#'not to open myself up to attack for criticizing not just christianity but also other religions beyond christianity and western familiarity

[mysteryinkkat234]

Adrian and Chris: Brotherly Love

Before reading this, keep this in mind, this was written the days leading up to episode 8, the point of this essay is to see how much my opinion has changed just from the last episode. I will also be saying this a lot, I’m fine if you ship Vigilmaker, I just don’t. I also never heard anyone talk about Adrian and Chris’s relationship like this before so please keep an open mind. If you want to unfollow me because I don’t ship it, that’s fine, but also please don’t attack on it. Anyway, please enjoy my critical essay of Adrian and Chris’s relationship. This is also three pages long according to Google docs so have fun!

(Written before the last episode of season 1, February 17th, 2022)

I want to quickly say some stuff about Adrian in general, not just because I love him but also because I find him relatable…as a younger sibling, this will play into Adrian and Chris’s relationship later. I have an older brother (we’re 3 and half years apart), And being the youngest can sometimes be the worst or the best. There will be days where my brother and I will be agreeing on something or just talking, and then there are days where we argue with each other in a car about stupid stuff that leads to us never agreeing on things, like my taste in games and anime, and how I like superhero movies and shows but says that they’re all the same. I’m sorry Christian, not everything can be The Invisible Man, Midsommar, or The Conjuring.

For quick context, if you are reading this essay and don’t know what  Peacemaker is. Peacemaker is an HBOmax show directed by James Gunn, and spin-off to his famous The Suicide Squad. It follows the character Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker (Played by John Cena), it is a bit of a hard show to describe in words to get someone in the show except maybe ‘watches The Suicide Squad’. In the show, Chris has a bit of a fanboy who is his friend’s younger brother, Adrian Chase aka Vigilante (played by Freddie Stroma). From the first episode, Adrian is a bit of an eccentric character, but also a sociopath with no idea how human emotions work. It’s unknown what his full story is, fans think his family died but then in the next episode he’s talking about his dad (leaving his mother for another man) in the present tense. There are moments where talks about something quite thoughtfully like saying ‘the mind is a den of scorpions’ but there are also times where he acts a bit clueless. From episodes 1-3, Adrian was always called Peacemaker’s best friend, at least that’s what Adrian believes when it’s more a parasocial relationship, this will play into the ‘youngest sibling mentality’. 

And it wasn’t until episode 4 of Peacemaker that I saw myself in Adrian, mainly when they’re in the car. In my opinion, I don’t see their relationship as romantic, it’s fine you do see them as boyfriends and them complaining in the car is like an old couple bickering. To me, I see my brother and me in his car, driving somewhere and I am passive-aggressively telling him he’s wrong. In the previous episode, Adrian got tortured for Chris to spill because according to the kidnapper: “And humans are, above all, creatures of empathy. The best way to get them to talk is to hurt the ones they love most”. Yes, you could read as romantic but Chris never saw Adrian as anything as a fanboy or just someone who follows him everywhere, Adrian did say in some later episodes that he and Chris would go out looking for people to kill/hunt down but in my opinion, I’m not sure about that either. 

Later in that episode, while Chris is going to confront his dad in prison, Adrian talks to someone who’s part of Task Force X, Leota Adebayo (Played by Danielle Brooks), and she’s able to manipulate Adrian in to killing Chris’s dad, because according to her: “Now, Chris... he has a big heart, so he wants to find something to love there, but there's... there is nothing to love inside of that man. And it... kills me... 'cause... I don't think Chris is ever gonna be happy as long as his father's around. And I just wish there was some way he would just... go away.” Which leads to Adrian getting arrested and trying to kill Chris’s dad in prison, he fails but this is also one of those moments seen as a sign of love even if he got manipulated into doing it.

Once again (I’m going to say this a lot in this essay), if you see their relationship as romantic, that is fine, and if Adrian would do anything for Chris, even trying to kill his dad, that’s fine. So in the show, Chris and Adrian are younger siblings (Chris and his older brother, Keith (deceased), and Adrian and his older brother Gut (not seen in the show yet)), but not Chris, who is forty, and Adrian as thirty, he is now the oldest, and now has to babysit his new younger sibling who follows him around like a dog. 

Youngest Child Syndrome is…not a real syndrome but is a pattern that most younger siblings go through, including me and maybe people reading this. (All of this being from Healthline) Many positives of the youngest sibling are being highly social, creative, confident, good at problem solving, and adept at getting others to do things for them (can be applied to Chris and Adrian). A lot of actors are younger siblings, however, there’s also a con that fits them. According to Healthline: “Youngest children are also often described as spoiled, willing to take unnecessary risks, and less intelligent than their oldest siblings... They also might ask older siblings to take on battles for little brothers and sisters, leaving the youngest children unable to care for themselves adequately. Researchers have also suggested that youngest children sometimes believe they’re invincible because no one ever lets them fail. As a result, youngest children are believed to be unafraid to do risky things.” 

Now we don’t have to take all of this to heart, people grow up differently, but Adrian, now being the youngest, will risk his life for Chris, would do anything to make him happy or to recognize him as a person and not his little fanboy. 

Now let’s get personal, for me and my brother, if my parents weren’t in the room, I would be following my brother and his friends, I would be there, trying to participate but being told to leave. I had to go to all my brother’s Boy Scout meetings and I became influenced by him: I got more into things generally boys like (Pokémon, dinosaurs, video games, etc.), I would want to be my brother, trying to act cool. Nowadays, my brother and I live on the same roof, and according to my mom we have a better relationship than her and her brother (my uncle), even today I just want to bond with my brother.

Now let’s try and tie this to Adrian and Chris, this is mainly going off what people think Chris, Gut, and Adrian’s relationship is. I assume that Chris and Gut were more young adult friends and Adrian just so happened to be there, because unless he had friends (probably doesn’t), he’s following his brother, he became influenced by Gut and Chris, he started looking up to Chris. Adrian also may or may not be influenced by toxic masculinity (I mean have you seen the town they live in). It mentioned that they were friends in high school

In episode 5, Adrian becomes fairly jealous (but in good spirits) that John Economos (played by Steve Agee) for stealing in thunder (killing something with a chainsaw), and Chris’s response is something along the lines of ‘small dick energy’, aka someone who is showing off or being cocky (according to Urban Dictionary). But soon near the end, he seems to be fine.

In episode 6, I feel like we get the full knowledge of his personality and being morally gray (everyone loves morally gray characters!), and also Chris and Adrian’s brotherly aspect and that being one doesn’t pick up as fast as the other, like when Chris argues with him about not following two rules. I felt that, I don’t think I’ve been in a conversation with my brother about following rules but really, they arguing over nothing. 

Then episode 7, this one I think people solidified as romantic, Peacemaker yelling for Vigilante, because he threw a grenade a little too close to him. I can see it but also another thing, at the beginning of the episode, we’re shown the full story on how Chris’s older brother, Keith, died, and his death was fast, like a grenade blast. 

Adrian is fine, just burnt, passed out in a stolen car, just a quick nap, but Chris (and some people watching it) thought he died, it was fast, it was unexpected, and Chris was 100% worried for his life because now he’s in the role of the older brother to Adrian. Even after that, Chris still doesn’t see him as someone, saying “The only one besides Keith that ever loved me for real.” Which he’s…technically right on, Adrian admires Chris, because he looks up to him, is it deep affection though? Maybe, maybe not. 

As a younger sibling, I see Adrian as the brother that follows around his ‘cooler’ older one because they have no one else, no one else to look up to as a mentor, and sometimes your mentor is someone who's changed a lot, after a couple of years. In the 17 years I’ve been alive, I followed my brother. I wanted to do stuff with him like watch Youtube videos, play with Bionicles, dinosaur figures. And now we agree and complain to each other. We do have one thing in common, we think our dad is crushing our dreams a little too hard (Christian is making a game with his friend, I want to keep writing and maybe become an author, write for movies or games).

One last thing. Again, if you ship Vigilante and Peacemaker, that is perfectly fine, if you hate me because I don’t ship it, I guess that’s fine. I just want to give my opinion on this because I haven’t seen other people talk about their relationship like this so I wanted to write about it. Didn’t know I  would be writing an essay again after finishing English III. 

This will be posted the day the last episode comes out, I want to see if this becomes dated or not. Will episode 8 change Vigilante and Peacemaker’s relationship? we’ll find out.

[flower-zombie-rob]

Hello! I am the original 'septic-dr-schneep' anonymous person! I did not mean to cause discourse on Tumblr.

I wanted you to feel safe and validated, not shut down and harmed by Christian indoctrination. I have seen all of the screenshots in the past, which is why I had to tell you this.

(I actually contacted 'septic-dr-schneep' in the past about her views. She never responded.)

I am so glad that you did not believe me at first; that shows that you are more mature than most people on this site. It also shows that you are a free thinker, not blindly going off of something you saw.

You are valid, and with Pride Month coming up, I hope you feel even more valid!

Thanks im glad there are people that actually like the disagreement with following baseless accusations. The online world needs tk be more attentive because if theyre not you or a different anon could have really quickly spread misinformation through my blog.

Dont worry about me or anything, im alright, nobodys come attacking me or anything like they have in the past when i debated with radfems or terfs, everyones actually been very kind to me in discussing this. Im not myself an experiencer of being indocrinated as a christian beleiver, ive always been an atheist, but i can understand how having really negative experiences with gay people can make you think things that you dont understand the harm of. I was pretty harshy bullied by two people who practically let their claim to queerness become their entire personality and that lead me to a lot of self loathing and negative thinking to that community and myself. Since then ive come to terms with it and almost adopted the opposite of the christian beleif. Im more of a "hate the sinner not the sin" when it comes to those kinds of people (its not their sexuality thats causing them to act like assholes, even if theyre using it as an excuse like a "boo hoo im oppressed so im allowed to bully you" sort of thing since they didnt know i too was queer just not open with it) now and i can see how septic dr shneep might have a lot of self loathing. No one will ever know what her mind is like so i like to not go off the one ask and get agressive at someone for thoughts that arent explicitly hurting everyone or being pushed onto other people. Ive always prefered a critical analystic aproach.

Thanks for enlightening me though, i never wouldve known this about her before now so im glad i can form a better understanding if her as a creator and get the undertones if some of her actions and posts now!

[poisonfallen]

Your take on cancel culture and stan culture?

Oh boy, oh boy, it's happening.

Alright, let's talk about toxic people on the internet. And keep in mind that my opinion goes beneath the mcyt community. I feel the same about the kpop community and any other community that is famous for having lots of toxic people. 

Also, keep in mind that this is my opinion about these topics, I don’t intend to offend or misinform anybody. I might be wrong, and if I am wrong indeed, please help me correct any mistake that I’ve done.

Cancel culture

Before ranting about its toxicity, let's understand what it actually means and how it works.

What is cancel culture? 

Well, according to Wikipedia, “cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person” (source). 

Basically, cancel culture is the process of ceasing offering support to a public figure after saying or doing something that is considered objectionable or offensive. 

In theory, cancel culture is a good thing that helps the victims speak up and properly defend themselves, as well as preventing other people from doing the same mistakes. No harm done to innocent people, just a way of saying why a certain person or a certain company has done something that really hurt a category of people. Some even say that it’s an exercise of free speech.

However, while a culture that encourages calling out inappropriate behaviour is important, a culture that is quick to cancel and reluctant to forgive is something that divides the internet and starts wars in the trial of defending an opinion that is not shared by every single person on the internet, thus becoming the thing that its purpose is to defeat. (a vicious cycle of hatred)

So why is it toxic?

From my point of view, I don’t think that cancel culture is a toxic thing in theory. But the way people actually use it is what concerns (and bothers) me. 

In its current form, anonymous and fuelled by negative emotions, cancel culture has the power to destroy a person’s career in a matter of minutes. There are no gray areas, just the white and black pack mentality: “I am right and you are wrong”. 

The subject of the cancelation becomes “cancelled” for disagreeing with a certain opinion, and the cancelled one feels like the whole world is hating them. No one can argue that going through a cancellation, no matter how big or small it is, can severely affect one’s mental health and leave them scarred for life. 

Cancel culture, at this point, is bullying someone famous without facing the consequences. We are already used to surf the web and stumble across someone’s cancelation over something that not even in our wildest dreams we would be able to imagine otherwise. 

I think that all of us are familiar with a stupid cancelation, like canceling someone over a burger that somehow became the sole reason of obesity (see: Dream MrBeast burger). We can’t help but laugh at people trying to cancel someone for a stupid reason. 

But, unfortunately, not all of our cancelations are stupid or laughable. There are people cancelled over their physical aspect or them not being political active, people cancelled over being friends with certain people or over saying something that is now considered to be slightly offensive a few years ago. The ones who are under the spotlight can’t make jokes or take decisions by themselves, they are supposed to be the marionettes of their fans. 

(I do not intend to say that all cancelations are bad, but I’m trying to highlight how the majority of the most recent cancelations are out of place. If someone actually tries to actively harm your minority, your beliefs etc. you should call out that inappropriate behaviour, but without purposely harming that person as a means of payback) 

There is also a toxic behaviour that I’ve noticed in a cancelation: the “I forgive you”/”I don’t forgive you” phrase used by people who have no right to do so. If you are part of the minority who has been hurt, then you have every right to forgive or not someone for saying or doing something hurtful towards your minority. 

But if you are not a part of that minority, shut the f*** up. By speaking on behalf of a minority while you aren’t part of that minority you take away the right of actually addressing the issue from the people who are part of that minority. You can support them from the sides and let them express their pain with their own voice. They perfectly capable of addressing the issue, they need your support but not you taking the spotlight away from the actual problem.

What is my take on cancel culture?

I think that there are more civil ways of resolving an issue without actively trying to destroy someone’s career. Instead of cancelling that person, we could educate them (but not in that harmful way I’ve seen on twitter) on the subject and on why their words or actions are hurtful. 

We should remember that we are all humans and that every human makes mistakes. Don’t forget that children learn by making mistakes. And while I’m well aware that we are not talking about children here, you should also be well aware that we are talking about actual humans with feelings. 

Cancelation should be the last weapon we use, but only if that person refuses to give an apology and educate themselves on the subject. 

Overall, don’t. Just don’t cancel people. Don’t attack people on the internet. Don’t try to harm people on the internet. 

Some of you might disagree with my opinion and I’m open to criticism as long as you can help me educate more on the subject.

Now let’s move on to the other topic

Stan culture

Before I start talking about this one, I’d like to point out that stans actually scare me, a lot. 

What is stan culture?

“Stan culture describes an online phenomenon in which communities of stalker fans, or stans, engage in overly enthusiastic support of a favorite celebrity online (called “stanning”), including at times vehement, coordinated attacks against detractors and critics” (source). 

Basically stan = stalker + fan. 

There are also people who say that the word stan comes from Eminem’s song “Stan” which tells the story of a crazed fan. I do recommend listening to the lyrics of this song if Eminem is not your cup of tea, it’s a good intake in what stan culture was at the beginning of 2000′s.

To be honest, I don’t have anything more to add at this section. Anything more I’d say would, in the end, be the same as what was already stated. (but you can see my opinion on it with more comments at the end)

It stan culture toxic?

You have to live under a rock if you had never seen a stan on twitter or tumblr. You usually recognize them by their profile pictures, the content they share, their posts and their ready to argue behaviour in case you insult or disagree with the ones they worship. 

I’d like to point out that there is a fine line between a stan and a fan: stans know no length when it comes to defending their object of worship and often have really toxic ways of expressing their opinions, while a fan is there just to enjoy their favourite content without engaging in harmful discussion and hate speeches. 

This topic is filled with controversy. In essence, stanning should be a means of showing support. The majority of them don’t even realize the toxicity they spread only after leaving the fandom. 

The real problem here is the moment when they engage in conflicts without entertaining the thought that they might be wrong. Anything they do is right and their object of worship can say or do no mistake. This extends to the point of sending death threats and even doxxing. 

For those who don’t know about doxxing, short for dropping dox: doxxing is an internet slang that means to publish personal information (of an individual) on the internet. You can find more about it here.

With no intend to disrespect or disregard one’s religious beliefs, you can say that stanning is like being part of a religion. The stans are the extremist people who practice that religion, while the fans are those who practice it from time to time (eg. like a Christian who goes to Church only on Christmas and Easter - me). 

In the end, stan culture is toxic to both the stans and celebrities. 

Is there a connection between stan culture and cancel culture?

They are both toxic internet cultures, this one is right for sure.

From what I’ve noticed during my short timed stay on twitter, a lot of cancelations are made by stans from the same community or different communities. 

I’m part of mcyt community, so I’ve seen a lot of Dream fans and Dream antis fighting over the past months, trying to cancel each other and harm each other. It’s mental seeing people actively trying to do these kind of things just because they love or hate a certain person. Of course that we can’t tie the situation to a certain content creator. 

I know that his also happens a lot in the kpop community where stans are in a constant fight to destroy the career of each other’s favourite idol group or bias (someone's most favorite member of an idol group). 

What is my take on stan culture?

I feel like I need to repeat myself: stans scare the s*** out of me. 

It’s like their sole purpose in life is to support someone and don’t have the basic sense of boundaries. A lot of problems arise with this: like shipping people who are uncomfortable being shipped with, intense sexualizing (sexualizing the minors is the worst from my point of view), creating drama and intentionally ignoring real world problems just to make their favourite person(s) trend, and the list is so long that I feel like I’d create a record on tumblr for the longest post if I go on. 

We are talking about some weird adaptation of Lord of the Flies where children raise each other on the internet. It’s like a cult and they are brainwashed into believing what everybody else thinks. And the worst part is that I don’t think we’ll ever get better from this, things are only going south to heaven. 

I might be wrong and biased, so I do expect someone to help me understand these topics better, but for now these are my firm opinions. 

I’d also like to clarify, once again, that in the religion example I’m not making fun of Christianity, I’m just using it as a means to help people better understand my point.

[waywardrose]

On Babbushka

There is a group of well-known writers in the fandom who have been discouraged and put down by one of their own, Zannah - @babbushka​. It happens behind the scenes in DMs. It happens in posts and tags.

In DMs, she has started conversations with seemingly innocent questions. When she doesn't receive the response she was aiming for, she diverts the conversation to criticizing and humiliating the person. She has attacked writers for tagging—or not tagging—a post in a way she deems appropriate. She has gotten into arguments over how characters were portrayed and then tried to claim victimization when the other person wouldn't knuckle under.

She will appeal to her following to attack any fan or creator who has an opinion that differs from her own. She will encourage friends to send rude anons. Those same friends will also DM the target with rude remarks.

Several creators have stopped writing altogether because of their interactions with her.

We are tired of being discouraged. We are tired of being talked down to. We are tired of being bullied. Enough is enough. Under the cut we share our stories, let the chips fall where they may. It's up to you, the reader, to decide whether to support her.

We can only warn up-and-coming writers, artists, fans, and supporters of her behavior.

-

Hope - @callmehopeless

The Australian bushfires of the 2019-2020 season were nightmarish—for those living through it and those witnessing. As the season went on, cries for help increased. Joaquin Phoenix used the time during his Best-Actor acceptance speech at the Golden Globes to call for unity, action, and accountability. Regardless of what we may think of him, it was a thoughtful speech.

Hope, who is an Australian, found Mr. Phoenix's message encouraging and reblogged a gifset of his speech.

That morning, Zannah made a post about Mr. Phoenix's shady past and his association with a known sexual predator. The main reason wasn't because his speech was inappropriate or not timely, but because she didn't think he should be the one to get the attention over other actors who had spoken of the bushfires during the Golden Globes.

While Hope confessed she was scared of the bushfires, scared for her loved ones, Zannah was more concerned with purity. To Zannah it was about the face of the message, not the message itself. It didn't matter that Mr. Phoenix was amplifying support for Australia, what did matter was that he had done bad things.

It was virtue signaling on Zannah's part.

Still, this remains a complicated argument. Can a person who has done bad things actually have something positive to add to a cause? Should we listen to a problematic person if they share an insight? Does it reflect poorly on us to agree with their isolated statement? Will we be canceled, too? What about the bigger picture?

In this case, the bigger picture was hundreds of homes were destroyed in the bushfires and families were displaced. People died, thousands of animals died. And it was because of climate change. Mr. Phoenix called for his rich peers to examine their respective lifestyles and to give back.

Yes, Mr. Phoenix has done bad things. Yes, he has associated with people who have done bad things. His words resonated with people on Tumblr, and they reblogged part of his speech. He said something that gave Hope hope.

Hope was asked by a third party how they could help. She came back with a resource guide for those who wanted to send aid to Australians.

When it became obvious Zannah wouldn't silence Hope, Zannah decided to sub-post about the interaction. There, she accused Hope of being a rape apologist for reblogging a gifset and finding a little comfort in it. Zannah placed her ego before someone who was facing a very real danger.

Side-eying an actor is one thing, shaming a person you know for finding solace during a scary time is another. Hope isn't responsible for which voice got picked up. The only "colors" being shown here are Zannah's. She put her own concerns about being perceived as morally pure above actually supporting a friend.

I'll keep this brief - I knew Zannah for many years. And on one of the lowest weeks of my life, when my suburb was burning down and I feared for my family: she convinced me I was a rape apologist for sharing Joaquin Phoenix's speech asking for action on bushfires. In all my life, I never felt more alone. To add insult to injury, she then posted memes mocking me - something that has stuck with me to this day.

I've had dear friends quit the fandom because of her kinkshaming. I've had people I love message me distraught over what she's said.

Enough is enough.

— @callmehopeless

-

Rose - @the-wayward-rose​

This PM exchange started after I tagged my reblog of Zannah's fic Feast (Cameron Bistle x Reader) with cw: white reader. I had been on her taglist, and I wanted to show support because I liked the fic overall. For context, the reason for my tag is because of this sentence:

"But then you're blushing so pretty and squeezing his hand affectionately and reaching for the handle to the passenger side of his car, and then you're laughing when he swats your hand away to open it for you, and then you're beckoning him down as if to ask a question – only to place a chaste kiss to his lips instead."

This is from Cameron's point of view.

She asked the reason for the tag, and I explained it was because of the use of "blush" to describe Reader's appearance.

She misunderstood my premise. I did not mean only white people blush.

According to Merriam-Webster, blush means "a reddening of the face especially from shame, modesty, or confusion" or "a red or rosy tint."

It is an autonomic response, though. It happens in all humans for body cooling and nonverbal communication. The main problem with using it universally is that melanin obscures the appearance of said autonomic response.

Here's an example of three runners:

The two pale women, left and center, are pink in the face. They are blushing. The woman of color on the right is likely blushing, too. However, the melanin in her skin obscures the blood in her cheeks. She is not pink.

That's the pitfall of the word "blush." The observer can't always see it. We know what it feels like. We all do it. The face and/or neck gets hot. The use of "blush" is shorthand in narrative, and I understand that. Nevertheless, when writing to cater to a reader-insert audience of unknown heritage, writers need to consider describing with universal terms.

Again, she misunderstood my premise. I clarified by asking how Cameron sees the Reader blush under an abundance of melanin:

She sidestepped the physiological explanation to go straight for justification. She tried to legitimize "blush" as "perhaps [this]" or "perhaps [that]" when I stated earlier that blush by definition is pink or is to redden. That's the logic. A noncommittal, covering-all-the-bases, complicated defense diluted the conversation.

With her earlier "I have friends of color, hence I can't be exclusionary" statement, I wasn't sure she would get my point. I take full responsibility for not explaining, too. I should've asked for some time to gather my thoughts, but I didn't. Truthfully, I was unprepared, because I didn't think my insignificant tag would be an issue.

Also, I was confused why she was trying to police my blog.

Her replies came rapidly—before I could mention my confusion—and felt aggressive in the moment. Maybe that wasn't her intention, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That doesn't take away from the fact that words have meaning. It's why we use specific words. It's not understood in the narrative that her use of "blush" could mean a bunch of things. If I had known, I wouldn't have tagged as I did. How is a reader of color supposed to know that? How does Cameron see Reader's blush if she has darker skin?

As writers, we don't know who is reading. Someone could be very pale or very dark. A person with medium-toned skin can turn a shade of pink or red. A person with darker-toned skin will not. We can't assume all readers are medium to pale. We need to develop better writing skills. We have to include everyone.

Readers of color > White-writer feelings

When I stood my ground, she doubled down, stating I made no sense in my tagging and that I lacked the ability to learn from her. She then diverted the argument, attacking a ficlet I wrote a few days beforehand—which had nothing to do with this argument. The Christian imagery in that ficlet was upsetting to her and "in such poor taste" because she headcanons Flip Zimmerman (BlacKkKlansman) is 100% culturally and ethnically Jewish.

Flip stated in the movie:

"I'm Jewish, but I wasn't raised to be. It wasn't part of my life. I never thought much about being Jewish. Nobody around me was Jewish. I wasn't going to a bunch of Bar Mitzvahs. I didn't have a Bar Mitzvah. I was just another white kid. And now I'm in some basement denying it out loud[...] I never thought much about it. Now I'm thinking about it all the time. About rituals and heritage. Is that passing? Well then, I have been passing."

By his own admission, Flip is ethnically Jewish, but not culturally. These are two separate things, and that should be recognized. While Judaism is ethnically and culturally entwined in ways that other religions are not, one does not equate the other. You can be one and not the other.

At the time, I didn't want her to sic her 3000+ followers on me. I wasn't going to argue further. I asked myself if the ficlet was important and worth anon-hate and realized, no, it wasn't. It was a throw-away.

And since I'm not culturally Jewish, maybe I had misstepped. And since Zannah is both culturally and ethnically Jewish, I asked for her guidance.

She flatly refused my request. I don't know how I was supposed to learn from her if she wouldn't teach me.

It sounded as if she wanted me to delete the whole fic. Like none of it was worth saving because it hadn't been Zannah-approved. I had gone against her headcanon, and the fic was too offensive to fix.

The last sentence was supposed to cover her back from criticism, and it placed all the responsibility on me. Obviously, she was above such petty concerns as someone else's blog or writing. Never mind that she had just attempted to get me to change my tagging system and rewrite my ficlet. On my blog.

Later, I figured out she was only criticizing and not offering a constructive critique. Her argument was not in good faith. It was retaliation for not giving her the obedience she thought she was owed.

This is the passage that offended her:

"It’s because of the way he fucks you. Like it’s confession—though he’s never been much of a church-going man. Every touch, every thrust, is a truth between you. Even when it’s rough and greedy. It feels like flagellation when you claw his back. He wears the sin proudly."

This is what I edited it to:

"It’s because of the way he fucks you. Every touch, every thrust, is a truth between you. Even when it’s rough and greedy. It feels like flagellation when you claw his back. He wears your marks proudly."

Yeah, I'm not pleased with the revised passage. It's lost its teeth, but I keep it.

The anonymous message(s) she mentioned weren't very anonymous, either. Unfortunately, I've since deleted the two messages. I had apologized to Anon for disappointing them. I said that if the fic was too much, they should unfollow and block me. I meant that in a self-care way. At the same time, I did not—and do not—owe anyone discourse. I don't have to explain my art when it doesn't hurt anyone. And no one was hurt by some purportedly misplaced religious imagery.

I have been silent about this since late January/early February. I was embarrassed. I had been bullied into changing my blog and my fic by someone who proclaims to never do anything of the sort. I had been a fool. Since this conversation with her, I have been blocked/blacklisted by third-parties, most likely at her behest, when none of this exchange had been necessary.

-

Kassanovella - @kylorengarbagedump​​

Zannah's followers have asked her about Kassanovella’s Fix Your Attitude. For context, it's currently one of the most kudo-ed fics for Kylo Ren x Reader on AO3. It had a bit of a renaissance earlier in 2020 because a TikToker wrote a song for it.

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to read a fic. If the subject matter doesn't work for a reader, they don't have to partake. Easy as that. So, these tags aren't a problem.

However, it led to this...

She lashed out, calling Kassanovella's fic a joke. A joke.

She implied her fics should be as popular as Kassanovella's because she works really hard on them. She admitted she's tied to the metrics. She implied she wouldn't be writing fic if not for the external validation.

Here's the thing about fanfic: readers like what they like. They don't care about a writer's effort. They only know what works for them. They comment and give kudos, reblog and like what they connect with. That is not under the writer's control. All a writer can do is try their best and concentrate on what they're passionate about.

To bash another writer's fic because it's popular is disrespectful. This whole bitter rant drips of entitlement and is an affront to Kassanovella.

Some time later, an incident happened in a chatroom during a streaming event for veterans by Arts In the Armed Forces (Adam Driver's organization). At least one fan brought up Fix Your Attitude while waiting for Mr. Driver to make an appearance. They were also disrespectful towards the other presenters by demanding to see Mr. Driver. It caused a big stink within the fandom, and Zannah had some choice words.

While mentioning the fic during the livestream was inappropriate, it was also inappropriate to throw all fans of the fic under the bus as she did in her tag. Sweeping generalizations and incriminations of a subset of fans certainly reads as if she resents those fans for a perceived slight.

Next, Zannah made an earlier disparaging comment about Kassanovella's fic, Little Bird. Unfortunately, that comment is lost. However, the messages supporting the comment remain. (For context, Little Bird is a Kylo Ren x Reader The Handmaid's Tale AU. It has been well received in the fandom, earning thousands of kudos on AO3.)

What an author wants to write about and sexualize is their business. Fantasizing about being dominated by Kylo Ren isn't cringe. It's a sexual fantasy. Some sexual fantasies can be disturbing to those who do not share the same kink.

Sexual fantasies are like ice cream. There's a reason why there are different flavors.

Also, "I will never ever be a person that tells an author what to do or not do" is an absolute lie. As evident in this post, Zannah most definitely tells authors what to do or not do.

Again, she bashes Kassanovella, claiming her writing isn't good. Her motivation for bashing Kassanovella can only be speculation. With Zannah's previously stated opinion of Fix Your Attitude, though, it indicates a certain level of negative emotions.

-

Anonymous

An anonymous person came forward with a case of Zannah policing their blog. Anon has a sideblog for their personal AU with Flip Zimmerman. They reblog gifsets and post headcanons. They were an enthusiastic fan of Zannah's and reblogged a few of the gifset she made. Anon tagged their reactions, and Zannah blocked them for it.

Anon went to Zannah and asked why they were blocked, because all they wanted to do was have fun and support fellow Flip lovers.

Anon was under the impression that because they were shipping themselves, and not Zannah, with Flip, she blocked them. Their personal AU doesn't align with Zannah's headcanon that she alone is married to this character and has his children.

While Zannah's reply may sound innocent, and perhaps it is, it also speaks to someone who has set herself up as the owner of Flip Zimmerman. (Wait until Spike Lee or the real Ron Stallworth hears about that...) It appears that if a fan does not comply with the Zannah-approved headcanon, where only she is married to Flip, that fan shall be blocked. If a fan uses tags on their blog that she does not approve of, that fan will be blocked.

Zannah's policing is disturbing. Going into a blog to look for something as a reason to block is disturbing. Any fan is allowed to use any tag on their blog how they wish. If the OP has said their post can be reblogged, how a reblogger tags is beyond the OP's control. To punish that reblogger for not behaving in a way she finds acceptable is uncalled for and unjust.

-

Anonymous

Backstory: Zannah does not view Ben Solo's arc in the Star Wars sequel trilogy as acceptable canon. However, she does view the story she created for Flip Zimmerman in BlacKkKlansman as completely canon.

This is not the first time she has been asked to clarify her position. Nor is it the first time she has avoided giving an on-topic response. A question asked in good faith should be responded to in kind.

If a creator doesn't want to address the issue, they can state that they don't. Deflecting from the question only muddies the waters. Fans feel dismissed. The creator feels hounded, and comes across as irritated and unapproachable. No one has a positive fandom experience.

There is nothing wrong with having a headcanon. What is wrong is Zannah mandating her headcanon for Flip on the whole fandom. As evident in this post, if a fan does not comply with her headcanon, they will be summarily blocked.

Also, there is nothing wrong with rejecting canon. Writers of transformative works have always done this. The problem is shaming fans who have accepted canon while not offering justification for that shaming. A creator saying they "can't help them" is the creator washing their hands of responsibility from articulating their thoughts when they themselves began criticizing the canon in the first place.

Again, this is a bad-faith argument. Creators can't ask for discussion and attention and then get mad when their viewpoints are challenged. Just because a discussion isn't going a creator's way doesn't mean it's an attack, either. It means people want clarification, and if one criticizes, they should be able to back up their criticisms.

-

While sharing our stories has been freeing, it's not our aim as fellow fans to cancel Zannah. We would hope she would take the opportunity to reflect on the damage she has done to the fandom. We hope we all can move forward with a more approachable and supportive scene.

No one person speaks for our fandom. The actions of one fan do not represent the entire fandom. Whether creator or consumer, you are welcome here.

[posted July 25, 2020]

[marryat92]

The Settlers in Canada, the wrap-up

This is, incidentally, the first Marryat book “written for young people” that I have read from beginning to end. It also happens to be one of his few novels where we have correspondence in his very fragmentary Life and Letters, collected by his daughter Florence Marryat, referring not only to Marryat’s thoughts on the book, but its critical reception. “I am now printing my second work for children, ‘The Settlers’,” Marryat wrote in an 1844 letter to his sister-in-law, “and I hope it will be out in June. I like it myself, and therefore I think the public will also.”

A letter from that autumn to “Mrs. S—” is much less sanguine, railing against the Athenaeum magazine which “has attacked ‘The Settlers’, upon the same grounds as it has generally attacked my other works, ‘That I am a quarter-deck captain who defies critics, and trifles with the public, writing carelessly and not even good English; taking it for granted that the public are to read just what I think proper to write’.” (But Fred... you literally wrote that the public will like it because you do?)

The Settlers takes place in the 1790s, and in this respect it’s familiar ground for a Marryat novel. Newton Forster takes place in a similar time period of the French Revolutionary Wars, and the hero of Poor Jack is also older than Marryat himself by nearly a decade. It’s not really a “historical” novel, and avoids the bloopers of Marryat’s books set in the more distant past, but it still takes place in a nostalgia-tinged era when the author was only a child.

I found the book to be readable and even gripping at times, but it’s inferior to Marryat’s works for adults, and also unsuitable for children (more on that in a bit). Take away the darkly sardonic commentary and entertainingly debauched behaviour captured in Marryat’s mature writing, and what’s left behind still has the bloody sword of imperialism run through it, but without any redeeming criticism or humour.  To establish that the Campbell family must leave England for a distant frontier, the novel starts out with a clunky introduction covering the inheritance and then disinheritance of an estate, and mentions the death of Mr. Campbell’s sister Mrs. Percival ("to whom he was most sincerely attached”), who leaves behind two orphan girls to be raised by her brother.

We quickly learn that Mrs. Campbell’s given name is Emily (another Marryat favourite), but throughout the entire book, Mr. Campbell doesn’t reveal his Christian name. His wife literally calls him “my dear Campbell.” Is his name Campbell Campbell?? It has to be among the most insignificant problems of this book, but it’s still bizarre.

Because this book also has to be moral and instructive for Young People, we are constantly informed that the Campbell family are very religious and they read the Bible daily. You might worry that there’s going to be a lot of Christian proselytising, but it remains at the surface level and none of this endless Bible-reading seems to be woven into the events of the plot. Compare with the wicked rogue Frank Mildmay, who says he has never opened his Bible except to look for bank-notes inside, but he makes a clever and subtle reference to Jeremiah 17:9 ("my countenance was as open and as ingenuous as my heart was deceitful and desperately wicked.”)

Although the conversion of Indigenous peoples to Christianity is presented as a desirable end, Marryat does not support conversion by force and thinks it should follow from genuine conviction, even lamenting hypocritical missionaries who don’t live out the virtues of their faith. (There is a similar subplot in The Phantom Ship, which in its better moments explores why Amine doesn’t embrace Christianity when she has encountered so many terrible Christians.)

As one character says of the Indigenous Americans, “When the form of worship and creed is simple, it is difficult to make converts, and the Indian is a clear reasoner. I once had a conversation with one of the chiefs on the subject. After we had conversed some time, he said, ‘You believe in one God—so do we; you call him one name—we call him another; we don’t speak the same language, that is the reason. You say, suppose you do good, you go to land of Good Spirits—we say so too. Then Indians and Yangees [sic] (that is, English) both try to gain the same object, only try in not the same way. Now I think that it much better that, as we all go along together, that every man paddle his own canoe.”

("Every man paddle his own canoe” was an idiom introduced by Marryat in The Settlers, probably the most lasting impact of this book. He had a gift for coining expressions.)

The “Indians” in this book are vague as to their actual nations and languages, but from their location and references to “Chippeways” we can gather that they are supposed to be Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. Although I don’t think he had bad intent, Marryat also uses the word “squaw,” which is today regarded as a highly offensive slur, to describe Indigenous women. When the settler characters are affected by frostbite in the harsh Canadian winters they rub snow on the affected areas: do NOT do this. That is something I couldn’t resist looking up, and it’s just as bad as common sense would imply. I cannot imagine reading this book to an actual child; do you want to teach the kid slurs and the world’s worst first aid advice?!

You can definitely see the influence of Marryat’s travels in the Great Lakes region, recorded in Diary in America, in his depiction of Indigenous Americans, and potentially some of his experiences in the War of 1812. When I started reading The Settlers I tried to source some of his claims, such as signing letters “Indian fashion” with a “totem” drawing—which sounded made-up, but was apparently a practice with at least some Indigenous nations —but I quickly gave up on that, resigning myself to the fact that even if Marryat consulted legitimate sources, they would inevitably be affected by the prejudices and attitudes of his time period; and moreover this book is a fanciful narrative of settler colonialism not even based on the lived experiences of real settlers in Upper Canada. If it reflects anything, it reflects 1840s English attitudes about Indigenous American people and Europeans.

The offensive language and terrible medical advice might be most apparent to a modern audience, but there is some wildly inappropriate content that I think even an 1840s reader would find objectionable. The Campbells have many working dogs on their frontier farm, and at one point Marryat remarks, “I have not yet introduced the dogs to my little readers,” before some charming descriptions follow—only to have one of the pets die a grisly and horrible death in a wolf attack. There is a constant theme of violence and impending threats in Marryat novels, and with the bawdy camaraderie of his adult works stripped away it only becomes more apparent.

Soldiers from nearby “Fort Frontignac” (an archaic spelling of Frontenac?) play a large role in assisting the settlers, accurate to the imperial nature of settler-colonialism. I loved the soldiers, even though very few of them got any kind of characterisation, imagining them as looking like the plates in my British Forces in North America 1793-1815 book. It seems like the Campbell family can borrow soldiers at almost any time to help clear land, erect buildings, or provide general labour as needed.

One thing that I genuinely enjoyed in The Settlers is the message of allowing women to defend themselves with firearms. Martin Super the backwoodsman observes to Mrs. Campbell, “a woman ought at least to know how to prime and load a rifle, even if she does not fire it herself. It is a deadly weapon, Ma’am, and the greatest leveller in creation, for the trigger pulled by a child will settle the business of the stoutest man.” After some more discussion on the necessity of self-defence she concurs with him, “with a rifle in the hand, a woman or child is on par with the strongest man.” Emma Percival, a teenage girl, becomes a crack shot with her rifle and kills a marauding wolf (but with the loss of yet another pet dog).

Another very Classic Marryat plot element that makes it into The Settlers is characters suddenly coming into a large fortune. (It’s the stuff of fictional happy endings, yet also Marryat “writing what he knows”, as he was himself the beneficiary of more than one financial windfall). After losing their English estate at the beginning of the novel, the Campbell family re-acquire it at the end with the off-screen death of Mr. Douglas Campbell. At this point additional settlers have made their remote farm more like a village, and their son John Campbell, an excellent woodsman who seems almost autistic-coded, remains behind to manage the Canadian property. Alfred Campbell gets to re-join the Royal Navy, and Captain Sinclair from Fort Frontignac weds Mary Percival and enjoys his own inherited fortune in England.

In his book "Puzzled Which to Choose": Conflicting Socio-Political Views in the Works of Captain Frederick Marryat, Louis J. Parascandola touches on the "ambivalent tradition" of portraying Indigenous people as both noble and barbaric in nineteenth century literature and observes that "Marryat holds varying opinions on Indians, depending on his purpose." In his words,

The good Indian is traditionally one who accepts white customs and religion. An example is Strawberry, raised as a child by Malachi. She is the perfect Indian woman, able to track, sew, use herbal medicine and keep guard over prisoners, yet she is docile, modest, content and quiet. It is no wonder that she is pursued by the white hunter Martin, whom she marries, and several soldiers. As her contact with the white family increases, she is said to be “becoming useful. She has almost given up her Indian customs and is settling down quietly into English habits”. Her gradual conversion to Christianity is the final proof that the savage has been civilized. Despite all this, however, Strawberry is still called a “creature”, and one feels that she never will be accepted as equal by whites. (Parascandola 118)

Parascandola doesn’t even mention that Strawberry is consistently called “the Strawberry,” with a definite article, which is not subtle in othering her as a type of object. I find her relationship with the old white hunter Malachi Bone weird and creepy (We’re supposed to believe that he raised her from infancy speaking only Anishinaabemowin, when English is his first language? And that he taught her own cultural skills, and she’s his adopted daughter but she is also called his s—?)

Marryat’s prejudices and beliefs, while often unfortunate, are an interesting window on his times, where “white” identity has been constructed, but ethnic and national tensions seem paramount to him. The Indigenous nations of The Settlers are seen through a lens of siding with the English (good, honourable, civilised), or the French (bad, savage, will attack English settlers). Marryat, a staunch monarchist, also includes a favourite hobbyhorse: attacking American democracy, which he saw as inevitably leading to oppression and tyranny (like something the French would do!) 

Mr. Campbell concludes a family discussion with, “Depend upon it, there is no government so contemptible or unpleasant for an honest man to live under as a democracy,” and his son calls it “a very general” opinion. Much more interesting to me, there is a strong condemnation of slavery, as Mr. Campbell reflects on the new republic to the south of Upper Canada:

[The United States] have commenced their new form of government with an act of such gross injustice, as to warrant the assumption that all their boasted virtues are pretence. I refer to their not liberating their slaves. They have given the lie to their own assertions in their Declaration of Independence, in which they have declared all men equal and born free, and we cannot expect the Divine blessing upon those who, when they emancipated themselves, were so unjust as to hold their fellow-creatures in bondage. The time will come, I have no doubt, although perhaps not any of us here present may see the day, when the retribution will fall upon their heads, or rather upon the heads of their offspring; for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation.

(Finally sounding more Biblical with a nod to Deuteronomy 5:9!)

After Marryat’s non-committal take on slavery in Newton Forster, which even gives a soapbox to a “good” enslaver, although the hero rejects his appeal, I was gladdened to see this relative moral clarity. Marryat was the son of an MP who was a dedicated anti-abolitionist (and directly profited from West Indian slavery); this is some personal growth for him. Written in the 1840s, it ominously foreshadows the long conflict over American slavery and civil rights still to come.

As far as rating The Settlers: two stars out of five. At best mediocre, it lacks historical veracity and any truly engaging characters. It is very flattened and simplistic in every way. 

[echoesoftheeast]

Why I No Longer Support the Russian Annexation of Crimea

A few years ago, when I first began learning the Russian language and the histories of Eastern Europe, I was unabashedly pro-Russian in my geopolitical convictions. I still remember watching a documentary about the Maiden Revolution in Kyiv and how it was presented as being orchestrated by the West, how it resulted in the safety of Russian speakers in Ukraine being compromised, and how it ushered in the rise of a fascist government with Nazi sympathies that espoused a type of ultra-Ukrainian nationalism that left no place for anything Russian in Ukraine anymore. Due to this analysis of the Maidan and post-Maidan currents in Ukraine, I came to the conclusion that the annexation of the Crimea was a truly democratic action and that the war in Donetsk and Luhansk represented almost a motherly care from Moscow for the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine. For years this served as the basis of my understanding of the post-Maidan conflicts, particularly the annexation of the Crimea. I continued to read a multitude of pro-Russian articles that justified the annexation. According to the standard positions given, the initial transfer of the Crimea from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev was nothing more than a whimsical decision from the former party head of the Ukrainian SSR. Since the Crimea had been thoroughly under Russian administration prior, this means that the actual transfer was an historical injustice in the first place; Crimea is thoroughly Russian land and is deeply connected with Russian history. Secondly, the annexation can be justified since NATO had allegedly promised the newly formed Russian Federation following the collapse of the USSR that they would not expand into either former Eastern Block or Soviet territory. Since a multitude of former Eastern Bloc and Soviet countries have in fact been integrated into NATO, the West broke their promise so then what sort of moral high ground do they have to declare the annexation of the Crimea as illegal? Thirdly, considering that the majority of the population considered themselves ethnically Russian, since there was a referendum that resulted in an overwhelming majority of voters supporting being received into the Russian Federation, how should this act of democracy be considered any differently than say the will of the Albanian Kosovars to cede from Serbia. If an autonomous province of one country can have the legal right to cede, why can’t another? Finally (not to say that there are only four justifications for the annexation of Crimea, rather these were the biggest reasons for my previous support behind it), there was the strategic considerations of the naval base at Sevastopol. Considering that following the collapse of the Soviet Union that more and more former Soviet republics and Eastern Bloc countries have been joining the European Union and NATO (or lining up to do so), this presents a threat to Russia. Considering that the geopolitical relations between Russia and the West are at an all time low since the Cold War, it would be a strategic blunder for Russia if Ukraine was allowed to achieve its goals of EU and NATO integration. Considering the close proximity of Sevastopol to Russian territory, if Ukraine would become a part of NATO and allow for NATO to establish itself in Sevastopol, this would poise a huge military threat to Russia. Therefore, in a sort of pre-emptive move, the annexation of the Crimea was necessary to prevent any further potential NATO bases being so close to Russian territory. However, over the years as I have opened myself to more and more information from across the geopolitical spectrums, the justifications for the annexation began to slowly dismantle themselves until I came to the conclusion that the annexation of the Crimea was not only an illegal action taken by Russia but a geopolitical blunder of the highest level. I will leave why I think this was the biggest mistake they could make until the end and I will address why I no longer consider the justifications that I mentioned as valid. Before we proceed, I would like to just mention an event that was fundamental in helping me reconsider my convictions and to abandon what I can only call the Russian-Chauvinistic mentality that I previously held. A few years ago when I was on one of my trips to Chisinau, my wife and I decided to visit the Museum of Soviet Occupation (also known as the Museum of Victims of Communism). Now, I was definitely not pro-Soviet (being an Orthodox Christian, I know enough history about the persecutions against the religious in the Soviet Union and the overall atheistic ideology to keep me at arms length from having any real sense of Soviet sympathy) so I was very eager to check this museum out. Having read various books and articles that talk about some of the horrors that happened (especially during the Stalinist era), I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the tragedies that befell different people within the Soviet Union. However, it was a completely different experience to walk through the museum and see real letters from prisoners, confiscated passports, and photos of the real people who experienced the repressions; simply because they were land owners, priests, or suspected of being pro-Romanians. What struck me most was the collection of propaganda posters in one of the exhibits. Whether they were attacking religion or bolstering the benefits of the Soviet system, the propaganda seemed to address everything. It was this moment of looking at the seemingly endless collection of Soviet propaganda posters where something struck me, “If there was this much propaganda going on back then, who’s to say that there’s not just as much now but through contemporary mediums?” So, what got me to reconsider my positions wasn’t an article, or a book, or a conversation; it was the feeling of being overwhelmed by an endless supply of propaganda. After this moment, I began to be more critical of what I would read and try to expand my reading to include sources that present both sides of a situation, as well as material from non-partisan sources. One of the most important examples was with the annexation of Crimea. I began to look a little deeper at the arguments put forward to justify the annexation. Over time, as I read more sources or would occasionally stumble upon some information, each point began to have less weight to me that they used to have, until the point where I came to the conclusion that I no longer can buy into the arguments: Crimea is Ukraine.

The first point that is often brought up is that Khrushchev simply gave Crimea to Ukraine either because he had a soft spot for the country, or that it was a gift to celebrate the 1654 Pereyaslav Treaty, or because he wanted to reward Ukraine for their loyalty to the whole Soviet system (among other reasons that are given). Now, it is definitely true that the Crimea was previously an autonomous oblast within the Russian SFSR and that Nikita Khrushchev played a major role it the transfer of the Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. However, no matter what the reason (or most likely, reasons) behind the transfer, ultimately it was transferred and became an administrative unit of the Ukrainian SSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the declaration of the new entities of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, the Crimea was legally recognized as part of Ukraine. Most importantly, in 1994 both the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine (along with the President of the USA and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) signed the Budapest Memorandums on Security Assurances. Along with this document came the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In return for Ukraine agreeing to eliminate all nuclear weapons from their territory within a specified period of time, they were given certain national security assurances. Some of the assurances are worth quoting in full, “1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine;

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nation.” The first two points that were noted on the memorandum, signed by the Russian President, concerned respecting the territorial integrity of the existing borders of Ukraine at the time, which included Crimea, and the affirmation that they would not use force against Ukraine and threaten their sovereignty. I came across this memorandum while reading an excellent book written by the Ukrainian-Canadian historian Serhy Yekelchyk, “The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know”. This information completing undermines any king of argument that posits the initial transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR as being some sort of geopolitical injustice, and thereby justifying the annexation of it to the Russian Federation. Russia signed a memorandum to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, to abstain from using force against Ukraine, and to refrain from threatening the current borders of Ukraine. This leads nicely into the next point that the Western powers allegedly promised Russia that they had no intentions of expanding NATO into former Eastern Bloc and Soviet territories. As time went by, history has shown us that a number of former Eastern Bloc and Soviet republics have in fact been accepted in NATO. From the standard Russian narrative, since the West went back on their promise, then how can they oppose the annexation of Crimea? The logic seems to go that since the West reneged on their side of the deal, Russia is therefore free to disregard whatever security guarantees they provided to ensure the territorial integrity of Ukraine. However, we need to ask the question: did the Western powers ever promise this? This answer was given by Mikhail Gorbachev himself: no. The agreement that did happen was in regards to non-German NATO forces being employed in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic). When Gorbachev was interviewed and asked about the supposed promises made to Russia that NATO wouldn’t expand eastwards, he had this to say,

“The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

It becomes evidently clear that no such promise regarding the refraining of NATO from expanding eastwards was every actually given, so Russia has no ground to try to justify their breaking of an international memorandum on the alleged failure of the West from refraining to expand NATO. Another point is that Crimea is historically Russian land with great historical significance for Russia. While its true that some very significant historical events in Russian history have taken place in the Crimea (including the baptism of St. Volodymyr in Kherson, the Crimean War, and the siege of Sevastopol) and that from 1783-1917 it was part of the Russian Empire and then from 1921-1954 it was part of the Russian SFSR, if we want to talk about the earlier inhabitants of the Crimea, it’s impossible to overlook the Crimean Tatars. Turkic peoples had been inhabiting the Crimean Peninsula since the 6th century and the Crimean Khanate was established in the 15th century. The Tatars were there prior to the movement of Slavs into the peninsula and were the majority until a number of historical factors began to decrease the Tatar population in the Crimea (such as Tatars fleeing or being deported to the Ottoman Empire after the initial conquest by the Russian Empire, more Tatars fleeing or being deported after the Russian loss of the Crimean War, and when practically the entire Crimean Tatar population was deported to Central Asia following World War 2 by Joseph Stalin). Only since 1989 has the Tatar population been growing again when the Supreme Soviet condemned the removal of the Tatars from their lands as unlawful, and thereby allowing larger numbers of them to return. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatars have largely been in favor of the Ukrainian government and have a more complicated relationship with Russian rule. When the annexation was in process, the Tatar population in Crimea boycotted the referendum and have been vocal in their desire to remain within Ukraine. While the history of Crimea is a part of Slavic history (not simply Russian), the Crimea has more historical rights with the Crimean Tatars, and the voice of the Crimean Tatars has spoken and sides with Ukraine. Now, to address the so-called democratic process of the referendum held in the Crimea that led to the request to be accepted into the Russian Federation. This was probably the strongest argument in favor of the annexation since it appeared the represent the concept of democracy and self-determination. It seemed to me that when the Soviet Union was collapsing and the various republics were declaring their own independence, then why should Ukraine’s desire to cede from the Soviet Union be respected while the Crimea’s desire should be treated as separatism? Is not Kyiv becoming to Crimea what Moscow was to Ukraine? On top of that, why is it that the referendum in the Crimea is treated as illegal while the referendum in Kosovo was accepted by the West? Let’s first look at the legitimacy of the referendum first. The whole tension between the political concepts of territorial integrity and self-determination is difficult to say the least. However, in the situation following the Maidan Revolution, it’s abundantly clear that the situation in Crimea was escalated following the arrival of the little green men. Even in my most pro-Russian days I had no doubts that these were “unofficial” Russian soldiers coming to the Crimea. What this presents itself as is nothing other than a military invasion and occupation. Since the referendum took place within a context of military occupation, it fundamentally cannot be accepted as valid on an international level. While it may be true that a large percentage of the population living in Crimea may in fact have supported a move towards Russia (I have friends and acquaintances with family members in Crimea and I have been told from them that the general opinion was indeed to become a part of Russia), the context and procedures were far from happening within what is accepted on a legal basis and can be legitimized on an international level. In regard to the comparison with Kosovo, we have to recognize that their situations are completely different. While both Kosovo and the Crimea were autonomous regions within their respective countries, the Russian population in the Crimea never underwent the same atrocities that the Kosovar Albanians underwent during the Kosovo War. The context for the independence of Kosovo was largely based on the genocidal afflictions they experienced during the war from Serbia, thus giving a moral precedence to pursue a path of independence. The only population within Crimea that can claim to have any kind of similar experience are the Crimean Tatars, who have been the victims of repression and deportation numerous times throughout history. So, we can see that neither the fact that a referendum was held or the comparison with Kosovo can have any legitimacy in regards to the annexation of Crimea. Now I’d like to look at the claim that it was necessary to annex the Crimea as a pre-emptive strike to protect Russian borders from the expansion of NATO. Since there’s a significant naval port in Sevastopol, it would be a geopolitical disaster for Russia if the ports of Sevastopol became NATO bases. This argument is completely dismantled once one considers the point that Sevastopol isn’t the only port in Ukraine. This point was driven home to me during a discussion with a Ukrainian acquaintance of mine about the whole situation in Crimea. We were discussing the various justifications given by Russia and I brought up this point about self-defence against NATO. My acquaintance simply replied, “So what if Sevastopol doesn’t become a NATO base? If Ukraine would be accepted into NATO, there are ports in Odessa which could easily be used as well. Is the distance from Sevastopol to Odessa really going to be that big of a difference?” The weakness of this argument became immediately apparent to me. If we even put aside the question of naval bases, there’s still the reality of regular military bases that could be set up in Ukraine. NATO could simply set up bases in cities like Kharkiv, Chernihiv, or even Kyiv and these would all be very close to the Russian border. To pursue this line of argument would necessitate that Russia simply annex all of Ukraine to prevent NATO from establishing any closer bases to their borders. As each argument began to collapse for me, I came to the ultimate conclusion that the annexation of Crimea was nothing more than an illegal military occupation, taking advantage of the unfavorable situation that arose for Russia in the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution. In an attempt to keep Ukraine divided to at least prevent her from moving closer to the West, the annexation and the war in Donbass is nothing more than a destabilizing effort by Moscow to try and force Ukraine to stay within their sphere of influence and to prevent the West from getting to close to Ukraine. However, the actions taken by Moscow were the biggest geopolitical blunder that they could have made. If Moscow genuinely wants to keep Ukraine within their sphere of influence, the worst thing that they could have done was to annex territory and become involved in a separatist war. By trying to force Ukraine to stay, they have only pushed her farther away. While it’s unlikely that Russia will ever accept that the annexation of the Crimea was unlawful and actually return it to the control of the Ukrainian government, it’s also just as unlikely the Ukraine will return to a place where closer ties with Russia is a popular opinion. While there are small measures of truth in the propaganda employed by Moscow in regards to the situation in Ukraine (there are definitely ultra-Ukrainian nationalists as well as those who have sympathies for the Galician division of the SS who fought against the Soviets with the Germans in World War 2), it is grossly inaccurate to portray the situation as if every Ukrainian is a fascist, ultra-nationalist, who’s looking to persecute Russian speakers. While the Russian language may have less acceptance in certain parts of Ukraine, it’s still spoken across the country. At the end of the day, I realized that my thoughts in the museum in Chisinau were right: Moscow is simply continuing the propaganda tradition through new mediums. To sum everything up simply, we can say this much: not all Ukrainians are fascists, not all Ukrainian are Nazi sympathizers, not all Ukrainians are out for Russian blood. Russia signed a memorandum to respective the territorial integrity of Ukraine and to abstain from threatening it with force. There was never any promise from NATO that they wouldn’t expand eastwards. While Crimea plays a role in Slavic history, the Crimean Tatars have a greater claim through history than the Russians do. The referendum took place in an atmosphere of military occupation and therefore has no chance of legitimacy. The situations of Kosovo and Crimea are completely different and therefore are not a viable comparison. And finally, if Ukraine was to join NATO, bases could still be set up close to the Russian border even without the naval bases in Sevastopol. Crimea is Ukraine.

[mithliya]

ive been saying that i’ll be posting receipts on the hetfem server, which was also heavily requested by plenty of people on here. this post is going to be pretty long, so i’m putting it under a read more. keep in mind, this isn’t every single wrong thing that has been said on the server, some may disagree with some parts even being wrong to begin with, and this post may have more added to it afterwards in the reblogs. the individuals who have provided me with receipts were all feeling threatened due to knowing how vicious and prone to harassing others the women in this server often are. so ive been sent countless receipts with context, which i have tried to summarise as well. please remember that the point of this post isn’t to call out specific individuals, but rather it is to showcase that the concerns and ‘rumours’ going around about this server were reasonable and true, and to show how lesbophobic and racist this server is (which many have publicly stated before being dogpiled by members of the server). 

first is the zionism and racism in that specific regard. “theHettyishere” is black-diaspora, “Autumn” is probablyaterf. both are partaking in the erasure & justification of how israel is treating palestinians, erasing palestinians proven ties to their country, erasing the war crimes israel partook in, and also erasing the racism within israel which prioritises ashkenazim over mizrahim and black jews.

then they got more blatant and started saying that if you’re anti-zionism then you’re .. anti-semitic ?? keep in mind these people aren’t even jewish 

then they go onto defending christianity

and falsely claim hitler ‘deeply respected’ islam. interesting considering hitler called muslims ‘half-apes’ and all but oh well!  

second set of receipts is the defending of blackface and justification of it. in both these ‘debates’, they literally only present one side and then act like they had a great discussion at the end of it when they’re all just confirming their pre-existing beliefs and using one another to support that. anyways, girlsfrommars had previously come under fire for publicly defending the blackface tradition existing in her country, the netherlands. this is her doing it again after backpedaling on tumblr on this topic, and people in the server standing by her. battleking is bookrebelwordwarrior on tumblr. 

the conversation kinda goes on for a bit and girlfrommars does the same thing she did on tumblr not long before this convo, which was give a “oh ok i’ll reconsider!” which may not be her truth anyways.

next is people on the server saying straight women don’t have enough good representation and even talking about being upset over bi women and even lesbians being represented?? again, autumn is probablyaterf. laughing bird will appear in the screenshots a lot, although i’m not sure what her url is.

idk how to tell these het and bi women.... that lesbians have practically no good representation. especially not as much as het women. there’s a lot of parts of this conversation that are highly questionable. tldr its bad if lesbians or bi women headcannon gnc women as bi or lesbians. also its bad if gnc characters aren’t straight.

this next screen is coming from a het woman so keep that in mind. i don’t know how to put into words why i find this iffy so yall can see it and decide for urselves

she justifies it w this when a couple of members make it clear they find her message questionable:

on a different occasion, girlsfrommars, a white woman, decides to randomly ask other white women in the server what they think about reparations. a bunch of racist white women show themselves during this conversation. please keep in mind i was not the one censoring their usernames so i myself have no idea who these women are, but the person censored in white is emanon, who has a tumblr. i dont know what her tumblr is, but she will appear in multiple other receipts after this. keep in mind this entire channel ends up being deleted by probablyaterf to cover up the racism and prevent the collection of receipts, which you’ll see evidence of later on in this post.

then one of the white women dismisses the impact of racism, basically,

then woc start to chime in (white is the white woman, ‘emanon’)

then, after this conversation went on for a while, a mod decides to tone-police and shame the woc for taking issue with what the white woman was saying. this mod is also white.

“my race doesn’t matter, but i’m jewish” sounds convenient. especially since this person admitted to being white and stated thats why she should stay in her lane the previous day:

back to the dispute between LB and the woc:

remember LB’s tone and behaviour in  the above screenshots as you’ll see how different it is from how she acted when a white woman was being lesbophobic on the server. 

probablyaterf eventually comes in with “both sides were bad :)” basically

girlfrommars makes a non-apology apology about bringing up reparations the way she did

the next set of screenshots is just.. i dont even know what to say about it? yall can see it for yourselves because i think its self-explanatory. battle king = bookrebelwordwarrior, thehettyishere = black-diaspora, autumn = probablyaterf.

then the subtle lesbophobia comes in

this convo was then moved to a channel that was eventually deleted (receipt of that will be shown on this post).

probablyaterf then comes in and says lesbians are All saying the things mentioned above 

then radfemkitten talks about how upset she was and probablyaterf goes on about how this conversation should stop or something 

PAT then lowkey admits that part of the point of her server is to be able to talk shit about lesbians without being criticised for lesbophobia: 

radfemkitten more or less confirms this

PAT basically says “if you think women here are lesbophobic then leave but if you keep criticising what is said then i’ll mute and maybe even kick you!” ok

after this PAT muted that woman for saying that some of the women were being lesbophobic. 

someone showed exactly where lesbophobia was present 

 “straight women should have a space where they can shit talk lesbians without criticism” basically ^. this is the 3rd screenshot where members of the chat, specifically the creator PAT, states that the server exists partially so that non-lesbians can say shit without being criticised for being lesbophobic. 

this was then said by emanon (racist reparations lady): 

then probablyaterf coddles the women who were upset for being held accountable and kicks out the women who called out lesbophobia

probablyaterf deleted entire channels which involved members being lesbophobic and racist for the bullshit reason she provided here, basically admitting she would remove things to prevent the collection of receipts:

this is why she is so confident on her blog about how people can’t possibly have receipts on her server. because she makes sure to delete the evidence. issue is, she did it too late. she then started twisting the story and lying to save face. she removed the conversations regarding reparations, separatism, the accusations of racism & lesbophobia, them complaining about there not being enough good representation of straight women, etc were all removed. evidence:

then it gets even more blatantly sketchy, where PAT basically tells the members of the group to not repeat the drama or dish the details of it, as any honest and open person not hiding questionable shit would do, apparently. 

the details and specifics of this drama were all kept quiet by those involved as well, and those involved agreed to not talk about what has happened in detail.

the bit “one of the members was crying SO MUCH because you called her lesophobic that she almost LEFT HER JOB :(” is funny as y’all can see the situation for yourself up there, she said something and people questioned her on it. this wasn’t a case of a poor defenseless victim being cruelly attacked or whatever.

“a lot of them do tho clearly” keep in mind that there were like what .. 4 lesbians that took issue with the server? and initially there was even less than that.

radfemkitten then goes onto a lesbophobic rant.  

then they changed the story within the server and claimed that the accusations of racism were directed at woc... when it was directed at white women exclusively, as shown above. keep in mind the person claiming this and putting racism in quotations is a white woman herself so. hmm.

next incident is some white woman being very blatantly lesbophobic on the server. several people took issue with it, and she received multiple warnings but was not kicked. keep in mind that earlier, someone was kicked simply for questioning a member on the server and saying they were being lesbophobic. yet when someone is blatantly lesbophobic, they receive multiple warnings and then get away with it. “pinkie the feral one” goes by roxxy, i don’t know if she has a tumblr. notice how laughing bird is comparatively very civil and patient with this roxxy person. 

bi & het women determining that lesbians talking about thinking of pussy somehow implies ‘homosexuals are sex crazed deviants’, is what’s homophobic, btw.

next are when the hetfem server came under fire after TD spoke against it and drama ensued. i was initially 100% for the hetfem server and said those opposing it were being illogical. however, after a while of that drama, some lesbophobia was starting to come out from the hetfems which is when i said i think both sides are wrong. the hetfems took this very personally and proceeded to make lesbophobic comments about how im just bitter bc i dont have a gf or something (altho i was in a relationship back then so lol) and then they blatantly said they dont think het women have power over lesbians. the convo resulted in them full on arguing that lesbians have it easier than het women.

next coming is the hetfem server arguing that abrahamic religions actually *helped* women and how radfems should be talking about that. keep in mind some of these are the same people that mock people who say islam is a ‘feminist religion’. 

next is them arguing on the hetfem server that Nasime Aghdam, the youtube shooter, is male and referencing a meme as a source. they completely ignored the fact that Nasime’s childhood photos make it pretty obvious that that meme was inaccurate anyways. also probablyaterf argued that it’s somehow racist to note that nasime aghdam resembles many other people in the middle east (somewhere im from & where ive lived my entire life). its interesting considering how many things she argued weren’t racist or homophobic, yet noting that someone isn’t a Weird Unusual Looking Alien like she wants to claim is ..racist

the probablyaterf goes on to strawman that i claimed all iranians are clones of each other or smth simply bc i said nasime aghdam’s face is not unusual in countries like iran. also keep in mind the person censored in red is a white woman lol.

henryhetta = foxfur-nadine.

listen.. ive seen women wearing borderline clown makeup in my country. it doesnt make them male. anyways then PAT says ‘maybe im wrong but ill insist im not anyways’, basically.

next is the time black-diaspora posted a pic of my mom taken from my country’s gov facebook page, which provides people with her first & last name. this was brought up on the server. they said i was lying (i was not) and went on about how im crazy and need to get laid. also calling me a ‘nigel’ in one of those screens.

then they just keep justifying it and insulting me. instead of taking issue with what a member of their server did.

so basically “calling out lesbophobia is bad, but posting information that leads to someone’s mom’s full name and facebook is ok, and somehow posting something from a ‘public news article’”

then they said “homosexuality is legal in bahrain” to somehow justify any of this??? as if Bahrain doesn’t have a history of killing, imprisoning, torturing, and exiling Bahrainis that they see criticising the government (which i frequently do) or anything. not like around 200 people have lost their lives for critiquing Bahrain’s government or anything. moreover, plenty of things are ‘legal’ in Bahrain but still lead to punishment. sex outside of marriage is illegal and gay people can’t legally get married, for one. and people have been imprisoned in Bahrain for kissing members of the same sex. but whatever i guess. anyways then radfemkitten argues that i sent a picture doxxing my own fucking mother to black-diaspora. so i endangered my own mother and then begged these people to delete the information they posted, apparently? 

sadly, that is the end of the receipts i have on the topic of BD endangering my mom and the hetfem server justifying it and finding ways to blame me for BD’s actions. so i don’t have the bit that confirms how she explained herself to others and justified it, however she did justify and defend it publicly when i called her out on it. BD was not kicked or muted or anything of the sort for what she has done, and as you can see, everyone justified it and took it as an opportunity to insult me. this wouldn’t have been as much of an issue if i wasn’t from a dictatorship and if my blog wasn’t so political. what BD posted is STILL present on another blog and i could not get staff to delete it, so if the information falls into the wrong hands i don’t know what’ll happen to my mother, or even to me.

next is them justifying allying with the right despite their homophobia, racism, etc. keep in mind some of these women reblogged white supremacist propaganda in agreement with it so this isn’t particularly shocking. christmas begins in november = autumn = probablyaterf.

the issue with this, by the way, is associating with a group that is often misogynistic, homophobic, and racist solely to have a slightly larger platform of people who are more or less heavily for gender, gender roles, and more, sends the message that somehow these are ok things to side with as feminists. yall notice how many ‘radfems’ are literally just conservatives who are against some aspects of misogyny or trans people? these are the people you’re roping in a lot of the time. and this makes the voices of radfems easier to dismiss by the left as well. instead of establishing a space in the left, you end up placing yourself closer to the right and effectively putting the success of your movement to a halt.

these coming screenshots are the hetfems arguing het women have it The Hardest in radfem spaces 

separate event is just some lesbophobia, again.

“imagine a straight/bihet woman wondering what the purpose of a lesbian is” go outside. there’s plenty of that. one idiotic woman saying that about bisexuality doesn’t somehow override that.

more blatant lesbophobia in a separate event. note the reactions underneath the text (all in agreement)

how often have gay people talked about how the stupid “you have equal rights now uwu” bullshit is simply bullshit? this is exactly what men use to dismiss feminists, why do it to dismiss talk of homophobia?

a bunch of white & het/het-passing women joking about making a straight pride or kkk march

remember the white woman, emanon, who argues against reparations because “what about poor white people? :(” she comes in with more racism, and some intersexism too! this is her calling caster semenya, an intersex black woman, a man and using ‘he’ pronouns for her. girlfrommars, the white woman keen on defending blackface, comes in to express her agreement.

then they argue that semenya was raised as a male.. because she refused to wear feminine clothing including in school & because some people thought she was, and thus treated her as such until they realised shes not, a man??

this is more recent than a lot of the previous receipts. i reblogged one post by radfemkitten a while back, and she was so flattered she felt the need to complain about it on the hetfem server, to which someone replied by likening me to a male hippo from madagascar. 

[catsnuggler]

1-5?

I'm answering my own questions in response to this post.

Answers under the "read more" because this got long.

1. Do you identify as an apostate, exvangelical, ex-(denomination), heretic, or something else? I identify as ex-mormon (straight to the point), apostate (because that's what I am), and heretic because it sounds a lot more charged than apostate, in my opinion, even though technically a heretic is someone who is of a particular persuasion but refuses to accept the established religious dogma of that persuasion. In technical terms, I'm an apostate, but my dad, who is still Mormon but differs from the church radically in religious and political beliefs, is the heretic, not me. But, again, I just like the word. It brings to my mind an angry Crusader about to attack me, charging me with heresy and exclaiming that I'll be punished for my sins and treachery against the One True Faith - and to think of myself as an enemy of Crusaders is badass. Even though I'm really just some weak guy who sits around criticizing things.

2. How would you describe your current beliefs? Deconversion was as much a political as a religious process for me. I had to turn away from the liberal democracy at best, conservatism at most common, theocracy at worst political outlook of Mormonism, toward anarchist communism, which resonates best with my political desire for global liberation from both sociopolitical and economic tyranny. Additionally, the church is founded on colonialism, and warming up to decolonization is also part of my deconversion.

But this question is more specifically about religious beliefs, so, onto those: while most exmos are atheists, I'm a hard polytheist. I worship the Norse gods right now. I don't do so regularly, nor do I think they're the only ones deserving of worship; the idea that this or that god is unworthy of worship just because they're outside of ones tradition is an idea I've also had to reject. No, it's just that the Norse/Germanic gods are the ones I felt most pulled to. Generally, us Norse (neo)pagans/polytheists/"Heathens" also practice land worship and ancestor veneration, but given the settler-colonial context I'm part of, I'm still dealing with psychological as well as overarching political barriers with regard to such practices. The Norse god I feel most attracted to is Odin, although I do have to resist the "he's basically God" view that's been drilled into my head and is reinforced constantly by culturally Christian ex-Christian Heathens, particularly those of what we call "brosatru" and "(br)odinist" persuasions.

I've also had to unlearn a lot of antisemitism and islamophobia either directly taught as part of Mormonism, or otherwise commonly accepted in Mormon culture.

3. Have you gotten emotional support from friends in deconverting/deconstructing? Would you like more support? Have you found any online? Yes, yes, most definitely. The most support I got from @sleepyowlet. I can thank her for opening my mind up to anarchism, communism, and heathenry, while remaining respectful and understanding. I already had questions, she simply encouraged me and provided an alternative perspective, one which I ultimately found refreshing and made the most sense to me.

I haven't known too terribly many ex-mormons in person, though, and that would be rather refreshing and healing; bonus points if we've come to about the same politico-religious conclusions, yet still bear unique viewpoints to open the others' minds. That's more support I wish I had.

The /r/exmormon subreddit is somewhat helpful, and I'm also looking in the #exmo/#exmormon/#apostake etc tags on tumblr to find others to talk about this with.

4. Was any person, book, or something else instrumental in your deconversion? I don't like the guy, but... oh, hell, what was his name? The atheist with the talkshow, he's also an islamophobic asshole. Bill Maher, I think his name is? I saw a documentary by him that left me depressed and atheist for about a week, maybe two weeks? Which increased the questions I had. I was also already friends with a lot of atheists, growing up, so I was constantly exposed to non-mormon, non-Christian viewpoints. I mentioned Owly, of course. I haven't read many books. And, oddly enough, one of the most instrumental individuals to my deconversion is my Mormon dad. He is an odd duck, as previously mentioned, in the Mormon faith. He's very sad, because as I grew up, he taught my siblings and I all the bad things he knew about the church, but he did so to inoculate us so we wouldn't learn anyway down the road, with no previous idea of, say, how the Mountain Meadows Massacre really happened, and spiral into a faith crisis. He wanted to be living evidence that, though the other Mormons keep themselves blind and thoughtless, thinking that doing so is faith and righteousness, that one could be Mormon and still have a heart and mind. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for myself, my older sister, and my younger sibling (not my older brother, though, as he is still a firm believer), his revelations to us led in large part to us leaving the church.

5. Who have you told about your deconversion/change in beliefs? I'm guessing this post is about people I know in meatspace, particularly close friends, folks still in the cult, and/or family members. My old bishop knows, one of the guys in the stake presidency who knew me back when we used to be in the same ward together knew because he was the one who fucking blabbed about me requesting my records be removed from the church to my dad, fuck you "Brother" [REDACTED]. Though I didn't tell him, technically, it just ended up in his lap after I got the lawyer to send the request, and breaching my request for fucking privacy, he told my dad. Asshole! Anyway. Anyway. Any fucking way. I've told my grandparents on my mom's side - well, bio-grandpa and step-grandma. Bio-maternal-grandma died years ago, one year after my mom died. I haven't told my dad's side yet, strangely, even though they live much further away and so I'm thus in far less physical contact with the convert side of my family than I am the pioneer side, who are just to the East/Southeast in Idaho, Utah, and a few in Arizona. I'm not sure how many I told I'm pagan, because I forgot, but they at least know that I'm not Mormon. I know I told my grandparents I'm pagan, though.

[moniquill]

I’m going to talk about Greedfall. Fight me.

So recently Greedfall was on 70% off on Steam, and I bought it.

I did so fully in the knowledge that this game is a garbage fire. I knew from the moment I saw the trailers back in August 2019, and I made some posts about it:

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187141616836/greedfall-comes-out-next-month-on-the-10th-get-so

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187185773016/no-i-will-not-absolve-you-geek-friend

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187213116466/i-think-youve-fundamentally-misunderstood-the

And reblogged people saying more and better things: 

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/187152585746/dalishious-untilthisdreamisgone-akedhi

A particularly large FUCK YOU to Darkfreya, who said this in the comments:

“ I will definitely buy this and hope it does well. We need more games like this. The fact that is a game about colonization does not bother me at all. Your character is neutral (and probably desperate trying search for a cure to a disease that is killing your people) Who you side with is your choice, and I seriously doubt siding with colonizers is seen as being the “good” choice.”

But there’s a valid argument to be made that you can’t REALLY criticize a game just based on trailers and synopses and lets plays and all that. You need to PLAY it, to play it all the way through and get the CONTEXT of the STORY.

So strap in chucklefucks, I did that. All spoilers, no repentance. 

 Note: I am writing this reaction on the fly as I play. I have had no spoilers except what’s in the promotional material. This isn’t so much a game review as an admonition of bullshit; I will be focusing on the main questline; the things that the game forces you to do to progress the story. I’ll also follow native-specific sidequests.

I am De Sardet, a man or woman who is the cousin of the new governor of The Congregations’ colony on Teer Fradee. I have an unexplained green birthmark on my face. My first quest item is saying goodbye to my mother, the Princess De Sardet, who has the mysterious and fatal illness that’s plaguing the land - the malichor. 

There is no mention whatsoever of my father at this time.

In Serene, I futz about doing minor sidequests, meeting my first two companions (Kurt and Vasco), and levelling up by looting boxes and murdering bandits. I get to witness the ravages of the malichor; the streets are full of dead and dying people, there're corpse wagons and bonfires, generally looks like a good time.

I meet with the two representatives of the Not!European nations that The Congregation is a neutral ally to both of. One is Theleme, the super religious spanish inquisition types who dress in Cromwell-era English and French clothing. The other is The Bridge Alliance, who are all about science and technology and seem vaguely middle east to north african flavored - they wear turbans and kaftans, their architecture has domes and minarets, etc. Each representative gives me a quest with MORAL DILEMMAS! Do I deliver the heretics to the guard for arrest, or allow them to escape? Do I do the same for the charlatan alchemist? If I listen to them, they’re all totally innocent, but letting them go is bad for my reputation with the diplomats. Except that I can lie. So yeah… this is pretty much a ‘Do you BE EVIL because you can, or do you act benevolent at absolutely no expense to yourself?’ choice.

As I’m getting on the boat to head to Teer Fradee, I am railroaded into my first boss fight! This bursts out of the side of an adjacent ship:

All I know about it is that it was brought back from Teer Fradee, and that ‘it was supposed to be out for days’ - presumably it’s drugged. It’s visibly injured. I see it take another bad hit from a falling mast in the pre-battle cutscene.

I have no choice but to kill it.

I beat it into submission (with magic, because that's what I spec’d into) and then get a cutscene where it’s helpless and desperately scrambling away from me, gazing at me with intelligent, desperate eyes.

I dispassionately shoot it in the head.

I am hailed as a hero.

Like seriously here’s the video (not mine, just pulled from youtube)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQfIHBIJiAU

We cutscene across the ocean, Vasco gets real serious with some shorebirds, and we arrive at Teer Fradee.

On the steps of the governor’s palace, I have my first encounter with a native - Siora, daughter of a chieftain, who is here to seek an audience with the governor. She speaks to me in the native tongue, presuming that I will understand. She has a facial marking similar to my own. I use my political clout to get her into the palace. When we meet my cousin the governor, he goes on and on about how similar Siora and I look; as if we could be related.

This is the first clue, in the story, that I - De Sardet - have native ancestry. There is no avenue for me to explore this at this time.

Siora wants us to be allies to her clan in their hostilities with the Bridge Alliance. I’m sent to speak with Mal Bladnid - the chieftain, her mom.

I’d like to mention at this time that the designers clearly went out of their way to NOT invoke NDN visual tropes with regards to be people of Teer Fradee - No beads, braids, and buckskins, no flute and drum music. They have an irish/celtic/norse/pagan vibe, as I read it. They have a ‘what even is that’ accent. They also wear a ton of different styles of face paint, the significance of which are never explained. 

The game at large seems to assign characters without regard to phenotype - any person of any faction may be european/black/asian in appearance. There are about a dozen faces in the entire game, endlessly recycled. It comes off as :FINGERS IN EARS, SHOUTING “WE DON’T SEE RACE!!!”:

At the first opportunity to talk to Siora back at my legate pad in New Serene, I can ask Siora if she really thought I was a Native. She says that yeah, she did, because I look like one, and she’s never seen a foreigner who’s an on ol menawi - she doesn’t tell me what that means, and I don’t have an option to ask. 

Following the main quest line and going to see Siora’s mom, I learn that she’s already taken off to fight a battle. We catch up at the tail end of the battle, hundreds of people on both sides are dead. I meet Siora’s sister, and I can talk her down from a roaring rampage of revenge. We find out that their mom’s been taken. We spend some time optionally looking for and healing survivors - you can also just let them die. Save them, and you gain a reputation boost with the natives. Then we explore the ruins, which are continental in style, and learn about the legend of super doom battle of old vs wave of colonizers the first - the native people made a pact with the land which raised guardians, and in exchange certain people become ol menawi. What this means is not explained at this time, other than it’s a pact with the land and why the native people have magic. 

At this point I diverge from the main quest to find out what happened to Siora’s mom; we go to the Bridge Alliance camp and find that she died on the way there. We have to argue/finagle/blackmail the captain of the outpost into allowing us to take her body.

Upon returning to Siora’s village, we find that her mother’s remains have been delivered, but new complication: there are missionaries from Theleme insisting that they had an agreement with queen Bladnid - the village would convert to Not!Christianity and in exchange Teleme would aid them against the Bridge Alliance. If they agree to this, they’ll have to bury Bladvid according to Theleme religious standards. Siora thinks this is bullshit, we must investigate. It is unclear how I’m supposed to pursue this. 

I return to Constantin and report on the ancient ruins where the battle took place. He tells me to go see Lady Morange, who tells me to go check out some other ruins near some mines. This continues the Ancient Mystery questline.

I proceed to San Mateus (which is also where I need to go for main questline things regarding talking to the Theleme leaders on the island) 

Entering the city for the first time thrusts me into a cutscene so fucking upsetting that I had to put the game away for a while and come back later. Upon entering the main square, I see a priest strangling a native man, while a creature not unlike the one I was forced to fight back in the first boss battle is being burned alive. The priest is demanding that the native man denounce his gods. He then strangles him to death. I am given no opportunity to intervene. Afterward, when I’m able to talk to the priest, I can declare myself as a believer or not - I can answer yes or no, or attempt charisma to weasel out of the question. If I fail charisma I have to answer yes or no. If I declare that I’m not a believer, we have a fight scene. I am not allowed to kill this man; the fight ends as soon as he’s incapacitated. He wanders off, declaring that he won’t forget this and that I’ll have to fight him again later.

THE BURNED CORPSE OF THE TREE-BEING REMAINS IN THE SAN MATEUS SQUARE FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

In the palace I meet Petrus, after talking to the Mother Cardinal, Petrus becomes one of my companions. The Mother Cardinal asks me to investigate a native village that she believes is worshipping a demon. Yeah sure I’ll get right on that.

I proceed to Hikmet to talk about their science team’s work on the Malichor, and learn that the natives are very antagonistic toward their people. A soldier interrupts the conversation to tell us that an outpost has been routed in a native attack. I’m asked to assemble a team to investigate a science party that’s gone missing.

I return to Constantin to tell him about meeting the governors; he tells me to proceed with all the questlines I’ve opened and whines about how his parents never loved him. Worth noting at this time that Constantin appears not at all well. He’s pale and has dark circles under his eyes. He claims to be fine, just nauseated.

My main questline threads are now:

An Ancient Mystery

Scholars in the Expedition

Demonicial Cult

I choose to follow the cult one first, because Native involvement.

I proceed to Tir Dob, and meet with the investigators. The leader is frustrated because the natives don’t want to talk to her, and she’s convinced that there’s deep evil afoot. When I talk to the villagers, they dismiss me and tell me it’s not my business. Which, I mean, fair!

Notably, one woman asks about my mark/status an on ol manawi. When I say I’m not bound to anything/I didn’t do anything to bind myself, she tells me that one of my parents must have been a doneigad. I have no opportunity to pursue this.

There is no story-continuing option for me to leave it, or to pursue a path of gaining the villagers’ trust. I am required, by the game’s narrative, to spy on a villager. I break into his house and look at his things; I comment on how terrifying his fresco is and how morbid his altar and how horrible his mask. Siora points out that the mask is just worn to intimidate enemies in battle. It’s identical to the warthog spirit mask I can buy at any number of native merchants and wear. Petrus says that there’s obviously demon worship going on.

I tell sister Ephesia, and she sends me to follow the villager on his journey into a secret place in the forest. He disappears into a sacred grotto. I commune with a tree and experience a narrative, then have to solve a very obvious puzzle to enter the grotto - to invade a sacred place that I am obviously not welcome in. There is no option to refuse to do this that forwards the story. In the grotto I witness a ceremony that’s presented, through cinematography and music, to be SO TERRIFYING AND OBVIOUSLY EVIL because there’s… a small amount of bloodletting? A glowing tree spirit speaks at the end of the ritual and all participants triumphantly shout.

Siora, if in the party, says that the rituals of her tribe aren’t so scary, cementing that the game feels that this ritual is intrinsically horrifying in some way.

We go to ask the chief of the village about what we spied on, and she explains that it’s a ritual to evoke the strength of warriors and invoke a blessing against the Theleme investigators. She tells us that the voice we heard one one of the many faces of nature, and that if we proceed to another location and perform a ritual, we may hear from another face of nature - but that we might not be happy with the results.

We proceed to Vedvilvie, where we meet Aged Hermit. He tells us that a detachment of Bridge Alliance soldiers was here a long time ago, and gives us information about where to find their camp. We explore the swamp, looking at assorted corpses and ruined tents and ancient frescoes, then talk to Aged Hermit again, who tells us about a ritual to summon the earth. 

We perform the ritual, and are thrust into a boss battle with Nadaig Vedemen. There is literally no choice but to kill her. The Aged Hermit rebukes us for having done so, calling us murderers and monsters. Gotta say, I absolutely agree with him. Siora tells him to calm down, that we were only defending ourselves. She explains to me that he knew her before she became a Nadaig - that Nadaig are Doneigada who’ve called upon the power of the island to the point of physical transformation. That it will happen to her and to me, eventually. That’s what on ol menawi and the mark means.

There is no opportunity for me, as a player, to avoid killing the Nadaig.

We return to Tir Dob and confront Derdre about sending us into a death trap; she had hoped the Nadaig would kill us. We now know secrets that no one outside the clan has ever known. She asks us not to tell. 

I proceed to the Bridge Alliance Scholars’ camp and find they’ve been captured by locals, who want to trade them for prisoners that the Alliance has previously taken. We run into some locals who give us important information about where the prisoners are being held, because they feel it would be better if the prisoners were gone. We meet Aphra, who joins the party and leads us to where prisoners are being held. Two options here - guns blazing bloodbath, or ghost sneak mission where we bust the prisoners out undetected and harm no one. I choose the ghost option. Regardless, upon bringing the rescued scholars back to camp I’m confronted by three natives who I have to fight with. Once defeated, I have the option to either spare their lives or finish them off. Only Siora argues that I should let them live. I do.

We return to Hikmet and talk to the governor. This opens the Search for Panacea questline. Aphra is now a permanent possible companion. 

Aphra’s personal quest: More required spying on the natives. Siora greatly disapproves. I have no option to shut this shit down, to tell her ‘No, we are not doing that.’ We spy on the elders, who are having a meditative session where they listen to the voice of en on mil frichtimen. They catch us spying and call us down, chastise us, and then invite us to watch the rest. Aphra makes comments about how ‘it’s almost like they really can hear a voice on the wind; must be delusion-level faith!’ She then says she has to mull this over and to talk about it later.

We proceed to the ruins that Lady Morange mentioned; two of the three required fetch items are in the general vicinity of a Nadaig. It is possible, through sneaking, to reach them without having to fight the Nadaig, so I do that. We find that the people who built the ruins were…. DUN DUN DUN…. From the congregation! We used to be EVIL! Like we’re totally not now!

We report to Constantin, who is looking even more sickly. He tells us to investigate this history with the Nauts and laments more about his daddy issues. He also says that I look too much like a native for it to be a coincidence which, at this point, fucking DUH. This opens the The Prince’s Secret questline. 

Meanwhile, on the quest for panacea, I head back to the village where I freed the Alliance prisoners to talk to the chief. There’s several dialog options, since I didn’t go bloodbath when rescuing the prisoners, but there’s also a spying option. One way or another, I gain the information that I need to go to the village of Vigshadir in Frasoneigad to find the Tierna harch cadachtas. Siora knows how to get there.

Upon arriving, I’m told that this is one of the holiest sites on the island and I’m not welcome. Alas, I can’t continue the story while respecting that answer - I can insist forcefully or I can gain the villagers’ trust with a couple of fetch quests. Either way, I end up learning where the Tierna harch cadachtas can be found. I disturb her taking a nap with some salamanders. She’s not at all happy to see me, even when Siora speaks on my behalf. She sicks her salamanders on me and takes off; I have to kill them. I then follow her up a path to a root door that requires an offering to unlock. Siora suggests that it’s a seed; we go back to the village and talk her bodyguard into letting us into her house to poke around. I should mention that there’s a bunch of lootable stuff in her house, and the game doesn’t punish me in any way for taking it. I find the correct seed and we proceed through the root door to a maze that Siora says is SUPER SACRED. Nevertheless, I’m forced to kill a bunch of animals on my way through. I tried sneaking several times; due to bottlenecking, the animals always become hostile.  Toward the end of the path, we also come upon an instantly hostile native man, who I am also forced to kill. 

We come out on the other side of the maze in Credgwen, just in time to witness the tierna running from and being gunned down by an Alliance solider. Cradling a bullet wound to her abdomen, the soldier is poised to execute her with a pisol shot to the head when Nadaig Fresamen appears and throws him ass over head. The Tierna then tells Nadaig Fresamen to attack us, and I’m once again in a mandatory boss battle where I am forced by the narrative to kill a Nadaig. Once again it ends in a cutscene where I shoot the Nadaig in the head. I think maybe the game designers think this looks badass, instead of coldly sociopathic? The Tierna is visibly distraught, screaming and crying at what we’ve done. She’s about to attack us when she’s shot in the back by the Alliance Soldier, who then says a bunch of Evily McEvil things, then tries to fight us. Upon besting him, I get to either kill or spare him. 

I kill the shit out of him. 

We bring the very very wounded tierna back to her village, where she wakes up and tries to kill me (Siora calling her off). She explains that the panacea she made is to treat islanders who’ve escaped captivity from the Alliance; those who are captured are gruesomely tortured in the name of science.  She suggests that the malichor might be a curse from En on mil frichtimen. 

We take this news to Constantin. It is now super duper obvious that he is very sick.

Siora tells us who we need to talk to about En on mil frichtimen, Constantin tells us to do that. 

I’m level 16 now.

I hop back to the other main questline, grabbing Petrus and Vasco to go to San Matheus and investigate the Nauts’ problems there. Go to talk to Bishop Domitius but am pulled into a cutscene where Mother Cornelia asks me to get back some sacred tablets that she thinks were stolen by island natives. Yeah, lady, I’ll get right on that. I talk to Bishop Domitius, who accuses the Nauts of being the origin of the malichor. I go to the docs to investigate the rumors. Long story short, the Nauts are fine and I shut down the Inquisition’s investigation of them. When I get back to my residence, there’s a letter asking me to come see some natives at the embassy. Because Native rep[resentation and Native storylines are pretty much all I care about in this game, I pause everything else to pursue that, bringing Siora and Petrus.

I meet with them in the woods, where they’re camped out with the body of an inquisitor they killed. Petrus greatly disapproves. We get some keys and a letter from them, learn that there’s a camp that Native captives are being brought to, and go to investigate the inquisitor’s house for more details. We rummage through his house, find another letter detailing the camp and a chest in the order headquarters. We also find a key to said chest. On our way out, we’re confronted by a bunch of ordo luminus thugs. I have the option to get Petus to talk them down, so I do.

We go back to the place where the natives are holed up and find we’ve been followed by inquisitors. Talk talk fight; we kill them. The natives thank us and say they’ll report this to queen Derdre. I’m now level 17.

I head back to Admiral Cabral to tell her about shutting down the Naut investigation. She tells me that the Nauts discovered the island 200 years ago, the congregation tried to colonize, a few bad apple lords got all tyrannical, and both the natives and thier own workers rebelled against them. The colony was destroyed and only a few survivors made it out. The princes of the congregation swept it all under the rug in humiliation. Then she drops the bomb that I’ve been waiting for the whole game: I am the product of a later Congregation expedition. I’m the child of a Native and was born on a Naut ship. So yeah, I’ve been playing as a stolen child divorced from my native culture this whole time. I’m just gonna leave this link here:

https://www.vox.com/2019/10/14/20913408/us-stole-thousands-of-native-american-children

I immediately go to demand answers from Constantin.

This is a major act shift; things I find out in the next string of cutscenes:

Constantin has the malichor and is totally dying.

Kurt comes in to warn us about a coup d’etat that’s in the works - the coin guard plants to take out all three governors and seize control of the island. Apparently if you haven’t followed his personal questline about abuse within the coin guard ranks, he betrays you at this time. I’ve been doing the companion quests all along but not commenting on ones that don’t involve natives. 

After putting down the coup d’etat, I go back to Constantin to rally. We’re now in Act Two, and my main quests are as follows:

The Suffering of Constantin, where I have three leads - San Matheus, Hikmet, and Native.

The Trial of the Waters, where I need to go speak to Glendan.

So I head to Wenshaveye to talk to the healer there. The village is having problems with missionaries and with abruptly and violently aggressive tenlens - animals that are usually docile. The aggressive tenlen attacks started right about the same time the missionaries showed up. Hmm.

There’s an interlude here where I come upon a bunch of merchants fighting a Nadaig and for a brilliant moment I thought I could kill the merchants and save the Nadaig but no. It’s instantly hostile to me and I have to kill it. The killing of Nadaig in this game is treated as a neutral action, like killing wild animals. 

So yeah turns out the missionaries brought a vicious white tenlen, holed it up in a cave, it was riling up the others, it killed two village kids who went into the woods to canoodle. I shut all that down, kicked the missionaries out, and was able to bring the healer to Constantin. Plot thread resolved! Let’s go see Glendan.

I can’t get in to see the council without having a seal proving that I’m the chosen representative of a current council member. Fetch quest time - literally I just have to go back and talk to Cadasach, the healer, and he hands me the seal I need. I presume it’s more involved if I’d chosen one of the other healing paths. 

I talk to Glendan, he tells me I need to complete the trial of the waters, a new questline opens. Also, the next part of Siora’s questline - promises set in stone - opens. I drop everything and follow that because I’m kind of in love with Siora.

We head to her village and talk to the missionaries, they send us to go see the stone that the agreement was engraved on, we get there and fight a bunch of enemies, the stone is destroyed and we can’t read it. Time to go see the engraver, Caradeg. We get to his house to find it absolutely destroyed. The only clue is a stone bearing the mark of the Dunncas’ clan. So we head to Vigyigidaw. Dunncas tells us that they exiled Caradeg because he wanted to make war on the settlers. Have fun, bootlicker. On my way out of the village I’m snagged by a guy with a side quest; he wants me to get some settlers to stop preventing the clan from going into a sacred glade to replant trees that the settler clear cut. See sidequests for details on that.

Before doing Trial of the Waters, I decide to go check up on Eden and Father Iustinius, bringing Siora and Petrus.

Stolen tablets, lots of talk about how primitive and naive the natives are and how those who aren’t converted are obviously worshiping demons and that’s who must have stolen the tablets.

Siora comments that this place is horrifying, and wonders how the people could have tolerated the priests building continental-style buildings over the top of their village.

We go to talk to the theologians, then to Ler. Because I’m not awesome at Charisma, I’m left with no option except to threaten and bully my way into him giving me the name of an old woman, mother of one of the warriors who left the village. I lose re with both the natives at large and Siora personally. The old woman tells us where to find the exiles, and gives us hints on how to avoid traps and sneak in unseen. She implores us not to hurt her son.

We head for the exiles’ camp. I choose the option where I sneak in and don’t murder everyone, and the old woman meets us as we’re leaving and thanks us for that, saying she’s going to try and talk her son into finding a new clan. We head back to Eden.

They thank us for the tablets, are excited to set out a new expedition, the game tells me to wait 24 hours for the results. So I have to hike my ass to out camp, sleep 24 hours, and haul back to where I just was to find out that a party that went into the swamp ran afoul of…. something.

Siora points out that the survivor was obviously bitten by a poisonous swamp creature and that a local healer probably knows the remedy. We go talk to Ler again.

Ler tells us that the village doneigad is one of the exiles, but that the old woman we talked to earlier knows plants well. I’m pretty sure that if we’d murdered her son to death in the previous quest, she’d refuse to help us. Because we didn’t, she makes us a potion. The wounded guy wakes up and begs us to go and rescue his dumbass loser friends, so of course I do. 

We’re going back to Vedvilvie, because of course we are.

We arrive at the camp, listen to both the ordo luminous guy and the research sister whine about how the other is mean/incompetant, and go to investigate the dig sites. We find a dude with a caved in skull who was clearly struck from behind with a mace, a guy who was killed to death by lewolans (big lizards), and a poor chump was was obviously stabbed to death before being fed to lewolans. Siora says it’s pretty clear that Mr Inquisition orchestrated this to frame the research lady. I agree. We go to confront him. Choices: Take a bribe and side with him, tell him to leave the expedition, expose his bullshit to everyone.

The ‘correct’ choice in the game is not to reveal his crimes before everyone, but to banish him. Because [Centrist.jpeg goes here]

We follow the path of San Matheus, come up against a nadaig magamen, murder it to death, and enter a cavern. Long story short, Saint Mat totally became a doneigad. He saw on en mil frichtimen as an extension of the concept of light and prayed to him. Also I found a bitchin’ set of holy armor. I put it on Petrus. 

Theleme’s gonna be big mad. We head back to Eugenia to tell her, are confronted by Virgil and the Inquisition. He wants to destroy the relics and evidence that Sait Mat converted to the faith of the island, we kill him to death and go tattle to Mommy Cardinal. I push her to make the decision to reveal the truth to the masses, and to visit the cave herself. 

Theleme is not, in fact, big mad.

Anyway, returning to the main questline.

So there’s two options through the cave of testing, bloodbath or sneak. I chose sneak. Touch a basin, have a vision, solve a very easy puzzle - just like the tree one from earlier. 

There’s a Nadiag waiting, and the command prompt I have for it after solving the puzzle is ‘Tame’... yanno, like one does with an animal. Because indigenous people are fauna. Fucking gross.

I see a fresco depicting a spirit of the volcano. I go to talk to Glendan. He sends me to find the high king, who is missing. I need to see the rest of the high council: Derdre, Dunncas, Ullan. Guess it’s time to finally deal with the Ullan plotline. See side quests for details.

When I head back to Hikmet, I get a whole string of cutscenes because it’s been a while since I’ve been there - including one where I follow up with the islander rebellion. The governor asks me to parlay with the leaders of the rebellion, where I find out that the on ol menawi who the alliance have been kidnapping from villages have been taken to laboratories for experiments - where they have been tortured and killed. This lines up with all earlier accusations, and with that Hikmet dude who was trying to murder the tierna and me - he said they were going to dissect her. So yeah. I go to thier main camp, and fucking surprise, I was followed by Alliance soldiers who promptly stark attacking. I have two choices: fight alongside the natives or put an end to the rebellion. I, of course, fight on Team Native. I then proceed back to Hikmet to ask What The Entire Fuck, Sir? He denies knowing anything about natives being captured; he assures me that this lab is a medical research center. I declare that I”m gonna take a look at it myself.

 I grab Aphra for this, and in the process agree to continue her personal questline. We ask the young apprentices about how to get into the Cave of Knowledge, which, I cannot state enough, IS A SACRED PLACE CLOSED TO OUTSIDERS. Only people who are becoming doneigad are supposed to go there. The narrative makes me. This happening, over and over, gives lie to the premise that the game allows you to make good or evil moral choices - that you can DECIDE to be a good guy or a bad guy. You can’t. You can either choose to violate the sacred spaces of the indigenous people or -not play this game-. There is no ‘Sit Aphra down and tell her that it is implicitly wrong to do this’ option. 

So we go to the cave, it has a seed gate, we find some brigands who’ve murdered a native, they’re planning to dynamite thier way into the cave, we can talk them inot leaving or murder them to death, guess which one I chose just guess. We get the seed and enter the cave.

In the cave, we examine several frescoes; one depicts a ritual where, in a circle, someone is pouring blood on a stone in the presence of a Nadaig. Another depicts the same figure, but now marked as an on ol menawi. We then hear people coming and are prompted to hide, because being caught here would sure lose us the trust of the natives. Which we do not deserve at all, after this. The game prompts me to spy on the young people, which I do, listening in on thier conversation. When we leave the cave, Aphra says that clearly we need to spy on a whole, actual ritual. The game teases me with ‘accept’ or ‘refuse’, but the choice are actually ‘start the time now, or later’ - the story doesn’t allow me to ACTUALLY refuse. We show up, and Dunncas actually gives us permission to watch if we don’t interfere.

After the ritual, Alliance soldiers show up. We kill them to death. The chiefs thanks us for having been there. Aphra says we should look into Dr. Asili. So off to the lab we go.

I’m pretty sure, narratively, that I’m supposed to have stealthed my way through this. However, after seeing a pit of burning bodies and people in cages right as I entered, I just bloodbathed my way through. Also arrested the apprentices and killed the fuck out of Asili. Fun fact: Asili gave Constantin the malichor! Also me, but I’m resistant, since native and on ol menawi. 

I return to talk to Constantin about the sanctuary and the Hikmet problem and everything and find that he’s gone on a journey with the doneigad healer and things have gone wrong. I set out after him. I follow combat signs and talk to Aiden in wenshaveye, then head to the alliance outpost. We catch up with a badly wounded and unconscious survivor, get him a potion, and then have to wait 24 hours. This is a repeated feature of the game an annoying as hell, because the only way to wait is to return to camp. When he’s awake he describes the attack; animals controlled by some kind of native sorcerer and fire and explosions. A native grabbed Constantin and ran off with him. We continue the investigation - I go to talk to Daren. Daren says that they weren’t behind the attack - no one would ever attack Catasach. Catasach is, btw, super dead. I examine the body. He was killed by something than can wield magma. Good times. Daren tells us there’s a ritual by which a doneigad can see the last moments of his life - only tierna can perform it. Good thing we saved her earlier…. From danger that we put her in….

So we head off to see tierna, and she readily agrees because I avenged her earlier. Pretty sure it would have taken more convincing if I’d let the dude who shot her live. One fetch quest to get spell components later, we’re able to perform the ritual. 

Vinbarr did it.

I go to question Derdre, Ullan, or Duncas. The latter two have the best opinion of me, so I hit up Dunncas first. Dunncas tells me to go to Wennshavar. Folks there give me some backstory, tell me to find Cera at the cave of knowledge. 

We come upon alliance folks torturing a native woman, presumably Cera. This bitch has a whole ass villian speech. I’m pretty sure she’s one of the people I saved with Aphra’s science team? Could just be a recycled face though. We run down to interrupt. Aphra wants to reason with her, Siora wants to kill her. Yep, it’s the science team I saved. I have several options here; fight them, use intuition to remind them I saved them, threaten them, or let Aphra speak. I choose to let Aphra speak more because I want to hear what she says than anything.

Aphra shames her and reminds her that they left Asili together because of his cruelty. She whines that Aphra knows she’s not REALLY like that, and stomps off like an angry toddler. No fight. Cera thanks us for saving her, leads us to the cave, and opens it for us.

Inside the cave we find a fresh new fresco; it shows Vinbarr going to talk to the spirit of the mountain. He’s gone to join En on mil frichtimen. We see another fresco depicting a nadaig meneimen - the bird/mountain form. Vinnbar’s gonna turn into one. We look at some other murals, I let slip that I’m looking for Constantin, Cera peaces out and seals us in the cave because she thinks we’re looking for Vinnbar on a vengeance quest. We find another way out. The path is now laden with traps because she doesn’t want to be followed. Sorry, Cera, that no one informed you that I am a protagonist and thus no one can prevail against me. 

We go to the mountain passage depicted in the fresco, go through a cave maze, and find the mountain trail to the sanctuary. We meet up with Cera, who forces us to fight her. We snag a seed from her body after killing her and her folks to death. Which the game offered no way out of doing. Now we have both seeds and can open the sanctuary. We scamper through some scenic vista and arrive to find Vinnbar burying Constantin with rocks using telekinesis. He says the on en mil frichtimen told him constantine is the bringer of doomtimes. Now we have to have a boss fight. Partway through, he transforms into a nadaig. We continue fighting andf kill him to death. 

I sure do murder a lot of nadaig in this game.

We return Constantin to New Serene and I’m pretty sure this is the break into act 3… Catasach made Constantin on ol menawi and he is stoked about it. He has branch antlers and pointy teeth and yellow eyes and feels great. I am concerned. 

Time to go talk to Glendan again. 

I lose three rep with the natives over, yanno, having murdered their high king to death. I now have to go and talk to the three potential high kings and gain the support of one of them - Derdre, Dunncas, or Ullan. Of those three, Dunncas is the only one who hasn’t tried to murder me or betrayed my trust so… off to Dunncas. His agenda is balance and healing. He easily agrees to let me see en on mil frichtimen if he’s chosen, and tells me how to make sure that he is - if I get a spectacular ancient crown from the grave of the high king that became the first guardian. He expresses distaste for using such a method. Siora is also worried about me making a decision that will impact all of her people. Gotta say that I agree, I have absolutely no place being involved in this decision at all - let’s see if the narrative lets me opt out of meddling! I go to see the other two candidates and hear out their agendas, out of fairness. 

Ullan’s agenda is peace and alliance with the colonizers. He also readily agrees to help me.

Derdre wants to repel the colonists and take back the island. She says she’ll let me see en on mil frichtimen only if I rally Eseld/Siora’s tribe and join in the attack on the Ordo Luminous camp. Which, morally, I am absolutely all for. However, it seems like the game is heavily leaning on Dunncas as ‘the right choice’.

But yeah, fuck it, I’m backing Derdre all day long. Lets fuck up some Spanish Inquisition!

I have the option to inform the mother cardinal of the coming attack. Why the entire fuck would I do that?

So I destroy the fuck out of the camp and murder a bunch of inquiition torturers and free the surviving prisoners and gather evidence of war crimes. Then I go to mommy cardinal, who is big mad (Theleme -2 rep) that I didn’t tell her first. Boo. Fucking. Hoo. 

Having done that, no there is no way to proceed in the questline without retrieving the crown, which involved murdering a Nadaig Magamen. I get the crown, and Derdre meets me there and rebukes me for entering a sacred place, trying to take the crown and throw the election, as an outsider. She is 100% correct. I give her the crown. 

I wait two days and then go see en on mil frichtimen, who tells me that the malichor is the result of how the continental people treat their land. I’d like to pause here and talk about the role of Magical Natives in Green Aesop stories. Let’s review some tropes: 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CloserToEarth

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InHarmonyWithNature

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalNativeAmerican

This some some colors of the wind / Avatar’s blue cat people bullshit, the idea that indigenous people are implicitly and intrinsically more -one with the earth- and that ‘modern civilization’ has lost this, to their detriment, and can only heal through <s>cultural appropriation</s> learning and adopting deep earthy truths known by indigenous people. The point of this in the story is to tell a Green Aesop - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreenAesop - it sets a paradeigm of indigenous people being the noblest of noble savages - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NobleSavage - of indigenous people as a simpler, greener form of humanity. It’s othering. I’ve written a lot about this in the past, check out my post about woo: https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/32577796262/the-following-is-a-post-about-woo

This particular brand of othering of indigenous people directly and personally fucked me up, as an indigenous person, when I was a kid. That could be why I have a personal grudge against it. 

Moving along. 

en on mil frichtimen alo tells me that Constantin is the bringer of doom times, and that Catasach essentially stole power from the island to keep him alive. I need to put a stop to his endless bitter hateful hunger. So yeah, that’s a thing. I go check up on my dear cousin.

When I show up, emissaries from the alliance and theleme are there begging Constantin for troops and also me; they’re suffering horrible attacks on their outposts and people. They’re blaming the natives. I mean, to be fair I did just crown queen Derdre Kill ‘Em All so….just saying. But moving on, I talk to Constantin about the sanctuary. He...doesn’t react well to the warnings about himself. When I ask him about his body with the island, it sure does seem like he got high on apotheosis and wants another hit. He doesn’t believe that the malichor on the continent is the fault of the continentals. 

My main quest lines are now

The attack on San Matheus

The attack on Hikmet 

And honestly fuck both those places because both of them were running torture camps but whatever, I guess I’m off to investigate.

Mommy Cardinal over in San Mateus wants me to hit up an outpost that’s being attacked relentlessly by wild animals. Speculation is that ‘island demons’ are controlling them.

Governor Burhan says the same thing’s happening to his folks. 

Upon checking it out, the islanders are also being attacked; the animals are attacking indiscriminately, and while having that conversation a guy bursts in to say the guardian of the village (a nadaig glendemen) has turned on his people.  So we kill it to death in a boss fight and it’s revealed that the corrupted nadaig was causing the animals to be killrabid. Now that it’s dead, the animals are back to normal. 

Samesies over near San Matheus. 

A human must be responsible, the creatures wouldn’t be so coordinated otherwise.

Is it my cousin? I bet it’s my cousin. 

We go talk to Constantin.

He says ‘ha ha ha nothing to worry about….peace out, my adorable cousin!’ and takes off to parts unknown. I shake down his guards, but all they can tell me is that he’s going north outside the city. I rummage through his papers, and find his journal. Yeeeeah he’s super high on apotheosis and wants to become a god. Like, supplant and replace on en mil frichtimen. And he’s off to ‘get rid of’ some natives in Cwenvar who saw him the other night and might denounce his actions. I’m gonna have to take out my cousin by the end of this game and it will be a tearjerker cutscene. Calling it now. 

We head to Cwenvar to talk to the natives. They show me how to spy on Constantin. We follow him to a sacred grove, where he’s clearly gone cuckoo bananas. He’s commanding a corrupted nadaig, which he tells to hold us back - but not kill me. SO we kill the nadaig, and then have a chat with on en mil frichtamen, who confirms that Constantin is trying to gain godhood by murdering god and taking his power. Yanno, as one does. In a cutscene, I list all the people who will totally help me against Constantin. This includes… pretty much everyone, because I’ve diplomatted my way through the game and everyone likes me. Time to go rally armies. 

It’s worth noting at this time that on en mil frichtamen calls me ‘flesh of my earth’ and earliet called me ‘the child that was stolen’ - there’s a very ‘YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE’ vibe here, implying that I’m only able to succeed at this task because I’m native by blood - I’m not REALLY a continental and thus a Tainted Person made of Endless Greed. It is my native-ness and my bond to on en mil frichtamen, passed down from my donegiad parent, that allows me to be the hero of this game. 

I want you, dear reader, to stop and think about the gross racial implications of that.

Moving forward: We go to ask Dunncas for help in how to break Constantin’s links to the land. He gives me seeds to place at the base of the stone Constantin has erected, to topple them. I have to fight a corrupted Nadaig each time. At this interval Siora points out how wise and attuned to en on mil frichtimen Dunncas is, and I express regret at not choosing him to be high king. TOO SUBTLE, GAME.

So yeah, couple of tedious boss fights. 

Having broken his links and gathered my allies, it’s time for the endgame. We go back to the sacred grove where I talked to en on mil frichtimen, I get a series of heartwarming cutscenes with my companions and allies as I ascend to Constantine’s heart stronghold. 

I reach Constantin. I have to fight a big bad ultra nadaig, which Constantin tells not to kill me. 

He has a long cutscene in which he pleads his case, asking me to bond with him and rule together. I can either bond with him and join him in godhood, which is implied to doom all of humanity to eventually succumb to the malichor because no land can ever be healed now, or I can kill him and save the world like a big damned hero. 

Then Mr. deCourcillion narrates the epilogue, where I get to hear about the consequences of all my decisions through the game. My decision to crown Derdre results in forcible decolonization of the island and healing thereof, but the old world nations are plunged into war and the malichor gets worse there. Am I supposed to feel bad? I don’t! 

In the ‘best’ ending, Magical Native Healers travel to the continent and teach the sad tained continentals how to live in harmony with nature and heal their lands. 

Here, have an every possible ending video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcUByGfNXgY

Know what weirds me out as an actual indigenous person? Learning that I’m a stolen child way back in Act 1 never resulted in a quest where I in any way question or explore my real ancestry. I never try to find out what clan my real mother was from or if I have any living relatives. I never look into why the Congregation abducted my mother and why I was raised by Princess De Sardet. The game just feels that this is unimportant. The important thing was that I have Magical Native Blood. 

So yeah. That’s the game.

In studying the fandom presence of this game, roughly no one is interrogating the fuckedness of the premise or narrative. The active fandom seems to be mostly people who want to bang Vasco, people who think Constantin is a sad wooby who deserved better (including a lot of people who chose the ‘bad’ ending because they wub himb) and people who want to bang Constantin and justify it because he and De Sardet aren’t REALLY cousins… and people who are just here for The Aesthetic. Fun fact there are exactly 12 F/F fics on a03 set in this universe.

Here, have some examples, all from https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/GREEDFALL and https://archiveofourown.org/tags/GreedFall%20(Video%20Game)/works

https://destiny-rahl.tumblr.com/post/616743783790460928/constantin-de-sardet-my-beloved-otp-this

https://swiveldiscourse.tumblr.com/post/615782041344147456/not-sure-who-needs-to-hear-this-but-this-game

https://totallyamoral.tumblr.com/post/615651870535532545

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766497/chapters/49345631

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20676554/chapters/49106921

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747450

Lots of people compared this game to Dragon Age: Inquisition when it first came out because the gameplay looks similar. But here’s the thing… the first time I finished DA:I, I immediately wanted to turn around and play it again, as a different character, as someone who made different decisions and followed a different romance and brought different companions with me on quests to see their different reactions. 

I do not want that with Greedfall.

My first thought upon fisnishing was ‘Oh thank fuck, I’ve seen this to fruition, I don’t have to play this anymore.’

That is not how I should feel at the end of a game.

I feel tired and broken and hurt and used, much like I felt after reading Sister Raven.

https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/165881710831/so-today-i-read-a-book-called-sister-raven

 Native-specific sidequests of note: 

In An Aspiring Merchant, you meet a native merchant in New Serene who’s trying to set up shop; because he doesn’t have the correct paperwork and didn’t follow the bureaucratic process, his stuff keeps getting confiscated. I do not have any opportunity to explore why his lack of paperwork gets his stuff repeatedly confiscated, rather than just getting him sent home.

While I’m getting the paperwork for him, his cousin arrives with a shipment of goods. The guards confiscate the goods again, and arrest the cousin. I go to investigate, and find that cousin threw some punches when the guards once again confiscated all of the goods, and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Ok. So I proceed to the jail and find that he has been sent to fight -to the death- in the arena?! When the prison guard says ‘Hey, it wasn’t me, I was just following orders’ I’m not given an opportunity to ask who’s giving the orders or pursue the miscarriage of justice. I head to the Arena. Despite being a Legate, one of the highest governing offices of the colony, I have no option to put a stop to these shenanigans. I can’t just spring him, or pay bail; I am required to fight beside him to secure his freedom. 

Completing this quest opens the Ullan/Vignamri questline.

Ullan wants to trade with Hikmet, Hikmet wants us to secure the roads, we visit another chieftain, he agrees to a meeting, Ullan shows up and shanks him, I shout at Ullan about how that was bad to do, Ullan thanks me for giving him the opportunity. 

In Logging Expedition, I follow up on the quest hook about settlers clear cutting a glade that I got in vigyigidaw. Standoff between the natives and the settlers, natives want to plant trees, settlers won’t let them. Three settler woodcutters died recently - after investigation there was a conspiracy to poison them by an elder in vigyigidaw - my character refers to this as an act of vengeance by a hateful old man. Despite having literally just had it explained to us that it was supposed to be an object lesson in why not to clearcut the forest - the meat would have been fine if it had been prepared with a particular (possibly now extinct?) berry.

So we pop all the way down to the congregation colony to ask Mr. Courcillon how to diplomacy this ‘property disagreement’. He tells us to go to the basement archives and then see Lady Morange. Just from a gameplay perspective, this - like many sidequests - is fucking tedious. Just running from one place to another, grabbing a few lines of dialog in each place, with no player decision or engagement. This is a poorly designed game. So we hash out the contract, which was created back where neither side had any understanding of the other side’s ideas of what land ownership means. Manhattan was bought for 60 guilders worth of glass beads, etc etc.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12657/was-manhattan-really-bought-24

We have to prosecute the old man for murder if we want a new land deal signed. To prosecute the old man, we have to go stop a mining operation. It’s just one thing after another, and all of it boring and tedious. I had to stop in the middle of this questline and put the game down not because it was upsetting, but because it was -boring-. I hope that the readers appreciate the work I’m putting into making a detailed critique of this garbage fire.

[creepingsharia]

“They Shot My Wife in the Head and Cut Our Four Children into Pieces”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, November 2020

Pakistan: Yasmeen and her son, Usman, lay dead and dying from a hail of bullets from their Muslim neighbors; none of the Muslim bystanders “lifted a finger” to help, and Usman eventually died. (Asia News)

by Raymond Ibrahim 

The following are among the abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of November 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians

Indonesia:  On Nov. 27, Islamic terrorists beheaded a Christian priest and killed three other Christians by slitting their throats in Lembantongoa village.  A Salvation Army church and six Christian homes were also torched during the raid.  While acknowledging that an Islamic militant group was responsible, authorities claimed that the attack was not “religiously motivated.”  One human rights researcher said that this “latest strike was a ‘clear escalation’ of violence against Christians.”

Democratic Republic of Congo: Between November 20-25, members of the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces slaughtered approximately 20 Christians in a number of villages.  According to a clergyman who lost his family in the massacres:

They tried to force some of our Christians to convert to Islam.  They also tried to force my wife and our four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, they shot my wife in the head while our four children were cut into pieces with a Somali sword.

The clergyman, who was not present during the attacks, added that “the rebel militants intend to establish an Islamist state ruled by sharia (Islamic law).”  Two days after the raids, a journalist reported that the people were still in a state of terror and bewilderment:

There was a throng of Christians flooding the streets in a helpless situation, as well as radical Muslim extremists surrounding five churches.  Ten girls had been raped and 15 girls abducted from the Anglican Church and Roman Catholic Church, with 14 Christians admitted to a hospital in critical condition with injuries to their heads, and others with fractured hands and legs due to the use of guns, machete, clubs, Somali swords and axes.

According to the report, there have been many such attacks on Christians in the weeks and months leading to this one, including where “more than 50 Christians who refused to recant their Christian faith were killed, especially women and children.”

Mozambique:  During the first weekend of November, members of an Islamic State linked terror group slaughtered 50 people in the Christian-majority African nation.  In the words of one report,

Islamic militants turned a village soccer field in northern Mozambique into an execution ground when they beheaded more than 50 people during three days of savage violence between Friday, November 6, and Sunday, November 8….   In one attack, gunmen shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ stormed into Nanjaba village on November 6, firing weapons and setting homes on fire. Two villagers were beheaded and several women abducted…..  [A]nyone who refuses to support the jihadists and embrace their beliefs is attacked, and their property set on fire. Thus Christians who refuse to deny Christ are among the victims. The attacks are among the worst seen in recent years in the brutal campaign by militant Islamists to establish an Islamist caliphate in the oil and gas-rich Cabo Delgado province. Desperate people are flooding in to the Christian mission stations for protection.…. More than 2,000 people have been killed and about 430,000 left homeless in the region since 2017.

Ethiopia:  On Nov. 1, a few hours after federal troops “withdrew unexpectedly,” to quote an eyewitness, 60 armed terrorists stormed a school.  Announcing that they now “controlled the area,” they proceeded to hunt down and massacre at least 54 ethnic Amharas, “mostly Christian women, children and elderly.”  According to the report,

In the latest attack targeting ethnic Amhara, who are mainly Christian, some survivors were able to flee to a nearby forest, while the assailants rounded up women, children and elderly who were unable to run away, before shooting at the defenseless group….  One victim found the bullet-riddled bodies of his brother, sister-in-law and three children in the school compound.  Witnesses said that the attackers dragged some victims from their homes to the school, and reported that a school building and 120 houses were burned down…. This is the latest deadly assault in a spate of massacres in the past month in Ethiopia, which have left several dozen dead, apparently targeting the mainly Christian Amhara ethnic group.

Nigeria: A number of people were killed in the ongoing jihad on Nigeria’s Christians.  A sampling follows:

Nov. 1: “Islamic extremist militants in northeast Nigeria attacked a predominantly Christian village near Chibok, Borno state on Sunday morning, killing 12 Christians and kidnapping women and children… A church pastor was among those killed. Villagers suspected the assailants were militants of Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria.”

Nov 6: “Armed Fulani killed four Christians in north-central Nigeria on Friday and the next day kidnapped seven persons, including five daughters of a church pastor.” “To date, the kidnappers have yet to make contact,” Luka Binniyat, a local activist, said: “Kidnapping of Christians is occurring almost on [a] daily basis…”

Nov 17: Christian community leader Haruna Kuye and his son, Destiny Kuye “were sleeping in their home in Gidan Zaki village when they were brutally shot dead,” said a local source. “It was a well-planned murder by evil men who sneaked into the village and headed for his home and unleashed terror. The heartless killers also attacked his wife and daughter, but they survived with injuries” from machetes and gunshot. “Pray for the Christians of Katarma village in Chikun Local Government Area,” he said. “Most Christian villages on that axis have been destroyed in the past three days, many killed, and some kidnapped.”

Nov 26-27: the Rev. Johnson Oladimeji was ambushed and killed by Muslims as he traveled home from to Ikere-Ekiti, where he leads a congregation of the Nigerian Baptist Convention.

28-29: “Fulani herdsmen attacks on predominantly Christian communities in Kaduna state on Saturday night and Sunday morning killed seven Christians.” Two children were also kidnapped and four people wounded.

Pakistan:  On Nov. 9, Muslim neighbors opened fire on and murdered Yasmeen, a Christian mother, and Usman Masih, her only son in front of their home.  According to the report,

On the day of the shooting, Yasmeen left the house around 10:30 and passed Ishrat Bibi [her Muslim neighbor, later described as “a bully and contemptuous woman”] who was holding a stick and began to fight and beat her neighbour. Two months earlier the two had quarreled over the water drain in the street.

At one point Ishrat Bibi called her two sons, Hassan Shakoor Butt and Khizar Shakoor Butt who, having come out with their guns, fired 20-21 bullets at Yasmeen. The latter’s son Usman came out of the house and seeing his lifeless mother went to help her, but he too was hit by shots.

Shabeer Masih [the husband/father of the slain] says that his son lived for about twenty minutes, asking for help, but no one in the village lifted a finger; a car passed by, but no one tried to take the son to the hospital. Usman had become the father of a little girl just a week ago and had another three-year-old daughter. ‘The whole family was very friendly and had good relations with the people of the village,’ adds Shabeer crying.”

Mariyam Kashif, a social activist and Catholic teacher, denounced the murders as “a huge example of intolerance and hatred that spreads against Christians.”  She added that this animus is nourished in the public school system, where “a reform of the curriculum is needed to eliminate all aspects of hatred and contempt. Only in this way will we be able to teach and enlarge hearts, changing the mentality of our society.”

Austria: A Muslim terror attack targeting a Catholic youth group was thwarted at the last minute.  According to the November 27 report (in translation),

[The] killer wanted to cause a bloodbath of the Catholic youth group … during a prayer evening in Vienna. The Islamist failed, however, because of a door that was locked by a timer … 17 children and young people belonging to a Catholic youth group escaped a catastrophe by a hair!…  Seconds later, the assassin was shot down by WEGA [special Austrian police force] officials in front of the city’s oldest church….. The 17 young people escaped the attacker by turning off the lights when the first shots were fired…. The young people stayed in the dark until 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday [Nov. 24]. Then the police gave the all-clear and the 17 boys and girls could go home.

Death to Apostates and Blasphemers

Uganda:  On November 23, Muslim relatives, including uncles and aunts, killed their own 6-year-old nephew because his father—the murderers’ brother, a former Islamic sheikh—had converted to Christianity and refused to return to Islam.  Earlier that day, members of his extended family had a two hour meeting with the apostate, Emmanuel Hamuzah, 38, who repeatedly “refused their demand to renounce Christ.”  Soon afterwards his uncle and four of his siblings came to and attacked Emmanuel outside his house.  His young boy, Ibrahim Mohammad, 6, was outside with him.   “You should renounce this Christian faith, which is a disgrace to our family,” they announced.  “I refused to yield to their demand, and they started fighting me with kicks and blows,” Hamuzah later explained. “I tried to defend myself while the other attackers were stepping on my child’s neck, suffocating him.”  The attackers fled when neighbors responded to the commotion, but his son died.  The family did not report the incident to police in fear of more reprisals.

Two days earlier, on November 21, Muslims killed a Christian pastor and his 12-year-old son. Pastor Wilson Niwamanya and his son Peter were returning home after having delivered Christian literature along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo when four “radical Muslims” armed with blunt objects and a horn-hilted dagger known as a Somali sword stopped them.  According to another Christian worker, who was present but escaped,

When the four attackers emerged from the bush, they immediately caught hold of Pastor Niwamanya, saying, ‘This man must die for disrespecting our religion.’  The attackers began by beating them with blunt objects and thereafter used the sword and stabbed the young boy in the stomach. He died while the pastor and I tried to wrestle the attackers.

Once other motorcycles began to appear, the attackers fled the scene.  The pastor was rushed to a medical center where he later died from wounds to his head.  Earlier, including in the days leading to the attack, he had been receiving threatening text messages, including an order to “stop giving people books that discredit Islam, and if you continue distributing these books, then you are risking your life.”

According to the report,

Pastor Niwamanya, a well-known missionary in the area, had carried out Christian-Muslim debates in 2016, including one in which an Islamic leader openly rebuked him. Islamists began monitoring him after he appeared at an evangelistic event in Masaka in 2010 with evangelist Umar Mulinde, who suffered a horrific acid attack in 2011…   Pastor Niwamanya’s lawyer, Isaac Sendegeya, was shot dead in July 2019 dead by unknown persons. He was 39.  The widow of the deceased pastor has been receiving treatment for a previous attack she suffered for her faith and is in need of financial assistance – as do her surviving children and 15 others at the orphanage the pastor operated.

In another incident in Uganda, Muslims ambushed and butchered David Omara, 64, a Christian pastor and well-known radio preacher, for comparing Christianity and Islam.  According to David’s son, as quoted in a Nov. 6 report, soon after finishing his broadcast,

someone telephoned my father appreciating his presentation.  He then requested him to meet somewhere with some of his friends. We left the radio station. As we arrived at the said place, there came out of the bush six people dressed in Islamic attire, and they started strangling and beating my father with blunt objects.

While beating him, one of the Muslims said, “This man ought to die for using the Koran and saying Allah is not God but an evil god collaborating with satanic powers.” “As they were hitting my father,” the son continued, “with blunt objects and strangling him, I fled to save my life. Two attackers ran after me but could not get hold of me.”  During the deceased’s November 4 funeral,

“Area residents were shocked and saddened by the murder,” the report notes, “and church members were both fearful of further Islamist violence and sorrowful as they mourned at a tearful burial.”  His widow “fainted and collapsed with deep groaning” and, last reported, “was treated for shock that rendered her unconscious,” at a hospital:   “After Electroconvulsive therapy involving stimulation of the brain, she still did not recognize people.”  Pastor David Omara—whom associates lauded for having “worked tirelessly for the kingdom of God to the day he breathed his last breath”—is survived by his (traumatized) wife and eight children, aged between 10 and 30.

Egypt:  A spate of blasphemy related accusations and arrests erupted in November.  “In the past few days,” to quote from a Nov. 20 report, “several arrest warrants have been issued for Egyptian Christians accused of insulting Islam. A young Muslim man was also detained for mocking the hosts of the Cairo-based Holy Quran Radio Station.” Additionally, “On Nov. 11, the Supreme State Security Prosecution investigated two Christians … and referred them to criminal court on the grounds of mocking Islam and insulting religion.” In yet another incident, a Christian teacher and a Muslim girl were arrested on Nov. 11 over comments on Facebook seen as insulting and contemptuous of religion.   “The next day, Nov. 12, the public prosecution ordered the arrest of the teacher, identified as Youssef Hani, and the girl, who goes by the name Sandosa on Facebook, on charges of blasphemy.”  After Hani’s critical comments on Islam were shared on Facebook, social media calls for his death appeared.  “He must be killed,” read one social media post. “Someone volunteer, people, we will not continue to debate with a few absent-minded [Christian] minorities…We will squash them…”

Iran:  On Nov. 15, one month after a convert to Christianity was whipped 80 times, another convert, Zaman Fadaei, was lashed an equal amount of times and for the same reason: sipping communion wine.  He was scourged at Evin Prison, where he has been serving a six year prison sentence for organizing house churches and promoting “Zionist Christianity.” After stating that “Last month, the clerical regime [also] lashed Iranian Christian convert Mohammad Reza Omidi 80 times for drinking communion wine” the Nov. 17 report adds that,

Many Iranian Christians are in prison in Iran for practicing their faith. Heavy bail bonds and exile sentences are additional pressures that the Iranian regime imposes on Christians….   International organizations have repeatedly censured the Iranian regime’s suppression of religious minorities, including the Christian converts, for practicing their faith.

Judges presiding the trials in the clerical regime’s courts have been instructed to consider maximum punishments for religious minorities and particularly the Christian converts.  The Iranian regime criminalizes conversion to Christianity, and severely restricts the faith practiced by Armenian and Assyrian Christians.

Attacks on Churches, Crosses, and Christian Symbols

Austria: According to a Nov. 2 report, as many as 50 young Turks attacked a church in Vienna-Favoriten on Thursday evening, Oct. 29:

The attackers stormed into the parish church of St. Anton in Favoriten, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and kicking pews and other furnishing in the church….  Another Afghan was arrested over the weekend while shouting ‘Islamic slogans’ in St. Stephen’s Cathedral…. Churches in Vienna are now being monitored more closely as part of the patrol service.

Syria: To cries of “Allahu Akbar” (video here), a cross was ripped down from a Greek orthodox church in a region “controlled by U.S.-backed militants,” said a November 1 report.  The cross had been torn down years earlier, when the Islamic State controlled the region, but was restored by locals in an effort “to encourage Christians refugees to return to the city.”  The report adds that

ISIS and Turkey are encouraging a small group to commit these horrible acts. Prior to the ISIS invasion and destruction of the city, it was home to a minority of Christians belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Catholic Church, and various Protestants.

Italy:  On November 25, a 31-year-old Palestinian refugee decapitated the head and cut off the hands of a historical Virgin Mary statue in Marghera, a suburb of Venice (image above).  Video surveillance and a witness on the scene helped identify the vandal.  A translation of an Italian report captures local sentiment at the desecration:

A grim and shocking show for those who believe in that symbol [the Mary statue] and the sense of community of belonging that was deeply wounded by an act of vandalism.  Without head and without hands, almost playing out the violence of an execution, the rage poured out on a mutilated statue, that of the Madonna…  The motive is as yet unclear why he threw himself with such brutality against a statue, a symbol of faith, whether it is a case of mental imbalance, or he acted by virtue of a religious milieu…

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called it a “vile act,” a symbolic “slaughter,” which “wounds our sensibilities.”

France:  On November 19, a Muslim man dressed in a jellabiya, traditional Islamic garb, entered the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand and began chanting in Arabic and doing prostration prayers in the sacred Catholic compound.  A number of passersby grew worried by this display, police were contacted, and, after questioning, the man—who it was determined had not broken any laws—was set free.

General Violence and Abuse

Pakistan:  For two months after kidnapping her, five Muslim men repeatedly gang-raped and tortured a deaf and mute Christian teenage girl.  All this time, police ignored the parents’ pleas to intervene.  It was only when a local authority took up the case that the girl was located and returned to her parents, though only after months of court meetings and trials, as one of the kidnappers insisted the girl had willingly converted to Islam and married him.  According to Juliet Chowdhry, Chairperson for the British Asian Christian Association, as quoted in a Nov. 16 report:

This young woman has suffered the most vile and horrid attack.  There are few women my age that could survive such an ordeal and yet despite her young years, she has shown a strength and faith in God that is remarkable… [A]ll Christian women should be moved to tears at the base cruelty faced by our sisters in Pakistan.  This story should be a wakeup call—but how many of you will actually actively get involved in eradicating this evil?

Egypt:  Due to another Facebook post made by a 22-year-old Christian which was deemed offensive to the Muslim prophet Muhammad, rioting Muslims attacked Christians and their properties in the village where the youth originates (though he was not there).  According to one report,

[T]he Muslim villagers of al-Barsha have resorted to burning the farm huts and yards owned by Copts and located on their agricultural lands. These huts and yards are used to keep the cattle during daytime and to store cattle feed. Six of them were set on fire on the night of 29 November, in response to continuous incitement by fundamentalist Muslims against the Copts….  The hostilities against Barsha Copts go back to 25 November when the village Muslims waged an attack against the Copts with stones and fireballs. The attack took off from one of the mosques in the vicinity of the village’s Islamic Institute to cries of Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) and verbal insults against Christians.

The face of an 80-year-old Christian woman was burned when a fireball crashed into her home.  Church property was also damaged, a stable burned down, cattle stolen, and the windows of Christian homes shattered.

Separately, on the evening of Nov. 8, Nabil Habashy Salem, a 61-year-old Christian businessman responsible for building the only church in Bir al-Abd, Sinai, was abducted in front of his house.   According to the report, Salem had gone out

at 8pm to buy something from a nearby store, when three armed unmasked men stopped him by force in the middle of the busy street. They forced a passing pickup truck to stop, threatened its driver and forced him out at gunpoint. They shoved the senior Salem into the truck and quickly drove away while firing bullets in the air. Those on the street were terrified…; nobody could do a thing. Peter Salem [his son] directly notified the police and filed a report. He sent an urgent plea to President Sisi to interfere in order to find his father, lest he meets the same fate of Bekhit Aziz Lamei who was kidnapped last August from al-Abtal village in South Sinai, and to date has not been found.

Austria: A 19-year-old Afghan refugee struck a 76-year-old Catholic nun in the face in the city of Graz before fleeing.  Thanks to surveillance video, police managed to apprehend him.  According to the Nov. 2 report,

The suspect, already known to the police for drug offenses and assault, has confessed to the crime; his motive is still unclear, police say.  Several anti-Christian incidents have caused a stir in Austria, after last week’s terrorist attack by a man shouting Islamist phrases at a cathedral in France.

Bangladesh: On Nov. 9, armed Muslims attacked a Catholic Christian village, “wounding faithful and desecrating their church — smashing windows and destroying books and other religious items,” states the report. Problems started in late September, when Rafiq Ali, a Muslim man with forged documents seized the land of Josper Amlorong, a local Christian farmer.  On November 9, Amlorong reported the land grab to police and, after confirming that it was his, they evicted Ali.  That evening, a vengeful Ali returned with dozens of armed Muslims who wreaked havoc in the village.  Discussing the temporary land grab, Amlorong said,

Ali and his people forcibly entered my property and took possession of it.  They threatened my life. They told me to leave the land. It is my only piece of land….  If I lost my land, I couldn’t live [he has been battling cancer for the past three years]. Without treatment, I will die….  Being I am Christian, Ali thought I am weak, but I will not leave my land until I draw my last breath.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1)          To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2)          To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

[akicholos14]

king kong worship

idk about that title lmao

as a certified monke, there is no better way to talk about god and religion but to give a brief juxtaposition between the apparent creator of the universe and the big bad monke—who will, bye the way, wreck the giant-ass explosive lizard. both posses power that can topple the tallest of towers (9/11 or Babel, pick your poison), but in the end, get surmised by their inherent trait or ability to love. It seems paradoxical to have both power and love, since one restricts the full manifestation of the other. Both figures gave themselves up for the sake of love, the former in the universal sense, and the latter for a hot blondie (such a simp am I right?).

Now that I have given such an incoherent start I shall proceed to give an incoherent middle and end. My recent issue with religion, particularly the message of Christianity and Catholicism, is their idea or interpretation of Jesus’s redemptive mission, to which they have built their traditions and rituals on. The central message and/or mission of the religion is to preach that it was Jesus who saved us. It was Jesus who shouldered the responsibility of redemption—he redeemed us of our sins, and thus we are welcome to Paradise once more. I have read and heard the lobster king, Jordan Peterson’s rendition of the moustache-y genius, who’s-brain-ultimately-reverted-back-to-monke-mush, unchadaddy, Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity. His blowing attack was the idea that the church watered down the mission of the imitation of Christ. Basically saying that instead of seeing Christ’s life as a noble story to embody, the church took the route of throwing everyone’s chance of a meaningful life by redemptive acts of personal responsibility of one’s existence into Jesus’s cross and it’s sad since anything other than the latter would be blasphemy or whatever [no fucking dialogue there (reminds me of secular radicals who just shout that you’re a racist, communist, fascist, bigot when they’re feelings are hurt)]. They claim that we cannot possibly redeem ourselves on our own, for it even took god his own life to do so. and yeahhh maybe, but no. I am convinced of the existential view-point, at least it would make my life theoretically much more meaningful and also it’s much more chad-like.

This idea was bugging me ever since I read that page, and it got triggered when I listened to a homily one Sunday morning. The priest talked about how Jesus, according to the gospel, challenged the scribes and their hypocrisy. He taught things that were new and were critical of the traditions of old—whilst giving the respect it was due. He essentially rebuked the rigid system or dogma set forth by the law interpreters. Everything was all too familiar. A rigid system? Hypocritical and bent on corruption? Dogma?! I had a revelatory moment, a moment where things that I read and had understood thus far made sense. The idea that the individual’s duty is to revivify the dead culture, just how Jesus did to the old stuff. I was ever more convinced that his story was one to be imitated—embodied. The priest said that this was Jesus’s fulfillment of his prophetic mission, and he then said that we share that prophetic mission but only to the extent that we can only be prophets by telling everyone to credit Jesus for our redemption, and not in the sense of speaking words that allow us to be our own saviors, and a catalyst for others, just like Jesus. 

Now, I would say that I was a religious monke boy, since mama monke taught me so. Indoctrination is not rare in our forest; however, since the word indoctrination gives off such a negative vibe, I feel obligated to defend its case no matter how ignorant I seem to be. We have learned that us, evolved monkes, are sophisticated and “intelligent” information gatherers, and in a nutshell, we need to have some sort of interpretative structure so that we may identify which information is valuable in relation to our values. So, as we are not great Uberbros, we can not make our own values that religious indoctrination offers in 3 minutes. Meaning to say that traditions and seemingly archaic practices, still deserve some respect since it still offers a coherent and useful schema on how to go about life. And so, to be bounded by dogma is the start of freedom. It was said that living under that dogma is the same thing as living in a Christian dream, and one way of transcendence is to wake up from that dream, which happened during the enlightenment, when people began to question the fundamental truths of the system that taught them too seek the truth in the first place. oh, the irony. I wouldn’t consider myself awake from the dream, much more accurately in a state of sleep paralysis. My eyes are prematurely open, but I intend to sleep again so I may awaken properly; although, I would say that trying to relearn everything I believed I had known ever since I was conscious, is going to be difficult. Even more so when I am inclined to retrospectively study my beliefs using a skeptical lens, contrary to when I first started learning it by mere blind acceptance. I aim to understand the orthodox path so if ever I intend to deviate, which I probably will, I will do so fully informed and well-grounded

It’s going to be a religious experience to say the least—as far as monkes experience religious experience.

That’s it, I’m exhausted, bananas are in order hehe

[neversidefaerie]

Some light on the situation with Joye...

Who is Joye? She's a girl who has Lyme's Disease and Bipolar Disorder, the latter of which caused her to act abusively towards others in the past, but she has since reformed. She feels a strong connection with the character of Shadow Weaver in She Ra and is a big supporter of the idea of SW getting a redemption arc. She has strongly rejected the widely held notion that Shadow Weaver abused Micah and has found much evidence to suggest that instead they had a healthy friendship. She has also criticised many people who made the assumption that Shadow Weaver had no trauma to cause her to become abusive, drawing attention to how Shadow Weaver's most dangerous spell going wrong affected her mentally and physically. She is also an Entrapdak shipper, much like myself, and very active in the She Ra villain fandom.

She is a strong Christian, but is heavily critical of many beliefs and attitudes found in conservative Christian culture. I personally found her to be a very tolerant, non-judgemental and open-minded person, who never resorted to bullying when arguing her points about either faith or fandoms.

With these things in mind, I will now go into the controversy that caused her account to be deactivated (I am uncertain if this was an action of her own doing or if the staff suspended her).

Being a great advocate for a Shadow Weaver redemption arc, at some point she made a friend who also supported the idea. This friend had created a lesbian love interest OC for Shadow Weaver. I'm not exactly certain what happened, but at some point I believe that this friend asked Joye to draw her OCs in a romantic context. Joye didn't want to draw this and somehow this led to the friend concluding, due to her Christian beliefs, that she was "homophobic".

Another problem arose from one of Joye's ships: Shadow Weaver and King Micah. Joye believed it was only appropriate to see their relationship as romantic if Micah remained widowed and was well over the age of consent. I still personally never liked this ship, but I appreciated her efforts to provide circumstances for it that she thought were justifiable. Eventually, however, she stopped shipping them altogether.

As someone who previously supported a problematic ship (Lydia and Beetlejuice) but had decided after a while it was better just to see them as friends, I have undergone this journey myself. I remember how repulsed I was when I saw artwork depicting Lydia as a minor kissing BJ - I thought the relationship was only appropriate if Lydia was well over eighteen. Likewise, Joye had disapproved of people shipping underage Micah with Light Spinner.

The ex friend began accusing Joye at some point of supporting a paedophilic ship, even though Joye had only supported the ship in a more appropriate context and later disavowed it altogether.

The third controversy stems from a conversation on a post somewhere, which is regarding a scene in which Shadow Weaver is sick and suffering and Catra acts apathetic towards her condition. From what I can gather, the ex friend thought Catra's behaviour was justified because of SW's abuse, but it upset Joye, because she has a chronic illness and didn't like seeing Catra (or anyone) mistreat a sick person for any reason. The ex friend thought that Joye was saying that Catra was being abusive towards Shadow Weaver and took offence to this.

I befriended Joye after she placed a supportive comment on an Entrapdak post of mine, in which I detailed a discussion I'd had with a delusional anti-Entrapdak who was convinced that Entrapta had been made to look underage as a form of fetishism. I soon went onto Joye's blog, where I struck up more conversations with her and we quickly became friends.

After her ex-friend started spreading information about the three preceding controversies, it caused Joye a lot of stress, especially since the ex-friend is very angry and spiteful towards her. Joye once said to me that the irony was not lost on her of the fact that this ex-friend was willing to advocate for war criminals to receive redemption arcs, yet believed someone guilty of alleged homophobia was unforgivable and deserved no respect.

I firmly believe it's never acceptable to harass or mistreat others, no matter how wrong their viewpoints are. It just causes the said person to think that the fact they're being attacked means that they must be doing something right. Also, I firmly believe it can make you a worse person than the person being attacked.

I also testify that Joye is not a homophobe. She did not express any hostility towards LGBT people and even openly condemned violence and persecution towards queer individuals. Perhaps your mileage may vary on what constitutes a homophobe these days, but I honestly do not think she qualifies.

Ultimately though, you can believe whoever you want to believe. I am just saying what I think is true, deduced from my interactions with Joye and my perusal of the ex-friend's blog. I can take pictures of my conversations with her if anyone needs proof of what I'm saying.

If the ex-friend or any of her supporters see this post, I want them to know this: I don't want a fight. And neither does Joye. Virtually everyone's mentally ill or mentally disabled here on Tumblr, and I can safely say that most bloggers don't want the added stress of getting involved in a big argument, which may be why Joye is currently offline.

There's enough problems with harassment in the Entrapdak community without there being in-fighting amongst the fans of She Ra villains. Joye is a good friend and I want her back on this site. I would also like her ex-friend to reconcile with her, but I don't know how possible that is.

Anyone who is a friend of Joye or thinks I'm telling the truth, please use the hashtag "#we support joye"

Thank you for reading!

[theowlandthekey]

We Don’t Need Covens: In This Essay I Will...

I'm a big fan of Sarah Anne Lawless. I never got the opportunity to speak with her personally, but for those of you who've been around long enough, you likely know about her blog discussing traditional witchcraft and her shop. I often found her posts to be inspirational, providing a unique clarity on subjects that most books skip over. To this day her belladonna ointment is one of the few things that can make my wife's back spasms stop.

Unfortunately both her blog and her shop have closed up. All I can find are interviews with her. In a very broad sense, Lawless came out about abuse and manipulation within the pagan community. She named names and instead of addressing the problems and having an open discussion about it, she was harassed until she backed off.

It upset me at the time in a very distant sense. As I said I never knew her, but I admired her passion and the certainty with which she practiced her craft. Though it's now long after the fact, I finally think I have the ability to put my thoughts into words.

We don't need covens. We never did.

I've been practicing off and on for about fifteen years or so. I've played around with different methods of witchcraft, wicca, and pagan worship. I've been the member of a druid grove, a loose coven association, and even a few on-line groups that claim to do all their spell casting via chat. In the end, I've found them all to be much the same. They promise a great deal and frankly fall short of everything from education to community.

I'm likely going to upset quite a few people with this statement. That's fine. You shouldn't trust anybody who thinks they can tell you your business. But for what it's worth, take a moment to read this over. If something here strikes you as familiar, it might be time to consider another path.

IQuick Note: I know there is a lot of grey area as to what could be considered a witch. You have pagans, heathens, wiccans and the like. Some are comfortable being called witches while others are not. But the connotation changes depending upon each individuals definition. So let's look at witches as people who, for whatever reason, have decided to intentionally avoid Christianity in favor of practicing a personal path of self-realization and independence involving magic, spells, enchantments and the like.

Cult Mentality

First thing you ought to consider is the potential for manipulation and control that exists in any group. This is especially true whenever matters of religion and faith are concerned. It's a touchy subject, no doubt. People are particular about religious practices. For my part, I maintain that witchcraft isn't a religion or a faith. It's a craft. But that doesn't change the fact that people will use religion as a method for controlling others. Especially others who are hungry to fit in with a group that they feel represents them. For this very reason, I firmly believe that witches should avoid becoming a congregation of any kind. Too many of us think of witchcraft as a religion, and while you can play pretend all you like most of us were raised Christian and still have difficulty shaking off the mimicry of organized religion. Our power is in our independence and our ability to think for ourselves, and it becomes much more difficult to do this when you form yourselves into a coven.

Respect My Authority

On that note, you can't form a group without some kind of a hierarchy making itself apparent. I have a strong distaste for covens who create arbitrary titles. They're largely meaningless. You don't really need a high priestess or an archdruid to go around wearing robes with more trim than everybody else. It's just an excuse for someone to hold themselves higher and make decisions without consulting anyone. You'll often find that people who hold these kinds of titles become very upset when someone disagrees with them and find ways to flex their authority in a 'funny' or 'joking' way. Basically telling others that if you disagree with them then you don't need to be there. This comes off especially hard on people who may be new to the craft and are still seeking approval.

Calling Ourselves Out

As sexual abuse allegations are on the rise, we have a duty to be aware of people within our community who put others in danger. We have heard it said that 'while not all priests are abusers, abusers tend to gravitate towards positions of authority'. This is no less true just because those leaders are witches and not priests. You don't get a Free Pass. Covens and groves all seem to want that central authority figure to which they can turn to. We tend to protect them because these people act as a spokesperson for us as a whole. But this does not mean they should be protected if they behave reprehensibly! They are not above the law and if we really want to present ourselves as being different from Christians, we should take a stance of pushing out people who are abusers and manipulators.

But here's the thing. We seem to have this self-righteous indignation that comes with being witches and pagans. Any questioning or perceived threats, especially ones that come from outside the community, are deemed as being biased because of Christian society. While this isn't entirely untrue, it also has a problematic effect on us wearing a permanent set of rose-tinted glasses whenever we look at the pagan community and it's 'stars'. Instead of seeing them as human beings with flaws, we view them as celebrities. We avoid using critical thinking skills when someone in the community comes up against criticism and it can end up damaging our reputation as a whole.

Witch n’ Bitch

While this is one of the most obvious issues with modern witchcraft groups, it is far from the bottom of the cauldron. While many groups come together promising to provide resources for education, help learning rituals and practices, and open discussions, I find that very few of them ever deliver on these promises. I've joined more than a few witchcraft 'study groups' only to have them disband after a few sessions for one reason or another. Others have sessions which quickly get derailed from methods and history into a bitching session about over covens, daily drama, or the like. Instead of helping interested parties by providing resources and discussion, it basically becomes a witches tea party. Brooms are snatched.

Exclusion By Design

Something else I want to bring up is the exclusion by design if not by intention concept that plagues covens. I have seen this manifest in more ways then I can count. Most typically it crops up in the form of “you're not experienced enough in our particular tradition”. However, I've noticed a lot of problems with most pagan groups being painfully white. The excuse is that this makes sense because most witchcraft traditions are European. However, that doesn't seem to stop most witches from liberally grabbing whatever non-European cultural paraphernalia they feel fits their witchy aesthetic. The most notable victims being the American Indians, the Voodoo/Santeria practitioners, and Mexican folk beliefs. I've been told by several people that this isn't on purpose. It's just how it ended up. But when you have to triple check everybody on a Norse Heathen group chat to be sure none of them have any racist ideology there is an inherent problem with the community which is long overdue for exposure.

Queer Craft

I’d like to bring up the patriarchal and hetero-normative slant that is heavily enforced in modern witchcraft and neopaganism. I want to preface this by saying that when I think of a witch, I think of a woman who lives apart from societal norms. She is autonomous. She is self-aware. She is unruffled by others perceptions of her. This is what makes her a force to be reckoned with. Yet much of wicca and neopaganism strives to enforce a very heteronormative perception of a woman's role in society by establishing the narrative of the Maiden/Mother/Crone archetype. While there is beauty in each of these phases of life and there is nothing wrong with a woman finding power in them for herself, enforcing them as a role model for what a woman should be has dangerous implications. A woman must be a virgin, reproductive, or too old to bother with. And it should come as no surprise that concepts have no real male counterpart.

This becomes an even bigger problem as we look forward to a more inclusive world where we are learning to recognize a larger spectrum of gender and sexuality. Where does the Queer witch fit in with these very narrow perceptions of the divine within the self? The pagan community loves to talk about itself as an accepting and open community that embraces all sexualities openly. But that isn't very well reflected in its liturgy and conception. I don't think this gets discussed much because people have heralded the God/Goddess, Horned God/Earth Goddess format for so long that we take it for granted despite these perceptions being relatively modern ones. While there are some traditions which put emphasis on the Queer spectrum and embracing it as a source of power and self-realization, they are few and far between.

Psudo Ethics

The final thing I want to bring up is the irritating moral high-ground that people in the pagan community are so willing to put forth any time we are questioned about our beliefs. It is just as irritating if not more so than listening to Christians proselytize. The Wiccan Rede has held a position for a long time as a general set of standards for what witches and wiccans should consider before acting or casting spells. However, I'm pleasantly surprised to see more of a discussion happening on morality in witchcraft. We don't exist to turn the other cheek. While I'm not a believer in the 'strike first' policy, I am a believer in defending myself when attacked.

I see a lot of judgment happening in the wiccan community, especially now that witchery is in the forefront of social media. People poking their noses into how others practice and deciding to take it upon themselves to 'correct' how another practitioner does their work. I understand why some people want to pursue a more positive and affirming lifestyle through wiccan practices. There is nothing wrong with that. But I confess myself irritated when I'm chided by other witches for casting a curse or have a discussion with a demon. My prerogatives are not your moral imperative, nor are any other witches. So long as my actions are not directed against you, it isn't any of your business what I get up to.

In Conclusion

Ironically, one of the biggest issue with discussing if not resolving many of these issues is that we, as witches/pagans and the like, are NOT a unified group. We are a loose collective. We don't have one central figure who decides doctrine. We don't have any of those things that make for dogma. The fact that we can choose to act independently of one another is a big part of our power. It emboldens us to think for ourselves, question tradition, and seek out new methods and practices which are better suited to our needs. Witchcraft does not begin and end with the anathema and the chalice. We can choose to both acknowledge the gods without permitting them too much influence over our lives. We can dance naked under the full moon while enticing a demon or just make a hot cup of tea while we listen to the rain and meditate. All of this is within our grasp.

But before we can practice together, we have to learn how to function together. And right now I don't' see a great deal of that happening. I believe that by learning how to be ourselves first, by practicing as solitary and independent witches before seeing out a group, we can be more confident overall. After fifteen years of practicing, I can tell you truthfully that I haven't learned anything in a group that I couldn't have learned by studying and practicing on my own. Mostly because 90% of the groups out there read the same damned books I do and are more into repetitive ritual than anything else. I would have loved to work with someone like Sarah Anne Lawless, even just to attend a few workshops led by her. Until we can learn to be better individuals as witches first, I don't know if our community can be better together.

[essenceoffilm]

Foreigner Himself

Nicholas Ray is a filmmaker who is celebrated as the poet of lonely souls. His films portray people who feel displaced and estranged even on fairly familiar ground. “I’m a stranger here myself,” says a character from what must be the most unique western ever made. All of Ray’s characters are kindred spirits to that one in Johnny Guitar (1954). They are homeless -- in the less urgent meaning of the word. These existentialist themes of solitude and alienation were not uncommon for Ray’s generation of American directors, who had their breakthroughs right before the invasion of television during the late 1940′s and the early 1950′s, but no one tackled them with the cinematically energetic sense of existential malaise as Ray did. To the new generation of young French film critics, primarily in the 1951 founded film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, these fresh American directors with their quickly produced B films exemplified novel individuality, stylistic personality, and poignant critiques of the American society. All the young American directors were rising poets to them. But Ray was their darling. Above all, it was Ray who represented the individual who could find a place for his own original expression in the Hollywood studio system. His films of the 50′s, such as In a Lonely Place (1950), On Dangerous Ground (1951), and Rebel without a Cause (1955), were fierce, distinctive, poetic, and full of cinematic energy. Classical virtues of coherence were secondary to the young Turks of Cahiers; to them, a film with even a few shots of personality could win over a classically good film of quality that had no personality to it -- that lacked what some of them called poetic intuition. Ray was the embodiment of such cinematic poetry. To Jean-Luc Godard, as he famously wrote in a review of Ray’s Bitter Victory (1957), Ray’s name was simply synonymous with the seventh art. 

Like his peers -- as well as other Hollywood directors -- Ray eventually succumbed to the big studio system, as that seemingly eternal giant was taking its last breaths, by making big-budget spectacles at the end of his career. After his fairly successful Biblical epic King of Kings (1961), Ray made another historical spectacle for producer Samuel Bronston. Unlike its predecessor, however, 55 Days at Peking (1963) bombed at the box office and had a negative critical reception. While many of the generic films of this transitional era -- such as Ben Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), and Cleopatra (1963) -- were not very good in any artistic sense, they usually made a lot of money. The financial and artistic disappointment of 55 Days at Peking must thus have been even more tragic for Ray as the film that practically ended his career [1]. In a strange way, nevertheless, it feels like a very appropriate end for Ray’s time in Hollywood’s limelight of outsiders. 

A Ray Story

55 Days at Peking takes its title from Noel Gerson’s novel of the same name which concerns the actual 55-day-long Siege of the International Legations, a climactic event during the Boxer Rebellion in China, which The Sun called “the most exciting episode ever known to civilization” [2]. The Boxers were Chinese nationalists who opposed foreign forces in China. Christianity represented such foreign presence at its most salient. The Boxers performed martial arts in the streets and started to gain big support after famine and anti-imperialist sentiments had begun to spread in the country in the late 19th century, partly due to a humiliating loss in a war to Japan in 1895. The Boxers’ violent attacks on foreigners and Chinese Christians reached a peak in the summer of 1900 when they forced some of them into a siege for 55 days. On August 14th, the siege ended in the foreign victory of the Eight-Nation Alliance (consisting of countries that were to tear each other apart in the following two world wars!). A year or so later, the Boxer Rebellion came to an end. It was the loss of the Boxers in the Siege of the International Legations, however, that had sown the seeds for the downfall of the Qing Dynasty, which fatally took the side of the Boxers in the conflict and was finished itself a decade later as China became a republic in 1912. 

The fact that the historic event has been pompously called “the most exciting episode ever known to civilization” should have already sparked the interest of more than a couple Hollywood producers (there’s a tagline ready to be printed), but it has surprisingly been filmed very rarely on screen. And for some reason this catchphrase did not catch the attention of the film’s advertisers -- which strikes me as odd for the simple reason that back then they used anything as a selling tagline. Reasons are probably plentiful, but what is more interesting in this context is that the story of the Boxer Rebellion from an Anglo-American perspective sounds perfect for a director like Ray. Although 55 Days at Peking represents Ray’s artistic downfall, which was less than just metaphoric as he collapsed during production due to his declining health, it does exemplify the main themes of Ray’s cinema -- or Ray as cinema -- and Ray finding his own place somewhere else. Rather than picking up the many problems in the film, which I will bring up later, I would like to linger on appreciating this suitability of the story for Ray that is not all unambiguous and, as far as I know, has rarely been recognized by people writing on the film. What I wish to point out is that even though the genre (historical spectacle) and the subject matter (the Boxer Rebellion or, more generally, Chinese history) are foreign to Ray’s cinema, the core of the story (an American individual feeling not-at-home) and some of the film’s stylistic aspects ring true to what we could call, in the spirit of the young French critics, Ray’s poetic intuition. 

55 Days at Peking centers around an American major, Matt Lewis (played by the biggest star of the Hollywood historical spectacle, Charlton Heston), who knows the local ways of Beijing. He is introduced to us as the leader of the US military garrison filled with young blood to whom he tells that they should not think any less of the Chinese just because the Chinese do not speak English -- and proceeds to arrogantly teach them the only Chinese words they’ll need, “yes” and “no,” because everything is for bargain and nothing is free. Arriving at his hotel, Lewis meets what will turn into his love interest, a Russian Baronness Natasha Ivanoff (played by Ava Gardner), who seems like an abandoned character from a Tolstoy novel. She wants to leave China but cannot because her visa has been revoked by the brother of her late husband who, as it is later revealed, committed suicide due to Natasha’s extra-marital affair with a Chinese officer. The dire situation in Beijing turns worse when the Chinese Empress of the Qinq dynasty decides to take the side of the Boxers in the heated political climate. As the siege begins, Natasha and Lewis find themselves trapped in a foreign country. Lewis gets help from a British officer, Sir Arthur Robinson (played by David Niven) with whom he blows up a Chinese ammunition warehouse. In the final act of the film, Lewis needs to leave Beijing to deliver a message to nearby Allied forces in order to put an end to the siege. While he is gone, Natasha sells a valuable necklace of hers, which would provide an ace against her brother-in-law, to acquire food and medical supplies for the wounded westerners and Chinese Christians. Her material sacrifice is elevated by a spiritual one since she dies in the process of providing help to those who need it. Lewis’ message reaches the Allied troops, but he will not be reunited with his love. Shortly after his return, the Allied troops arrive and put an end to the siege. 

Cut Loose

Despite the many shortcomings of the film, which I will dissect in a moment, the heart of this story is Lewis’ experience -- which also ties it to Ray’s cinema. Granted, it is hard to see this if one looks at 55 Days at Peking as an individual film or in the context of other Hollywood spectacles from the late 50′s and the early 60′s. Viewed in the context of Ray’s oeuvre, however, 55 Days at Peking looks less like a failed portrayal of the Boxer Rebellion and more like a big (if not entirely successful) tale of alienation. Thus, from an auteurist perspective, the film opens up as a story about Lewis’ sense of homelessness in a foreign environment that is growing more hostile toward him.

All of Ray’s films depict individuals who are tormented by a sense of homelessness. They of course experience it even in their domestic environments. The famous line cited above from Johnny Guitar is the most well-known example. The title of In a Lonely Place says it all as it is a portrayal of people in Hollywood. The theme is also articulated quite concretely in Ray’s films that involve characters moving to another place, though still within America. In On Dangerous Ground, a tough cop must move elsewhere to find home. In Rebel without a Cause, a teenager’s loss of direction is aggravated by his family moving to a new town. As far as I know, 55 Days at Peking is Ray’s only film in which the central character resides in a country other than the States. Lewis’ sense of homelessness, innate to him as a character in the Ray universe, is only heightened by such displacement. Making matters worse for his implicit malaise, which remains unaddressed at the level of the film’s dialogue, one might say, the social atmosphere starts boiling up. It is during the hottest months of the Boxer Rebellion that the sweats of his homelessness come to the surface. And this is essentially what happens to Ray’s characters in his other films as well, though in a less grandiose scheme. 

55 Days at Peking begins with a sequence in the Forbidden City where an execution of a Chinese general is about to happen because the general, part of the Chinese army, has been shooting the Boxers. One of the leading figures in the army, Jung-Lu arrives to call off the execution. He asks the Empress to take his life instead of the general’s because it was he who gave the command to shoot the Boxers. “They were burning Christian missions, killing foreigners,” Jung-Lu pleads in an effort to justify his command. The Empress declines his offer, listening rather to an ancient prediction in a fatal mistake of taking the side of the Boxers. As a smug smile raises on the Empress’ face, the sequence concludes with a brief and surprising low-angle shot of the executioner swinging his sword from the top frame to the low frame, implying the off-screen cut of the Chinese general’s neck. As the sword falls to the low frame of the shot, however, there is -- in a stroke of visual genius -- a cut to a medium close-up of Heston as Lewis. A clever way to end the first sequence and tie it in with the next, this transition is the best cut in the whole film. More than an energetic beginning for what turns out to be a mediocre story, the cut also has a thematic dimension. 

In order to appreciate all of this, let us take a moment to remind ourselves that Ray is often celebrated as one of the great visionaries of the CinemaScope format. Already his Rebel without a Cause brought new sensitivity and intimacy to the newly invented (in 1953) wide aspect ratio that enhances horizontal compositions in a way that is usually just for “snakes and funerals,” as Fritz Lang cunningly puts it in Godard’s Contempt (1963, Le mépris). The width of ratio tends to encourage directors to cut less and use larger shot scales, but Ray combines the wide aspect ratio with close-ups and a faster editing rhythm in Rebel without a Cause -- which is, in my view, alongside Max Ophüls’ Lola Montès (1955), the best CinemaScope film. The introduction of Heston as Lewis in 55 Days at Peking bears resemblances to this. The shot of the executioner swinging his sword is extremely brief (barely a second), but it lies in between of two shots that are longer in duration: the medium close-up of the Empress indulging in her fatal decision is four seconds, the medium close-up of Lewis is seven seconds. The brief shot in between creates an abrupt, surprising sense of acceleration in the film’s editing rhythm, which is calmer in the rest of the film. It makes the visual transition from the Empress to Lewis feel quick, abrupt, out of the blue. Such editing is not considered the done thing when it comes to the use of the CinemaScope aspect ratio. Nor is the use of close-ups. But Ray creates a language of his own out of all of this. It’s a minor detail, you might say, but it’s really one of those small wonderful things that remind you that you are indeed watching a Hollywood spectacle by a real auteur rather than an anonymous factory. I think the cut is definitely worthy of more attention.

The cut from the Empress to the executioner or the cut from the executioner to Lewis is not a match cut; yet it is a match cut of sorts. A match cut in the traditional sense is a cut between two shots that share a visual correspondence: a similar object lies within the same area in their distinct screen spaces (the most famous example being the match cut from the extinguishing match to a setting sun in Lawrence of Arabia, 1962, another CinemaScope spectacle from the same time). While the shot of the executioner lacks direct visual correspondence with either the shot that precedes it (the medium close-up of the Empress) or the shot that follows it (the medium close-up of Lewis), there is not just a match between the two medium close-ups separated by the shot of the executioner but there is also a less visual and a more mental equivalence between the shots due to the cutting. 

The equivalence comes from the idea of cutting. The executioner is a character who cuts necks and hence his position in the brief shot that mediates two longer shots is a clever idea in itself. The movement of his sword serves as a ticking clock for the shot’s duration. Thus it wires a tension and creates a visual conflict, which will turn into a dramatic one in the film, between the Empress (or the Qing dynasty in general) and Lewis (or the foreigners in general). The cut is also associated with the political act that already happens now in the Empress’ decision to continue with the execution even though she will make this decision more explicitly later in the film: to take the side of the Boxers. It is the act of cutting ties to the foreigners. After all, the execution takes place because Chinese generals have been shooting the Boxers who have been killing foreigners. This is the main thematic function of this cut. When put in words, it might start to sound too much on-the-nose. But when seen in the film, it is implicit and subtle. 

There is yet another function, however, though it is a far subtler one. The shot of Lewis is in the scale of medium close-up (from the clavicle upward), but since Lewis’ head is moving vertically within the confines of the frame (horizontally his head stays put due to the synchronized movement of the tracking camera), the shot also has this strange framing where Lewis’ head lies in the very lowest area of the screen space, the rest of his body cropped off (including his neck and clavicle), with some superfluous empty space above and around his head. The cut to the next shot, a long shot of Lewis with his military garrison, introducing him like a character from a Fordian cavalry western, affirms that this movement is due to horse-riding, but taken in isolation, there is this strange visual movement of the head in space. Granted, the spectator does not experience the movement of the dislocated head as strange because they are used to associate such movement as well as the character’s attire with riding a horse (a call-back to cavalry westerns). However, since the brief shot in between has created this sense of not only acceleration but also haste, the shot of a head in space does catch one a bit off guard. It is the first shot of one of the film’s main characters after the 14-minute opening sequence. It is crucial that this shot in particular introduces the protagonist of the film. It’s a very Ray-esque shot: a lone man being nowhere. The sense of visual strangeness, visual unheimlich, if you will, in the shot is later heightened by the fact that the spectator learns that Lewis is indeed a resident in a foreign country where he does not belong. This obviously plays a part already in creating this initial visual strangeness because we are transformed, via the cut, from the Forbidden City of Beijing to a lone man straight from a cavalry western in anonymous space. There are Chinese buildings in the background, but their cultural architecture is hardly recognizable. They are just buildings that are in contrast to Lewis’ clothing and being, his whole habitus. He is homeless, cut away, floating in air. He is, to paraphrase Johnny Guitar, a stranger here himself -- even though he teaches crude lessons to his soldiers about China. 

The theme of home is thus articulated visually before it grows out from the narrative. On the narrative level, the theme is treated by Lewis’ relationships to the other characters, primarily to two female characters. 

One of the chief dramatic motifs for the theme of Lewis’ alienation (or his sense of unheimlich, not-being-at-home) is a young Chinese-American girl. She is the daughter of one of Lewis’ soldiers who has had a love affair with a Chinese woman, but the woman has been killed. In the beginning, the soldier asks Lewis for advice with regard to the girl: should he take her back home to the United States or leave her in China as an orphan? Lewis replies cynically that the girl should definitely be left in China because back home she would be “treated like a freak,” while here “she’ll be among her own kind.” Putting aside the character’s racism for a moment (after all, the girl is also half-American), Lewis’ cynicism, I believe, exemplifies his attitude toward himself more than toward anyone else. He himself feels like a freak, a creature hanging in mid-air, cut loose from the homestead. When the girl’s father dies in action during the siege, Lewis must confront his cynicism or self-loathe as he has to inform the girl of her father’s passing. After a series of attempted evasions of duty, Lewis goes to the Christian mission to talk with the girl. He manages to imply the truth, but is unable to say it up front. He asks help from the Christian minister there who tells him that all men are fathers to all children, but one can believe this only if one feels that way about the world. On a wider scale, the minister is speaking for a non-cynical attitude toward the world. After the siege has ended, Arthur (the Niven character) tells Lewis that now he will leave China and go live “every Englishman’s dream” with a family, a few books, and a dog in the countryside. Nothing less cynical than that. He then inquires about Lewis’ future plans.

Arthur: “What about you? What’s home to you?”

Lewis (laughing): “I don’t know... I have to make one yet.”

In the final scene, as he is once again riding on a horse, going away from his non-home, he picks up the young Chinese-American girl from the crowd. Although his change of heart is motivated by the character’s arc throughout the narrative, there is a similar feeling of haste to this decision as there is to the abrupt cut in the beginning. There is optimism in the end, but also, within the context of Ray’s whole oeuvre, the film’s ending seems too good to be true.

Another important element for Lewis’ character development and the theme of home is his relationship with Baronness Natasha Ivanoff (the Gardner character). It is quite appropriate that Lewis lays eyes on Natasha for the first time while his soldier is telling him about the young Chinese-American girl. He meets her at the hotel where they play a game of sexual innuendo. Soon, a more emotional connection starts to build between them. In the scene where Natasha reveals her past to Lewis (that her husband committed suicide because she was unfaithful to him with a Chinese general), she asks him, connecting their relationship to the young Chinese-American girl, whether the same could not have happened to him: “Couldn’t you have fallen in love with a Chinese girl?” Lewis has no answer, but he kisses Natasha fiercely. It’s an affirmative answer that is obstructed by his cynicism or self-loathe. Although the fact that nobody in this film speaks anything but English might be disorienting, it is true that Natasha is a foreigner not just in China but to Lewis (the American-as-can-be Heston) as well. She’s Russian -- which meant two different things in 1900 and 1963 (and yet again in 2020). Natasha has her own character arc of growing away from selfishness to altruistic self-sacrifice. Thus she further motivates Lewis’ development. In her death, Lewis experiences a loss of love and becomes more aware of his tormenting homelessness, which, in the end, makes her pick up the young Chinese-American girl. Whether it is his new-found altruism or his egoistic fear of loneliness that makes him do this is arguable. Similar ambiguity lies in the emerging sense of responsibility at the end of Rebel without a Cause as a fellow young man’s death shakes something up in the torn-apart protagonist. 

A Triumph (of sorts) in Weakness

Unfortunately, it’s precisely these two major sub-plots (Lewis’ relationships to the young Chinese-American girl and the Russian woman, Natasha) that are the biggest weaknesses of the film. This is unfortunate because, when it comes to narration, these are the main aspects in which Ray deals with the leading theme of homelessness in the film. It is true, of course, that the character of Arthur (played by Niven) is also important: he represents the happy home life that Lewis lacks, while Natasha and the young Chinese-American girl represent possibilities of acquiring it. But the slightly better quality of his character does not excuse the lowbrow characterizations of the two female characters. 

First, the young Chinese-American girl is a mere stock character -- less from a Dickensian story and more from mediocre melodrama. Her character is reduced to a sentimental tear-jerker. What makes this worse is not just the film’s duration, which would definitely allow deeper characterization for her, but also its implicit racism that is evident in its reliance on white Hollywood actors playing the Chinese in “yellow face.” While far from the outrageous in-your-face racism of Mickey Rooney’s performance in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), this convention of playing Asian characters in “yellow face” just heightens the superficiality of the Chinese characters. It’s also worth pointing out the confusion that stems from this convention. At times, it takes time to realize that a character is indeed supposed to be a Chinese character. When everybody speaks English and looks like someone from London or Los Angeles, it’s hard to tell. All I know is that Jung-Lu (played by Leo Genn) definitely does not look like a Beijing local. Although the young Chinese-American girl does not generate such immediate difficulties in recognition, this background makes the character’s superficiality feel more poignant. She’s nothing but a visual figure -- with a few terribly written lines. On the other hand, there is an argument to be made that she has no other purpose for the film’s narrative -- which is, of course, precisely the problem for some. In this sense, she’s like Natalie Wood’s character in Ford’s The Searchers (1956) who the film’s protagonist, played by John Wayne, first despises but then suddenly embraces. Wood’s character is certainly not a very complex one, but she never feels like a mere tear-jerker either, whereas the young Chinese-American girl definitely does. And that’s essentially the problem here. Since 55 Days at Peking, seen from an auteurist perspective, should not be received as a story of the Boxer Rebellion but as part of Ray’s cinematic oeuvre of tortured and alienated American men, it is less problematic (at least in my opinion) when characters serve only narrative functions for those lonely souls. What remains problematic, when it comes to the aesthetic quality of the film, however, is the childish sentimentality with which the character is constructed. 

Something similar goes for Natasha. Gardner is a good actor, but here she is at her weakest. It’s almost like Heston brought out the worst in her. For they were destined to fumble around a decade later in the ludicrously bad disaster film Earthquake (1974). While there is sexual tension between the two from the first scene that introduces them, as Natasha first makes fun of Lewis’ attempts of picking her up but then agrees to share the room with him, it’s a little difficult to buy the love that grows between them quite rapidly. There is a dance sequence -- that must forever exist in the shadows of Visconti’s The Leopard (1963, Il gattopardo) from the same year -- but the love still feels unearned, nevertheless. The scene where the two finally kiss, after Natasha has shared her history of infidelity with Lewis, comes particularly out of nowhere. Making matters worse, the scene ends really abruptly. The kiss has this long set-up with Natasha’s brother-in-law and the lingering disclosure of truth, but then the scene suddenly ends with a quick kiss that transports us to a completely different scene. There is no mediator, just a straight cut. It feels like someone just had to shorten the film and took out the remaining 10-20 seconds of the scene in the last minutes before the film’s release. “Okay, they kissed, let’s move on!” Strangely enough, Natasha is involved in the film’s other terrible cut: a quick pan that turns into a cut when the camera shifts from Arthur mourning his son’s serious injury to Natasha taking care of a wounded man. Let alone the fact that quick pans are not considered the done thing with CinemaScope (and for good reason), it’s quite astonishing how badly this stylistic device fits with the rest of the film with regard to camera movement and rhythm in general. There is no other shot like it in the film. And its distinctive singularity is not of the good kind. There is no raison d’être for it.

Despite these awkward characterizations and stylistic details, there is a sense of Ray’s artistic presence in this film. Ray is known as a director who sometimes did not oversee his projects to the finish line, and, given the fact that he had to stop working due to a collapse on set during production, it is hard to tell which aspects of 55 Days at Peking really come from him. At the very least, however, one can say that the theme of homelessness that is first articulated by cinematic means in the form of a match cut of sorts and then by narrative techniques (albeit poorly executed ones) fits with the rest of Ray’s oeuvre. Even if the narrative techniques with the young Chinese-American girl and Natasha lacked quality, there is something earnest in the portrayal of Lewis’ relationships to them. After all, the point of the film is not to tell this great love story between an American and a Russian nor a story where a lone man grows into a father figure for an orphan. The Russian woman and the Chinese-American girl are there just to bring about something in the protagonist who is the film’s focus. Through them, the film articulates Lewis’ sense of homelessness. In this sense, the unearned love between Lewis and Natasha feels less like a poor version of a great love story and more like an apt portrayal of feelings that are motivated by the characters’ self-loathe and disappointments. Perhaps it’s the kind of infatuation that one wishes to be love even when it is not. It’s the wish-fulfillment fantasy where reality is romanticized -- ideas of love pasted on sore wounds. This can be seen in the scene where Lewis and Natasha meet for the last time. Natasha must cut their meeting short because the doctor needs her medical assistance. Lewis waits in the corner as she does her duty. She comes back and they share this brief impassioned moment. In this scene, Ray’s sense of mise-en-scène is as good as it gets in this film. The quicker cutting separates the two, and the strong contrasts of shadows in the space exhale a sense of death above them. We know that this will not last -- and we seem to share the characters’ implicit epiphany that maybe it even should not. When Arthur expresses his condolences to Lewis’ loss, Lewis’ indifferent shrug is simultaneously repressive and honest. 

It’s this aspect of idealized love in a reality that lacks it and alienation in a hostile environment that make 55 Days at Peking an interesting film. At its heart, it is a story about abandoned alienated people trying in vain to find each other, which casts a shadow of doubt above the happy ending. These aspects also make it a Ray film. Its cinematic energy, evident in the match cut of sorts, comes from the poetic place of Hollywood that made the young French critics of the 50′s fall in love with the dream factory. While one senses the presence of such fire, one also senses powers constantly putting it down. There’s this strange co-existence of different ideas and forces pulling to the opposite directions in the film. Although 55 Days at Peking is, I believe, best appreciated from an auteurist perspective as a tale of alienation (as a story about Lewis’ experience of homelessness in a foreign environment) and not as a historical story about the Boxer Rebellion, it has two scenes, one in the beginning and one in the end, which try to make it precisely into something like that. During the opening sequence, before the one in the Forbidden City, the camera on a crane descends before two elderly Chinese men. One complains about the noise surrounding them: “What is this terrible noise?” The other responds: “Different nations saying the same thing at the same time, ‘We want China!’” The scene is cheesy, but, more importantly, unnecessary and unfitting for the whole of the film. In the final sequence, there is a similarly awkward brief scene of the Empress repeating the words “the dynasty is finished” in the Forbidden City. The Boxer Rebellion provides a great historical background for Ray’s story about alienation, but the film has really nothing to say about that historical event -- nor should it. In these two scenes, however, the film seems to think not only that it should have something to say about it but also, and more embarrassingly, that it actually does have something to say about it. These two scenes perfectly exemplify the film’s confusion over its own identity which might, in fact, be the most appropriate (albeit tragic) way to end Ray’s career in Hollywood where he was constantly trying to find his own voice, his own sense of home, surrounded by forces that felt foreign to him. 

Notes:

[1] Although Ray still made two films afterwards, We Can’t Go Home Again (1973) and Lightning Over Water (1980), his poor health did not allow him to be responsible for them as the primary director. He made We Can’t Go Home Again with his students and Lightning Over Water is more a film by Wim Wenders than it is by Ray. At the very least, 55 Days at Peking is Ray’s last film made in Hollywood -- in the world that made him who he is as an artist. 

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_the_International_Legations

[kevkesblog]

Julian Brandt Interview (January 2019)  about the first game of the year, Peter Bosz and Social media.

This was recorded after the first game of Peter Bosz and the first game of the year which Leverkusen lost against Borussia Mönchengladbach (0-1).

I apologize for spelling or typing errors!

Video 1 – Julian about the Mönchengladbach game (19 January 2019)

http://www.spox.com/de/sport/fussball/bundesliga/1901/Artikel/julian-brandt-von-bayer-leverkusen-man-kann-immer-mit-uns-rechnen.html

 J: „I do think we played a good game – we tried to put pressure on our opponents. I think it was clearly visible. Of course everyone now says „the game was a step backwards“. Thats true in terms of the result [0-1 loss]. 

The critics are right in that regard. We played against a very good team thats on third place in the Bundesliga – rightfully so! They play fantasic football. Yet I think people were able to see that we had good moments we able to contain Gladbach. So yeah… the score is what counts – thats true. It was a pity we didn’t win. But it was a good game personally for us, after two weeks training.

We didn’t set ourselves new goals in the looker room after the game. But I can speak for myself: independently from the first half of the season and the first game of this year – we still have sixteen games ahead of us. And there is so much room to manoveur and so many things can happen in the standings of the Bundesliga. And we will always keep our eye on our goal as long as the Champions League or Europa League is in our reach. Seven points is a lot to get there from where we are now – but everything is possible. In the end you have to see where we will finish. Winning sixteen games in a row is… well, it is possible [laughs]… yet the likelihood is very slim. But if we are on a roll people can always count on us.“

Video 2 – Julian about Bayers new coach Peter Bosz

J: I can’t go much into details and discuss everything. But, yes he wants to put his mark on the team. Sure every coach stands for something. And he tried to get his new system into your minds as quick as possible. I think he achieved that. I think everyone likes to see attacking football which something we have shown everyone with the chances we created. Unfortunately not with goals. But at least we got some chances. Other than that, sure: always attacking, lot’s of pressing and ball possession – trying to control the opponent. That’s the kind of philosophy he is teaching us. And everything will work out more and more over the coming weeks I’m sure.

 [Julian being asked about the differences between Heiko Herrlich and Peter Bosz]

 J: I think both are very quiet people. Very factual. They are not people who used to „explode“ – I have never seen this with Heiko and not with Peter over the past two weeks as well – yet (laughs). Always analyzing. Our new coach is very detailed. He pays attention even to small things – thats something you notice. For example if you play the ball to the wrong foot of someone else during training sessions. The Dutch are always very tacial and detailed in term of football. Thats something you were able to notice instantly. I think the work he has done here so far is excellent. He also has very good guys in his training staff that fit into our team and the club as well. There is a lot of harmony here now. And I think we are on a good way with the team. All we have to do now is to deliver the results.

 [Julian being asked about his new position under Bosz]

I’m a very adaptable person I would say about myself. I played many years as a winger. I had conversations with Peter and Kai, where Peter basically told us his ideas. And it sounded very good at the first moments. I like playing with Kai together in term of our positions on the pitch.

 Of course, you almost play like a defensive midfielder. In terms of the offence you have more possibilties. And since I always felt that this was an interesting position for me I try my best now to fulfill that spot. Whether it’s better for me to play midfield or to play as a winger – I don’t know yet. I have only played that position once thus far. I have to get used to it – because it’s an new situation. Yet it’s not as if I’m „suffering“ playing that position (smirks). I do have fun and I think I can develop properly.“

Video 3 - Julian about social media

https://video.eurosport.de/fussball/bundesliga/2018-2019/julian-brandt-uber-social-media-und-ribery-eklat-internet-ist-gefahrlich_vid1158929/video.shtml

 [Julian being asked why he once said he „hates“ social media]

 J: „Well basically it started once I was asked by an internal club discussion about my attitude towards social media. And because I was really fed up after a game, I said that I „hate“ it – and I said it afterwards in an interview for „Die Mannschaft“ that: „hate“ is a very radical choice of words. It’s not like I „hate“ social media! But I am very careful when it comes to social media. And I’m not that kind of guy who cares or uses it 24/7. But, I am fully aware that it is part of our time and I want to develop alongside with it. And I will. Which is why I’m using those plattforms.

So yeah I do think Christian Streich [Coach SC Freiburg] is right, when he says: well everything is in the outside - the world of the internet.  And people dig it out stuff every once in a while. You can do something that is totally normal or looks innocent today – but in ten years, because circumstances are changing, suddenly it turns into a scandal. And…. Well yeah you really have to say the internet is dangerous in some ways. I do pay attention and I’m very conscious about stuff I do there.“

 [Julian about the Ribery indicent]

 J: This whole Ribery thing is nothing I suddently became afraid of just because I witnessed it. I was always aware that whatever you do – there are people who think its „cool“ or that makes them happy….. or….. that, well they think it’s shit [laughs] and you get some headwinds. Thats something you have be to aware of.

Social media is definitly something that follows you in your daily life. But its fine, as long as you got control over it. And that’s the case with me. Everything is more quiet with me – and controlled. And as long as thats the case, it will always be fine with me, since thats something I can get used to and deal with. However – if it get’s to much, I’m the person that says: „Hey look, thats enough!“ Because thats something, that… well, thats I can’t… [pauses] ehm – it doesn’t work with me. And I dont want to sort of „denegrate“ myself doing social media. Because it’s not worth doing it, if all it does is piling up new problems for me. 

However, if everything runs smooth and good and I can find my way doing it – it‘s fine. And I will contine using those plattforms, as long as everything is under a certain amount of control.

[Julian about interacting with people]

I mean, bascially I try to interact with people or followers – and thats something I don‘t find bad at all. But, you do stuff where you know you won‘t provoke, annoy or anger people. You try not to expose yourself or open yourself for attacks.

But in the end, everybody can do whatever they want.

[wheelygoodteddys]

Should Christians be belittling Islam and Muslims? Is it sculptural?

Let's try to answer that question:

Romans 14:4, NIV: "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand."

In historical context this verse refered to two groups of believers with differing opinions. However, there is also a prophetic, spiritual and a "word of knowledge" reading that can be pulled from scripture. Therefore, do Christians have carte blanche to criticize, ridicule and belittle Islam, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) or the Islamic beliefs of a Muslim?

From this scripture alone, I would say no, yet one scripture only doesn't hold much weight. Therefore, we need supporting scriptures.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 New King James Version (NKJV)

19 "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; 20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; 21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; 22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you."

"Become all things to all men that I may win a few".

To those who are Christian the bible tells you to win them, not alienate them. For those determined to point out the wrongs of Islam to practicing Muslims, this is not your calling on earth. It is very clear that, besides your ministry and gifts to the church, your place in society is to positively deal with those unsaved and of other religions. This is imperative to open hearts rather than close them. A person on the defensive and busy defending their faith will not be open to hearing the gospel. Paul, in his wisdom, realised this and gave a clear example to follow.

In the light of the premise that a life of a Christian, in regard to non-believers, is to "win" and "save": how does attacking another's faith fulfil this life guideline? I hazard to guess that it doesn't.

Yet two scriptures an overwhelming argument does not make!

1 Corinthians 2:1-3 21st Century King James Version (KJ21)

2 "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified".

As this scripture implies, and there are numerous supporting scriptures, Jesus Crucified is the only response of a Christian. To enter into Islamphobic arguments, fighting, accusations, derogatory comments and a belittling of another's faith is not at all scriptural.

Are you still sceptical?

What has Jesus got to say in support of Paul's comment about only preaching Jesus crucified?

John 12:32 King James Version (KJV)

32 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me".

From the words of Jesus, the church has long quoted a conduct of behaviour for Christians in society:

"Lift up Jesus and He will draw all men unto Himself"

I am yet to find support for reviling a person and Jesus will draw that person unto Himself.

Jesus says in John 17:14–19

14 "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth".

May we agree on this scripture and it's meaning!? Jesus wants you in the world, as He was in the world but not of the world?

Therefore, how was Jesus in the world?

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29)

Isaiah 53:7

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth".

KJ21

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves".

Jesus came into the world as a lamb and sends His people out as lambs. He commands them to be wise yet harmless.

How can we relate these verses to trying to make a Muslim feel attacked about their faith; putting them in a position of having to defend it; defend themselves; defend their Prophet; and also answer for political Islamists in their faith: how do these types of encounters conform with Jesus' dealing with people and a command to be harmless?

Jesus is also adamant to not be of this world. Islamic propaganda, redoric, belittling Muslims, attacking their Prophet, trying to prove them wrong, holding up political Islamists as a mirror to them and wanting them to answer for those they can't, is a worldly berating. Something very much of this world and very harmful.

John 8:6

"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” 

Jesus would not throw stones at Muslims and neither should those that profess to be representing Him.

James 3:9

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water".

And again:

Ephesians 4

 29 "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. 30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you".

To attack another's faith in such a way that they need to defend themselves is not edification and does not bring grace to the hearer.

James 4

12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

I hear the screams about false prophets appearing in the last days and preaching the truth.

Exactly, preach the truth in love.

Ephesians 4

15 "But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, evenChrist: 16From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love".

The life lesson is to speak the truth in love to the Body of Christ, to edify and build up. This deals with the manner in which correction should be handled amoung the church members.

There are no such scriptures that talk about correction of sinners. However, surly they need correcting? The correction of the church is a totally different thing to those outside the church.

Correction comes in the form of sharing the gospel.

Speaking the truth to those outside the church is not a correction that puts them in a place of defending an attack, on the contrary, it is to only preach Jesus crucified.

As for the false prophet argument and putting Muslims on the road to heaven by vilifying their faith, this is in no way scriptural.

Ephesians 6:12

Therefore, what does scripture say about fighting faiths that you disagree with?

12"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 15And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace";

Prayer warfare!

Not human warfare!

Christians are not called to wage war against the practicing Muslims of Islam but against principalities, powers of darkness,...

Please assess the way you deal with Muslims and any attack on their core beliefs.

More flies are caught with honey than vinegar.

However, it is much kinder to share your faith than attack another's.