Tbh, I Would Actually KILL To Read Fanfics About It

Tbh, I would actually KILL to read fanfics about it

I would KILL

Can we talk about how Santo (Saint) is basically abused and manipulated??? Like... He's gaslighted and manipulated all the time by the father priest. And his mother loves him very much but she only cares about him being a saint. It's sad to see he always seems so lost and lonely.

SOC and Neoliberlism

So, as promised, here it is my analysis of Six of Crows and how neoliberalism is amazingly portrayed in Ketterdam, and how the city is an example of what happens in a community that is not provided for.

Before we begin, I wanted to say that English is not my first language, and, considering I read SOC in Brazilian Portuguese, I might translate some names literally or differently from the English version but I think it's manageable to read and understand my point. If not, I'll edit the text.

The first thing we have to understand is how neoliberalism works and the theory behind it, and then we'll talk about how it's portrayed in Ketterdam.

So neoliberalism is a theory born more or less at the end of the 20th century (70s-80s), and it finds its roots in laissez-faire capitalism, meaning that it's a political current that tries to suppress and/or eliminate the State's influence from the market. The neoliberalist view understands that the market can supply by itself the population's needs without help or limitations imposed by the State.

The thing here is that most people listen to this and think neoliberalism is about electronics, cars, and other stuff. The truth is, that neoliberalism aims to suppress the presence of State-run facilities in ALL corners of society, such as health care, housing, water access, electricity, etcetera.

So, we can use the American and Brazillian health systems to understand it better, for example:

In the US, the ones providing health care for the population are great corporations - they decide the price of care, they work together with pharmaceutical companies to define medicine prices, and the laws that bind them are pretty much only offer and demand. There is almost none State intervention to provide the population with accessible health care.

However, this brings problems, of course: not everyone (actually, most people) has real access to health care simply because they can't afford it, or they can't afford it without taking a big financial hit, which threatens their other basic needs, such as food, housing, water, electricity, etcetera. Not everyone can provide for their medical needs, such as diabetic and disabled people.

That leads to:

(a) an increase in poverty;

(b) a decrease in educational levels - if you don't have the means to pay for higher educational levels because of health care debt, or if you're sick and need to go to class and tough through it but you're not really learning anything, and so on, which leads to a major workforce in base level production and a minor class who has access to this education;

(c) an increase in overworking people - meaning that we have a lot of people taking on several jobs to be able to pay for things like health care, which increases the competitiveness between people, making individualism levels go up and breaking up human beings' natural sense of community.

I could also talk here about how this breeds isolation and increases the potential for mental health problems but I think you got what I was saying.

On the other hand, we have the Brazilian health care system (SUS), which is a universal gratuitous medical care service through the whole country. Its purpose is not profit, it's providing health care for the community, so therefore, any SUS unit is bound by State law and run by the State. By law, every SUS unit must provide for anyone who enters its premises in need of medical care. Everyone, Brazillian and foreigners, poor or rich, must be treated if they need to. It's the law.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and flowers, there are definitely many problems in SUS. However, what I'm trying to showcase here is that, when the needs of a population are met, the population itself is more resilient, their life quality goes up and so does their participation in their community.

On the other hand, in neoliberalism, when the State is absent from these areas of community service, the market is, in theory, the one providing for the community. In practice, however, what we observe from neoliberal policies in cities with a great poor population in Latam for example, is that when the State doesn't provide for the community, the market is unable to step up for them because of their obscene prices.

The poor population that doesn't have their needs met by the State or the market sees a great boom in criminal activities within their spaces. That's mainly why criminal organizations are so present in slums and favelas throughout Latin America: criminal organizations are a way for the community to provide for themselves and, as a means to become more powerful, they provide for the community in exchange for their services (not to say they do that for the good of their hearts, of course not).

It's why it's so common, for example, that criminal organizations such as PCC in Brazil pay for kids from favelas to undergo Law school, for example.

And that's is where I wanted to go to start the conversation in SOC: one of the main traits of Ketterdam is the Barrel and, in the Barrel, we have the presence of many criminal organizations, such as the Dregs, the Dime Lions, the Menagerie staff (not the girls, ofc), etcetera.

This, as observed by Kaz himself, is one of the only ways to survive on the Barrel - you filiate yourself to a gang because you need to be able to provide for yourself and, more times than others, for your family as well.

Kaz's story is actually a perfect example of how Ketterdam is the representation of America in the early 20th century in full policies of laissez-faire (neoliberalism): as we can see in Titanic and many other historical fictions, the said American Dream had people believing the US to be this economical paradise where they could all enter the market and become millionaires.

The result of it is the Great Depression, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Kaz and Jodi leave Lij for Ketterdam, Jodi believes he'll become a merchant - which is a pretty common belief of those who arrive at Ketterdam, as Pekka Rollins and Kaz himself state in Crooked Kingdom.

The reality of it, though, is much harsher, because the truth is that when you have a market that controls everything, as we see in Ketterdam with the Merchant's Guild (I think that's how it's translated?) and the Stadwatch as a police force, you see perfectly how neoliberal policies really work in real life:

You have a higher class who controls the market and the riches (question: who do you think got the money Shu Han sent to Ketterdam at the beginning of the first book: the people of the city/country or the merchants in the "government"?), and a lower class that, without support from the State or the market to have their needs met will turn to their own means to do so.

So you have the trafficking that brought Inej to the island, the unlimited gambling that Jesper was trapped in, the cons Jodi and Kaz fell for - it's all product of liberal policies.

And so, you have Ketterdam and its neoliberal policies (:

(I really love to make this kind of analysis, please, if you have something you want me to talk about, don't hesitate to ask)

I really think someone should tell men that that "hardened woman" they are trying to fuck and are sure have a softer side does have a softer side — just not for him, or one he'd understand as soft anyway

Really, I'm tired of men coming to me saying "oh, I know you're there's melted butter beyond this frozen heart"

Yeah, pal, maybe you should check if I'm fucking interested in being soft to you, asshole

Ugh, I'm just so angry at that

Yeah, I am fucking soft — to my MOM. You don't get privileges, fuck you. Fuck that. Ugh, men

Help me decide or I'll go mad

My current dilemma as a writer is whether I write...

A. A gay romance between Romeo and Mercutio with Juliet as Romeo's beard and best friend, the fight of both houses their most terrible enemy and a lot of angst because of compulsory heterosexuality

OR

B. A poly romance between Romeo, Mercutio, and Juliet with enemies to lovers Romeo and Juliet, a very-tired-of-the-fight-let's-make-them-kiss Mercutio, secret relationships, a side romance between Rosalina and Paris, and a mystery in fair Verona that Mercutio is obsessing over.

I need some help

So, I just re-watched Titanic and I wanted to know if any kind souls have good recommendations of fanfics, books, films or maybe just a Pinterest-Aesthetic name for whatever vibe Jack and Rose fit into???

Like that thing where the girl feels trapped in her situation and the cute love interest is this free spirit, boyish person, but like... It has to have the same vibe, you know???? YK??????

For the record as well,

There's a reason why it's Jack who dies instead of Rose (besides the point that she's the protagonist) and that is that Jack is the poor one in their relationship.

The whole thing about the Titanic, both the movie and the actual tragedy, is that it's about class. It's about how higher class people get to live every time while poor people need to beg and fight and play dirty to survive (just like the high class people, with the only difference that poor people are punished for it).

Jack had to die because he represents the poor people in the Titanic, the one who were barred from accessing deck until it was no longer possible, the ones who were treated like dogs being waken in the middle of the night while upper class got the calm polite treatment, the ones who didn't have the right to live.

So yeah, I'm gonna cry on my bed now

For the record.

The reason why Jack does not survive, regardless of wether he could fit or not, is that Jack represents the victims of the Titanic and everything that was lost.

While Rose represents the survivors who somehow made it and got to tell the tale.

In the end, all the survivors of the Titanic lost something that day, which they could never recover. May it be friends, family, lovers or the life they had before, it's something that sunk with the Titanic and they would never recover.

It's the irony that a cold, useless piece of rock survives, but the bright, warm soul full of potential perishes.