Default-Ass Blog

Snake: Hrm... trans huh? give me a moment

Snake goes into a box and calls up his husband

Snake: Otacon, this lady dropped a piece of intel in regards to herself, do you know what "trans" means

Otacon: Snake, that's short for the term "transgender" a phrase used for those who's identity doesn't align with their asigned sex, some use hormones or surgery to better fit their lifestyle

Snake: Chemical and Surgical modification huh? they're like supersoldiers but they choose to change to fight for their own spirits rather than a nation...

Otacon: Remember snake, being "trans" is an umbrella label, many in the community identify beyond our common gender binary, including traditional cultural gender roles or wholly new ones

Snake: A wide variety of genders, such diversity not only make them unpredictable but increases practical versatility, impressive stuff

Otacon: oh this is just like Lily Hoshikawa from my Japanese animes

Snake leaves the box

Take for example, the ridiculous number of non-Black trans people validating the idea that, "a trans woman saying "kill all tme people" to vent her frustration is the same as a Black person saying "kill all non-Black people" to vent their frustration" because it's actually fundamentally not the same on multiple levels.

First and foremost trans women are not "the Black people of the trans community". Black trans people of all gender identities are the Black people of the trans community. The fact that that comparison has been normalized by primarily non-Black people as an "okay" comparison for other non-Black people to make is racist and anti-Black.

Secondly, let's remind ourselves of the contexts here. In context, most people do use "tme" as a shorthand for trans men, trans masculine people, and nonbinary people who had an F written on their birth certificates. You can try to claim that "um actually it includes cis people" but this is hyper niche borderline chronically online trans discourse. It means other trans people. It means other people who are also marginalized on the basis of their gender identity.

So, if we're actually going to make an accurate comparison to a racialized situation here, follow me for a moment.

If a Black person said "kill all non-Black people" after weeks and months of primarily talking about how much they can't stand and don't trust other racial minorities, encouraging other Black people to cut everyone who isn't Black out of their lives while specifically focusing on how Black people should cut ties with other PoC, how solidarity and unity between racial minorities is impossible because other PoC (especially any specific demographic of non-Black PoC) can't be trusted, and constantly went on and on not about their hatred of white people but about their hatred of other racial minorities — I think it would be very fair to claim that Black person is racist towards other non-Black PoC.

Just like it's very fair to claim that a trans woman who says "kill all tme people" after weeks and months of primarily talking about how much she can't stand and doesn't trust other trans people who aren't like her, encourages other trans women to cut everyone who isn't a trans woman out of their lives while specifically focusing on how trans women should cut ties with other trans people, talks about how solidarity and unity between trans people is impossible because non-trans woman trans people (especially trans men) can't be trusted, and constantly goes on and on not about her hatred of cis people but about her hatred of other trans people is transphobic towards other trans people.

Trans discourse and racial discourse are not the same. There are absolutely aspects of Black political theory that non-Black trans people can draw upon and take notes from. Black activists and theorists have been working for over a century both outside and inside the trans community on amazing work and have laid a solid groundwork for sociopolitical change that we can and should be following.

But like I said, trans women aren't "the Black people of the trans community". Black trans people of all gender identities are the Black people of the trans community.

For example, here is the outside of the train station:

If you thought that they were only outside the station, think again!

The last dinosaur has a crab, because the region is known for seafood.

You can even buy coffee emblazoned with dinosaurs!

And that's not even getting into how you get to the nearby Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. Behold, the Dino-Liner:

And if you're like, man I don't know how the museum will top all of these dinosaurs, boy do I have news for you.

And then you get to the cafe:

But, eventually, it was time to head back to the train station...on the dino bus.

Punch was rejected by his mother shortly after birth and raised by staff at Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan. When he was introduced to other monkeys later on, he had trouble fitting in something that can happen with primates raised by humans. To comfort him, caretakers gave him a plush toy, and he’s often seen holding it like a surrogate companion.

[via/ X ichikawa_zoo]

HE FOUND AN ADULT MONKEY WHO ACCEPTS AND TAKES HIM IN

Anyway, I got really, really damn good at picking up dogwhistles during that time, which helped a lot over the years as the political climate in general became more polarised. Obviously, I'm not always 100% on the money, but it's pretty rare that I don't get the underlying message and often a quick look at a profile or a few questions will verify that I'm right.

-"Why is everyone so mean to Lorgar, he was a good guy who only became a villain through mistreatment, poor bullied Lorgar"

-"Lorgar's an easily malleable, gullible chump. What an idiot"

And its like...yeah no that's Lorgar's own narrative. You fell for his bullshit.

Firstly, he is not a gullible chump manipulated into heresy by Kor Phaeron and Erebus, he's fully aware what they're doing. Lorgar is very good at playing the naive pure soul, but in actuality he's leading them by the nose into suggesting the Terrible Thing he already wants to do because it allows him to avoid accountability. He didn't suggest it, it's not his idea, they made him do it. God bless plausible deniability.

It reminds me of when I used to be on insane diets as a teenager, I'd stare longingly at bacon until someone suggested I have some, then I'd protest until they "talked me into it". However, after I'd finally eat it, I'd complain "Well now I'm going to get fat, why did you force me to eat bacon. This is all your fault, how could you do this" (yeah I was insufferable, but so is Lorgar, that's my point: it's insufferable bitchass behavior)

I mean it's almost laughable that Erebus and Kor Phaeron could ever truly believe Lorgar is oblivious to their machinations: he's a Primarch. They're leagues smarter than everyone around them, to the point it's difficult for humans--or even lesser transhumans like Astartes--to conceptualize.

Then again, to be fair, there is a thing amongst con-men where they actually prefer to target white collar individuals with higher educations specifically because this often leads them to believe "I'm too smart to be tricked". Their hubris leaves them vulnerable and their ego prevents them from acknowledging they've been fooled. You see this quite a bit in Horus; he's a brilliant Primarch, but he keeps falling for manipulative bullshit because he's too arrogant to consider the possibility he can be manipulated.

But I don't think that's the case with Lorgar. I think being raised by a scumbag like Kor Phaeron has made manipulating and parsing manipulation second nature for him. He's surpassed his teacher long ago, and now Kor Phaeron is the one whose ego prevents him from acknowledging when he's been had.

There's a point in The First Heretic where Argel Tal is insisting something along the lines of "This is not the Aurelian's idea, he's too pure of heart and intention to ever suggest this, this plan reeks of Erebus and Kor Phaeron's schemes. Lorgar has issued the orders, but Erebus and Kor Phaeron are the ones who talked him into it".

This is exactly how Lorgar wants to be perceived.

In reality, he's a coldly utilitarian and calculated man with a "Many of you will die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make" ethos. He'll do some performative weeping when he throws you to the wolves to achieve his goals, but at the end of the day: he doesn't regret it and he'd do it again.

However, he can't stand the idea of being seen that way, so he'll stand behind extremely unpopular men like Kor Phaeron and Erebus so they can take the heat instead. Lorgar likes to emphasize he's not a vain man, that his goals for humanity trump anything as petty as ego, but...yeah no that's horseshit, he is very much an egotist high on his own supply.

I also think it's telling when we get Guilliman's perspective on Lorgar; he sees him as an emotionally volatile, needy, petty and prickly lil bitch who loves pushing a "I am a good guy, yet I am endlessly bullied for no reason" narrative. This is an incredibly spot on read of who Lorgar is.

To buy into Lorgar's own Perpetual Hapless Victim narrative is, honestly, wild. Maybe it's obvious to me because I grew up in a family full of toxic manipulators. It teaches you to never only listen to what someone is saying, you need to take a step back and pay attention to how they're saying it, to how they're framing it. What do they stand to gain from this framing. What is their angle. In fact, it's probably a decent idea to just assume someone has an angle until they prove otherwise. It's a deeply cynical way to interact with the world, sure, but it does usually pay off.

In Betrayer, Lorgar repeatedly plays up this "My god, is it so hard to believe I just want to help my brother because I care? Everyone is so cynical" act and it's almost hilarious in how awful and manipulative it is.

He knows Angron is a traumatized man who feels wronged, deeply misunderstood and lonely. Lorgar is very deliberately playing on those feelings by presenting himself as the one person sympathetic to Angron's plight. In reality, he views Angron as a tool, he desperately needs the World Eaters/Angron to win the war and Angron dying really fucks up his plans.

He never takes into account Angron's feelings on ascendency, he doesn't care about obtaining Angron's consent, because why would he: he has shit that needs to get done, so it's gonna get done. Angron, in all likelihood, would rather die. That doesn't work for Lorgar.

Like every election cycle, suddenly it’s "We support you BUT” or "Now isn’t the right time” or "We have to consider both sides." Both sides of what?? Human rights???

and then when queer people are angry or scared or tired, it gets framed as being “too emotional” instead of a completely normal response to having your existence constantly negotiated by people who will never have to live it

you don’t get to brand yourself as progressive while treating queer safety, healthcare, and dignity like bargaining chips

None of those executives were going “hm, well these aren’t actually related to HP because they’re just trans and queer headcanons about Remus Lupin and Sirius Black that this completely separate fandom made up” no they went “hm… Remus Lupin and Sirius Black are the names of HP characters, right? Call HBO right now!!”

Like I’m sorry, but you can gaslight yourself all you want into thinking “well it’s not like I’m funding JKR I’m just writing fanfiction!” you’re keeping her IP so set into the public consciousness that trans people in the UK are never making it out alive. It’s me, trans person in the UK. Life is hell and I’m not making it out alive.

Let the series go. Let the marauders go. Write fanfiction in a notebook that never sees the light of day or create some goddamn OCs just please find a fucking alternative because you are NOT hurting JK Rowling!! “JK Rowling would die if she saw my queer headcanons!” SHE’S NOT GOING TO SEE THEM. SHE’S JUST GOING TO SEE THE CHEQUES FROM THE NEW TV SHOW THAT YOU DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTED TO.

Those wide-brimmed pointy hats that witches and wizards are often depicted wearing are for traveling, right? That's what the brim is for, to protect from the sun and other elements. But the pointy part is probably ceremonial -- historically speaking most conical hats are often worn by priests or nobility to signify rank or role.

But sometimes in fantasy settings, wizard hats don't have the brim. But witches almost never lose the brim.

This indicates to me a shared origin between wizards and witches as traveling practitioners of magic. Which makes sense! If you only get a few magical people in a community, either because magical talent is rare or because it takes a lot of study to pick it up or both, then most magically inclined people would probably be in high demand. Which would mean that there was a lot of call for them to travel around and provide their services to place too poor or remote or unlucky to have their own resident magical practitioner.

But gradually, a divide begins to occur. Formally educated magical users are of course most commonly found in cosmopolitan regions (big cities) and can afford to stay in one place for a lot longer. Perhaps even exclusively, if the community is large enough to support them! So as more great cities establish themselves and also establish things like larger and better-funded academic institutions, a class of non-wandering magic user begins to grow. This group, i.e. wizards, signal their greater access to formal education and to wealthy patrons by dropping the brim from their hats. They keep the conical shape and height, to denote status and rank, but they get all bougie about the brim. Other attempts to flaunt success among wizards emphasize the lack of need to travel for work, such as building magnificent magical towers, positioning themselves in the courts of nobility, or building entire academic institutions dedicated to the study of the arcane arts.

Meanwhile rural communities still require the services of magically inclined people, but can no longer afford to entice wizards away from their status-defining sedentary lifestyle. Thus another class of magic user (witches) begins to define itself by their continued existence and work outside of major population centers. Since witches still travel and live in the countryside, their hats keep the brim, because they still need it to protect them from the elements.

This also explains the gender differential. While magical talent probably doesn't operate on the basis of gender, classism sure does. Girls born into wealthier families are often slated for marriage alliances and encouraged to treat formal education as an opportunity for husband-hunting, rather than actually becoming adept in or engaging with the professional use of magic itself. Which doesn't mean that none of them do it anyway, but there's probably a more marked difference between women who become wizards and men who do. Especially as wizards become more preoccupied with social status, and thus more likely to gate off access to certain levels of education, so that only either the extremely wealthy or the extremely talented can get at them. If a girl's family doesn't want to go to all the trouble of paying for a full education or compelling a skilled teacher to take her on, her options for pursuing it on her own are probably quite limited.

Meanwhile out in the sticks, magic users are such rarities that gatekeeping on the basis of gender is frankly too impractical, especially considering the degree of utility magic has for saving lives and livelihoods. It's just not that feasible to give a shit about the gender of the spellcaster who is saving your entire sheep flock from a bad case of bluetongue, or holding up a barrier that's keeping a recent landslide from burying your house, or getting the ghosts out of a local well that you'd really love to be able to actually use.

So over time witches become associated with women, even though it's more that they've got a 50/50 split whereas wizards heavily favor men. In the way of things, this actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy over time, because men who develop magical aptitude see witchery as "women's work" and are more likely to try and save up and move to the city to learn "real" magic, or else try and differentiate themselves from female witches by creating their own distinctions between what they do and what women spellcasters do, carving out particular areas of focus to be the masculine fields of magic.

This would probably create even more distinct classes of magical users -- the male witches who still do the usual magic work in rural regions but don't like to be called witches, and so do something else to distinguish themselves in an equivalent of stamping a No Girls Allowed sign on their door (warlocks?), who probably still keep the wide brim on their hats but perhaps ditch the pointy part in a middle finger to the elitism of wizards (and also to ensure they're less likely to be mistaken for witches), and the magically talented people who make their way from the country to the nearest cities to try and join the wizard class. Though this group is more likely to struggle due to a lack of social or financial clout, and probably has to depend way more on having enough sheer natural talent to draw the eye of a benefactor (sorcerers?). Most of them would be men too, because of increasing social attitudes that men were just better at this "type" of magic would mean that women would have a harder time getting backing, but there would probably be some who were ambitious enough to nevertheless go for it and then end up in a related-but-still-gendered category of their own (sorceresses?).

Because classism, it seems likely that these underdog country-to-city spellcasters (probably also joining in with impoverished but talented locals to the metropolitan areas too) don't get the pointy hats unless they manage to actually succeed in being absorbed by wizard establishments, but also don't keep the brimmed hats because those are associated with being a bumpkin. They're hat-less, or else wear a completely different style. They probably also get a bit of a shady reputation because there are a lot of predatory institutions that scoop up magically talented individuals who don't know how to navigate the relevant social institutions, and then basically embroil them in debt or whatnot in order to exploit whatever magical talent they have for whatever profits are to be gained.

Of course you probably also have the opposite class of people, i.e. formally trained magic users who decide that trying to rub elbows with kings and rich people is stupid, and take their training to go off and save villages from mudslides and such instead. They're basically witches again but with a fancier pedigree, but of course coming from the outside of it they lack the community knowledge to navigate regions as well and also now there's this split from the Boy Witches Who Won't Be Called Witches, and probably what counts as Girl Magic gets very regional, so what jobs you do or how you go about casting spells has an irregular impact on what the locals will call you if you aren't a woman. If you're a woman you can probably take the witch label without as much issue. But since the fellas started as wizards, then, they more likely still call themselves wizards in the face of all this, but the big city wizards do NOT want to be associated with them (unless they do something really impressive that they can share credit for), so there has to be a new category for them (hedge wizards?) to differentiate from proper wizards. Anyway they wear the big brimmed hats again, because that's just practical. Whether they wear tall ones or not probably varies between individual and regional implications about it.

Dehumanising even Nazis and terrorists just removes the obligation and responsibilities we all have to understand how radicalisation into violent extremism happens, how seemingly ordinary people can become convinced that mass murder is a moral course of action.

No one who becomes an extremist thinks of themselves as monstrous, they truly believe that all of their actions have a just reason and if only they could make everyone else understand, everything will be fine.