Feminist Ally Forumgamer

me: sweet hit me with the good stuff

media: so there's this marginalized underclass of people, right?

me: okay

media: and they're like, stigmatized for something that's mostly an aspect of how they are born, or where they're from, or they're badly misunderstood, right?

me: yup, got it, I'm with ya

media: so these people are rebelling against the current social order, because it's the instrument of their suffering

me: oh good great sure

media: but also they're violent and deranged and need to be stopped

me: ...what

media: yeah they're going too far, they're trying to overthrow the system and assassinate the nice cop trying to help them and also they burned down an orphanage

me: ...why? would they burn down an orphanage??

media: extremism is bad

me: still not seeing what this has to do with their fight though???

media: also now they've shot a dog. oops they shot another dog

me: what?! why? I though their motive was to overthrow oppression??

media: yes but their suffering has also made them evil

me: ...???

media: don't worry though, the good guys will defeat them and restore the status quo

me: the status quo that's been killing people?

media: well it turns out it was only killing the kinds of awful people who burn down orphanages and shoot dogs :)

me: oh. this is actually a pro-authoritarian story, isn't it?

I don't think any of Jane Austen's characters are self-inserts, though of course I can't say for sure since I didn't know her. I have heard multiple times that Austen's family said she most resembled Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey. I think this might be in the biography written by James Edward Austen-Leigh (I don't really read biography). I do think Henry Tilney's voice is pretty close to that of the narrator.

The biography I have read said Jane Austen was a frivolous social butterfly as a youth, which sounds like neither Marianne or Elinor Dashwood. So I pick none! Both of the Dashwood sisters are pretty introverted, even though only one is self contained. I wouldn't use "social butterfly" to describe any Jane Austen heroine except maybe Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse. Marianne is a Romantic drama queen and Elinor is an Elder Sister.

As an side, one of the only books I've read where a character really felt self-insert is Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton, but that's just a personal vibe. I don't go around basing analysis on it. I just think it's telling that when asked to write a sequel, he resurrected Ian Malcolm from the dead.

thought about this because it's so frustrating when people argue that 'dying in childbirth' is a historical sort of event that doesn't happen nowadays (false) and therefore is irrelevant to the legal status of abortion, since it's not a real danger.

except it super is, and i think a lot of people haven't noticed that this argument in addition to simply being incorrect is basically the same as when people say we don't need vaccines for deadly diseases because no one gets those now anyway.

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These lies keep Trump in power — and he’s petrified they’re about to be exposed

I can't shake the feeling that this piece's conclusion is why.

1. WWI had left countless German veterans disabled in one way or another. This helped normalise disability to some degree. Now, T4 did not target these veterans per se, it was aimed at Germans with disability from genetic reasons, mostly mental disabilities. But common Germans did not, AFAIK, 100% understand this. Some historians argue this fuelled the anti-T4 protests, though ultimately it doesn't matter much IMO.

2. The anti-T4 protests were only partially successful. The mass murder of disabled Germans continued, only more secretly and less hastily. I bring this up for two reasons: one, reality/history is complicated; yes, the protests were good and saved many lives, but no, they didn't end the state-ordered genocide of disabled people completely. Two, to show that while fascist regimes fear public opposition and will avoid it if they can, they are also persistent in their murderous aims far beyond the degree to which most protests are. Just look at anti-ICE protests.

And you just.

Said no????