Café Leningrad

I've often defended him by pointing to his age, but it's not just that. a 13-year-old boy can be a terror. I just don't think Miki is. certainly he has flaws. I generally feel strange using that word for characters who are very young, though; I mean, who expects a kid to be flawless?

Miki is introduced as a boy genius. maybe this is what turns so many fans against him, dislike of that archetype. if you understand anything about the media environment Miki was created in, though, it's clear he was meant to be a fan favorite. I don't think the point of his character is a "ruthless critique of softboy masculinity" or some of the other over-the-top claims I've seen made.

he presents as a very sweet kid, but it becomes clear soon that he has a petulant, almost nasty side which comes out around Kozue. some viewers take this to mean that his sweetness is a front. but I think that's unfair. if you look at how he's portrayed overall, he is very rarely cruel. every other Student Council character does worse than him. so I also feel that people love to say he's "secretly just as bad" as the others because it makes them feel like they're "seeing through" the text to find the "real truth" buried under the surface. this is somewhat valid, since for instance, Miki and Saionji were intentionally set out as parallels in how they see Anthy. so there is a sense in which they are the same. they're not the same in their behavior, however, and I would think that would count for something.

Miki is at a crucial time in his life. he could grow up to be a misogynist who does serious harm, or he could not. if you look at his character from beginning to end, which do you think is the likely outcome? I feel like that's what should be asked when assessing him.

Today it’s mostly famous for what it looks like on the inside.

It has an equestrian staircase though it’s so smooth it’s really just a gentle slope more than a staircase. It was build like that so our lazy bum king could ride his horse all the way to the top (king not in photo)

And naturally people have also driven cars up the tower

And held a bike race

For a while it was just sort of abandoned by the authorities and became a spiraling marketplace

But today it has been restored and become a tourist spot as well as a popular destination for school trips. And yes, you can still watch the cosmos at the top.

Si quieres ayudar a los damnificados aquí te dejo información:

Puedes ayudar desde el exterior en la Cruz Roja:

in the past months, you might have heard some things about argentina

what you probably didn't hear is what is actually happening in argentina

there's probably a reason for that, but don't think too hard on that right now

what I want you to focus on at the moment is how, while alleged leftist social media accounts from self-identified "first world countries", who heard one tiktok and decided that we're worse and more "dangerous" than any country currently in a state or war or practicing neo colonialism in other nations, we have been fighting the relentless right wing conservative threat that they helped put upon us

you might have heard that we are one of the countries that is currently stuck with a deranged and embarrassingly awful right-wing president that is only one of the many trump allies he's been able to establish in latin america by either economic support, political support, economic threat or by force

the past years of his tenure, people have been doing marches and strikes, campaigns and activism EVERY SINGLE WEEK, in support of all the causes he's been trying to take away from us:

retiree rights and security

the financing of public higher education (which we freely offer to foreigners, by the way, I'm sure you heard that one while we were being trashed for being the worst scum of the earth)

lgbtq+ rights (especially the gender identity law we've had since 2012 and the law that secures a minimum work offer for trans people that we've had since 2021, I'm sure you've heard of that as well with the very objective coverage we've been having)

the laws for protection of books and publications (including those that allow publishers to establish a singular price for books as well as guarantee support from the State for alphabetization and book production and distribution, supporting indie publishers, indie bookstores and authors)

the law that regulates sexual assault claims

and many more I won't even make you read because I need to get to the crucial one right now that I really need you to listen to

our law for land sovereignty protection

in the past years, our current right-wing trump-minion government has been already slowly and steadily selling, giving away and offering out:

our land

our rivers

our sea

the land of native peoples

our resources

our infrastructure

we have had suspicious fires in patagonia

we've had our scientific teams losing finances and space to study land and sea

and on august 6th, congress will again evaluate the law for land protection and people are already planning action and response to prevent it from changing

we are in danger of losing even more sovereignty than we already have but the world won't care because suddenly, after a very well-timed and effective short-form misinformation campaign, everybody thinks we deserve it

nobody asked our afro descendant population what they thought or how they live, nobody asked our native peoples about who's pushing them out of their land, nobody asked the foreigners who come to study here under the law we're all trying to protect, nobody asked us anything

we are all, in some of your minds, a bunch of "colonialists" (of what?) nazi and israeli supporters (at the same time) who were always bad and we deserve to be taken over by a good, nice "first world" nation who can teach us how to be less bad

one would think that, after doing this to so many nations before and with a world more connected, this silly little game of making the "other" a "bad guy" to justify colonialism or genocide would be over, but we keep seeing it and it keeps happening

is argentina devoid of awful people? no, but which one of you lives in a country were there are no awful people in it?

if you choose to look at the right wing asshole on twitter instead of the activist who goes to the march every wednesday to help save us from this so that you can justify these things being done to us, that one's on you

if we don't judge you all for your right wing fanatics on social media or your president, why are we any different?

there is a certain type of superiority complex some "first world" people have in which they think they can judge your entire culture through their lens and opinion and dictate if you deserve to be assimilated or not and, sadly, this whole thing has shown me that no matter how "leftist" some of the us and european activists think they are, they still think they're better than all of us and can judge our history, culture and curate which voices should be heard over others just because they speak english and have a social media following

latin america is been taken over day after day and we're made to fight each other because of fútbol instead of seeing that if one of us goes, we all go

on august 6th argentina is going to, once again, be fighting for our sovereignty and survival

you weren't there when the us supported the military dictatorship that disappeared 30 thousand innocent people, you weren't there when the malvinas war happened, we don't expect you to be there now

but, just so you know, conveniently while this anti-argentina campaign was going and it overnight became a matter of shame to be argentinian online, even if we haven't shot a single gun outside our borders and don't have a single colony in our name, unlike others, what was happening in here was that our land and resources have started to be taken from us