just some augus farming, move along
you don't need to do the same but by all means treat yourself to that course if you want to, but i'm only like 4 episodes in to iron-blooded orphans [ed: actually i only got like 5 minutes in to ep 4 before it made me write all this so i am 3 episodes and 5 minutes in to mobile suit gundam: iron-blooded orphans, to be most accurate and helpful. -ed.] and let me tell you im almost ready to suggest teaching it reminding people that the robots and shit are just metaphors for power and the structures that hold them and the influences behind those structures
you think of different planets and the different groups as different countries or whatever, which is basically what they all are - opposed sovereignties - and look at who falls between the cracks, why, and what they do about it
i mean lesson one for the proletariat is you absolutely need moles and influences within the petit bourgeoise that can sabotage and cripple them when they inevitably make moves to betray you to insurgent or resurgent forces and halt their escape so that their losses now soften yours, as intended
this is basically why the show basically tells kudelia to go fuck herself for thinking that she is so important to be the only reason this happened, because it could be anything the class she comes from owns that people die for, it's interchangable. she could be land. she could be a boot.
so when she's all blubbering like "woe is me i am so sad i was so important that people died for me" it's like, no, princess, just because you're the catalyst for this reaction doesn't mean you're the only fuse they could have lit when they wanted anything they want to be just theirs
so when you say any of us die for YOU as if you DESERVE it? that you are IMPORTANT? bitch the fact that you are standing there is a product of the people whose ultimate goal was my eradication, you just got unlucky to be born while it happened and have to be sad about it
that's just what privilege does. it centers itself. which isn't unfair of it to do in a society that praises rugged individualism more than anything else. of course colonialism keeps happening, they just make it cultural so that you can forget you can do genocides on those in ways that hide bodies
that's why calvin and hobbes is so great, basically, because you have this foundational love relationship between a brash individualist testing every boundary while a bigger, wiser, though still growing and learning force influences, that the smaller one loves and respects at the end of every day
basically you need to have someone around that you love and would never hurt of your own volition who you trust to tell you you're being an absolute asshole and be right sometimes and get in fights with but still never question the absolute and definitive existential necessity of
if the only thing you can ultimately trust is yourself then that's ultimately what you will invest your most effort into. no wonder they fell so hard for the most capitalistic interpretation of monotheism ever invented and then invented even worse ones like joseph smith and l ron hubbard
anyways the point is that class consciousness does not stop during periods of convenient entente. in fact they need to intensify, because now you have a "safe" third party to engender support from for one's equally selfish means which will draw out the slumbering traitors within the ranks right
like this is basically the entire ghorman arc of andor, right, and it was correct. ghorman was a valuable ally among the most petit of the petty-bee for the legitimacy it leant as cover but ultimately their value is in showing the normalization of ruthlessness to the wider complacent populace
the massacre at ghorman gave them the political juice and fervor to recruit and commune with the correct enough people at the correct enough times through cels of influence the plans to the death star. it's retrocanon, but it's still both awesome and instructive for people who didn't study napoleon
it's the people who want to return to the status quo once all the fighting stops that are the ones you have to reckon with next, because status quo ended when it was the ruleset in place that led to existential conflict. it does not get to return. you are okay with that and understand it, or u 🦴s
like do you want to get a napoleon or are you just stupid, how many eponines does one culture need to make over and over again
basically it's how you use their lust and objectification for order and law against them, because good community is just the well-managed of a community of humans who treat each other as equally flawed equals made of the same stuff, and that cannot abide a strict hierarchy
the point is sometimes life gives you child soldiers with robots, you make child soldiers with robotsade
if doge emperor augustus typhus akkad musk-bezos-muskagain-thiel IX gives you children nihilistically willing to want to pick up a suicide robot to kill him for doing that to anyone at all if it's they are the last one sometime in our future then dont be surprised when they do is the point
the only righteous revenge comes from the discarded, because revenge is the only thing they can ultimately take from you when you slip up enough to let them in. we rebuild and improve ourselves, we pay our dues when you are gone.
this is, ultimately, i believe, the point of bong joon-ho's version of Snowpiercer. sometimes the farthest a white ally can go is die breaking the system that they maybe didn't create but the guy who did sure looked a lot like him and wanted him to have it so your desire to receive it is ultimately not the real sin to pay for here at the end of the day, if it means that the people free of this sin can live free of it everafter
you cannot make a better deal with a predatory beast. if they cannot be tamed, then they cannot hold power, and they are permitted nothing beyond their own personal influence until such time as they have displayed atonement. but i mean i am an idiot, what i'm inventing here is basically basically one step above permanent house arrest - except in this case it's just persistent community-watch. it's a scarlet letter, and maybe those wash off with time, but i think us in painting them take that paint as well, right. they bear the mark but our fingers are red with their blood, we're both dirty with the same thing. not to invoke the luthen in the room since i dropped the stupid andor thing earlier. but that's the thing, right. i think at this point none of us alive and of age are going to see the real better world that we deserve. there's just too much generational trauma. even if trump leaves tomorrow the powershift and the vacuums, the incomplete revolutions that will be absolutely necessary for fear of further disaster at costs too unholy to bear without guilt. like at best our grandkids can kinda finish this fight but i dunno yall, we gotta get a wiggle on.
but that doesn't mean we can't die in a place BETTER THAN THIS, we probably just won't see paradise ourselves. no shit. who ever does? not on earth, at least, unless I guess every other thing that is about to inhabit a baby, they all seem to think that being human on this planet seems sick. do we have any of them to ask? what about the next closest thing? are there any ghosts we can talk to? anyone from the future? an angel out there with a word to share? no? we kinda gotta figure this one out on our own, huh? well god damnit.
but i mean tomorrow can STILL be pretty awesome. especially compared to today. today /sucked/ and today has kinda sucked for a good long while now. tomorrow always sounds better. and it can be. it will be. it often is. that's why we look forward to it, because we know it can be better. i mean, it kinda has to be. better isn't a thing you can have if you're already at best. better doesn't need to exist when you get to best. so i mean, some times? with you? they can be the /best/, honestly. just the best. so we know /yesterday/ can be the best, it's been the best before, that's what happened to teach us what best means. and like, yeah, sometimes today is the best! it totally is! i know it's scary to move to tomorrow when you know that when you go to tomorrow it might not keep being the best but you know what? tomorrow can always be better. if today is bad, tomorrow can always be better. until you're at the best, at least. then i guess you might as well just be dead at that point. if you hit the top, what else is there left to see? pack it in. give someone else a go. or are you telling me there's more to see that you don't want me to know about? if you're telling me that's the top, if i find out you got anything i don't know you have up there it better be for a good reason you feel me? and if you don't share? if this wasn't just a cool way to do a cool surprise and i say thank you for the surprise as well as the new status quo you have revealed, if this was just a joke or a lie, then hey bud we're gonna have some words