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I know, I'll visit a nice nonpolitical sub- looking for something to read... gah.

Thread / https://archive.is/wip/8jB7g
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Fantasy/Science Fiction that leans subtly left?​




My dad is a born and raised in coal country Appalachia conservative. He likes fantasy and science fiction, but relies on me to bring him books. He’s liked Name of the Wind, Lord of the Rings, and most recently really enjoyed Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series.

He’s conservative but not fully down the rabbit hole and I am trying to use books as a counterbalance to some of the media he’s exposed to. I’m looking for books with a good adventure that have “left”/basic human decency themes.

Maybe books where the main character is a refugee? LGBTQ characters included but sexuality isn’t front and center? Corporate greed is the enemy without a super obvious socialist message?

This is inspired by the recent post about fantasy with strong left messages. My dad is never going to embrace AOC and Bernie. I just want to use books to help keep him from sliding to a place where he’s comfortable supporting the current awfulness.

These people are legitimately worse than born again Christians. At least Christians are (a) honest about what they're doing and (b) are more likely to take care of personal hygiene to some degree, unlike the average Redditor.
 
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Effective immediately, The New York Times is disallowed. (archive)
Beginning immediately, we are disallowing posts linking to stories published by The New York Times; the outlet is no longer considered by us to be journalism, and is now recognised as a political tool of the Trump political administration — in the wake of an exposé of the outlet working with a White Identity Extremist eugenicist hacker to publish a political hit piece targeting Zohran Mamdani, the 2025 Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City.

The New York Times additionally disciplined one of their journalists who criticised his employer for their failure in journalistic ethics in this matter, muzzling him.

In addition, the long running editorial practice of The New York Times has been to promote hatred of transgender people, and that is unacceptable.

Ethical journalism is not used as a cudgel to help the powerful oppress a vulnerable minority, and ethical journalism is not used as a lever to effect tabloid political campaigning at the behest of the rich and powerful.

Journalism must hold the powerful to account.

For these reasons, until and unless those in the employ of the New York Times responsible for unethical, white supremacist editorial decisions are held accountable and the organisation undertakes a process to restore an ethical journalism practice, we have no choice but to reject it as an acceptable source for posts to this community.

Thank you for understanding.
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It's over for the New York Times. /r/AntiTrumpAlliance and /u/bardfinn have decided that they're no longer journalism *sigh*
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The single "source" is a bluesky post about the NYC mayor candidate, criticizing him for making dubious ethnicity claims on college applications. Because apparently when we say the powerful should be held to account, we actually mean that the future mayor of one of the largest cities in the USA should absolutely never be reported on critically if barfinn likes him (stinky evil current Mayor Adams, of course can be critiqued)
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cybertoaster said:
this dude was stuck helping her with her nutcase bullshit for a decade
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I think it might be a pooner, and if it's not, his dick doesn't work anymore (likely from porn addiction/he has to have his phone playing porn on her back to keep it up). She's getting pounded at the gym because something about her husband makes him/her unable to dick her down.
 
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FamicomGorby said:
Reddit has considered NYT a right wing news source for a while. I guess them criticizing their latest "gibs me dat" candidate was enough to push them over the edge.
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Despite their protests, I think it had more to do with them letting people criticize troons again. Far more up bardfinn's motivation heierarchy is trans stuff and any critique of trans stuff being literal violence (IVME is his meme phrase for it)
- after the Skrmetti Supreme Court decision there was a piece essentially blasting the ACLU/Chase Strangio's approach to the case, saying their maximalist stance on self-ID and other logically contradictory positions that activists take, using talking points that are just straight up untrue and having to admit it under oat, focus on trooning kids, ect had essentially handed the victory to conservatives
- Andrew Sullivan did an opinion piece around the same time that essentially complained that Activist types, who were overwhelmingly radical, unoptical, and intentionally normie-scaring had crashed the movement so badly that it was essentially just the T show and they were dragging down LGB acceptance by association. It's similar in tone, but more cultural than legal. He cites activists making bold faced lies that anyone can see isn't true, the focus on kids and self-ID/anti-"gatekeeping" medical care including hormones and surgeries, the spite towards marriage and what respectable gays/lesbians had fought for in the 90's and 00's, ect.
Last week, at least among bluesky types/breadtube adjacents which bardfinn is, these were the far bigger stories of the week and the whole rhetoric on there was how irredeemable the NYT was after those articles. The NYT is L I TE R A L L Y genociding twans people... again
 
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Drama Fan said:
Andrew Sullivan did an opinion piece around the same time that essentially complained that Activist types, who were overwhelmingly radical, unoptical, and intentionally normie-scaring had crashed the movement so badly that it was essentially just the T show and they were dragging down LGB acceptance by association. It's similar in tone, but more cultural than legal.
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It's the reaction of commissars of The Project ™️. The Stalinist era vibes are shifting towards a more Khrushchev-ian era where the fundamental principles of The Project ™️ remain but the excesses of the ideology is acknowledged and rolled back in certain areas. You can see this in rescinding blank-check support for trans activism to pushing for other goals like wealth taxes, and this is happening globally, from L.A. to London to Sydney. It's still no bueno to be "hateful" towards the trans groups but you are allowed to criticize at the margins.

The pRedditors and Bluesky people are the old political guard who fail to understand how The Project ™️ works and are unable to take the form of the chameleon. They are true believers without pragmatism, the ones who could be whipped up in the crowd and influence the remaining 90% to fall in line but are unable to mold themselves when required.

This certainly does not mean their time in the sun is over, far from it, but their power is diminished. You don't give concessions from a position of strength. The Project ™️ is attempting to save itself and an easy sacrifice is the loser class of trans activists and unemployed chic-politic wannabes.
 
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Elwood P. Dowd said:
These people are legitimately worse than born again Christians.
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They're also stupid.

Maybe books where the main character is a refugee? LGBTQ characters included but sexuality isn’t front and center? Corporate greed is the enemy without a super obvious socialist message?

In LOTR, Aragon was a refugee from Gondor, Sauron was hoarding all the mithril, and Gimli's sole interaction with a woman was to collect hair to make some jewelry before sailing into the sunset with a magical elf-boy. Kinda gay.

The biggest problem for leftists is, the fellowship actually did something useful and made the world better: Hardly an inspiration for infinite gibs.
 
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Vesperus said:
Maybe books where the main character is a refugee? LGBTQ characters included but sexuality isn’t front and center? Corporate greed is the enemy without a super obvious socialist message?

In LOTR, Aragon was a refugee from Gondor, Sauron was hoarding all the mithril, and Gimli's sole interaction with a woman was to collect hair to make some jewelry before sailing into the sunset with a magical elf-boy. Kinda gay.

The biggest problem for leftists is, the fellowship actually did something useful and made the world better: Hardly an inspiration for infinite gibs.
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As you've pointed out, the fundamental conceit of their question is broken in that merely having a hecking awesome wholesome brown refugee ftm twink character fighting big bad corporate greed would make their target unlock 🌈empathy🌈 and prostrate themselves to the message of the holy woke.

The problem isn't one of some vague lack of empathy, in fact it's a principled position. You wouldn't have the evil MAGAs supporting illegal immigration if millions of Europoors attempted to cross the border - instead you would have the wholesome empathyrinos standing outside Juarez blocking passage alongside the MAGA types.
 
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tranny rant.webp

Thread / https://archive.is/wip/Wz3N6
27 min. ago
Fenghuang0296

If your escapist fantasy includes pretending transgender people conveniently don't exist, your fantasy and mine are incompatible.
Discussion
Bit of a rant post but I need this off my chest.

I just reached a milestone; my story's first negative review. Well, sort of. The guy said he was enjoying my story but was dropping it because he was sick of me 'throwing my personal attitudes about politics into the story'. His breaking point appears to have been an off-handed comment in my most recent chapter about how in my setting trans people have rights and the locals think it's weird that that's an issue on Earth.

As someone who identifies as gender fluid myself; anyone who peddles that can fuck right off. I'll admit that I've been afraid to double down on that, refrained from introducing an actual trans/gender-fluid character into the story for fear of losing readers. To have this be the first response to me even vaguely referencing the subject is disheartening.

But, at the same time? Good riddance. This wasn't this person's only complaint - he also objected to the subplot about whether or not animal rights extends to monsters (even though the answer was they don't), as well as the arc in which corrupt policemen are the antagonists. Apparently it's also 'political' to portray cops, even medieval fantasy ones, as anything but paragons of justice. (He also said in his review that there were five times that I 'threw politics into the story', but those are the only three examples I can identify so I'm not even fully sure what he was going on about?)

This is not a 'am I right or not?' post. I feel completely justified in saying that I don't want anyone who objects so strongly to transgender rights or depictions of police brutality to read my work. I just find it hilarious that this story, which I absolutely did write for the sake of being my own little escapist fantasy, is apparently 'too real' for my ideological opponents. I want a world where I can imagine myself living happily without fear of persecution. If you object to the idea that a person like me deserves that, then piss right off.

I didn't write this as a self-promo, so I won't link directly to my story, but if you're curious you can find the link on my Reddit profile.

Since that's exactly what my "escapist fantasy" includes, umm, okay, I guess? 🤷‍♂️

Still, would like to know when LitRPG went from Russian agoraphobes writing trash fiction about saving the world, levelling up to godlike status and banging hot chicks (circa 2017-2022) in a video game flavored reality to whatever this is. Not everyone's cup of tea, I concede, but I used to get a kick out of it. I'm assuming like anything else that becomes remotely popular, as LitRPG has become lately, this sort rolls in like a tide of diarrhea via some sixth sense.
 
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