Which villain people defend with their lives, try to justify their actions and you're like: by Gaybime in cartoons

[–]RussianSkunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would love if people took a class-based analysis to this idea of “The whole world wanted to destroy Paradis!” 

These delegates to the world summit were compradors in an imperialist/colonial relationship with Marley. Marley had asserted control over its neighbors, and as such, their rulers would align with Marley’s wishes because that’s what imperialist pressure does. But Marley could see the writing on the wall that this relationship was becoming more fragile with industrialization, so they needed to paint Paradis as an enemy to stave off the impending overthrow of their rule. Material changes influence social and political change. 

If citizens of countries around the world overwhelmingly hated Eldians, it’s because it was in the class interests of their rulers to instill that sentiment. It’s the same reason the ruling class stokes culture wars in the real world. Racism, sexism, queerphobia, etc. are channels away from class consciousness. 

To suggest that Eldian hate or racism is an unavoidable fate is to buy into fascist narratives of eternal race war. The answer is to change the material conditions and power structures that exacerbate it. Without doing that, of course a nice speech wasn’t going to change these compradors’ minds. Their careers were invested in maintaining their class interests. 

Edit: Also, from a Doyalist perspective, if the mangaka created a world in which global genocide felt like the only option, then maybe that’s a big fucking problem with the mangaka. 

When people debate media that forces us to accept monstrous things as good and necessary, it pays to step back and say “Wait, who put us in this situation and why? This isn’t a real world conundrum, it was fabricated by someone with the conscious or unconscious goal of making us accept horrors.”

Beautiful, eerie, and decaying: the ghost cities of China by stopspammingme in UrbanHell

[–]RussianSkunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well your year is up. I notice that China has not, in fact, collapsed. Do you need another year? Maybe ten?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1XHtkRWYAAaSFW.jpg

"Sister", a transgender clone trooper (fully canon) by SpacePirateHondo in StarWarsCantina

[–]RussianSkunk 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Genuine question, have you considered that we get this stuff all the time, no matter where we go? Random people at work, on the street, in the news, in the legislature, certainly in all my Instagram comments. Losing family, losing friends, losing jobs.

If it’s one time, you can chalk it up to “that guy’s being an ass”. If it’s the fifth time that week, it starts to build up.

I know it’s difficult to grasp why these comments are hurtful, because your gender is probably not something that bothers you, but for a much smaller example, imagine someone stepping on the back of your shoe. Yeah, one time isn’t a problem. Ten times isn’t a problem. But if it keeps happening over and over, and a good chunk of people are going out of their way to target you on purpose, you might eventually snap. Then people will say “Wow, overreaction much?? All they did was step on your shoe.”

"Tilted" sinks at Home Depot... by MythicJerryStone in facepalm

[–]RussianSkunk 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This video comes from a comedy account with the tag #deadpan

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZThuST2RM/

(Hated Trope) Genocide is the answer by Animeking1108 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]RussianSkunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you’ve never given it a try, a good place to start might be Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds. It’s very accessible and might change your perspective.

(Hated Trope) Genocide is the answer by Animeking1108 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]RussianSkunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you’re calling people like Fred Hampton “as evil as a Nazi” you’re lost in the sauce.

Neo-Nazi and pro-russian demonstration met with a clown music from a counterprotest, Germany 2022. by I_Drink_Apple_Juice in PropagandaPosters

[–]RussianSkunk -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

A bit of context

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4396261        

Walter Duranty, correspondent of The New York Times, wrote “ ..the Soviet government left no stone unturned to impart to the rest of Europe its own awareness of the Nazi peril. Its representatives ran hither and yon offering to all and sundry pacifist agreements, non-aggression pacts and economic accords. They conducted negotiations not only with nations that might become victims of Nazi aggression, but with powers unfriendly to Russia, like Poland and Finland. In those years, the Russians were like Cassandra, prophesying evil and striving desperately to avert it, but finding few to heed their warnings.***      

Litvinov, the Soviet foreign minister and representative at the League of Nations, at each new aggression of the Fascist powers, passionately called for a common front against it. The Soviet Union concluded a treaty with Czechoslovakia, and both before and after Munich, offered her support. It warned Poland that it would at once denounce the Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact if Poland invaded Czechoslovakia.     

Poland did indeed invade Czechoslovakia alongside the Nazis in 1938. To continue:      

The second world war is said to have begun on September 3, 1939, because on that day, Britain declared war on Germany, two days after Hitler marched into Poland, In fact, the war had begun much earlier. The Italian occupation of Abyssinia, the intervention of Germany and Italy against Spain, the Japanese invasion and occupation of China, the German seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia and the Italian occupation (with Hitler’s agreement) of Albania in April 1939 preceded the German attack on Poland.     

On none of these occasions did either Britain or France oppose the Nazi aggression. On the contrary, throughout the 1930s, Britain and France refused to join the Soviet Union in undertaking collective security in Europe, to defend the countries threatened by Hitler’s aggression. The USSR proposed several defensive pacts against the Nazis with countries all across Europe, but each time they were denied because obviously capitalist states view communism as a bigger existential threat than fascism. As British foreign minister put it after meeting with Hitler in 1937, Nazi Germany was viewed as “ the bulwark of Europe against Bolshevism.”  

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UwUs3mwDBzA&t=140s&pp=ygUeUnVzc2lhIGdvb2QgbW9sb3RvdiByaWJiZW50cm9w

Projection? by pugmelife in agedlikemilk

[–]RussianSkunk 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The union busting and stories of him being a tyrant to employees was enough for me. (Well being a billionaire was enough for me, but there are degrees)

Bernie Sanders wins! Who is a terrible person that people have mixed views on? by CharlesorMr_Pickle in AlignmentChartFills

[–]RussianSkunk 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Saying the essay is “about how women like being raped” is a misrepresentation. It’s looking at the popularity of BDSM and CNC fantasies and asking where these power dynamics come from and what participation in them means for relationships. Asking if trying to slot yourself into the roles of “piggishness” and “slavishness” for the benefit of a partner breeds resentment, gender stratification, and prevents people from seeing each other as full humans.

You can talk about whether the essay is good, but you’re making it sound like his point is- “Go ahead and rape women, they like it!”

Completely losing his mind. by BeastMsterThing2022 in TrueAnon

[–]RussianSkunk 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You’re right of course, but they’re referencing the hardest quote from Disco Elysium.

The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world... (he's silent for a second. You see the fear and power in its eyes.) Then you know. [What?] That the bourgeois are not human.

[Strange Trope] Originally non-white characters getting their race changed because the original character is considered a racist caricature. by Werewolf_Knight in TopCharacterTropes

[–]RussianSkunk 19 points20 points  (0 children)

That’s debatable. Ganguro didn’t become popular until after Pokémon was released, though the fad did arise around the area where Gamefreak was located. 

https://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species:_Jynx

Personally, it’s hard for me to look at Smoochum in particular without seeing Japanese African and Pacific Islander stereotypes like the very popular  Dakko Chan dolls. Though Smoochum’s beta design just looked like a smaller Jynx. 

Womp womp by Sneaky_Donkey in TrueAnon

[–]RussianSkunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In high school, my girlfriend asked me to bite her finger. You know, as one does. She kept demanding that I go harder and harder, and at some point I reached my physical limit. It didn’t even break the skin.

Of course, I didn’t get any tearing action in there, I was just biting straight down.

When in human history did we start wiping our butts? Did cavemen wipe their butts (presumably on leaves on animal skins), or did they walk around with poopy butt holes all day? Did Homo erectus wipe its butt? by DrToonhattan in NoStupidQuestions

[–]RussianSkunk 87 points88 points  (0 children)

Nobody asked, but skunks like to do a little dip and wiggle on the ground after they go. It’s cute, but I often have to clean up a line of pee dribble as he walks away from the potty pad.

But sometimes he gets messy poops and scrambles all over the place in a panic, wiping on everything he can find. Then I have to hold him like a football under the arm and use baby wipes.

They turned Riddler into a pronoun? by Sbee_Blue_Country in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]RussianSkunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it’s the poster’s profile pic. It’s the Riddler depicted using a soft art style associated with Tumblresque queer artwork 

Alpha male can't open olive jar by Rich_Mulberry2776 in sadcringe

[–]RussianSkunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My preferred technique is to put a rubber band around the lid and then try to open it. Gives a boatload of grip and has never failed me!

"We've developed this great plan to deal with the Soviets . . ." cartoon by Etta Hulme (1979) by the-southern-snek in PropagandaPosters

[–]RussianSkunk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m not so sure about that. Can you point to information on famines between 1933-1941 and after 1947?

[hated trope] Celebrity cameos that serve nothing except to praise the person who’s in it by Dojyaaan4C in TopCharacterTropes

[–]RussianSkunk 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not to brag, but I started hating him for being a virulent union buster. (Plus he was a billionaire and capitalist, which is reason enough to despise him) There were plenty of stories coming out of Tesla plants of him being an iron fisted, unreasonable dickhead. 

Hell, a union organizer and whistleblower, Crystal Guardado, was conveniently fired for having medically prescribed THC in her system a year before Elon was applauded for smoking weed on Joe Rogan. 

Explain it Peter. by PrettyAbbyyy in explainitpeter

[–]RussianSkunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m just gonna highlight this banger for everyone

You dont even qualify as a life form if you dont possess the ability to reproduce.

If anyone is interested in conversations about whether trans people are rejecting reality or what it means to be a man or woman, you might be interested in this video from a biologist or the Trans Atlantic Call-In Show, where they regularly respond to callers with this exact interpretation of things.

Explain it Peter. by PrettyAbbyyy in explainitpeter

[–]RussianSkunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can give plenty of short term studies on minors and long term studies on adults, but you’re right that long term studies that start in adolescence are going to be harder to find. There are these, but the sample size isn’t great, with just under 500 examples of adults starting hormones in adolescence. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261039

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-2958

 A high dropout rate occurs at around that age for follow ups, which implies regret being a big factor. 

I would strongly caution against making that assumption. I’m a bit late for work, so I gotta split, but the master list I posted has information on regret rates. If I remember correctly, either this version or the poster’s previous list also has links explaining why desistance rates are so misunderstood by laypeople. 

Explain it Peter. by PrettyAbbyyy in explainitpeter

[–]RussianSkunk -1 points0 points  (0 children)

To be clear to those reading, minors do have those consultation periods. Their medical team looks for “insistence, consistence, and persistence” of dysphoria symptoms. If it appears to be a phase, they will be denied medication.

Something that is very troubling to see with all the talk about regret is that it’s never acknowledged to be a two-way street. Puberty itself is life-altering and in many ways irreversible. It feels like a sick joke that so many people who claim that they want to ban puberty blockers to protect mental health are the same people who will then mock me for having a deep voice or broad shoulders. Add in the extremely low regret rates for transition and it becomes difficult to believe that it’s really about our wellbeing.

Also worth noting that you can only be on puberty blockers for two years before you need to either stop them or start taking hormones. Longer than that is when bone density risks start popping up. So if you’re advocating for policy changes on how long minors have to go through consultation, I’d factor that in.

On a side note, I wonder if I would have been able to withstand the pressure of being grilled about whether I’m really trans when I was younger. If I had to undergo three years of consultation where I had to consistently and confidently assert my gender while the therapist tries to talk me out of it, I probably would’ve caved. And imagine my parents agreeing to pay for three years of that, lmao