#and they use it as justification for further violence against us

[bad-hair-bad-puns]

“There’s a difference between peace and liberation, is there not? You can have injustice and have peace. You can have peace and be enslaved. So peace isn’t the answer. Liberation is the answer. [‘Yes, of course.’] So that’s what you should talk about, never peace. That’s the white man’s word. ‘Liberation’ is our word. [‘But you seem free at the moment.’] I seem peaceful at the moment.”

- Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) of the Black Panther Party

"B-but Palestinians can get their freedom with peace not violence 🥺🥺" no. Screw your feelings. The armed resistance against colonizers and murderers is what will give Palestinians their freedom and what will eventually achieve real peace.

An enemy that bombs and uses white phosphorus against civilians doesn't know nor practice what your broken moral compass describes as "peace". Freedom was proven throughout history not to be achieved through kneeling and asking the oppressor to kindly stop. Freedom needs to be taken by force. Your little Utopian way of thinking doesn't work in the real world. Your feelings don't matter because you're not the one living under occupation. Your feelings don't matter because you're not one of the thousands of children who lost their limbs. You're not one of the children who became orphans due to this genocide. You're not the mother who lost her child to the carpet bombing. You're not the father carrying the remains of your child in plastic bags. You're not the newlywed woman who lost her husband. You're not the one at risk of either getting killed any second or losing your loved ones in the blink of an eye!

"Peace" is not really a thing you see during a live ethnic cleansing!

[ecoevoexo]

honestly there's a lot to think abt here from legislation targeting trans women (public indecency, solicitation, prurient purposes) to expectations of sexual availability (everything from cis ppl not caring abt consent to GC genital checks) to pressures around presenting in a sexualized or desexualized way--i know a lot of trans women hav trouble navigating this one, bc one wants to feel good about oneself but the moment you dress in a vaguely revealing way its highly sexualized, leading to a whole counter aesthetic of baggy hoodies & flannels & loose pants (an overlap w traumatized cis lesbian aesthetics for sure, but also w sex workers getting off the clock & not wanting to be harassed on the bus ride home).

its hard to discuss this dynamic without erasing or minimizing the further oppression faced by trans women actually engaging in sex work, especially fssw, but it's been something broadly known by most trans women i've talked to about it that we are seen as an identity inherently linked to sex work. for many people the first exposure to trans women is either porn, seeing sex workers on the street, or "dead tranny h**ker" jokes in family guy or whatever. no normie cis person's idea of a trans woman is a virtuous mother, in terms of the madonna/whore complex of patriarchy we are firmly relegated to one side. rather the dynamic is sexual predator / sexual prey, with sexual prey being considered the more virtuous, but both being seen as open for killing.

and in many ways i think it would be fair to see sesta/fosta as the beginning of the legal reaction against trans people in the US. at this point one of the main tactics for controlling trans--and queer in general--content in online and other media is by appealing to its inherently sexual nature. likewise this is used as a justification for all sorts of right-wing amplification of violence, which is very telling given how many right-wing politicians & pundits seek out trans porn & sex workers. just as a man might say "a woman belongs in the kitchen", it's clear a lot of people think "a tranny belongs in the redlight district, and nowhere else!"

[franzkafkagf]

The way Aegon desperately wants to fill the conqueror's armor, even when it's evidently too large for him to fully take up. He looks like a boy slipping into his father's coat, a boy whose idea of his father as this invincible figure, who he can never quite reach, is destined to be popped some way or another.

Aegon isn't the only one who clings to the idea of the conqueror as this ideal. His shadow looms large over all of House Targaryen, this almost mythical figure whose legacy all Targaryen try to claim for themselves. They chase after his ghost, believing that to truly be a Targaryen, one must be like him: ruthless, powerful, and above all, victorious. They forget—or perhaps choose to ignore—that his victories were bathed in blood, that his crown was forged in fire and brutality. His legacy is a cursed throne, a throne that cuts most who sit upon it, a throne that pits people against each other.

Generation after generation, Targaryens name their children are after him. Aegon. A name dripping in history and blood and crushed dreams. They hope that this name will bring with them the strength and glory. A babe born to me, wearing the Conqueror's crown. But these hopes are often dashed. These children are caught in the endless cycle of violence that defines their bloodline. They keep meeting more and more horrific fates—murder, madness, betrayal.

The prophecy that the Conqueror himself used as justification for all the blood he spilt, the prophecy so many Targaryen feel like is theirs to fulfill—the promise of a hero who will save the world—only serves to further the rot. This prophecy, ever so vague and open to interpretation, is a way for them to give purpose to the endless wars and the pain. The Conqueror was no savior; he was a man driven by ambition and thirst for power, a man who saw kingdoms as prizes to be won and people as obstacles to be removed. He was a man who saw himself to be superior to others on the basis of what flowed through his veins.

[steveyockey]

I paid $5 to access séamus malekafzali’s latest substack on palestine, here’s the full text,

It is easy to be lulled into a state of complacency, even with military occupation.

Israel’s occupation of Palestine has gone on longer than many of us on Earth have been alive, now going on 75 years. The levels of that deplacement, blockading, and violence have ebbed and flowed over years and decades, but that hand around the neck has always remained, even if how much it constricts has a tendency to loosen and tighten. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israel this year in its occupation. News bulletins of them dying, oftentimes teenagers, come up through the headlines of Palestinian newspapers and channels as often as the weather. These deaths at the hands of Israeli security personnel are not isolated incidents, with soldiers materializing on roadsides and at checkpoints as unfortunate coincidence. They are constant spikes in the waveform of an incessant low-grade hum of humiliation, imprisonment, and destruction that has made daily life a forced agreement to constantly exist on the precipice of death.

This framing is not meant to be a tired retread of the conflict between Israel and Palestine or the nature of the Israeli occupation. This is meant to be a bulwark against the inevitable framing of this latest battle unfolding around Gaza, as it will appear in the Western media in the days to come.

There is a tendency, a deep-set one, to report Israel and Palestine as two countries that are on roughly the same playing field internationally, as you might report on a war that might involve Israel battling against a place like Jordan or Egypt. This kind of coverage obscures how deeply interlocked Israel’s military operations are with the fabric of the Palestinian society.

In the West Bank, settlements and checkpoints have made Palestinian land into a kind of comical archipelago, where in addition to being separated from Gaza by a huge land border, they are also separated from traveling to communities only a stone’s throw away from them without going through significant anguish. In Gaza, while no Israeli soldiers walk the streets, all their land borders are essentially sealed, their ports almost completely blockaded. Israel’s continued occupation has been so pinpoint and precise that its planes have gone as far as bombing bookstores, and its restrictions did not let up even when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced one health organization to carrying only as many tests of the deadly disease as could fit in a car.

This is not a matter of moral justification; one does not need to constantly busy themselves with having to make a full ideological conversion before understanding this. This is a matter of cause and effect.

What is the logical expectation, regardless of politics, ideology, culture, and creed, when a population of people is thrust into conditions that can only be described as an open-air prison, where every individual is a criminal in the eyes of the military occupying power regardless if they pick up a rifle or not, because there is supposedly always the threat that they will one day?

These are the basic conditions that have preceded the initiation of Operation al-Aqsa Storm this morning. As dawn broke on the morning of October 7, only one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, launched a military operation of unprecedented scope in its history. Hamas fighters would not only attempt to enter Israeli territory proper with ground troops, already in of itself an intensely bold action (though not without precedent in the past decade). This operation would be a combined incursion into Israel by both land, sea, and even air. Ground forces would cut the border fence into settlements surrounding Gaza, speedboats would make landings in southern Israel, and fighters from a newly-inaugurated paraglider division would fly over the border fortifications and then further inland.

Threats of an invasion of Israeli territory proper have been a staple of speeches from Hamas and Hezbollah and groups like it for years. There was a long-standing perception by outside observers that it was fanciful. An intentionally lofty piece of propaganda that fires up supporters while the real military wheeling and dealing is done under far more subtle and controlled terms, as with most militant organizations. After all, no Israeli-administered town, the ones occupied in Palestine during the initial 1948 war, had ever been taken in any war against the Jewish state since its creation, even by a combined force of multiple Arab national militaries.

That notion now can no longer exist.

At sunrise, Hamas fired a gigantic barrage of rockets into Israeli territory, a staggering 5,000 in the first wave alone. As Israeli military and police forces were distracted by fires and rocket destruction in residential areas of the country, Palestinian forces in Gaza proceeded to make their primary move.

After the sun rose, Hamas cut through the border fence surrounding Israel and sent both fighters on foot and on motorcycles into Israel. Images released by the group seem to tell a story in frozen figures. Israeli soldiers, strewn dead, caught by surprise, one having even rushed out so quickly that he put on his military gear but no other clothes except his underwear. An even grimmer story could be found in one of the IDF military dormitories, where an entire room full of soldiers had been massacred, only having perhaps seconds earlier gotten the alarm that Hamas had breached the perimeter, many of them seemingly mid-way through getting out of bed.

From there, Hamas made unprecedented move after unprecedented move. Hamas fighters moved as far north into Zikim, built on the former Palestinian village of Hiribya, and moved as far east as Ofakim, built on the former hamlet of Khirbat Futais. The Erez Crossing, for years the only legal border crossing that Israel operated with the Gaza Strip, came under full Palestinian control. Sderot, a city where Israelis had once gathered on couches dragged to high peaks to watch the bombardment of Palestinians, now found themselves facing down Palestinian fighters in their own streets.

An additional shock would come in Israel’s initial response. Amidst cataclysmic scenes like hundreds of ravers in the desert near Gaza fleeing on foot, neither the Israeli president nor the prime minister spoke in those early hours in the morning.

The Israeli high command, despite the continuous insistence of Palestinian factions that they would one day attempt to take the fight into Israel itself, had become complacent. They, like many observers of Israel-Palestine, believed the occupation they had constructed could go on forever, unburdened by the need to adapt. Israeli soldiers after all were now more used to sniping reporters and unarmed protesters than engaging in military conflict. Entropy was what was propelling the military occupation complex of the Jewish state, not a wholly active effort.

Despite an ungodly amount of Western military equipment, highly advanced anti-aircraft systems programmed to shoot down thousands of rockets, an international reputation for tenacity and strategic knowhow, and multiple victories against Arab nations again and again and again, all of it ended up being useless against a Hamas fighter flying in on a box fan and a parachute.

This failure is two-fold, and both are closely related. One is the expectation that things could go on as before without addressing the root of the issue (that being a military occupation of an entire state), and the other in expectation that those being occupied had no capacity to learn from experience how Israel’s military strategy operates, people who could then going on to capitalize on that knowledge.

There is a fundamental flaw in the perception of Western powers toward the Middle East in general and Arabs in particular that because the groups fighting with Israel or the United States are irregular, bereft of highly professional uniforms and dedicated gigantic military headquarters, that they do not have the same ability to strategize and to confront the forces that are occupying their countries. Flashes of how faulty this thinking is rear their head again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan and everywhere in-between and around, but still the idea, unspoken as it may be, remains that they are fundamentally unequipped compared to the might they are fighting against. But Hamas has military strategists of its own, ones that understand the asymmetric situation they are dealing with, and ones that understand what the actual capabilities of Israel are, versus what their perception is.

The perception of Israel’s invulnerability versus what has actually been displayed today could not have been more different. Instead of being forced to immediately pull back, in essence making today a raid, Hamas has instead actually contested several Israeli settlements, which are still being fought over at time of this writing many hours after the initial incursion from Gaza began. A single Israeli soldier captured and held in Gaza used to capture the Israeli imagination for years; now there are believed to be not only tens of soldiers captured by Hamas, but tens of Israeli civilians as well, all now being held within the Strip. Hamas has also brought Israeli military vehicles back into the Strip, the novelty of working IDF equipment now under Palestinian control a source of celebration within the territory. Over 100 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the first day of Hamas’ attack, and nearly 1000 injured, a shocking early casualty count in an ongoing conflict where casualties on the Palestinians’ side are usually far more lopsided.

Israel’s response so far to Hamas’ operation has been to escalate rhetorically, with Netanyahu now calling this a war, and escalating its usual military strategy with Gaza, with carpet bombing now on an intense, concentrated scale. At the time of this writing, almost 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in only a few hours, with that number expected to rise significantly in the days to come. Already, news has come in of Israeli planes having leveled Gaza’s second-largest building, the Palestine Tower, which housed a plethora of media offices, in scenes reminiscent of Israel’s bombing of another tower block of media offices in 2021 that infamously took out the local bureau of the Associated Press.

As fighting continues into the night in ways never seen before since 1948, the question remains: after all these decades, why now?

The ostensible justifications of what the clincher was that sparked this operation are innumerable, but two appear to be most clearly illuminated: the recent increased activity of far-right Zionists at the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (hence the name of the operation itself), but just as well the indications that the Saudi Arabia and Israel may be close to a normalization deal, which would be the largest such development in the Abraham Accords yet. Hezbollah mentioned this operation as being a “message” and a “decisive response” to Arab nations pursuing the idea of normalization with Israel. Still, it is important to recognize that pinning the undertaking of a completely gigantic operation of this scale as just a simple message to Saudi Arabia would be reductive. As the Los Angeles Times’ international correspondent Nabih Bulos says of the matter:

“To pretend that Hamas did this to be a spoiler of KSA-Israel normalization is just downright epic in its navel-gazing nonsense.”

What is important to always return to is that eternally governing line above everything: the low hum of constant occupation, and who has been causing its spikes. Israel’s government, its most far-right in its history, has been on the warpath almost immediately from its inauguration, with figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, now thrust to the forefront, doing everything large and small to provoke a Palestinian response. The hope is that the inevitable Palestinian response can mobilize the Israeli society, that it can be swiftly defeated by the Israeli military, and that the Israeli state can use such an opportunity to impose its sovereignty over what little of Palestine governed by Palestinians remains, and perhaps even what lies beyond it.

But that formula relies on the Palestinian side only accepting being provoked, themselves having no strategy of their own outside of firing rockets and yelling on television. Military occupation breeds a feeling of annihilation, but that annihilation is enclosed with it inevitable feelings of rabid and desperate hope, inspiring within irregular groups desires to try things never tried before. These are not always guaranteed to be successful: one may look at Aleppo when rebel groups managed to come together and break the siege on the city in the final stages of the battle, only for it to fall in the months to come anyway. Nevertheless, there is a real perception within Israel, communicated out to the world by its media and by its intelligentsia, that it is a nation on the verge of internal collapse, brought to the precipice by far-right forces it has let fester for decades without envisioning its eventual conclusion.

What does looking at how Israel is faring now communicate to Palestinian factions in Gaza? What do young people in Gaza, who make up 47% of the Strip’s population, imagine might lie ahead for them as they see these events unfold? What does a Hamas fighter imagine might be possible when, as the writer Josef Burton says, he exits a 25 by 7-mile space he’s never left in his entire life?

[rescue-ram]

Is Hawkeye a pacifist?

Time for some slightly disorganized musings on the subject

Firstly- Hawkeye never actually calls himself a pacifist. To the best of my knowledge, he's called this twice, once obliquely by Frank ("It's a little late in the war for pacifism, gentlemen.") and once by Charles ("You'd love that, wouldn't you, Mr. Pacifist?"), both times intended as mockery.

Hilariously, Charles comment is preceded by Hawkeye threatening to fight him ("Why don't we settle this outside, man to victim?")

The main things that point to "pacifism" in Hawkeye are his refusal to carry or use a gun, and his hatred of the war

However, his opposition to guns seems more related to personal convictions as a doctor- he's here to help people, not the kill them.

Speaking broadly for a moment, among real life pacifists an important bifurcation is between those who were willing to collaborate with the state/military non-violently (ie as a doctor or medic) and those who opposed military service of any kind and endured imprisonment or execution instead.

One thing I think MASH portrays really well is that non-violent collaboration with the military is not uncomplicatedly morally good; Hawkeye's despairing sarcasm about "being in weapons repair" and his struggle with healing people just to send them back to the front lines to kill or die is pretty well explored. But at the same time, to refuse to cooperate is to let people suffer or die, and Hawkeye can't bring himself to quit- his own morals compel him to keep aiding a system he's appalled by because he's confronted by the harm it's causing.

Additionally, we know Hawkeye is opposed to the suffering and death he sees around him, he doesn't see a point to the conflict, and is opposed to war as a general concept. But most people are opposed to killing on general principle- the question is is there such a thing as a "just war" or is it ever justified to kill someone else. That deeper question is not really explored in the show.

Further, even if we grant that Hawkeye is an unsophisticated pacifist, there's a big difference between being anti-war and being totally ahimsa and opposed to all violence

To the contrary, we see Hawkeye physically attack others, defend himself, be verbally mean, do harm to others (especially in defense of what he sees as a just cause), and sometimes fuck around just for the hell of it.

He doesn't try to persuade soldiers to stop fighting or to defect. He often berates higher ups for the stupidity or pointlessness of the war, but that's not exactly an objection to war itself. He also sometimes praises them, tries to butter them up, plays along, etc.

In conclusion, I don't think Hawkeye is a committed pacifist, I think he's a very committed doctor. In as much as he is a pacifist, it's on a pretty basic level that he (correctly) judges war to be an engine of death and suffering and the Korean War in specific to be causing (much) more harm than good. I don't think he's fundamentally opposed to violence in an ideological level, because he canonically threatens violence or acts violently towards others with varying levels of justification or jocularity behind his actions

(And also in conclusion, for this reason if he and Trapper were for some reason pitted against each other in a physical fight, Hawkeye would punch him in the face ❤️)

[bird-inacage]

Only Friends: Why Ray's reaction speaks volumes about his feelings for Sand, rather than his feelings for Mew

It's natural to think Ray reacted so strongly in the fight with Boston because of his residual feelings and loyalty to Mew. But let's be clear, this revelation doesn't adversely affect Mew in any immediate way if you read this as Ray being upset on Mew's behalf.

Boston's bombshell is instead targeted to hurt Ray specifically. An attempt to make Ray look like a villain and Sand to feel like a victim of Ray's 'deception'. Sand being the unwarranted collateral of this fight.

Why is Ray angry?

So let's break down all the reasons Ray is angry in the first place.

This wasn't Boston's story to tell. He saw and recorded the kiss without their knowledge or consent. He frames it like a 'dirty secret' that Ray intentionally hid from Sand. But it's Ray's right to choose when and if he felt it necessary to share this with Sand, depending on the progression of their relationship.

What Boston is claiming is only partly true. Yes they did kiss. But no, Ray did not 'take Mew's virginity'. Nothing further happened and Boston is embellishing, which implies more gravitas to a 'history' which doesn't exist.

Sand is being fed this information without full context. He doesn't have the benefit of understanding Ray's past (namely his breakdown), the nature of his friendship with Mew. Without it, Ray is going to look categorically bad, especially through the lens of his affectionate behaviour with Sand that day.

The revelation could ruin what potential future there may have been between Ray and Sand, if Sand is driven away. Ray's newfound happiness dashed in an instant.

The initial part of his Ray's reaction is defensive - the shock, the betrayal regarding such an invasion of privacy. Ray's first punch is thrown after "keep track?" The audacity and complete lack of justification felt as to why Boston would even do such a thing. Ray's second attempt to enact violence is when Boston says, "are you going to be two-timing?" I saw the following through his response: 'It's one thing to hurt me. I'm your friend. I know what you're like. But why on earth are you dragging Sand into this? How dare you.'

Attacking Ray's Weak Spot

We can't change our pasts. Whether it was one kiss or years of unrequited feelings - ultimately, nothing became of it. Ray can't erase the fact he did once love Mew (and probably always will in some capacity because of what Mew did for him). But if Ray were to eventually fall in love with Sand, then his romantic feelings for Mew would become past tense. So whatever he felt then would have no bearing on his here and now. Ray shouldn't be made to feel ashamed.

The progress Ray made with Sand this episode has essentially been unravelled through this one act. It's been hugely difficult for Ray to even consider loving anyone other than Mew. He only just started to display inklings of welcoming the idea. We should all be afforded the opportunity to move on. For Boston to use Mew (someone who means so much to Ray symbolically) as ammunition to hurt Sand (someone new he's grown to care about), is pitting his past and future against each other. And it's not fair to do so. Your past doesn't negate what you may do in future. Similarly the future doesn't discredit the past. Both are important for different reasons.

Ray has every right to value both Mew and Sand, because his feelings for each of them will be entirely different in their own right. But what Boston has tried to spin here is a comparison game. 'Ray loves Mew. He's always loved Mew.' The further insinuation being: 'Ray will never find you as important Sand. You're lesser than. You'll never compare in Ray's eyes'. It's simply not Boston's place to say that. How would he know? It's possible that one day Sand could match Ray's love for Mew, surpass it even. But Ray isn't to know that yet.

There's also a palpable air of derision in how Boston delivers this. He makes Ray's feelings out to be a slightly pathetic, sad little obsession, by wording it as "Ray's whole ass is owned by Mew". Reducing Ray's incredibly complex feelings for someone who saved his life to a more superficial pining. The nuances of which Sand won't be aware of.

Hurting Ray by hurting Sand

Not only is Boston trying to tarnish Ray's character by accusing him of misleading and lying to Sand - but in doing so he's humiliating Sand for not being aware of this. If he can tell that Sand has feelings for Ray, he knew this information would hurt an innocent third party. All 'disguised' under a feat of righteousness.

I'm sure Ray is more than aware of how Sand treats him. Sand has been nothing but kind and accommodating where he's concerned. Willing to bend to his will and soften to his demands. Sand absolutely does not deserve to be dragged into any unnecessary drama, (drama which involves a notable part of Ray's history). So Ray is forced to feel somewhat responsible, based purely on the fact that this very 'drama' concerns him.

It's because Ray cares about Sand's feelings, cares about Sand's opinion of him, cares about what Sand feels towards him, and is also concerned by Sand being caught in this crossfire - that Ray is so clearly flustered. No matter what he's done, Sand shouldn't have to suffer along by association. That's not fair on Sand. It's his past in question. It's his best friend doing the damage. And it's because of him that Sand is now getting hurt too.

He can't outright deny it, because part of what Boston is saying is true. (Trying to vehemently defend yourself can sometimes come across even more as an admission of guilt). He can't apologise to Sand, because he hasn't figured out who Sand is to him yet. (If Ray doesn't deem him as a boyfriend at present, then he can't be sorry for liking someone else). The kiss with Mew also relates closely to an absolute rock bottom period of his life, which he probably wasn't ready to share with Sand just yet.

Ray has been made out to be a liar and a cheat and he's just praying that Sand can give him the benefit of the doubt. There's absolutely no way he can possibly explain all the intricacies to Sand in such an instant, but he's allowing Sand to ask him should he wish to. It's the least he can do. But Sand is going through his own internal battle now, and both need time to process what this has led them to realise about how they feel about each other.

[illugremlins]

Every time someone says Dazai wasn't in the wrong when he slapped Atushi out of his state of derealisation/dissociation an Angel loses its wings, and I lose a bit more of my sanity.

Dazai isn't a good person. He isn't. Literally, the most fundamental core aspect of himself is that life is entirely meaningless, so he may as well align himself with the heroes because he doesn't see the point in living long anyway. He does, eventually, develop a more ethical moral compass, but it's til horribly skewed (as are most BSD characters' moral compasses).

To this day, he still uses Aktugawa's desperation for approval against him while pitting him and Atushi against each other to further his end goals. He wants to get things done his way and has no issues sacrificing or using people.

When he slaps Atsushi, it's making a point to remind people that, despite everything, Dazai isn't good. He didn't have to resort to violence, but it was the easiest and most efficient way. (He doesn't have to continually exploit Aktugawa, but he does because it's his most efficient way.)

I'm not saying he's the devil spawn, nor am I denying that his way of behaving is because of the cycle of abuse he went through at the hands of Mori and his overall environment. But, BSD makes a point to showcase that being abused is not a justification to perpetuate abuse, Atushi being the MC and prime example, especially when he breaks this cycle with Kyoka.

So no, it isn't a good thing that he slapped Atushi, it isn't justifiable, and it wasn't right. But life is meaningless in Dazai's own. Not just his life, but the very concept of being alive. This is why he doesn't care if he's good or bad. In the end, it's all meaningless. He slapped Atushi, and Atsuhi snapped out of it. It worked.

'Why should Atushi even bother pitying himself? Life is useless, anyway.'

I'm fully aware that Dazai isn't that cold-hearted, but he does, to an extent, believe so. I say to an extent, because he's still human, and still grieves others and cares for them. (Oda, Kunikida, Chuya, Atushi..etc).

Dazai isn't a good guy. He never was. He wouldn't be Dazai if he were, and we constantly see it in how he plans things and uses other people or his knowledge to his advantage, or how he comes up with solutions. We see it, I think, most obviously, in his treatment of Aktugawa.

But, IMO, no one, not even Atushi, really, in BSD is that morally righteous, and I can make an argument about why they all are lowkey not very good people when it comes down to it.

[trans-mouse]

Exalted Art Challenge Week 4: Beastpeople

The Amoda mothfolk are mentioned in passing as one of the Caulborn beastfolk clans… But I need way more information about them. They get two sentences, one of which says they don't believe the sun exists! What does that mean? Well, I'm a writer, so I get to make it up! This is my week 4 exalted art challenge. I couldn't really think of a way to make the weekly topic work, but the 24th was "beastpeople," so I figure that's good enough justification to get all this lore from my head onto the page!

The dozen clans of the Amoda worship Luna as the greatest of all gods beside the Caul itself, and view the sun as a feeble reflection of her divine power. She is regarded as a trickster god by them, but also as a protector against the predations of the wyld and the dragonblooded. So long as they live their lives in the moon's light, they keep themselves safe from most external threats. But walking in the moonlight means more than just keeping from sunlight; the Amoda practice trickery, and particularly theft, as a game. When not at war, practically all Amoda, from their first steps, wear lots of jewelry and adorn themselves with dangling pendants, all to be stolen. While these are meant to be protected, they are also meant to be stolen, so they tend to be crafted from pretty rocks and twists of hide and hair, rather than precious metals or gemstones. Any stolen are worn by the victor, and a pendant gains meaning with each owner attaching another adornment. Amoda folk tales regularly speak of pendants stolen a hundred times being used in battle, or in clever trades with deadly fair folk hunters.

Aside from these pendants, the most commonly stolen thing among the clans are their nocturnal cave-yaks. Boasting smaller horns and lighter but longer fur than those found elsewhere in the world, they make up the primary form of wealth and food for the clans. The most precious of them are brought with the clans, their horns decorated with charms like those they wear, while thousands more roam atop the hilly region beneath which the Amoda make their homes. It is these most precious that are stolen by other clans, rustled by night when they are grazing upon the grasses of the hills. The yaks make up their primary source of food, clothing, and tools.

In the caves beneath the hills are dozens of semi-permanent camps, and hundreds of miles of tunnels, each with stars painted on the ceiling to navigate by. These are used as the clans' primary means of travel during twilight hours, and during the summer when night hours grow scarcer. Within these camps and tunnels, the clans are at peace. While jewelry and pendants are stolen during meetings, yak and trade goods are held sacred beneath the hills. Every clan wants the others to survive, and trades are often lopsided, a clan receiving more than they offer if the other knows they need the help, in exchange for a few extra stolen trinkets.

Aside from tricksters and herders, the Amoda are expert navigators, experienced beyond simply the hills they call home, and are often hired as guides by visiting lunars; they refuse any business with the dragonblooded, preferring to keep their distance from powerful groups and stealing from weaker ones. For the most part, the Amoda clans abhor violence, preferring to lose their enemies in woods and tunnels, or to demoralize them with trickery. There are two clans that boast great warriors, often found in the employ of lunars, and they stray the furthest from their hills the most often.

Their legends are kept by priests, who have cast off their clan and family name, visiting all clans, spreading news and legends with them. While their most sacred legends are recited word for word with allowance only for dramatic sounds or gestures, any younger ones are changed to focus on favorite characters or further dramatize actions. Most of the sacred legends center around Sword-Eater, the Lunar that blessed them with their moth form, and who fought duels against hundreds of dynasts, claiming their swords as prizes. The shattered remains of these jade swords mark each camp within their caves. From Sword-Eater, they inherited fighting techniques based around disarming and humiliating their foes, as well as a hatred of the usurpers. Many newer legends center around mortals besting dragonblooded, and young and foolhardy warriors often make this their goal. The priests are also primary in dealing with the fair folk and gods that are so abundant on the Caul, though the clans typically make no rules forbidding others from doing so. Indeed, tricking a god or fae is held in high regard by every one of them. Priests are the only Amoda that do not wear pendants or jewelry, eschewing wealth and marking themselves as somewhat apart from the rest of society.

Sorcery is practiced by the sages of the clans, who practice ecstatic deprivation, gaining insight from dreams after sleepless days or feasts after a week without food. Their spells tend to resemble those cast by the dragonblooded, focussing on manipulation of elements and nature. They use these to shape the weather, ward off intruders, and in dire cases, fight those who would prey upon them. Each clan has one sage, and when they die, they select a youth to train under another clan's sage. A new sage's training complete, they return to their home clan, joining the two clans in a great feast.

Physically, the Amoda are tall, thin, and, unsurprisingly, mothlike. Their heights typically surpass those of the tallest humans they meet, thanks in part to the extra set of shoulders (and arms) they possess. They sport fluffy fur, with a soft peach fuzz over their whole body, with tufts around their wrists, legs, and neck, giving them almost a mane. The color of this fur, as well as their hair, are widely varied, seemingly not carried over from parents to children. In the rare circumstance that their hair is exposed to sunlight, it changes color, reflecting a much brighter version of their "true" colors. Their eyes are large, and they have antennae that are essential for speaking their language, which is made up not only of phonemes, but of twitches of their antennae and subvocal trills that are practically impossible to notice or hear by outsiders. Their names are made up of a personal, family, and clan name, and pronouncing them in languages aside the native tongue of the Amoda takes quite a long time. Because of this, they almost always go by nicknames to non-Amoda, who cannot hope to pronounce their names, though they appreciate lunars and gods who can speak their names.

The majority of Amoda do not have wings. They are born without them, and the process to obtain them is both exceptionally difficult and unspeakably painful. This is done via a month-long ritual of self-deprivation, drinking only water dripped from within their caves and eating nothing. As Calibration begins, the hopeful wraps themself in a handmade chrysalis, which is coated internally with a concoction that dissolves their skin and much of their muscle, reforming themselves thinner, taller, and with newfound wings. At the end of Calibration they emerge to a grand feast, where they, starved and scarred, eat their fill a dozen times over for several days. This ritual is mostly undergone by priests, all of whom must undertake the process as symbolic of Sword-Eater's ancient blessing rite that first created them, but a select few others, particularly noted duelists and sages, undergo the same process. The wings gained are not fit for flight without an enormous amount of effort and training, which many who attain them never undergo.

The Amoda have tense relationships with neighboring groups. While they are good-natured and friendly, anyone who visits them comes away with lighter pockets. When approached for trade, they are genuine and fair, but this is rare. They tend to have better trade relationships with Lunars, who either don't bring much but their necessities, or don't mind a few trinkets going missing, understanding it as the cost of doing business. While they rarely make craft with them, each clan maintain enormous underground stashes of jade and precious gems, squireling them away in hidden passageways, magically concealed from other clans. For those willing to do business with them, they offer shocking riches.

(If you've read this far, you should read my other stuff about exalted (click the tag!) and check out my patreon, https://www.patreon.com/c/NotSoLuckyLydia

It helps out a ton, and there's a bunch of free stuff on there, both about exalted and about other games!)

[tobi-smp]

you know, I think the thing that made c!phil's writing kind of janky and discordant is Also exactly what makes cc!phil's Strength as a roleplayer

the best way to put it is that phil is the epitome of Yes And. wilbur tells him to kill him and it was a Choice, there was no script that told him that wilbur Had to die that night. but wilbur asked him to and so he did.

wilbur Also asked him to look after tubbo and tommy, So He Did. he fought for l'manberg on the 16th (fought Against dream and techno), and agreed to become a part of l'manberg's government as a mentor figure.

but techno was his friend and they wanted to spend time together when they were online so why be anything else in lore? of Course they're old friends, of Course they spend time together.

the problem arise when there's Conflict between these two groups. because phil Must choose what to do and say and believe at any given moment, to justify Why he would choose to do whatever it he is about to do. but at the end of the day that choice Mostly comes down to what would be cool or fun or interesting in the moment.

and I think ! that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, and it's actually a Really good mindset to have in the context of this kind of roleplay. and it worked really well early on. it's Interesting that phil Would have a completely uncomplicatedly loyal relationship with techno right away when he Did explicitly stand against him on that first day. it Says Something about their relationship. maybe even implies that they've fought each other before, but it doesn't impact their relationship with each other.

the problem is when it starts contradicting and Twisting and being weird. mainly when it comes to characters that he Both has major conflict with And want to have a positive relationship with him. it becomes a question of Why phil would do something that would hurt them if he cares about them.

after all, it's not just hurt feelings, it's war. even if they had no Intent on killing anybody, it still Could Have ended with people dead.

and again ! that's not an inherently Bad Thing. it actually opens to the door for a lot of interesting character conflict and introspection !

phil is a Very old being, his best friend is famous for being unkillable, his wife is Actually Death who casually possesses him sometimes. having phil be somewhat out of touch with humanity in a way where he doesn't Really understand the emotional weight and Danger of what he's done would make sense ! and of course, that's just one possible explanation that could be replaced with or coincide with another reading.

but it's all complicated Further by there being a very strong ideological bend to the conflicts he's involved with. because it Feels like for him to engage with said conflict Meaningfully he must weigh in with his own take on the ideological conflicts. he's playing a supporting role to technoblade after all, and on paper his entire character Is one big ideological conflict.

but what phil's ideology actually Is shifts to suit whatever story line he needs to support at a given moment, rather than being set in stone First with his role in those story lines being chosen based on a preexisting belief.

and honestly I really Don't blame cc!phil for this, because On Paper the jump in justification for these supporting roles he's played don't look very different. and in fact, you can See where one follows the conclusion to another.

but "choose people" above all else, to the point of being Shocked that tommy might hesitate in the conflict with dream that has the weight of protecting the entire server riding on it, really Does Not gel with whatever happened on doomsday or with letting dream out of prison.

moreover, it only highlights a conflict in ideology between phil and techno. the use of violence as default Even Against active allies or people who'd been considered allies 5 minutes ago doesn't seem to gel with whatever phil had going on in the post-prison break out era.

having phil enable dream to torment tommy during doomsday feels very contradictory to phil's shocked offense that dream would torment A Child the first chance he got after breaking out.

and again ! none of this is inherently a Flaw, it could all be very interesting as set ups for character conflict and as an examination for phil's Own character flaws. having contradictions like this isn't inherently Bad writing when it can so easily be Interesting. open up the door for Richer character writing.

the problem isn't even that none of this was intentional at the time that it was happening, but rather that nobody really seemed to notice it at all. so rather than it being used as a tool to bounce off of For that character examination and conflict. it just kinda. Is.

I think ! what phil needed, and what the server As A Whole needed, was stronger Direction. it's what made the early arcs work as well as they did, because Everyone knew the what the core story Was and could figure out ways to cohesively bounce off of them.

the revolution, the elections, the civil war, they were all Strong skeletons with clear factions and ideologies at play. and so even when people were doing their own things it all Felt Cohesive.

and of course, the dream smp Stopped having a key writer for the those big plot moments with the intent of giving people more personal freedom in their writing. but I think it only served a Lack Of Identity. people who didn't already have a stake in the key conflicts that were already on the server struggled to find their way into them. and struggled to find relevancy Without them.

and I think this was felt the most in the way that people were both afraid of stepping on anybody's toes while Also getting in each other's way like a football field.

like, I Loved tommy's death and resurrection arc. and the sheer Surprise of it and the aftermath was truly incredible to see.

but it was also Weird that people weren't given the chance to react to it on their own terms. like, why did they plan the syndicate meeting months in advance just to have it dropped on them with no way to prepare for or modulate their responses?

phil and techno's reactions to tommy's death are So Weird when we consider their relationship with him both before And After. and it's difficult to reconcile because it's Understandable that the cc's didn't want to derail their planned lore to make it About tommy's story line. But It's Not Like We Can Pretend It Didn't Happen Either.

and there's lots of ways that people have tried to reconcile this, lots of ways that I've even personally Enjoyed. but in terms of what's actually In the source material It Just Kind Of Is.

phil cares about tommy, he wants to guide him and protect him because he recognizes that he's a child in a dangerous position, but he also laughs when he hears dream beat him to death in prison and he also laughed while dropping bombs on tommy's head with dream at his side. and these all just kind of Are.

I can't even tell if this is all weirder before or after canon sbi was retconned.

and so these inconsistencies tug at all of the major story beats that phil's character is involved with, all while all of them Mostly work well in isolation. and it's so easy to see how this could've been avoided with stronger direction and story planning.

in other words, It's Dream's Fault.

[antigonick]

just stumbled into one of your snippets and i'm OBSESSED with your writing style. it is so fluid and punchy and such a delight to read. if you ever feel like answering, how does your writing process works? what are your inspirations, style and tone-wise? and what themes do you enjoy exploring the most?

have a lovely day! 💌

Oh, that's... WELL. That's! The best compliment you could have sent me, thank you so much, I don't know what to say.. I'm actually trying to write a... I'm gonna call it a novel when it's just a mess of fragments right now, but—yeah. Fluid and punchy is exactly what I strive to achieve with the character's voice so this is so nice to hear. WHATEVER. THANK YOU.

Anyway! My writing process is really... steeped in rhythm, I guess? It starts with character writing, which leads me to character voice, which leads me to finding the right "mind" tempo, and from it cascades the headspace I need to write. In that, in the idea of perspective and voice influencing the story first, I'm indebted to Faulkner, to Marlon James, to Woolf's The Waves, to Shirley Jackson—to the perspectivism twists of horror and gothic writing as a general rule. Rereading her, I think Emily Brontë has shaped my metaphorical network very early on, and my handling of violence, especially in dialogue—though more recently, Tamsyn Muir made me tick about dialogue too. Malin Rydén is one of my utmost inspirations, not a little because the main character of my story was first created for his story, but also because he was my gateway into harder, grittier speculative fiction and digital literature, which both inspire me now for the story I'm trying to shape—horror out of the gothic castle and into the terrible anticipation of what comes next, with more politics, with ghosts and body horror twisted to technology. In terms of pure form, I'm extremely impacted by poetry—E. E. Cummings, Alice Oswald, Emily Dickinson—those who deconstruct syntax to wrangle it into breath. He didn't influence me because I discovered him too late, but I feel a kinship to some of the early stylistic experimentations of Frank Bidart too. Hanif Abdurraqib, whose first name I gave to one of my main characters too because his voice is incredible: it moves. Charles Olson's Projective Verse gestures at what I feel when I write, you know? "ONE PERCEPTION MUST IMMEDIATELY AND DIRECTLY LEAD TO A FURTHER PERCEPTION (…). Always one perception must must must MOVE, INSTANTER, ON ANOTHER! (…)" and then "Breath allows all the speech-force of language back in." Even silence can be your story-weapon.

I'm interested in... blowing apart labels, dichotomies, I think, making them harder to grapple with—right and wrong, love and hate, personal and universal; transgressions, fluidity; how language fails, how language betrays; the way human connection can both fuck you and raise you up, in its constant failure and constant trying, in the violence of intimacy, in the tension between hardness and vulnerability—more than anything, I'm interested in the way individual desires clash with collective needs or personal ideals, in the lies and justifications you can find for yourself, in what it means for you when you come to dismantle them (or refuse to). I love palimpsest, stories retold again and again, and/or I love difficult, ugly settings, speculative and dystopia topics, I want the story to be political in itself, even when it's not politicking; and I LOVE mindfucks: using our terribly faulty, terribly subjective perception / perspective / memory / dreams / FEARS / intellect to tell a story that is both fascinating because it's unique, and trapped by it. Can't escape yourself. What are you gonna do with yourself (against yourself, for yourself) now?

Formally, I try to use that in writing: trapping the reader in one voice that swallows them really, ideally that jostles them a little, that blurs the boundary between them and the character: extreme immersion. I like to try and convey emotion / impression and even action as it is experienced, rather than explaining it clearly. In that phenomenology has influenced me, I guess? Deleuze, Guattari, Merleau-Ponty, and poetry again, I guess. Archibald McLeish says "a poem should not mean / but be...", and that's what I try to do with the character I choose, and then I let them be, and they drive both the story and the writing that should echo it—form and content cycling each other like mirrors.

Goddamnit, that got so long. Anyway. THANK YOU for being interested, I'm really touched.

[ka-freaking-boom]

Worship At My Altar

Deity Soap x Retired vet Ghost AU

Warnings: Implied suicide attempts, Depression, References to Ghost's backstory.

___

Ghost trudged through the quaint convenience store that he'd grown somewhat fond of, filling the worn basket that he’d grabbed on the way in with nonperishable foods that he could carry with him on his motorcycle. He’d been getting low on funds, so if he wanted to have enough to get a decent offering for the temple, he couldn’t afford to be as picky as he normally would be while shopping and instead settled for items like canned ravioli and spam for himself.

He’d used the majority of the cash that he had on hand, since cards were easy to trace, and got as far away from the overwhelming bustle of cities as possible, eventually crashing at a rundown motel in some small town in the middle of nowhere.

He adjusted his duffel on his shoulder, his scowl deepening as he tried to tell himself that the extra heft to the bag was all in his head. That the medal –that he’d since taken out of its protective glass case and wrapped up in an old sweatshirt that he’d had since his days as a fresh-faced recruit– buried in the depths of the duffel couldn’t logically be what was weighing him down.

It was just a stupid chunk of metal that indicated that he was a hero in the eyes of the public, giving justification for all the years he spent doing unspeakable acts for his country, for all the civilians caught in the crossfire, and all the good men he’d led into the depths of hell only for Ghost himself to come out the sole survivor.

He had given up on ever having a life outside of war and violence, he’d given up on having a family or a legacy extending past his reputation as an omen of death. It had left him with scars –mental and physical alike– scattered across the entirety of his person as a constant reminder of his service, and all he had to show for all that he’d sacrificed in the end was some fucking chest candy. It made Ghost want to kill something, preferably slowly... with his bare hands.

He set the can of soup that he’d been examining into his basket with a little more force than necessary, adding to his meager collection of food before moving on to the next aisle. He was considering the various cups of cheap ramen noodles, wondering if it even mattered since it all tasted like shit regardless, when someone rushed past him.

His gaze darted away from the display and toward the flash of movement, his hand twitching toward a sidearm that he no longer carried as he located who it was that had passed him. 

The tension that had coiled in his frame relaxed slightly when he realized that it was just an energetic kid, the small boy staring excitedly at the display of candy that was further down the aisle.

Ghost watched as the child began wringing his little fingers together as his wide eyes roamed over the large variety of candy that the store offered instead of just grabbing everything in sight, which was a surprising display of restraint from someone so young.

Ghost resisted the urge to flinch when the boy finally made his selection, one of his small hands abruptly darting out to snatch a bag of gummy bears off the rack before pivoting in order to walk back the way he had come, the kid pausing when he finally noticed that he had an audience.

He looked uncertain for a moment, probably unsure of how to feel about Ghost’s masked face and intimidating stature, before he seemed to shake himself out of his reservations and smiled up at Ghost, revealing the fact that he was missing one of his front teeth. 

He squeezed past Ghost’s large form with a giggle, Ghost following him with his eyes until the kid reached the end of the aisle and moved out of view. Ghost took a few controlled breaths, trying to ignore how the parts of his body where the kid involuntarily brushed up against him crawled uncomfortably, reminding him of claustrophobic boxes and the sharp pain of a scorpion's sting. 

Ghost forced his feet to start moving, intent on going to the checkout since he wanted to visit the temple before it was closed to the public, but he hesitated in front of the same display of candy that had entranced the child, blinking at the colorful packaging. 

His dark eyes scanned over the various sugary treats, debating whether or not to buy some with his already scant funds, before he caved with a sigh and reached out in order to grab a bag of chocolate, tossing it into the basket before he could talk himself out of it. 

Thankfully, the teenage cashier that scanned his things didn’t seem too bothered by his intimidating appearance, the girl too focused on getting Ghost checked out as fast as possible so that she could go back to boredly sketching on the piece of blank receipt paper that she had sitting next to the register to stare at the scarring on his face that wasn’t covered by the mask he was wearing, like most civilians that he encountered in public did.

He climbed onto his bike and pulled his black helmet over his head, feeling the uncomfortable tightness in his chest ease now that his face was hidden behind the tinted visor, before he took his groceries out of the cheap, plastic bags that the store used and began meticulously packing them away in his saddle bags, separating them based on whether it was for him or for his offering. 

Once he was finished, he started the bike with a loud rumble, the engine revving as he reversed out of the parking space and floored it out of the lot, he would have to speed if he wanted to get to his destination in time to set up. 

_____

Ghost wasted no time parking the bike and climbing off, impatiently yanking his helmet off and collecting the things he needed before he trotted up the stone staircase and into the looming temple, quickly passing the various priests and lingering townspeople without so much as a second glance in his haste to reach the altar. 

A wave of familiar warmth greeted him the moment that he stepped into the room, Ghost taking note of the subtle changes that had been made to the décor in the altar room since his last visit, the red and gold color scheme making the space feel welcoming and cozy. 

He carefully lowered himself to his knees in front of the marble platform that the statue sat atop of, Ghost setting his bag of offerings next to him before looking up at the deity that he’d been introduced to shortly after arriving to the small town. It had been immediately obvious to Ghost -even at his very first visit- that the statue had clearly been made with the utmost care, every cut reverent, every curve and divot of muscle lovingly sculpted.

Even the drape of the cloth over the statue’s hips was so flawlessly crafted that, if he reached out and touched it, he was almost convinced that he would feel soft cloth underneath his fingers instead of cool marble.

Ghost allowed his eyes to take in the bulge of muscle, the v of the man’s hips that disappeared beneath the flowing fabric that was wrapped artfully around him. His hands twitched with the urge to trace the veins that crawled across thick biceps and calloused hands, to rake through the thick line of hair at the top of the man’s head, to brush a thumb across his knowing, smug grin. 

The man was undeniably beautiful.

Ghost managed to pry his gaze off of the statue in favor of silently pulling the things he’d brought with him out of his bag in order to set them onto the packed stone platform at the man’s bare feet, placing his own offering among the flowers, jewelry, money, candles and bottles of expensive amber liquor that others had left during their own visit.

Ghost meticulously put down ten candles, one for each member of the 141, and the last four for his family. He pulled out a lighter and brought the flame down to the wicks one at a time, mentally recalling the names and faces of those he cared for as he lit the corresponding candle for each person until he had reached the last one.

He took a moment to stare at the flickering flames before forcefully shaking himself out of his daze and setting a bottle of his favorite bourbon in the center of the circle of candles as well as two pretty blue glass bowls that he’d found while at the thrift shop the other day since they were the same shade that the deity’s eyes were.

Or at least what color he believed they were. During his last visit, a painting that someone had left on the altar as an offering in an impressive display of artistic skill had caught his attention, the artist having decided to depict the man with eyes that were such a vibrant blue that they looked like they were glowing, which Ghost thought was befitting of the deity.

He filled the larger bowl with a couple things that he had collected with the intent to bring to the altar. Like the smooth stone that he’d taken from the lake earlier that week, when he had contemplated wading into the crystalline water until it swallowed him up but ultimately decided against it, or the little wooden penguin figurine that he’d spent the week carving, having picked up the habit of whittling a new animal to give the statue every visit.

He then dropped a black skull keychain that he’d spotted at a gas station a few towns over, the bleached skull of a small bird, and the inspirational quote that his therapist had him write on a notecard into the big bowl before propping up the letter that he got from Roach -which mentioned how he was getting sent on a mission with Gaz and Price- behind the bowl in order to ask for protection for the mad cunts.

Ghost finished off the offering by fussing with the small bowl’s placement until he was satisfied before taking the bag of chocolate he’d bought earlier and ripping it open in order to dump the contents into the bowl. He ran a hand over the individually wrapped candies until the pile looked a little less messy before pulling his hand away and letting it rest against his thigh.

He’d come a long way since the first time he’d stopped by the temple, that initial visit having been fueled by a mix of sleep deprivation, desperation and alcohol. The only offering that he had brought with him that time had been the bullet that he’d loaded and unloaded from his firearm so many times since being discharged from the military that the motion was now practically muscle memory.

He’d wanted to get rid of the bullet and the weakness that it represented and figured that the altar of a God he didn’t believe in would be the perfect solution, though he couldn’t have accounted for how the calm atmosphere of the altar room and the kind eyes of the statue staring down at him with a soft, inviting smile kept him coming back for more, chasing that feeling of peace he only got from being in the room.

“I-” Ghost paused, internally wincing at how loud his rough voice seemed in the otherwise silent room, swallowing hard as he ignored how stupid he felt talking to a fucking statue, and continued. “I know it’s not anything extravagant, I don’t have a lot to offer…”

Ghost licked his chapped lips as he trailed off, finally glancing up from the flickering candles enveloping his small pile of gifts to gaze up at the man towering over him, unable to shake the feeling that the statue was looking directly at him despite the fact that it had been carved specifically to look down at it’s devout worshipers. The amused eyes of the man felt like encouragement, the statue's playful gaze easing Ghost's insecurities and helping the tense line of his shoulders relax.

“But you’re already far too spoiled considering the fact that you do fuck all, so I think that you’ll be okay.” Ghost finished with a wide grin that pulled at the various scars on his face, the bite taken out of his words by the soft chuckle that followed the quip as he reached out to condescendingly pat an unoccupied portion of the stone altar, his hand lingering for a moment longer than strictly necessary before he pulled away and pushed to his feet with a grunt, various old aches and pains making themselves known after kneeling for so long.

Ghost picked up his bag and made for the archway leading out of the room, sparing one last glance back at the benevolent statue before finally turning away and moving through the threshold and out of view, oblivious to the subtle sound of shifting stone as the statue’s smile seemed to briefly widen, lips parting to show a flash of perfectly straight teeth.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Stacey Mathews

Two weeks after that video went viral, AOC gave a speech on the floor of the U.S. House and accused Israel of genocide.

Now, just as she did then, AOC is attempting to explain how she can be staunchly anti-Israel and anti-antisemitism at the same time:

Pro-Hamas Online Mob Rips AOC For Condemning Antisemitic Agitators at Nova Festival Exhibit

“The callousness, dehumanization, and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism – plain and simple.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) received heat from the rabid pro-Hamas mob when she condemned recent displays of antisemitism in New York City after spending months criticizing Israel and sticking up for her antisemitic colleagues.

AOC tried to save face, but the mob didn’t relent. Those on the other side saw right through her.

Background

In the months since the October 7th Hamas terrorist attacks, there has been an alarming rise in incidents of antisemitic expression and attacks worldwide as anti-Israel extremists, emboldened by so-called elected leaders and their media enablers, have shed their masks to show us who they really are.

Being home to the largest population of Jewish people in the United States, New York City, in particular, has become a hotbed of antisemitism, with reports of antisemitic incidents now a near-daily occurrence.

Such was the scene Monday night where, during the Nova Music Festival Exhibition, pro-Hamas activists participated in a “day of rage,” showing support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah while lighting flares and severely disrupting the somber event with hate-filled chants:

A mob of anti-Israel protesters chanted “Long live the Intifada” during a depraved celebration Monday night outside a downtown Manhattan exhibit that memorializes the murder and rape victims of the Oct. 7 Nova Music Festival, where 364 people were killed by Hamas terrorists. The deranged pro-terror crowd lit flares and waved a flag associated with the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah in front of the Nova Music Festival Exhibition on Wall Street during what was billed by organizers as a “citywide day of rage for Gaza,” according to video from the scene. The protesters also yelled “Israel go to hell” and clashed with police during the gathering that drew swift backlash from Israel supporters. The demonstration, organized by pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, began in Union Square, where some protesters unfurled a “Long live October 7th” banner, according to social media footage.

The ADL shared this photo and wrote:

Protestors are currently shouting “Long live the intifada” outside the @novaexhibition in NYC, which memorializes the 364 people massacred by Hamas terrorists at the Nova Festival on 10/7. For anyone still questioning what this slogan means, look no further – it���s support for terrorism and justification for brutal violence against Jews and Israelis. Protestors are also holding signs that say “Zionists are not Jews & not humans.” This is a textbook example of antisemitic dehumanization – and it’s sickening.

There are lots of Twitter/X links in this story, here. AOC is trying to play both sides, pretending to care about the antisemitism she helped foster.

[batsysquared]

zionism and nationalism

Stop using the term "zionism". Ideally, nobody at all would use it outside of intra-jewish discussions and certain academic circles, but there are two camps of people who never let go of it. This very circumstance is exactly why it's so much more important that everyone else abandons the term in discourse. If you truly, truly care about the situation in Israel and Palestine on a level beyond morality plays and the fun of Geopolitical Team Sports - that is, you care about stopping pain and suffering, about ending a cycle of violence, about freeing the people of Palestine from their oppressors and the people of Israel from the very same chains that bind people living anywhere where those who hold power speak and act on their behalf without actually bothering to hear any but those who legitimize their actions, about forging a lasting peace between people where neither side has any significant desire to harm the other - then it is important to understand that zionism, as a term used in popular discourse (i.e. discussions against zionism by those critical of Israel's actions or for "zionism" in justification of Israel's right-wing - both distinct from discussions about zionism between Jews) is a weapon wielded by antisemites and genocide supporters both. It is a weapon of obfuscation, honed sharply over decades to muddle any good faith effort at a conversation on any topic relating to Israel. Antisemites use it, obviously, as a dogwhistle - they depend on others to also use it so that they can spread their hate unnoticed, spreading propaganda amongst the well-meaning to be regurgitated uncritically in order to effect a subtle societal shift towards their views - just enough that those they wish to victimize are terrorized and isolated by an already great hatred which now seems even unimaginably greater than it already was. At the same time, those wholly behind the State of Israel's actions, and those who believe it hasn't gone far enough, use zionism to further the conflation of their ideals with the ideals of all Jewish people everywhere. They use a long-standing cultural framework to ingratiate threatened Jews (of which there are many!) to an ideology that is not equally understood to be what it is. Where one person may see the safety of a homeland, the supporter of genocide sees kahanism - the elimination of all who are in the way, and the exclusion of those who are perceived to be not sufficiently culturally aligned. They, too, spread propaganda amongst the well-meaning to be regurgitated uncritically, merging these two different conceptualizations of zionism into one dual-but-irreconcilable meaning, and in doing so also isolate individuals to strengthen their own position and to gloss over the horrors they support by framing their desire as something less than their actions.

So - when the word "zionism" is used in these discussions about the actions of State of Israel (again, as opposed to discussions among Jews about what Israel ought to be; see also the distinction between black people discussing a theoretical New Africa and the condemnation by the public of pre-1980s Liberian politics) what does it mean? From my observance, it means something different to every single person who uses it, and every single person who hears it assumes that the way it was used was the way they understand it. With two constant forces acting in bad faith to make it impossible to know what anyone really means when they use the word, with so many people who are scared and hurt and so many people that are ready to fight on their behalf, how could anyone have a conversation in their presence which is not full of hidden barbs that cut away at any real attempt at forward movement? You can't. And for antisemites and kahanists both - that’s the goal. So what are those who truly care about peace to do? Simple: call out the actions of the State of Israel and the rhetoric of those in power and those who support them for what it is: nationalism. Not some unique "Jewish evil" as antisemites would have you believe, nor a desire and need unique to the Jewish people, but rather the very same mechanism by which states have organized themselves for centuries to protect Us and hurt Them. The thing being championed now as the solution for Palestine: the evil that always seems such a good idea until suddenly it isn't, because the usage of violence to create a geopolitical, cultural, and ethnic boundary forever taints those boundaries. This taint ensures that it will always be those who control those boundaries that refuse to let go of them once independence is won, because safety can never be truly assured. Others are always a threat, and so there will always be an excuse. Eventually, as we see now in Israel, the boundary closes in every way but the lines on the map (which, of course, expand) as people who fit the cultural and ethnic profile set forth fail to meet the expectations of those who now control who is and is not considered to fit in the box, and as the contents of the box change to exclude those trapped outside of it even though there was no problem with them before the box ever existed. And rest assured, as has happened with every nationalist movement before, should Palestine find its liberation under these same ideals - that "from river to sea, Palestine will be free" - all we've done is flipped who is Good and who is Bad. The slaughter continues, with a new flag and a new justification. To believe otherwise is to cling to liberalism - to defend the status quo by believing that it has changed even when all that has really happened is that blue has been painted over with red while the building continues to collapse on its rotten foundation.

The problem is nationalism. It always has been, everywhere across the world. Not only does calling it zionism plaster over the true issue, it causes people to turn a blind eye to the nationalism they themselves call for in desperation to combat the zionism they fear, and prevents them from wrestling with the nationalism they themselves live in and benefit from. Nationalism is a tool for liberation, yes, but one that must be discarded once liberation is obtained and yet never is. To build a nation is to preserve a people, but to build a state to defend that nation (or to build a nation around a state, lest we let empires like the US off scot free) is to open the door for atrocity. The answer is not a defined and bordered Jewish nation, nor is a defined and bordered Palestinian nation - even if both exist at once, their foundational myths and rhetoric will compel them, as states, to engage in "legitimate" violence against each other and their own people. This is not just an inevitable consequence of nationalism, it is its goal, as viewed through history across the world before the western concept of the nation-state even fully coalesced. Anyone who truly wants peace in Israel and Palestine, in the Middle East, or in the world as a whole must come to terms with this. And to do that, we must stop making excuses. Israel is not guilty of Zionism, because Zionism is a purposely moving target which (outside of non-discoursal channels, where the term is actually properly defined before use and remains so throughout the conversation) means everything to everyone and thus nothing to anyone. To call it Kahanism is a step better, but this still positions what has happened this past century as something unique. No, Israel is guilty of nothing more than dipping its hands in the same well of blood that humanity calls "security". Until we understand this and stand together to look upward and speak out against those who chain us with promises of that security and say that the blood of those around us will bring serenity, there can never be peace. Humanity will eat itself alive, snuffing out empathy as portions of it fail an ever-stricter purity test, and it will cheer itself on while it does.

[thestupidhelmet]

Is it just me or did they flanderize Kitty in That 90s Show? She is acting so unhinged and I feel like in That 70s Show she wasn't so bad

Flanderization

The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it becomes their defining characteristic, turning them into a caricature of their former selves.

--Definition from tvtropes.org

***

I don't consider Kitty's characterization to be flanderized in That '90s Show. What I see is that aspects of her characterization from That '70s Show seasons 6 and 7 have been retained, which altered her once positive perspective of and relationship with Donna (seasons 1-5) into a negative and resentful one.

Fortunately, plenty of her characterization from T7S S1-S4 remains, too. But they're mixed with other aspects -- some of which are wholly new to her, introduced by T9S.

Kitty is written and portrayed cartoonish in some ways during "That '70s Pilot" (1x01). Debra Jo Rupp exaggerated her performance, including the famous Kitty laugh, because Kitty is being shown through Eric and his friends' point of view. But the T7S showrunners liked that portrayal in the pilot so much that they decided to depict Kitty, without the kids' perspective, in a somewhat exaggerated manner. Hence, the exaggeration and silly, cartoonish quality has been part of her character from the start.

Season 5 of T7S upped it further for laughs during Kitty's menopause storyline. The showrunners and writers, again, liked the amped exaggeration and chose to stick with it in seasons 6-7 but without any story justification. This change created a domino effect where Kitty is dumbed down, treats Donna closer to how Bernice Forman treated Kitty, and T9S's showrunner and writers decided to keep the OOC resentment for the laughs that kind of conflict generates.

T9S, however, introduced a new element to Kitty, which I consider very OOC. In Part 1, she calls Leia a bitch. Her fifteen-year-old, generally sweet and innocent granddaughter. Kitty never calls antagonistic and selfish Laurie a bitch, even when Laurie's at her worst -- and Laurie is in her early twenties, not a young teen.

Kitty is not a verbally hostile character in T7S. She has to be pushed to breaking emotionally to get to that point. It doesn't happen until season 5, when she's under extreme pressure -- hormonally (which truly does mess with a person's mind) and by the fact she believes she's about to lose her last summer with her son.

Spoilers ahead.

In Part 2 of T9S, the writers retcon Kitty to being potentially physically hostile. This element is so alien to the core of who Kitty is as a character as to make her shockingly unrecognizable. She threatens to hit Red's knuckles with a wooden spoon. Red says that she's threatened him with that punishment for forty years but never followed through.

One can infer from this interaction that this version of Kitty might have threatened her children with the same punishment.

In T7S, not only do we never see or hear any evidence of Kitty threatening to use physical violence against Red, Eric, or Laurie but she's also shown to be utterly against physical violence where her children are concerned -- including Hyde.

Kitty is not an abuser on T7S. She's a compassionate healer. She could be mild to (rarely) moderately emotionally manipulative on T7S, but that's as far as she would go. (A meta could be written on the subject of Kitty's manipulativeness, the whys and wherefores, but that goes beyond the scope of this post.)

T9S, unfortunately, has introduced a new, very unpleasant trait to Kitty's character -- again, for "laughs".

T9S also introduced other new traits to her character, but they're more in-line with how she might have changed after fifteen years and are plausible. I wouldn't have chosen to move her character in these directions, but I don't work on T9S. 🤷

[s-ephiroth]

ranting on here for once instead of twt (which is back for me!) because i'm too lazy for the thread format and i must yell A LOT

it's about cid, and angeal deniers in ec...

like, i'm absolutely hating the lengths some people have to go just to be all "cid will come first" or "i would prefer if cid came out first"

you can just say you prefer a character over another without dissing one of the characters, saying shit like "oh but he's just a bad zack clone/bootleg so he's not important the way cid is", "you're doing selective reading on the interview", "i'll quit the game if angeal comes first", "what's there to explore anyway," etc.

like excuse me if maybe i'm biased towards the guy, but being someone who does have some impact in sephiroth's life, i think angeal is much more important than "guy who has a beef with shinra over the space program and drives our airship"

sephiroth is a driving force of the main ff7 plot

if not for cloud chasing after sephiroth around the world, cid would stay in his near backwater rocket centered town yelling at shera and not going anywhere (aside from maybe driving the bronco around, if you consider rebirth additions and the implications of him owning the bronco in og)

sephiroth, cloud and aerith are the driving forces of the ff7 story and anything directly relating to them in any way will be always more important

angeal is sephiroth's friend (and if you read into it, sephiroth's anchor). sephiroth's behavior through cc is impacted by his friendship with him and genesis both; showcasing that sephiroth's loyalty is not fully shinra's, that he's willing to ignore orders, dump missions on others and make his own rules if that means possibly helping both angeal/genesis survive

hell, after angeal dies, before nibelheim and with genesis possibly still alive, sephiroth has enough of a wake up call and decides he'll abandon shinra depending on the circumstances

cloud's sword was angeal's before it was zack's, and aerith was there when zack mourned the loss of the guy by his own hands

cid's character arc is mostly done in og; he goes through the domestic violence arc and "i'll join you because that's dumb as fuck, i like that plan" to "oops, the woman i yelled at and scared and blamed all these years for something that i chose to do was actually right". he gets a few extra tidbits in the extended compilation (i.e: marrying shera, naming an airship after her, working for wro now, having met ifalna in the past) but they're afterthoughts. the character was already explored

all of this to say that people saying angeal has no/lesser importance to the narrative than cid is fucking insane shit

i get people not liking him (it's not easy to because we're given crumbs of character exploration and also the way people behave towards mentally ill characters not acting 100% as they claim their moral code to be), i get people not wanting to play as him for the possibility of Yet Another Sword User™, i get people liking cid for whatever reason

but the fact that they feel they're obliged to jump into the discussion whenever someone shows the slightest amount of angeal hype in the chat to go "but naaah, cid is in the data, so cid gotta be first uwu" or "cid superior" or some other crap? it's driving me nuts

like imagine being so against the exploration of a character who needs it because he got crumbs in canon that need expanding to also further the main antagonist's tale, to the point you have to use other character already being in the data as justification

just say you're an og purist and go at that point, smh

"oh, i'll quit if angeal is first"

it'll be fucking hilarious if that happens, would love seeing that kind of person quit so much

[keepmeinmind-01]

long ramble about Theseus and the war incoming:

I was just thinking that, potentially, the war might have been a source of conflict between Theseus and Newt; but I was also thinking that actually, it’s more likely than I previously thought that Theseus would actually be anti war afterwards. if he was a “war hero”, then I assume the Ministry would have deemed that the case only if his position was in line with maintaining the Statue, otherwise surely that would be seen as too outside of the status quo. I don’t think he’d be allowed to express the opinion that ultimately using magic/fighting alongside the Muggles as a Muggle would be a good thing.

Theseus is a “war hero” because he went through it and earned his medals, sure, but then what public perspective would he have to share for the Ministry to keep calling him a hero in line with their values? does that make sense?

like the majority of prominent WW1 veterans were adamantly against it and saw it as a huge waste of life, and the way I’m writing Theseus’s experiences wouldn’t make him any more insulated or different. a few people saw it as “doing what had to be done”, but the psychological after effects were almost universally huge, and I think the return to “normal life” (which would have been even more extreme for Theseus) would only reinforce these feelings. I also write Theseus as not believing in wizarding superiority whatsoever after his war experiences and essentially living as a Muggle in the war (for the Statue).

on one hand, being anti war fits well with the Ministry’s aims, and also Grindelwald’s, in a way. no war means less chance of wizards wanting to help or fight and breaking the Statue. at the same time, if combined with the belief that wizards and Muggles are equal, then that’s anti-Statue, because enforcing a social separation like that relies on fundamental ideas of difference. so where does that go?

thinking this through (and I know a lot of it is based on how I’ve written Theseus and my headcanons), I wonder if Theseus actually would have a pretty unusual and progressive political perspective within the Ministry? I don’t think Theseus plays political games. he strikes me as very earnest and someone who tends to say what they think. I can’t imagine the Ministry would let someone like Theseus say that the war was a “necessary evil”, because then that shows he was right to break the Statue. they’d want him to be against the war

at the same time, this pragmatism, earnestness, and sense of justice coupled with an anti war perspective seem to lend themselves to Theseus having a core belief that cooperation across magical/Muggle lines is ethical and pragmatic. and then how does he present to be called a “war hero” by an institution like the Ministry that’s so against all these ideas, and what might he do with the strong sense of “doing what’s right”/good intentions that I think Theseus has (I’m thinking the “we mustn’t be who he says we are” before the Paris Rally, “get your head out of the sand”)?

maybe none if this makes much sense because my brain is like cotton wool rn. but this kind of brings me to the conclusion…then why/what about the war could be dividing Theseus and Newt?

I think Newt is also highly antiwar but further than that, sees no moral justification for violence. and the dragons being used as a “weapon” in the war I think would have radicalised Newt in that way. but I feel like their perspectives actually have more synergy than I’ve realised (again, in the way I’ve written them perhaps more so than canon) and actually Theseus’s views might make him very much the antithesis of Grindelwald. as Grindelwald wants to “stop” the war while starting a new war and governing Muggles, while Theseus also doesn’t believe in war and also has a more skeptical view of the Statue, but takes that more towards a sense that wizards and Muggles aren’t very different

perhaps it’s because Theseus is still working within the Ministry? because the Ministry uses or filters the “war hero” thing somehow? and Newt is more idealistic than pragmatic? between Theseus, Newt, and Grindelwald, there’s a potentially interesting tension in how “peace” is viewed