as voluntary slaves if you don’t know much about dogs. Unlike house elves, they are perfectly independent creatures that do not have an inborn desire to obey humans. They need to be trained and even then they can be very stubborn and do not appreciate or even tolerate abuse like house elves do. Dogs are more like children. You have the position of authority over them but that makes you responsible and it is your job to make them happy and occupied.

But if you are really committed, you can frame childhood as slavery too. Being a child or a pet is a vulnerable position to be in. Your labor is sometimes exploited and you don’t control your life much. You know how it is.

So, there are creatures who love their sometimes actually slavery-like situations because they love their "caretakers" and you cannot solve this problem by just separating the two groups. It would be doing everyone a disservice.

But in Harry Potter, Hermione decides to free elves purely on philosophical ground and in her zeal doesn’t consider the reality of their special psychology. Who would even make such a silly mistake?

2. House elves are house wives. And Hermione is a lesbian separatist.

This angle really comes into focus when we meet Winky in the fourth book. She is a female elf and a loyal supporter of her master Barty Crouch Snr. You can very easily read her as this conservative fearful simple-minded wife that just wants to keep peace and make her husband happy above all else*. The only thing that is above the “husband” is her “son", her perfect boy who can do no wrong – Barty Crouch Jnr, a death eater and the main villain for most of the book.

In the beginning of the book, Winky gets "divorced" against her will, by her “husband”, for a public transgression that made him look bad. It’s this situation that shocks Hermione to the core and makes her believe that all elves should be free. But then Winky ends up in the Hogwarts kitchens (where elves live among themselves like in a convent) and we see that she’s devastated, blames herself, becomes an addict and never fully recovers. Hermione never gets strong evidence in the opposite direction and eventually abandons her activism.

This does sound like a cautionary tale a conservative would write about marriage. How feminism is women’s main enemy and how we all are deeply unhappy without the authority of a husband. Again, actual arguments that people make about modern society TODAY.

Obviously, that’s not how the real world works. But even here separatism is a bad solution. Yes, there is a rare house elf that can handle freedom**. There are women (not quite so rare) who don’t want to engage in relations with men. But it would really be doing everyone a disservice to force apartheid between men and women. Most wives love their husbands. Even when they are abusive. Most women can stop loving a particular man, but not men in general. There’s no escape from the biological prison of heterosexuality.

Anyway, those are all bad metaphors that require a lot of stretching. House elves don't look like creatures that evolved to cooperate with humans like domesticated animals or humans themselves. They are too subservient. Such a thing wouldn't happen naturally. They seem to be created (or altered) artificially to accept humans unconditionally***.

3. House elves as perfectly aligned Artificial Intelligence.

House elves have stronger magic than wizards, they think differently from them but still are perfectly loyal and obedient to those they consider their masters.

This is the best metaphor, in my opinion. After all, science is similar to magic. They are both really powerful. And both can be used for better or worse. You don’t have to write sci-fi to talk about any futuristic concept. Those are just aesthetics, really****. And that’s a pretty cool question to ask – if people could create a house elf… would they? Not a far fetched idea at all.

So, when written well a house elf can be a perfectly good narrative device. Introduce them into your story as a metaphor for domestic servitude or AI, an enslaved god in a box. You can even mix those metaphors. Make your house elf a stand-in for a waifu simulator. Make them Joi from Blade Runner 2049. Make it real dark.

Tone it down for a YA audience, of course, but still, why not? There are real life implications here. You can even start with the SPEW plot as well. Show that brute force lesbian separatism or rewriting the code of a perfectly happy and aligned AI is stupid and, in the latter case especially, really dangerous. Don’t separate families on the basis of some abstract philosophical grievance you made up. Don’t kidnap people’s pets. Sure!

What’s next, though? What do you do with a subservient creature you cannot just free?

In the real world we have laws surrounding all of these issues, protecting all spouses, children and pets from abuse. And when sentient waifus become a thing we will have to intervene as well.

How come this point never crosses Hermione’s mind? How come she gives up on SPEW and never finds a third alternative?

A better written Hermione would say: “Okay, Hagrid, I concede that house elves should not be taken from their homes. Fine. But are we really also fine with families like Malfoy’s treating their elves like dirt? Elves do become distressed when it happens, we can all clearly see that. Harry was right to free Dobby, we all agree on that. But do we agree that it was Harry’s responsibility to do that? No authority had taken Dobby away from his masters even though Dobby actively wanted to be taken. No authority had permanently taken the right to own house elves from Malfoys. They can just buy a new one and abuse them as well! I know you don’t have child protective services either, so we should probably start with that but can we at least agree that it's a goal for the future? There’s a pile of clothes for elves who want freedom in the kitchens now. That’s a good thing, right?”

But such a conversation can never happen in Harry Potter, about any issue*****. Because that would imply a systemic change. It would imply that the Ministry of Magic, portrayed as useless and incompetent most of the time, has to do something. And we can’t have that.

Instead we have a toothless morality that we should just all be better as individuals. We should help victims when some injustice really stares us in the face. And we should treat our own elves better. Be nice to your wife. Be kind to your children. Don’t hit your dog. Don’t inflict pain on your waifu simulator. What happens behind the closed doors of your neighbors is really none of your business. Family is the cornerstone of society and the government should not meddle in its affairs.

This is what makes Harry Potter's house elves irredeemable. Not their existence but all the lessons we expected to not learn from them. A competent writer with good politics wouldn’t stop the conversation on “well, they enjoy slavery so we must not intervene”. In a bad situation there’s always a less ridiculous alternative to doing nothing.

_____________________

* There are no sexual relations between wizards and elves anywhere in the books as far as I know. I’m only talking about the social dynamic of traditional marriage, nothing more. (Although in real world sexual abuse does happen in all of the situations discussed here)

** The only one we see is Dobby but even he was not free from his affection for wizards. He just switched from serving his family to serving the main character, not de jure but de facto. He risks his life and suffers abuse for Harry and in the end he dies saving Harry’s life.

*** As far as I know it was never confirmed how elves came to be in Harry Potter. Which is bizarre considering this author's love for writing extra worldbuilding. That suggests to me that she was uncomfortable with the topic herself and didn’t really want to make it into a coherent metaphor. Else she could have given them any origin story she deemed fit.

****I do mean that fully. A spell that reads minds and computer chips in brains can and should serve the same narrative purpose. You can go full Black Mirror in your fantasy novel. That one episode where people’s eyes film everything they see – literally a pensieve.

*****They ponder once that they sort children into houses a bit early and even though it would be a comparatively easy fix they still do nothing. They never do anything!

"Honestly, Octavia didn't deserve to be hated. She's been emotionally neglected by her father, and she had every right to be mad at her. I can't believe Brandon (Blitzø's voice actor) called Octavia a "fucking" cockblock. Why would you say that to an emotionally neglected teenager whose father abandoned her for an imp? It feels absolutely wrong. I wish Octavia was in a better position than this."

Submitted by @redjoey1992

I love you, George Takei.

Hot take, but cis people have gender identities. They aren't the gender they identify as because of their genitalia or what their birth certificate says. They're only cis because they identify with a gender and it happens to match their government documentation. Cis men aren't men because they're "obviously" men for having a penis. They're men because they identify as men. It's the self-identification that dictates this, not any other factor, even for cis folks. And we should be framing it this way. A cis man identifies as a man and a cis woman identifies as a woman. There is no automatic or inherent gender.

‘don’t be political’ ‘I don’t want to see that on my dash’ ‘keep your opinions to yourself’

NO. Absolutely not- over my dead fucking body, you hear me?!

Don’t you dare try to make yourself small, don’t you dare be passive and roll over while they run your country to the ground. I’m not even American and this makes my blood boil, watching all the horrible things happening over there. They have taken your rights. Do you understand me? It is propaganda, plain and simple. Staying quiet just to appease other people is exactly what they want. They want you to remain passive, they want you to hope that things will get better on their own.

here’s the simple truth- it won’t. not unless you do something about it. we all saw it with the UHC shooter, citizens being abused and refused for years, but the second someone leaps into actions, suddenly the gears start turning. I understand that politics isn’t for everyone, and it may very well mentally affect you. but I believe this isn’t the time for that.

YOUR PRESIDENT JUST PUT A BUNCH OF LGBTQ KIDS AT RISK. THE WORLDS RICHEST MAN DID THE NAZI SALUTE AT YOUR INAUGURATION. YOU ARE WATCHING THEM TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS IN REAL TIME ON NATIONAL TELEVISION.

for fucks sake, that doesn’t bother you?

this is the time for action. Do not let them take away your voice. Be inconvenient. Be angry. Be a public menace. Be as fucking difficult to the government as you could possibly be.

it could actually save a life.

elon musk did a nazi salute twice at the inauguration, and republicans are defending him.

trump revoked executive order 11246, which prohibited discrimination.

trump put all dei employees on leave to be fired.

trump banned all lgbtq+ flags from being hung in government buildings.

trump rolled back biden’s executive order to lower prescription drug costs for people using medicare and medicaid.

trump rescinded the $35 cap on insulin, and prices are expected to rise to $1500 a month.

trump ordered the national institutes of health to cancel their review panels on cancer research.

trump ended the guidelines to prevent ai misuse. the guidelines prevent many things, but notably it prevents production of ai child pornography.

when sean hannity asked trump about the economy, he said “i don’t care”, after campaigning with the economy as his main talking point.

trump has withdrawn the us from the world health organization.

trump is ordering health agencies to stop reporting on bird flu and halt publications of scientific reports.

trump has pardoned over 1500 people who stormed the capitol on january 6th.

trump changed mount denali back to mount mckinley.

trump signed an executive order to rename the gulf of mexico to gulf of america.

trump shut down cbp one, an app which granted legal entry to 1 million+ immigrants.

trump is allowing ice raids at churches and elementary schools.

trump announced plans to declare a national emergency at the us-mexico border.

trump signed an executive order to expand the use of the death penalty.

trump disbanded the school safety board that works to prevent school shootings. it was comprised of survivors, educators, and gun violence prevention advocates and formed after the school shooting in parkland.

trump withdrew from the paris climate act.

trump revoked all protections for transgender troops in the us military.

trump rescinded executive orders made by biden that benefited and protected women, lgbtq+ people, black americans, hispanic americans, asian americans, native hawaiians, and pacific islanders.

trump is attempting to make it legal to refuse to hire or fire pregnant women.

multiple state legislators are drafting bills to allow the punishment for abortion to be the death penalty.

trump pardoned 23 individuals convicted under the freedom of access to clinic entrances (FACE) act for their anti-abortion activism, including oftentimes violent protests at abortion clinics.

trump signed an executive order allowing deportation of foreign students who they believe express support for hamas or hezbollah.

trump announced that the us government will from here on out only recognize male and female as sexes. intersex is not legally recognized anymore.

trump refused to swear on the bible during his inauguration. (i’ve gotten some comments about this specific point. i didn’t include it because i’m christian, because i’m not. i’m agnostic. i included it because he’s the first president in history to refuse to swear on ANYTHING, bible or not. in the bible it teaches that the only person who cannot touch the bible is the antichrist, yet that on TOP of everything else will never convince his followers that he’s unfit.)

andy ogles drafted a constitutional amendment to allow trump to be president for a third term.

georgia republican congressman mike collins called for the deportation of new jersey born mariann budde, the bishop who urged trump to “have mercy” on the lgbtq+ community and immigrants during a service at the national cathedral.

six states (arizona, idaho, iowa, kansas, mississippi, and north dakota) are planning on challenging obergefell v. hodges, which would end same-sex marriage nationwide. about a dozen more states have representatives who are also considering filing similar resolutions.

amazon revoked protections for lgbtq+ and black employees.

every single republican told us we were overreacting. trump swore he had nothing to do with project 2025 yet continues implementing details outlined in it. not a single person has the right to tell us we’re being dramatic anymore.

hope “cheaper eggs and gas” was worth it.

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Yo, correct me if I am wrong please, but didn't Hitler rise to power because he promised to fix the German economy and people really liked that so they looked past everything else he was doing??? Like exactly what's happening in America right now???

So many people said they voted for Trump, put a truly evil person in power, because he said he'd fix the economy, and a little voice in my head is going, "Isn't that what happened with fucking Hitler??"

But I've seen no one point that out so maybe I'm miss remembering???????

just as a general reminder

learn how to fact-check for yourself, cause soon enough, most online sources won't be reliable

Holy Shit, I never considered this but it makes a lot of sense.

chat I need you to be so real with me rn

I mean the lack of empathy, regret, etc

I'm open to any theories or hcs on what made kenjaku turn out this way. built different? numb with age? he was acting old af since the Heian era so... idk

Joined in for the funsies!

Starting a picrew chain because I am extremely bored and in pain

Okay so use this picrew to make what you you want to look like and then tag someone for the chain bit

So here's mine:

Tagging: @shortgaything @ifursammylawrenceletsmakebabies @possibly-a-table-or-just-gay @unfairtradeyward

Jujutsu Kaisen (Gojo Satoru)

he looks dumb and stupid, i love him

the many versions of frog gojo

I used to love him...and now he's like...a fucking edgelord. And what do his simps see in him?? He's so ugly...gosh.

What happened to Alastor being scary

The biggest thing I noticed in Hazbin Hotel that Alastor is not scary. He used to be mysterious, creepy, and intimidating. We didn't know what he was thinking. We didn't know how he was feeling. He was such a great character because we knew he was insanely powerful, but he didn't act like it. But now that the show has come out, he's not scary or intimidating. He's just an edgelord.

Pilot Alastor wouldn't make this. Here he's goofy, but in a bad way. Where's the mysterious Alastor? This guy's just like "HAHAHAH I'M SO EVIL >:)" but he just seems stupid?

He also says all these corny lines, like "This is your sign not to mess with the radio demon," (it was something like that) "I'm about to end your fucking life," and "Adam. First man, next to die." He sounds like he's a 12 year old role-playing a creepypasta. These aren't intimidating, he just sounds dumb, edgy, and cringy

ALSO he seriously needs to STOP saying FUCK. It wasn't popular slang in the early 1900's, so he probably would never say it, but it also doesn't fit his persona. A really unique part of him is that he doesn't swear much and he's always smiling. He shouldn't say "ornery old bitch" and he shouldn't say 'fuck you." They just don't fit him. If he wanted what he said to have impact, he would have said something like "she's such a bitter old woman, bless her soul." or when Lucifer says the hotel's name isn't very clever, he should've said "your highness, intelligence is in constant pursuit of you, but it seems you have always been faster" because subtle insults he thinks everyone else is too stupid to understand seems more like his style.

I'll excuse him saying fuck once or twice. Maybe when he breaks his staff, and once more in season two? But he says it too much to have impact.

TL;DR, Alastor's not scary because he's not mysterious. He's just an angry edgelord

Passionfruit

'Hazbin Hotel' Animators Expected a ‘Passion Project’ But Got a Helluva Time

We spoke to a dozen employees about the work culture at SpindleHorse Toons, the studio behind Amazon and A24's 'Hazbin Hotel.'

A recent article came out about the mistreatment and pay of Spindlehorse employees, please spread this around.

what do you mean elon musk did a nazi salute on live tv at the united states presidential inauguration twice and is now erasing the evidence off the internet by replacing the footage with the crowd cheering instead?

would be a shame if people reblogged this, wouldn’t it?

Unpopular opinion but...

Had voldamort chosen a different house elf and targeted the Longbottoms both snape and regulus would've been his most loyal death eaters

Sirius isn't a manchild that only saw Harry as James. But there is a character in canon that is like that, and that character is Snape.

they're in my stomach now! >:)

HI

*steals your cookies*

— hello!

not my cookies 😞

The psychology of snape lovers needs to be studied i fear

I don't like snape but you can if you want (none of this is that big of a deal) but the people who act like snape was perfect and all his problems were caused by James just baffle me. Yes the Marauders were bad to Snape, but Snape was not an innocent lil boy who happened to get picked on. He was just as responsible for his actions at that age as they were, if your going to hate James for bullying you have to remember Snape was doing the same thing! It was mutual hatred. Snape was not a helpless baby he was a wizard racist! He continued to be a selfish racist person his whole life and hated on children for no reason. He held grudges about things that happened at 15 till he was almost 40. He only left the deatheaters because they were going to kill lily, he didn't care if they killed James and Harry. He was selfish till he died, his friendship with lily was ruined by him and him alone. James was a rude 15 years old, but he grew as a person. Snape didn't.

"trans men and mascs can't reclaim tranny, it doesn't affect them, they don't get called trannies!"

y'all have literally been making fun of transmasculine and trans mens' voices when we go on testosterone 10+ years and calling it "tranny voice", but now suddenly we can't reclaim it because we don't get called trannies, even though you were literally just calling us trannies a second ago. this shit makes no sense. you call us tranny dykes but we can't reclaim it?

"KAI SHOULD'VE BEEN LEA-"

SHUT!!! HE WAS NEVER SUITABLE, IT WAS COLE! COLE WHO LEAD THE TEAM FIRST! COLE WHO WAS MOST SUITABLE BEFORE LLOYD!

(ps: I rlly love Kai, I js dislike THOSE Kai fans)

we as a society need to talk more about how cole was the leader before lloyd was old enough

i miss my pookie gojo satoru 🥺

I saw a poll on Twitter saying "If Lucifer died or left the position of king who would be better?" then there were two options, Satan and Charlie, I went for Satan for obvious reasons but I was surprised by the votes, 56% were for Charlie and only 20% for Satan and that made me think

Why do people think Charlie is more responsible than Satan?

Satan has been in this position of sin for years, most likely before Charlie was born. He is responsible for judgments and Lucifer was practically not governing and the one who was most in charge was Satan, who was dealing with the responsibilities. He already has experience in leadership, even though he is rough, he did what Lucifer did not do. He understands how Hell works and even has a therapist. He asks for the opinion of the other sins and of Goetic kings and princes, so he is not arrogant or extremely fierce

Charlie is anything but a leader, she needs other people to do things for her, Charlie doesn't even have the respect of the sinners and the overlords when she is far above them, she thinks everything is a fairy tale and that is clearly not how hell works, she is easily manipulated, she doesn't know or even tries to use her powers which is very important to show who is in charge of hell, so no, Charlie is not the best option to be queen of hell, she has no experience, she only focuses on one part of a giant problem, she doesn't interact with the subjects of hell which in this case would be the demons and she lives in a fairy tale as if she were a child but she is a young adult without the presence of her mother and father for years

Anyway, I will never understand people who think she can replace her father, Lucifer was already doing nothing now Charlie is capable of destroying hell with just simple words leaving chaos

starting a collection

That frustrated me to no end because...how would that contribute to the story? Roo/Eve or Lilith being Alastor's captor gives him some form of reason to get involved with Charlie. Perhaps he wanted to get vengeance on Lilith by targetting her daughter? We've already noticed little details from the Pilots that he wasn't too fond of the Morningstars, but for what reason?

I was enjoying Alastor and Rosie's dynamic because it showed he was capable of making friendships and being genuine with someone. It adds something to his character, people are wary of Alastor and the main reasons he was around the Hotel wwas because 1, he's a feared Overlord, it helps prevent raids on it and 2, he's great support for running the hotel. Almost everyone knows Alastor is up to absolutely no good and is planning something bad to happen. He's a sadistic murderer plotting something awful, nobody knows his true intentions. He's not completely genuine with a lot of sinners.

But then Rosie, a person who's presence he actually seemed to enjoy. Someone he seems to truly be genuine with. Every fan was commenting how wholesome their friendship was. It adds something to Alastor's character that he isn't a manipulative and sadistic killer all the time, there's a softer side to him.

But no, boom...Rosie owns Al...and all that just gets tossed out of the window when their friendship could be explored meaningfully but what can I expect out of Hazbin?

Spoiler Alert: Leaks have come out- they might change but heres my criticism that might have someone watching this tumblr to re-consider.

You're telling that Rosie- the Rosie; happens to be Alastor’s captor? That's not even a plot twist, that's a plot disappointment. Why reveal that so early in the season if you want people to give a fuck about the show? Scrap that entire scene while you can, because it’s going to leave people extremely disappointed and pissed off. Rosie should be a demon friend Alastor knows, not his captor.

Like damn- my theory about Roo being Al’s captor sounds significantly more interesting. Even Lilith being Al’s captor is more interesting than Rosie is.

Fucking scrap it!