Gojira007's Happi Island

If I had a nickel for every time the "Sonic" franchise introduced a new Dragon character who was notable for being clumsy but nonetheless acted as a Guardian for her species, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice, right?

if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)

if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too

learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life

Making fun of a group of people that are privileged over you is one thing, but wishing non-cartoonish violence and death on them ("they should fall off a cliff" vs. "they should be wiped out"), wishing sexual violence on them, dehumanising them, claiming that they're less capable of creating art or living meaningful lives, saying that their relationships are inherently shallow and fake - these things are fucked up. I understand venting and saying extreme things when in pain, but when you find yourself regularly posting about wanting certain people tortured and killed, you need to examine that.

I always think of the Rwandan Genocide when it comes to this. Thank you for bringing it up.

In particular, from that second link:

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

1. The Revolution Is a Relationship

[…] Something that worries me about social justice communities is that we tend to conceptualize “revolution” as a product, as a place and time that we expend all of our energy and anger to create – often without regard to the toll this takes on individuals and our relationships. [...] In our – often justified – anger and disappointment at the failure of ourselves and our communities to uphold the dream of revolution, we lash out. [...] What if revolution isn’t a product, some distant promised land, but the relationships that we have right now? What if revolution is, in addition to – not instead of – direct action and community organizing, the process of rupture and repair that happens when we fuck up and hold each other accountable and forgive?

2. The Oppressor Lives Within

[…] I’ve started to believe that I can’t engage in authentic activism, I can’t create positive change without recognizing and naming my own participation in the oppressive systems that I’m trying to undo. Coming from this position, I’m forced to have compassion for the people around me who I see also participating in oppression, even as I’m also angry at them. With compassion comes understanding, and with understanding comes belief in the possibility of change. When we become capable of holding that contradiction in our hearts – when we can be angry and compassionate at the same time, at ourselves as well as others – entirely new possibilities for healing and transformation emerge.

3. Accountability Starts in the Heart

[…] I often wonder how different things would look if it were more of a cultural norm to understand accountability as a practice that comes from within the individual, instead of a consequence that must be forced onto someone externally. What if we taught each other to honor the responsibility that comes with holding ourselves accountable, rather than seeing self-accountability as a shameful admission of guilt? What if we could have real conversations with each other about harm, in good faith? In a culture of indispensability, I cannot ignore someone when they tell me I have harmed them – they are precious to me, and I have to try to understand and respond accordingly. […]

4. Perpetrator/Survivor is a False Dichotomy

There is an intense moral dynamic in social justice culture that tends to separate people into binaries of “right” and “wrong.” […] “Perpetrators” are considered evil and unforgivable, while “survivors” are good and pure, yet denied agency to define themselves. Among the many problems of this dynamic is the fact that it obscures the complex reality that many people are both survivors and perpetrators of violence (though violence, of course, exists within a wide spectrum of behaviors). Within a culture of disposability – whether it be the criminal justice system of the state or community practices of exiling people – the perpetrator/survivor dichotomy is useful because it appears to make things easier. It helps us make decisions about who to punish and who to pity.

5. Punishment Isn’t Justice

[…] It isn’t inherently wrong to want someone who hurt you to feel the same pain – to want retribution, or even revenge. But as Schulman also writes, punishment is rarely, if ever, actually an instrument of justice – it is most often an expression of power over those with less. How often do we see the vastly wealthy or politically powerful punished for the enormous harms they do to marginalized communities? How often are marginalized individuals put in prison or killed for minor (or non-existent) offenses? As long as our conception of justice is based on the violent use of power, the powerful will remain unaccountable, while the powerless are scapegoated.

6. Nuance Isn’t an Excuse for Harm

[…] [I]ndispensability means that everyone – especially those have experienced harm – are precious and require justice. In other words, we cannot allow the fact that something is complicated or scary prevent us from trying to stop it. Trapped in the perpetrator/survivor dichotomy of understanding harm, it might seem like we have only two options: to ignore harm or to punish perpetrators. But in fact, there are often other strategies available. They involve taking anyone’s – everyone’s – expressions of pain seriously enough to ask hard questions and have tough conversations. They involve dedicating time and resources to ensuring that anyone who has been harmed has the support they need to heal.

7. Healing Is Both Rage and Forgiveness

If the revolution is a relationship, then the revolution must include room for both rage and forgiveness: We have to be able to tolerate the inevitability that we will be angry at one another, will commit harm against one another. When we are harmed, we must be allowed the space to rage. We need to be able to express the depth of our hurt, our hatred of those who hurt us and those who allowed it to happen – especially when those people are the ones we love. It is up to the community to hold and contain this rage – to hear and validate and give it space, while also preventing it from creating further harm. […]

8. Community Is the Answer

THIS ONE'S GONNA BE LONGER I'M SORRY

cain "gold" maple is a hybrid who was born in holon (the area which in the real world is venezuela). gold's a fairly kind-hearted person but he's also very much a cat at heart so he gets himself into trouble constantly. he's pretty good at getting himself back out of it though, so it's fine.

gold's the grandson of russet maple, a japanese man who bought up most of the old world aviation companies during the collapse and whose company is still the majority air travel provider worldwide. his mother, amber maple, is a very skilled pokemon trainer who took it up when pokemon training was new, and his father, julio ramirez, was a posthuman with mew genes.

julio was chased out of holon city before gold was born, as people had a tendency to treat posthumans as carriers of dxz and drive them out of civilisation during the period after the third plague. amber stuck around with baby gold for as long as she could in the hopes julio would come back, but eventually the negative opinions of her psychic child lead to violence, so amber took gold and moved them both to orre. they stayed there for several years, during which time gold got run over by one of those american-style trucks, which left him with longterm chronic pain and mobility issues. they ended up moving again, to johto, when gold was 14 after it became obvious the public opinion of hybrids was becoming quite positive in the greater tohjo region thanks to lance and the rest of the pack.

because of his disability, amber didn't allow gold to go on an adventure at 15 (minimum age to get a pokemon trainer's license in any jurisdiction). instead he ended up interning at cherrygrove's pokemon centre until he was 17, when the Incident where silver stole totodile occurred and gold chased him to violet. gold challenged falkner and got the zephyr badge after silver gave him the slip as a sort of souvenir, then elm argued w amber that gold is clearly capable and also kinda depressed, let him go do the fun thing he wants to do

so gold dips into his trust fund to buy a motorhome (bc with his issues, a tent isn't gonna cut it) and starts off on a journey. he and silver end up becoming good friends and then start racing each other to see who can get eight badges first (silver does by a technicality bc gold definitely beats him to blackthorn).

gold meets lance when the lake of rage event occurs, which is about two years after gold starts journeying; the radio signal affects hybrids as well, so lance and drago have to rescue gold from the consequences of trying to punch the red gyarados in the face. he helps lance clear out the hq, they both need to collapse for a few days afterwards because of the damage the radio signal does to them, and it leads to them talking more casually and deciding to keep in touch.

so in that period where silver is out in the middle of the forest gold and lance are chatting over texts, hanging out in lance's free time, gold is patching up lance's injuries for him because he doesn't want to get scolded by the doctor in blackthorn Again, lance is deducing gold's romance author pen name and reading him for filth, they're both dealing with the aftereffects of being exposed to the radio signal in different ways, lance gets himself shot, lance loans gold one of his dragonite so gold can start learning to ride one safely, they start taking down rockets and poachers as a team, they start dating. lance is demi so it takes him a while to begin developing feelings for people and without the earlier friendship building those wouldn't have happened.

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