#and to be clear i understand the 'nationalism as a religion' thing

[captainjonnitkessler]

I finally did it! I finally found the WORST take on atheism this site has EVER produced!

“Oh yeah? You don’t think atheism is bad? Well look at all this evil shit that Christians did. Okay, now pretend that they were atheists. CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS!”

[communistkenobi]

Would you be willing to dunk on speak more on mainstream feminist theory you're reading? And/or share some of the non-juvenile feminist theory you've read?

(Note: I will try to link to open access versions of articles as much as possible, but some of them are paywalled. if the links dont work just type the titles into google and add pdf at the end, i found them all that way)

If there’s any one singular issue with mainstream feminist thought that can be generalized to "The Problem With Mainstream Feminism" (and by mainstream I mean white, cishet, bourgeois feminism, the “canonical feminism” that is taught in western universities) it’s that gender is treated as something that can stand by itself, by which I mean, “gender” is a complete unit of analysis from which to understand social inequality. You can “add” race, class, ability, national origin, religion, sexuality, and so on to your analysis (each likewise treated as full, discrete categories of the social world), but that gender itself provides a comprehensive (or at the very least “good enough”) view of a given social problem. (RW Connell, who wrote the canonical text Masculinities (1995) and is one of the feminist scholars who coined/popularized the term hegemonic masculinity, is a fantastic example of this.)

Black feminists have for many decades pointed out how fucking ridiculous this is, especially vis a vis race and class, because Black women do not experience misogyny and racism as two discrete forms of oppression in their lives, they are inextricably linked. The separation of gender and race is not merely an analytical error on the part of white feminists - it is a continuation of the long white supremacist tradition of bounding gender in exclusively white terms. Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought (2000) engages with this via a speech by Sojourner Truth, the most famous line from her speech being “ain’t I a woman?” as she describes all the aspects of womanhood she experiences but is still denied the position of woman by white women because she is Black. Lugones in Coloniality of Gender (2008) likewise brings up the example of segregationist movements in the USAmerican South, where towns would put up banners saying things like “Protect Southern Women” as a rationale for segregation, making it very clear who they viewed as women. Sylvia Wynter in 1492: A New World View likewise points out that colonized women and men were treated like cattle by Spanish colonizers in South America, often counted in population measures as "heads of Indian men and women," as in heads of cattle. They were treated as colonial resources, not as gendered subjects capable of rational thought.

To treat the category of “woman” as something that stands by itself is a white supremacist understanding of gender, because “woman” always just means white woman - the fact that white is left implied is part of white supremacy, because who is granted subjecthood, the ability to be seen as human and therefore a gendered subject, is a function of race (see Quijano, 2000). Crenshaw (1991) operationalizes this through the term intersectionality, pointing out that law treats gender and race as separate social sites of discrimination, and the practical effect of this is that Black women have limited/no legal recourse when they face discrimination because they experience it as misogynoir, as the multiplicative effect of their position as Black women, not as sexism on the one hand and racism on the other.

Transfeminist theory has further problematized the category of gender by pointing out that "woman" always just means cis woman (and more often than not also means heterosexual woman). The most famous of these critiques comes from Judith Butler - I’m less familiar with their work, but there is a great example in the beginning of Bodies That Matter (1993) where they demonstrate that personhood itself is a gendered social position. They ask (and I’m paraphrasing) “when does a fetus stop becoming an ‘it’? When its gender is declared by a doctor or nurse via ultrasound.” Sex assignment is not merely a social practice of patriarchal division, it is the medium through which the human subject is created (and recall that gender is fundamentally racialized & race is fundamentally gendered, which I will come back to).

And the work of transfeminists demonstrate this by showing transgender people are treated as non-human, non-citizens. Heath Fogg Davis in Sex-Classification Policies as Transgender Discrimination (2014) recounts the story of an African American transgender woman in Pennsylvania being denied use of public transit, because her bus pass had an F gender marker on it (as all buss passes in the state required gender markers until 2013) and the bus driver refused her service because she “didn’t look like a woman.” She was denied access to transit again when she got her marker changed to M, as she “didn’t look like a man.” Transgender people are thus denied access to basic public services by being constructed as “administratively impossible” - gender markers are a component of citizenship because they appear on all citizenship documents, as well as a variety of civil and public documents (such as a bus pass). Gender markers, even when changed by trans people (an arduous, difficult process in most places on earth, if not outright impossible), are seen as fraudulent & used as a basis to deny us citizenship rights. Toby Beauchamp in Going Stealth: Transgender Politics & US Surveillance Practices (2019) talks about anti-trans bathroom bills as a form of citizenship denial to trans people - anti-trans bathroom laws are impossible to actually enforce because nobody is doing genital inspections of everyone who enters bathrooms (and genitals are not proof of transgenderism!), but that’s actually not the point. The point of these bills is to embolden members of the cissexual public to deputize themselves on behalf of the state to police access to public space, directing their cissexual gaze towards anyone who “looks transgender.” Beauchamp points out that transvestigators don’t need to be accurate most of the time, because again, the point is terrorizing transgender people out of public life. He connects this with racial segregation, and argues that we shouldn’t view gender segregation as “a new form of” racial segregation (this is a duplication of white supremacist feminism) but a continuation of it, because public access is a citizenship right and citizenship is fundamentally racially mediated (see Glenn's (2002) Unequal Freedom)

Susan Stryker & Nikki Sullivan further drives this home in The King’s Member, The Queen’s Body, where they explain the history of the crime of mayhem. Originating in feudal Europe (I don’t remember off the dome the exact time/place so forgive the generalization lol), mayhem is the crime of self-mutilation for the purposes of avoiding military conscription, but what is interesting is that its not actually legally treated as “self” mutilation, but a mutilation of the state and its capacity to exercise its own power. They link the concept of mayhem to the contemporary hysteria around transgender people receiving bottom surgery - we are not in fact self mutilating, we are mutilating the state’s ability to reproduce its own population by permanently destroying (in the eyes of the cissexual public) our capacity to form the foundational social unit of the nuclear family. Our bodies are not our own, they are a component of the state. Situating this in the context of reproductive rights makes this even clearer. Abortion access is not actually about the individual, it is the state mediating its own reproductive capacity via the restriction of abortion (premised on the cissexual logic of binary reproductive capacity systematized through sex assignment). Returning to Hill Collins, she points out that in the US, white cis women are restricted access to abortion while Black and Indigenous cis women are routinely forcibly sterilized, their children aborted, and pumped with birth control by the state. This is not a contradiction or point of “hypocrisy” on the part of conservatives, this is a fully comprehensive plan of white supremacist population management.

To treat "gender" as its own category, as much of mainstream feminism does (see Acker (1990) and England (2010) for two hilarious examples of this, both widely cited feminists), is to forward a white supremacist notion of gender. That white supremacy is fundamentally cissexual and heterosexual is not an accident - it is a central organizing logic that allows for the systematization of the fear of declining white birthrates (the conspiracy of "white genocide" is illegible without the base belief that there are two kinds of bodies, one that gets pregnant and one that does the impregnating, and that these two types of bodies are universal sources of evidence of the superiority of men over women - and im using those terms in the most loaded possible sense).

I realize that most of these readings are US centric, which is an unfortunate limitation of my own education. I have been really trying to branch into literature outside the Global North, but doctoral degree constraints + time constraints + my own research requires continual engagement with it. I also realize that most of the transfeminist readings I've cited are by white scholars! This is a continual systemic problem in academic literature and I'm not exempt from it, even as I sit here and lay out the problem. Which is to say, this is nowhere near the final word on this subject, and having to devote so much time to reading mainstream feminist theory as someone who is in western academia is part of my own limited education + perspective on this topic

[timetravellingkitty]

KASHMIR MASTERLIST

Background

History of Kashmir from 250 BC to 1947 [to understand Kashmir's multi religious history and how we got to 1947]

Broad timeline of events from 1947 to the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in 2019 (BBC) [yes, BBC. hang on just this once]

Human Rights Watch report based on a visit to Indian controlled Kashmir in 1998 [has a summary, background, human rights abuses and recommendations]

Another concise summary of the issue

Sites to check out

Kashmir Action - news and readings

The Kashmiriyat - independent news site about ongoings in Kashmir

FreePressKashmir - same thing as previous

Kashmir Law and Justice Project - analysis of international law as it applies to Kashmir

Stand with Kashmir - awareness, run by diaspora Kashmiris (both Pandit and Muslim)

These two for more readings and resources on Kashmir: note that the petitions and donation links are from 2019 and also has explainers on the background (x) (x)

To read

Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? - about women in the Kashmiri resistance movement and the 1991 mass rape of Kashmiri women in the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora by Indian armed forces

Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada in Kashmir - a compliation of writings about the lives of Kashmiris under Indian domination

Colonizing Kashmir: State Building under Indian Occupation - how Kashmir was made "integral" to the Indian state and examines state-building policies (excerpt)

Resisting Occupation in Kashmir - about the social and legal dimensions of India's occupation

On India's scapegoating of Kashmiri Pandits, both by Kashmiri Pandits (x) (x)

Of Gardens and Graves - translations of Kashmiri poems

Social media

kashiirkoor

museumofkashmir

kashmirpopart

posh_baahar

readingkashmir

standwithkashmir and their backup account standwithkashmir2 (main account is banned in India wonder why)

kashmirlawjustice

kashmirawareness

jammugenocide (awareness about the 1947 genocide abetted by Maharaja Hari Singh and the RSS)

To watch

Jashn-e-Azadi: How We Celebrate Freedom parts 1 and 2 - a documentary about the Kashmiri freedom struggle (filmed by a Kashmiri Pandit)

Paradise Lost - BBC documentary about how India and Pakistan's dispute over the valley has affected the people

Kashmir - Valley of Tears - the exhaustion with the conflict in the post nineties

In the Shade of Fallen Chinar - art as a form of Kashmiri resistance

Human rights violations (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Land theft and dispossession (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

A note: I know annoying Desis are going to see this and go "Oh but Kashmir is Pakistan's because-" and "Kashmir is an integral part of India because-". I must make my stance clear: Kashmir belongs to the Kashmiris, the natives, no matter what religion they belong to. Neither Pakistan nor India get to decide the matter of Kashmiri sovereignty. The reasons given by both parties as to why Kashmir should be a part of either nation are bullshit. The United Nations itself recognises Kashmir as a disputed region, so I will not entertain dumbfuckery. I highly encourage fellow Indians especially to take the time to go through and properly understand the violence the government enacts on Kashmiris. I've also included links to learn more about Kashmiri culture because really, what do the rest of us know about it? Culturally and linguistically Kashmir differs so much from the rest of India and Pakistan (also the amount of fetishization of Kashmiri women...yikes). This is not just a bilateral issue between these two nations over land, this actually affects the people of Kashmir. And if you're still here, thank you for reading

[odinsblog]

I know there’s a lot more serious things happening than worrying about what some spoiled culture vulture thinks, but the Jenners + Kardashians stay hopping on the, “I support the latest popular thing” bandwagon, without having any understanding or taking any nuance into account.

In sharp contrast, here is the thoughtful post Gigi Hadid released:

"My thoughts are with all those affected by this unjustifiable tragedy, and every day that innocent lives are taken by this conflict too many of which are children. I have deep empathy and heartbreak for the Palestinian struggle and life under occupation, it's a responsibility I hold daily. I also feel a responsibility to my Jewish friends to make it clear, as I have before:

While I have hopes and dreams for Palestinians, none of them include the harm of a Jewish person.

The terrorizing of innocent people is not in alignment with & does not do any good for the 'Free Palestine' movement. The idea that it does has fueled a painful, decades-long cycle of back&forth retaliation (which no innocent civilian, Palestinian or Israeli, deserves to be a casualty of), and helps perpetuate the false idea that being Pro-Palestine = antisemitic.

If you are hurting, as I share my condolences today with my loved ones, both Palestinian and Jewish, I'm sending you my love & strength — whoever and wherever you are. There are a lot of complex, personal, and valid feelings, but every human deserves basic rights, treatment, and security; no matter their nationality, religion, ethnicity, or where they were born.

I know my words will never be enough or heal the deep wounds of so many, but I pray for the safety of innocent lives, always."

—Gigi Hadid

[rontra]

they literally are so real though. God of light is like “hey your wife killed a whole load of people and if you go hang out with her you will Not have a good time” and the first thing she says to him is “what if we took over the world by violent force and installed ourselves as the gods of the world” and he goes “ok :)”. and hes right.

[INCORRECT BUZZER]

->HE SAYS<- "hi i'm back. anyway apropos nothing i want to unite the world under one banner. for. um. undisclosed reasons". and SHE says "ok :)" <- their actual conflict has very little to do with this*

the thing he has a problem with (and which ultimately tears the rift between them) is her religious stance, because she is an unyielding apostate and he is on a mission from the joker of gods. and he spends his life guiltily withholding that information from her, because if she knew this was a mission from the joker of gods, she wouldn't be helping him do it

anyway ozma's sudden wish inherently carries violence with it and salem is smart enough to understand that and articulate it back to him. religiosity aside, they are on the same page about that; there is no world where "making the entire world bow to the same worldview/ruler/ideology/(sotto voce: and religion)" does not imply violent conquest of existing nations and cultures. she makes clear to him what needs to happen for him to get what he wants, and that she is willing to do it with him, and he's like "epic, i love my cool wife. let's not discuss religion at the dinner table 😬"

violent conquest was not even remotely on salem's itinerary but it is what he's suddenly talking about post-reincarnation, and she's willing to do it with him. SHE said "ok :)". We're All In This Together ❤️

but yea they're so real. i wish them a very merry "soulmates being twisted and used against each other so severely that they can no longer recognize each other's hearts". and a happy new year

[supernovaa-remnant]

L’manberg, Nationalism, and c!Dream

Okay, I know it’s been done to death, but I’ve been reading Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities for a class which talks about nationalism as an imagined community, so nationalism has been on my mind. And, of course, my mind’s natural progression was to start thinking about L’manberg and nationalism again. So, without further ado, here’s my post on L’manberg, Nationalism, and how that played a role in c!Dream’s story arc. 

(Also, I haven’t written an essay in ages, and I haven’t done analysis in ages, so please cut me some slack lol)

It’s under the cut because this is a very, very long post (3.2k words long, in fact). (you can also read it on google docs if you'd prefer).

What is Nationalism?

To start this all, we need to take a moment to step away from Minecraft roleplay to actually talk about nationalism itself. Since I know most of you are here to hear about the Minecraft roleplay aspect, I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible, but it is very important for context. I’ll bold (and color) the main points if you just want to read those before skipping down to the L’manberg section, but you’re more than welcome to read all of this. 

To understand nationalism, you need to understand a bit about how it came to be, which requires a bit of knowledge about the transition from pre-modern to modern times. In general, this transition is often thought to have occurred in the mid-18th century during the Age of Enlightenment and during the time when a lot of revolutions were taking place, such as the American Revolution and the French Revolution. But it’s important to note that there isn’t really such a clear cut line of when this transition from pre-modern to modern times happened, and, in many ways, this change is still occurring to this day.

The most important aspect of this change to think about in the context of this post is in terms of religion, though I will also briefly talk about the shift from dynastic rule to democracy. I want to start off by briefly talking about this because, in many ways, nationalism has taken on the role that religion held in pre-modern times. (Side note: this isn’t to say nationalism replaced religion, but the widespread role of religion in people’s lives today is different than it was in, say, the 14th century). 

In pre-modern times, religion gave people a sense of belonging, and this idea of belonging is something I’ll come back to, but, for now, you should know that nationalism gives a similar sense of belonging. I won’t get into too much detail about why Anderson specifically says this is a sense of belonging to an imagined community, but it basically comes down to the fact that you’ll never know everyone in your community (whether that be religious or national), but you still feel a sense of belonging to the collective.

“Okay, Stella, very interesting, but you still haven’t defined nationalism.” Alright, alright, I’ll define nationalism, which requires me to define a nation. In Anderson’s words, from page 6 of Imagined Communities, “it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” I want you to take a note specifically of it being inherently limited and file that away for later. 

I said I was going to briefly discuss the shift from dynastic rule to democracy, so I’ll do that now. So, a couple things about these dynastic rules with centralized power: firstly, it was believed that the monarchs had some sort of divine right to rule from God (see how this ties into religion?), and, secondly, a lot of borders were less defined the further you got from the centralized powers. Obviously, with the shift from pre-modern to modern times, both of these things changed, bringing the idea of giving power to the people, and also bringing more concrete borders.

Anyway, moving on. Nations are imagined as inherently limited because no one imagines one nation as encompassing all of humanity. Yes, in modern times borders are very concrete and defined, but it goes beyond that—in a person’s mind, nations are limited because there are always people who do not belong to the nation. It’s not often thought about, but with a sense of belonging comes exclusion. The entire concept of belonging comes from the idea of being with people who are similar to you, and this implies the existence of people who are so dissimilar that you don’t belong with them, and, thus, they don’t belong with you. It can easily become a double edged sword, I think; there is comfort in belonging to a collective, but it can be all too easy to fall into an “us vs them” mentality, which is going to be an important point moving forward.

So, how does this all relate to a Minecraft Roleplay?

L’manberg and Nationalism

Onto the fun stuff! Minecraft Roleplay! Obviously, L’manberg is a nation, so I’m sure you can already see how nationalism is going to play a role, but let’s get into it. First, though, I’d like to give a minor disclaimer that not everything is going to fit perfectly simply on account of the fact that the DSMP takes place in a very sparsely inhabited world, and, honestly, that alone makes governmental structures of any kind really interesting to look at, but I digress since it’s not the point of this post. (It also means that nationalism as talked about in this post isn’t really an imagined community like Anderson claims it is. From a meta standpoint, you could say this sense of nationalism actually leaked into the audience itself, but in the story it’s not really an imagined community).

The DSMP starts out as a world with no borders and no governmental structures of any kind—it starts with no nations. Rather, the DSMP in itself is a cohesive community to which everyone belongs. It’s not a community like nationalism, nor is it a community like religion, nor is it an imagined community in any way. As previously stated, the DSMP is a sparsely populated world, and, at least at the start, everyone knows each other or knows of each other as an individual. This sense of belonging is more akin to a group of friends than anything else, which I think makes the introduction of nationalism especially interesting. 

c!Wilbur. What a guy, am I right? He shows up to the server, and he brings with him capitalism and the idea of monopolizing resources—there’s an interesting post to be made about that, I’m sure, but not the point of this one—and, most importantly, he brings with him the concept of a nation. He’s putting up borders, putting up walls, and essentially dividing a place that used to be united, citing L’manberg as an independent country, which is does not include everyone in the server (it’s limited), and which is separate from the DSMP and essentially is its “own server” (it’s sovereign). Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s ✨nationalism✨

I’ve seen posts talking about the fact that L’manberg was specifically satirizing nationalism, and though, despite my efforts, I couldn’t find these posts (if anyone has them please send them to me! I’d love to re-read them and link them in this post), I do think it’s true. I think there’s a lot to be said about L’manberg from a narrative and meta standpoint, and I think there’s a lot to be said about the fact that c!Wilbur was always written as a villain in the story (and not just during the Pogtopia arc, despite popular belief), but I can’t get into it all in this post. So, what I do want to do is come back to the concept of belonging and how that always comes with exclusion, and I want to talk about the “us vs them” mentality.

The reason I say L’manberg is satirizing nationalism is because it takes these facets of nationalism to the extreme. It’s not just a place made to give people a sense of belonging which in turn creates exclusion; L’manberg is a xenophobic nation, and I would go as far to say that its founding was based more on exclusion than inclusion. That is to say, the exclusive aspect was not just an unfortunate yet inevitable side effect of creating a nation. From the very start, L’manberg was founded on the exclusion of non-Europeons, and, more specifically, the exclusion of Americans. Sapnap actually originally wanted to join, but he was denied because he’s American. L’manberg wasn’t ever some place accepting of anyone who came to it, and it wasn’t a place to be free from tyranny, but let’s get into the idea of L’manberg going against tyranny. 

The “us vs them” mentality is already extremely dangerous and something to be wary of, and it’s something I think we should constantly be checking ourselves on, but L’manberg takes that to a further extreme. I don’t want you to think this point is completely separate from the point I made before, because they do very much connect to each other and are intertwined. Nations are limited. This means there will always be people who don’t belong to any given nation. Obviously, in this case, members of the greater DSMP do not belong to L’manberg. (I think it’s also helpful to remember that c!Wilbur specifically didn’t allow dual-citizenship; c!Tubbo initially wanted to be a citizen of both the greater DSMP and L’manberg, but that wasn’t allowed, so in the end he became a citizen of only L’manberg).

But, this wasn’t just a case of the greater DSMP being separate from L’manberg. No, they were tyrants that L’manberg was escaping from. c!Dream was a tyrant that L’manberg was fighting against. It’s taking the “us vs them” mentality to an extreme of “we are the righteous good guys fighting against oppression and tyranny, and they are the tyrants trying to oppress us.” It sure sounds like a noble cause—and you can always count on c!Wilbur to spout pretty words that convince people to play on his terms—but is that really the case? In a place that previously had no nations and no real defined hierarchy of power, how could tyranny exist? As I said before, the DSMP previously was more like a group of friends living in a commune than anything else, and tyranny doesn’t really seem applicable in that context, does it? This is c!Wilbur spinning a narrative that is going to continue to affect the SMP all the way to the very end, and it’s also what places c!Dream and c!Tommy on opposite sides from the very beginning, by establishing that extreme “us vs them” mentality.

(Oh, it should also be noted that the “us vs them” mentality very often leads to the dehumanization of the other side, so keep that in mind for when we get to c!Dream). 

(Also there’s something to be said about the L’manberg revolution being heavily based on Hamilton, which is based on the American Revolution, which was a very key part of the transition from pre-modern to modern times and how that relates to nationalism, but this post is already getting long enough).

So, yeah, L’manberg was satirizing nationalism. And, ultimately, L’manberg was never good for the server as a whole.

c!Dream and Nationalism, even in the wake of L’manberg

Ough. c!Dream… :( oh he really did walk the path laid out for him by c!Wilbur to the very end, didn’t he?

Listen, everything c!Dream does on the server is ultimately tied back to the founding of L’manberg, and, in turn, to the introduction of nationalism to the server. One of c!Dream’s primary goals is unity (or, specifically, the unity and simplicity of the server from pre-L’manberg times), and this is antithetical to nationalism, or, at least, to the extreme form of nationalism that L’manberg brought. Because nationalism brought division, and division brought conflict, and conflict brought death (specifically canon deaths). And, well, we all know how much death is a motivator for c!Dream.

(Also, there is something to be said about the start of nationalism and nations on the server not being framed as a good thing in the narrative, how it was satirizing and criticizing the concept of nationalism, and there’s something to be said about how the narrative agrees with the group of anarchists—the Syndicate—who push against the idea of nations. But, well, that’s also a post for another day). 

Now, obviously, unity is not c!Dream’s only motivation—actually, I think we’d all agree that the thing that motivated c!Dream the most was fear. But, a lot of this fear does tie back to L’manberg and the narrative built by c!Wilbur. So, let’s for a moment take a look at how this narrative affected other people’s perceptions of c!Dream.

Remember how I said the “us vs them” mentality often leads to dehumanization? Well, well, well. Listen, this is dreblr. The dehumanization of c!Dream has been talked about to death, but that’s because it’s always relevant to his character!! And I’m here to say that this dehumanization started all the way back during the L’manberg revolution when c!Wilbur labeled c!Dream a tyrant. Obviously the dehumanization of c!Dream is incredibly apparent with the revive book and in Pandora’s Vault, but this is not a post about the box, unfortunately (I’m sorry—I know we all love the box here 💔).

c!Dream’s dehumanization started the moment he was labeled as a tyrant and the moment he was labeled as the “enemy.” He became the “them” in the “us vs them” mentality that was adopted by L’manberg. He’s the oppressor they need to defeat, and he’s the monster that needs to be slain. And this is important because this never went away. Even after L’manberg was gone, the concept of nations and the concept of “us vs them,” never went away! c!Dream was still the enemy that needed to be killed! And, over the course of time when L’manberg was still around, c!Dream lost pretty much everyone. Everyone was turning against him, people were using attachments against him, and people wanted to kill him (New L’manberg was planning to execute him under the false pretense of a peaceful celebration!). And, yes, he did plenty of bad things during this time (namely exile), but I think we should also remember that most people did not know about what happened during exile at this time. They wanted to kill him because he was powerful and dangerous, and he wasn’t with them so he was against them because that’s the narrative L’manberg created—if they’re not with us, they’re against us.

Everyone was against him, and he was spiraling (pushed further by the existence of the revive book) to the point that he commissioned the build of a giant, obsidian, inescapable prison and he locked himself in there with the hope that it would protect him and save his life. (☹️) Obviously that didn’t work like he’d hoped, but… well… 

As I said before: none of this stuff went away even after L’manberg was gone. The concept of nationalism didn’t magically disappear from the server just because L’manberg was destroyed. Nations kept popping up. The server kept splitting itself into more pieces and factions, and it all became so convoluted. I think it’s important to remember the population of the SMP—they don’t really have enough people to make functioning governments, yet they keep trying to make nations, anyway. They’re following L’manberg’s footsteps. They’re chasing this concept of nationalism.

Obviously this affected everyone’s lives, but it really did ruin c!Dream’s life. The introduction of nationalism is what causes c!Dream’s life to essentially start falling apart. I don’t want to rehash stuff that’s already been said a lot in dreblr, so there’s a lot about c!Dream’s motivations and story that I’m not including, but I want to bring our attention to a certain line c!Dream said in the finale streams: “Why can’t things be simple again?”

Because things were simple before all this! It was a group of friends making a home!! They built the community center because the server was meant to be a cohesive community of friends. There was never a need for nations or governments! It was just a group of friends making a home together! And then it all became so convoluted, and there were nations when there didn’t need to be any, and people were being divided into sides and being divided into “us” and “them,” and it was so irrevocably different from what the server started as. And I don’t think c!Dream ever really figured out how to accept that it was irrevocable :( and even he himself was blindsided by the story crafted by L’manberg and by c!Wilbur, to the point that he didn’t even fully understand his own goals! Because he (and everyone else) got so used to nationalism on the server and factions and conflicts and “us” vs “them,” that he didn’t even realize he just wanted things to go back to how they were :( oughhhh c!dreamie :((

Sorry to devolve into emotions at the end of this, but it’s not an academic paper, so I think you should cut me some slack. It’s just :( “I don’t ever want to be alone” because with nationalism comes exclusion and it eventually brought c!Dream to a point where he was so, so alone and :( He makes me so sad </3

Anyway, the reason the DSMP didn’t end with c!Dream dead at c!Tommy’s hands is because that was never the point of the story—that was the narrative L’manberg was trying to spin, but that was never what the story was actually about. It took up until the very end for them to break free from the story of L’manberg.

(And, it’s been mentioned many times before, but there’s a reason this was never able to happen until c!Wilbur was removed from the narrative. c!Dream and c!Wilbur and c!Tommy are absolutely crucial in each other’s character arcs, and you can’t really understand any of the duo relationships without considering the third (says the person guilty of writing c!Dreambur fanworks without always thinking about c!Tommy lmao, but hey at least it’s not analysis, right?) but that’s also a post for another day).

I never really know how to conclude things. I’m kind of worried I’m forgetting stuff, and I apologize if I did forget stuff, but I’ve been working on this for, like, 4 and a half hours and am getting tired lmao. But my main points are that L’manberg was satirizing and criticizing nationalism, that the concept of nationalism stuck with the SMP until the very end, and that the concept of nationalism from the beginning set up c!Dream to be the villain (and, really, this is largely in part because L’manberg from the beginning set up c!Dream to be a villain, and I don’t think you can feasibly separate L’manberg from nationalism). Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk! Feel free to ask questions and discuss further, and I will do my best to respond lol.

[gothic-thoughts]

Wrath

Lil homage to Supernatural lowkey (cuz i miss that show)

Ghost Riley x Black GN Reader Angst

Fallen Angel!ReaderAU, MeetUgly

CW: Ghost finds you, Reader wakes from a coma

TW: I, myself am not religious but that don't mean ion respect other people's beliefs and obviously this isn't meant to be offensive in terms of religion, killing mention, bad injury/wound description

Word Count: 1449 (give or take)

The ground finally stopped shaking like nothing even happened, but this wasn't some minor tremor. This was the most unlikely place to have earthquakes and yet a 5.2 just rocked the entire base out of nowhere like it was nothing; strong enough to shake the building but weak enough that nothing was broken, just knocked over. We tracked the origin to find it was only 20 miles from here in a random forest, deducing that it was some kind of weapon meant for us but thankfully missed by only a couple miles. And I was determined to find out who had the balls to threaten us in our own home.

Once the chopper landed, I cautiously led my squad across the field towards a huge clearing of knocked-over trees and scorched grass with a giant, steaming crater in the middle. We approach it to find nothing: no metal, no casing, nothing. Just somebody lying naked in the center.

"Oh, what the f--” I trail off as lowering my gun, “Who the hell is this? And why are they naked?"

I groan in frustration before ordering most of the squad to investigate the area while ordering a couple others to get a blanket from the chopper. I carefully walked down into the crater with my gun trained on the person, waiting for them to make a move but the only movement was the staggering rise and fall of their chest. I nudge their calf with my foot only for it to move limply.

“And what the hell were you doing all the way out here...? Whatever, hello?! Hello, hey!”

No response. Not even an eye twitch to let me know they could at least hear me...or alive. I put my gun away and kneeled into the now dissipating steam to examine the many, many cuts and bruises marking the front of their body that seemed to be already healing. I reluctantly reach down to shake their shoulder but again not even a change in breath; they’re out cold.

I roll them onto the side to check but the sight of two, large matching wounds between the shoulder blades makes my eyes widen. The skin around it was pulled outward, looking either melted or like they were ripped off of something hot. 

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Three days after we bring them to the medical bay, their eyes finally open, darting around the room and then to the cuffs keeping their right wrist chained to the gurney. The medics thought it was a bit much since they were so hurt but I couldn’t trust them just yet, if at all, given the fact that in 3 days, we still knew nothing about them: not their name, age, nationality; nothing, so I wanted to be extra cautious. Their eyes lock with mine and I give them nothing but a cold, skeptical stare as I walk into the room and stand at the end of the bed.

“Stop struggling; I don’t trust you enough as is.”

“So we understand each other then.” They snap, “Who are you and what have you done to me?”

“Done to you? I brought you to a medical bay and kept you even more alive than you looked in that crater so how ‘bout we start with your name and we’ll go from there.”

“I don’t have to tell you damned thing, I demand you release me. Now.”

“Yeah, that’s not how this works.” I cross my arms, eyes narrowing behind my mask, “I don’t care how pretty or rich you think you are, but--”

“Do I look ‘rich’ to you?”

“I don’t know what you look like, all I know is we found you at the epicenter of 5.2 earthquake only a few miles from our base, thinking you were some kind of missile. That was 3 days ago.”

“Three...? I... I caused an earthquake...? Was anyone hurt?”

“You must’ve hit your head harder than we thought if you think you could cause a damn earthquake, much less one that strong.”

“Wait, did you say ‘base’? Like a mortal military base...?”

Mortal? They're more entitled than I thought. "Yeah, sure a ‘mortal’ base. You’re being detained until we determine and learn who you are and what you are."

“What I am? So you do understand I am not from here...”

“I almost considered that since that's the only answer I can see after 3 whole days of trying to figure out why the hell you have no blood type, fingerprints or an even an SSN; so either you’re an infant, faked your death, or you’re a fucking spy. So as I said earlier, we’re gonna start from the fucking beginning.”

They sigh, no longer struggling with the cuffs, “Fine... I’ll comply.”

“And no lies; you may not have a blood type, but you have a heartbeat. If I feel like you're lyin', we do this the hard way, got it?"

They nod. I don't budge an inch, continuing to watch for even the slightest twitch.

“Name.”

“(Y/n).”

"See, easy. Alright; then (Y/n), what makes you so special that we can't read your fingertips?"

“Since you're already so skeptical, I doubt you will believe me if I tell you...”

“Try me.”

They rolled their eyes with a scoff. “Yeah, because you mortals are known for your trustworthiness.”

“What I believe isn't the point here, just spit it out."

Another exasperated sigh. “I'm an angel...or I was...”

I blink a few times, processing their words. “I said no lying.”

“Thought you said what you believe wasn't the point.”

“It is when you lie.”

“Whatever, if you're so smart how do you explain my lack of human information, Mr. Easter Bunny? The earthquake? You didn’t find anything else besides me in the area, did you?”

I scoff with a chuckle. Angel or not, they're a smart ass. "You're right, I actually can't. But I know that angels aren't real... and if they were, they can't be hurt. How'd you go from this invincible being to half-dead in the middle of a forest?"

“I said I was an angel, didn't I? I'm a fallen angel now.”

"So how'd you lose your wings then?"

“Simply put, I sinned.”

“Can you elaborate on that?” 

“A demon killed my best friend and wrath got the better of me..” Their voice cracked a little, “So I found that monster and showed him the exact same mercy he showed her...”

I pause, hearing the amount of stifled anguish in their voice. I relax my shoulders and uncross my arms, softening my eyes just slightly enough to let them know I believe them...enough...for now.

"You regret it?"

“I am aware of what I signed up for when the thought entered my head... but she was my best friend.” (Y/n) sniffles, avoiding eye contact, “It was worth it, though I am a terrible person for it...”

“Well yes...” I walk around the bed and unlock the cuff from their wrist, “And no.”

They gasp, doing a double take. “No? I killed someone."

"We have something called nuance down here on Earth. What you do matters, but the intent matters more."

"So you don't think I'm a terrible person? Are you serious right now?"

“Not a terrible person, just a terrible angel. You’d make a great person.”

"Right, because mortals kill more often than not."

"Hey, not all of us are serial killers, (Y/n). Most have legitimate reasons for killing someone, your case just so happens to be very common."

"Oh..." (Y/n) sits up against the pillows, "That doesn't make it okay."

"I never said it made it okay; I said it doesn't make you terrible."

"I never got your name..."

"Call me Ghost."

"Ghost...?"

"We'll work on real names when I trust you more."

"Okay then...Ghost. So what happens now? I stay in some special cell, treated like a freak while your army interrogates me?"

“I'm not putting you in a cell."

“You won't?”

"Unless you give me a reason to, no. You don’t seem dangerous, and besides, if we keep you in an actual cell... I think you'd just try and break out. You're just gonna have to live here for now."

“Thank you... I think..."

"Don't get too comfortable though, I'll still be keepin' my eye on you. But at least you get to not be cooped up in a cell. Until we figure out what to do with you that is."

“...And... just how comfortable are army barracks?”

I let out a soft chuckle. "They might not be the most luxurious, but I can give you a room to yourself. No one should bug you as long as you stay out of others' way."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet; you might hate it here. Not many people like being surrounded by soldiers in every direction."

"Better than the middle of a crater."

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(a/n): Last mythical one i swear (prolly, maybe, not really)

[that-ari-blogger]

An Interesting Character

Usually, when character is brought up in discussion, it is in reference to the people. If you think of the characters of The Owl House for example, you probably think of Luz, Eda, Bellos, Hunter, and Principal Bump.

But, by pure mechanics, a character is just a force at work in a story. One with personality, and agency, sure, but it's just a force.

This means that, if you squint a little, the Boiling Isles itself is a character, and the Wild Magic is an extension of that. It certainly gets treated like a character by the story, especially in Adventures In Elements.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Before I start, let me give one attempt to argue with the pedants. By definition, a character is a person. So, hear me out, the Boiling Isles is literally the body of a titan, who actively talks to Luz later on in the series. That is my justification.

So... why is wild magic a thing?

I'm not asking for an in-universe answer, because that is multifaceted and not really the point. I'm asking why the writers decided to include this idea, and what effect it has on the story?

The phrase "magic is..." is used four times in this episode. Once by Eda, and thrice in quick succession by Luz. And it is worth taking a look at these statements.

"I know my lessons seem weird, but this is what wild magic is all about! Making a connection with nature. The earliest witches understood that. Human witches need to understand it, too. You wanna learn a second spell? ... Then you have to learn from the island."

There is a lot going on with Eda's guidance. First up is the small detail about the tense. The earliest witches knew that magic is about nature, implying now it is different. But mainly, this is an explanation of the nitty gritty of The Owl House's magic system. It's about two things, nature and connection. And I want to delve into that a little bit.

There is something fascinating about Bellos and his roots in witch-hunting. Because that was specifically defined by an opposition to things, rather than any actual views of its own.

Malleus Maleficarum, the book that kicked off the witch-hunts is a fascinating read, as long as you understand what it is that you are reading and don't use it as a set of instructions. Internet Archive has a translated version by Prof. Christopher S. Mackay, complete with commentary from latter authors that I highly recommend.

This single book caused a ton of harm to people, and you can examine it from almost any angle you like. The original was written by a terrible person with terrible intentions, and I also recommend Overly Sarcastic Productions' video on Werewolves for more information on that section of history.

What I want to focus on is the vernacular. References "devils" about 400 times and namedrops "witches" with similar regularity. The word "demon" comes up over 1000 times, and the word "pagan" comes up about 40 times. Specifically in reference to "pagan nations" which is about as racist as it sounds, as well as a ton of using the word as a catch all insult ("x type of person is worse than a pagan", etc. etc.). I don't want to get into the theology and history of this word, because it's a complicated minefield. But in this context, specifically around Europe in this time period, it means just about all regional faiths and mythologies. Celtic, Norse, Germanic, and several others.

Fun fact about me, I am Welsh, which means is that I have a connection to Welsh mythology, and so my analysis of wild magic is through that lens. If you have an understanding of other similar cultures, let me know, I'm fascinated to learn how that affects the reading of the Owl House.

Now, Modern Druidism is a living religion that I am not well versed in and want to treat with the respect befitting any living faith. So, I am sticking to what I know about the history and mythology and trying to make the differentiation between those two and Modern Druidism clear.

So, Druids in Celtic mythology are religious leaders, and peacekeepers. But what is possibly the most famous thing about them is their connection to nature. And here is where the analysis of The Owl House comes into play. Because the Owl House takes great care to associate magic with the natural, and Bellos with the unnatural.

"It means magic is a gift from the island. It means magic is everywhere. Magic is everywhere!"

Bellos creates artificial magic through his artificial staff and the destruction of the Palismen to fuel his life. Hunter wields an artificial staff, and in Adventures In Elements, Amity trains with an artificial training wand, which is linked to Bellos through the coven system.

But you would think that Luz's runes would also count as artificial. So what gives?

This episode shows them as part of nature more than the more refined spell circles. Luz's magic is that connection to the island in its purest, rawest form, and as I have said before, Luz's greatest strength is her ability to connect.

The dynamic between Wild Magic and Coven Magic isn't a dynamic between the artificial and the natural, it's a dynamic between empathy and utilitarianism. Wild Magic borrows, or is gifted, Coven magic takes and uses for its own ends. They are similar concepts, but it's in the minutia that the meaning comes out.

Final Thoughts

There is one final thing that Wild Magic reminds me of, and its off on a limb a bit. I currently live in Australia, and while Aboriginal spirituality is varied and complex and not my story to tell, I have been gifted this piece of advice that I would like to share: Humans don't own the land, we are a part of it, just as the trees and the beasts and the storms and the fires. Humans are mere custodians, our duty is to watch over and protect, and to connect.

I thought that was relevant.

I am away next week, but I'll be back in the new year with some analysis of The First Day, so stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[goldennymphh]

“I love you.” “Do you?”

Mother Miranda x F! Reader

Both characters are over 18.

I may make a second part to this.

Words : 1k

depictions of mental and physical abuse. These two are NOT good for each other. I am not romanticizing this relationship. Please understand that.

Grief of a child loss will be depicted.

If you go through something similar with anything in the story. Please do not wait and speak help. It’s better to speak up, than to not.

National Domestic Violence Hotline :

800 - 799 -7233

They used to love each other, before all of it happened. Before the disease slowly crept into the blonde woman’s heart. Now every day was like eggshells. It was even worse than when they had to hide their relationship. You had been with her since the beginning, since before even Eva. You were that child’s godmother, and the perfect secret lover of Miranda.

Then Eva’s death came with the plague. You had not been infected but Miranda had, not with the sickness but with another disease. Her heart growing cold and thinking of some of the worst things. You tried to calm her from her brash ways of grief. You tried to hold her and whisper sweet words but she’d fight against you most times. Thrashing in your arms as she cried and cursed this world for taking her sweet Eva. Until then she’d finally calm down and rest against you. She was a mess.

Until one day, Miranda took a walk. You were out with your respective family when she did so. And by the time you got back to her home that she shared with her husband. He had informed you that she was out walking alongside the river. With that your body seemed to back up before turning on your hill and running. As fast as you could for the grieved woman. When you found her, she was curled up in some black goo. Your hands moving to uncover the woman from its grasp. It seemed to want to fight against you and engulf her whole but you refused. Eventually Miraanda was managed to pull out. You had barely taken a time to look up and see the thing right in front of you.

With the medical experience from your family lineage. You seemed to make sure she was.. okay. And before long she awoke. But she was spouting all this nonsense on how it would save them. How it could bring Eva back. None of it made sense and you tried to calm her down to speak normally but she was pulling herself to her feet much to your dismay. But she soon pulled you along.

After that day, many things changed in such a short time. Miranda’s husband seemingly went missing. He was a sweet guy but a bit dense. Miranda seemed tense and even more upset after his disappearance. You’d often find her muttering things on how ‘it didn’t work’ and she’d ‘have to try with another.’

Then with that led a new religion. As you watched from the sidelines, your lover collected a cult like religion. To the black god, it always struck you weird for a village who was always so into Christianity even to the point of kicking people out. Now they followed something that seemed heretical.

Any worried you’d bring up, Miranda would always quiet you with either over speaking you or more physically means. It felt odd but never able to tell her no, you let it. But beyond that, she was attentive when she could be. The relationship you two held was still a focus of hers. Most nights as you laid together, you’d find her feeling your stomach. As if mapping it out.

The soft question of, ‘what are you doing.’ Would be brushed off into the dead of night. Her hand moving back up to hold yours. This brought up a chain reaction of many other odd situations.

She didn’t care for you to be around other people unless she deemed them ‘safe.’ Which was rarely anything. One time you had spoke to a local botanist about some help with flowers, and when she saw you it was clear she was upset. She was quick to trying to make you explain it to her once you two got behind the comfort of the home you now shared. Yet no matter how many times you’d say nothing came out of it, she refused.

She’d slowly pull you away from your family, and before long they also started to come up missing. With the exception of those who had young kids. But your mother and father were said to have walked into the forest and never returned. Many gossiped about this but just claimed that maybe the wolves got their dinner that night.

She’d sit there and comfort your cries once you had learned of your families demise a few years later. She comfort you and run her fingers through you hair as if she had not done any wrong. As if she did not know of the bodies in her basement. Yet you did not need to know of that. After all you were one of the more important things of life.

But as time passed on, things just got worse. Being secluded in such a way as she kept you to herself. Possessive and cold is how you could once describe the woman you used to love. Yet it was hard to leave her, she was still Miranda. The woman who used to sneak around everyone's back with you when you two were younger. Knowing if you two got found out, things would be bad for each other. Yet now here you were, laid in the home that once used to be so warm. Your body resting against the bed as she walked in, clearly upset. Unsure if you should move and help her get unready from the day, or if she would snap at you.

Hesitating for a moment before you pulled the cover off. Body slipping out of bed to make your way over to her to help with those weird robes she always wore. But as you went to offer your help, your hands were suddenly grasped tightly as your eyes looked up into her cold gaze. She then shoved you off of her, your body stumbling back a bit hitting the corner of a nearby dresser. She turned away with a scoff, ignoring the way you winced at the pain in your side - a bruise most likely growing on your skin. Why should she care anyways? Useless.

[barblaz-arts]

Seen your post about Israel/Palestine which is very good to care about, but I'm not sure everyone in the world are aware how fucked up the whole situation is. People think it's either this or that, but they should support the actual people, not Israel, not Hamas.

People from both sides got hurt, but the ones who were hurting longer in short term historical perspective, are Palestineans, if we take the long term (which only maniacs and fanatics actually care about) those are of course Jews, but it's more of a religion/ideology thing than some actual suffering.

The problem of this lack of knowledge, in my opinion, is that both sides, politically are shit bcs they use people and their feelings as pawns. Hamas has their military bases near civilian objects in Gaza, and at the same time Israel doesn't give more than two fucks about the civilian population, because they state that terrorists are hiding within the population, and Israel just makes attempts to swipe it under the rug a but by allegedly telling people to evacuate. If they wanted peace they should have started this whole bullshit conflict of interests half century ago. But I really have doubts that for them, being a very much newly established country, it was a fully uninfluenced decision. It was a way for the USA and Nato to weed their way into the Middle East and be able to control the situation. They have been getting ready for war for decades, hense females in regular military service, which isn't a thing in countries that don't really wait and want for any war happening, or have a stable way to enlist their immigrants into their military. But that's another topic. I made this example only as a means to explain why it was obvious Israel was getting ready for war. You can hide the actual point under the feminism and such, but it's not about feminism if it's not your right but your responsibility to serve the country. I don't really mind of course, but the militarization of society usually shows what is it going to be in the future. Especially if such militarization isn't sporadic, but been happening gradually over the years.

Back to history, The whole thing with Israel been festering previous decades, and first UK and after that USA allowed it to fester. It was the Osman empire region first (and I don't really like those slavers on principle, because they've been torturing my country with slave trader's raids on religious principle, for couple of centuries which prompted several huge wars to stop it from happening). After the dissolution of the Osman, as far as I remember, UK swooped in and basically did the colonising of sorts, they usually did, with no respect for local population and thinking they're the ruling caste while being unable assimilate the people into their culture because a) you can't make people want what they don't understand b) any more or less peaceful assimilation is when they actually want to be with you as allies and understand why exactly.

After that they synthetically made a country for jews, which is idiotic on its own merit and on everyone's merit. Like, their thing is that you had to be jew BY BLOOD to settle in the country, which is the beginnings of ultra nationalism, that's what I'm thinking. Not that many societies aren't nationalistic, but the sheer level of it is very odd. And the forefathers of the Israel aren't some lgbt activists who shine with rainbows and shit with butterflies, they are orthodox zionists. Which means, that their religion makes them free to kill people of other, opposing religion.

But it doesn't make the Hamas, as in the organisation, in any way clean and clear. They are terrorists, and they don't enjoy anything but sharia law, or their own charter, which states basically Jihad and jew killing. That is a very dangerous thing to support, because it's a very obvious thing - in this kind of tribalistic society that spurs from lack of education and all other good things in life, people with guns and moxie will rule the people who can actually make the whole thing better by promoting cooperation. You literally cannot negotiate with people who say that they will kill you if you're this or that, killing is bad, period. There's no way out of it, and I think we all need to step back and actually look at the reasons of conflict that go way back, not just the today's situation. It may lead us to the fact that, yes, Israel could've existed peacefully if it wasn't being militaristic, but only - only if they were no political powers in surrounding countries that made their goal the cleansing of Palestine from Jews. And why the Jews even started to get there? Not because they came on their own, no, it was a fucking plan by the actual colonisers, when they were more toothy and bold with their actions.

On a side note, that's partially why Russia/Ukraine situation is drastically different, they have deep ties to each other and speak the same language, had ability to talk to each other all these decades while being torn apart and pit against each other by lies about Russian colonisation of them, and lies of how it would be better if they join the EU. All the while, Ukraine was the best in agriculture in Europe before the whole EU and fracturing from the Russian orbit shebang, and now the industry was in shambles, even before the russian invasion. The same goes for their trading fleet - the whole Ussr built Ukraine the trading fleet and most of it was left there after the dissolution. What they did, they sold it out even if they couldve used it and by the 2018 they had about 5 big ships of their own. And that's how it was with all the economy - thieving it all out and then blaming it on Moscow.

In 2018 polls there were about 20 percent of Ukrainians who said they knew official Ukrainian, and 80 who spoke Russian and the eastern dialect mix of Ukrainian and Russian. You can make your own opinion out of this, ofc. That's not the same with Israel /Palestine situation, those nations are literally alien to each other in many things.

Yes, Ukraine was the synthetic country as well, but instead of being monogenous like both Israel and Palestine, they weren't, and had a very best economy in the Ussr, which made the whole notion of "Russia was is and will be bad" take lots of time in taking root in most of the people who weren't nationalistic, all the while Ukrainians were welcomed into Russia and not discriminated against in any way. Which is totally different to what was happening between Israel and Palestine, they had no actual ties, nothing except the USA military support for Israel so it stays on top, all the economic support to Gaza being settled in the pockets of all the middle men, and that's actually it.

But please, let's not forget, that the radical islamists are actually dangerous, and it's not a reaction to the USA involvement, or the reaction to anything at all but Quran. If there's someone who reads Quran and finds some Jihad mentions, there will be blood spilled over it. The whole, it's these guys fault or those guys fault doesn't really work when it's about politics, domestic or international. For things to work, there should be no radicals in the upper echelons of power. Which is not true in Israel / Palestine war from both sides. It's a very bad situation that may cause all kinds of tensions in all the world, because people aren't being well informed about the whole history of the conflict, without this or that side pushing their narrative.

At first, my knee jerk reaction was reading it as you thinking I support Hamas in any way. Which i dont. I must reiterate i DONT. I decided to revisit this later and calm down a bit and give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you're talking about other people, as I have myself seen say they support Hamas because history has often called rebellion groups of oppressed people terrorists and it's... Frankly terrifying to see.

Hamas specifically is a complicated situation that I have not yet dived deep enough into to talk about in detail, which is why I dont much talk much about them. I need to know more, I dont wanna talk outta my ass. But I do understand that radical Islamists are no good. I live in the Philippines. We have that too.

But the fact of the matter will always be that Hamas never mattered when it comes to what Israel is doing now and what they've been doing for decades. We must always remember this.

And while I'm on that topic, the "long term" suffering of Jews does not matter here either, because Palestinians didn't do that to them. A lot of zionists use it as an excuse and I am sick of it.

I'm not sure if you're saying one must be neutral about this. You're either hard to read, or I'm too sleep deprived and exhausted for reading comprehension. I think you are, but ai could be wrong. And I completely agree that it's the radicals in power that are to blame. In all my responses it is always the leaders I condemn most.

In any case, I'm just going to take this opportunity to say staying neutral isn't an option either because of the sheer power imbalance. Israel would be counting on the world looking away so they can erase all Palestinians. For this cycle of violence to be over on BOTH sides, Israel has to be the one to back off, as they are and always have been the ones with more power.

[captainjonnitkessler]

I understand if you want to stay out of it but I’m curious as to you’re thoughts on this discourse

https://www.tumblr.com/dappercat123/737173649266737152/your-arguments-sum-to-in-my-perfect-world-there

Anon, I'm going to be entirely honest with you. I have been waiting for an excuse to put my thoughts about this down. Forewarning that this is going to be long and take a dim view of organized religion.

TL;DR: I think everyone in that thread is maliciously misinterpreting evilsoup's point, which is basically that they think Gene Roddenberry was right about what a post-utopian society would look like re: religion. And you can agree or disagree about whether a post-religious utopia is likely or desirable, but to say that anyone who thinks it is is actively calling for and encouraging genocide is a gross misuse of the term (especially coming from at least one person that I'm pretty sure is currently denying an actively ongoing actual fucking genocide).

@evilsoup can correct me if I'm misinterpreting their points, but as far as I see it there are two main points being made:

A) In a perfect utopia with absolutely no source of oppression, marginalization, or disparity, religion would naturally whither away with no outside pressure being applied.

B) This would be a good or at least a neutral thing.

As far as A) goes - a lot of the responses evilsoup got were basically "well *I* would never choose to be nonreligious, so therefore the only way to create that world would be by force, and therefore you are calling for literal genocide". But aside from the fact that evilsoup was very, very clear that they thought this would be a *natural* event and that trying to force people to be nonreligious would be evil - we're not talking about (general) you. You can be as religious as you want but you don't get to make that choice for your grandkids, or your great-great-great grandkids, or your great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandkids. Just because religion is an integral part of your identity doesn't mean it's something you can pass down, and if you're not comfortable with the idea that your kids might choose to leave your religion, you shouldn't have kids.

I personally don't foresee religion disappearing entirely, but it is pretty consistent that as a country becomes happier, healthier, and wealthier, it also becomes less religious. Religiosity is inversely correlated with progressive values. And the more democratic and secular a nation is, the less powerful religious authorities become - In the 1600s blasphemy and atheism were punishable by death* in Massachusetts and today I can call the Pope a cunt to his face** on Twitter with no repercussions whatsoever. Political secularism is an absolute necessity for true democracy and it necessitates removing power from religious authorities, which has and will likely continue to lead to a decline in religiosity - not just a decline in how many people identify as religious, but also a decline in how religious the remaining people are.

*Blasphemy laws and death penalties for blasphemers/apostates are still VERY much a thing in many places. It's hard to see a path where those places become more democratic but don't become more secular and repeal those laws.

**Well, to the face of whoever runs his Twitter account, but the point remains.

I also believe that many religious communities have been held together for so long via coercion - either internal coercion like blasphemy and apostasy laws, shunning, and threats of hell or other supernatural punishment, or external coercion like oppression from the majority religious group or ethnic cleansings. In a perfect utopia, neither form of coercion would exist and I don't think it's crazy to think that religiosity would drop severely and become a much less important part of people's identities, in the way I think the queer community would not exist in a world where queerphobia didn't exist.

ANYWAY, all this is actually kind of moot. It could happen, it could not, nobody is calling for it to be forced so we'll just have to wait and see. The real point of disagreement is on B).

I'm gonna be honest - I think a lot of the responders are rank hypocrites and are really hung up on the idea of cultural purity, which is something I'm wildly uncomfortable with.

First of all, the idea that a deeply-held religious belief could be diluted until it's just a cultural thing that nobody really remembers the origins of isn't some evil mastermind plot evilsoup is trying to concoct, it's just how cultures work. There's tons of stuff about American culture that are vaguely rooted in what were once deeply-held beliefs and are now entertainment. Halloween is rooted in sacred tradition and now it's a day to dress up and get candy. Christmas is one of the most sacred holidays in Christianity but nobody bats an eye if a non-Christian puts up some lights or decorates a tree just because it's fun. I have no doubt that every culture on Earth has traditions that used to be deeply sacred but are now just fun family traditions. People in Japan use Christian symbology as an "exotic, mythical" aesthetic the exact same way people in the West use Eastern symbology. And if you're okay with it happening to Christianity, why wouldn't you be okay with it happening to any other religion in the absence of oppression?

And there's the idea that if a culture fails to get passed down *exactly* as it is now, it's a terrible loss and the result of malicious outside influence. But . . . cultures change over time. No culture is the same now as it was two or five or eight hundred years ago and I don't believe that change is inherently loss. The things that are sacred to you may or may not be sacred to the people of your culture in the future. That's just the way things work, and I don't think it's inherently good or bad.

And finally, people keep accusing evilsoup of "just wanting everyone to assimilate to your culture", but it absolutely does not follow that a lack of religion means a lack of diversity. Different nonreligious cultures are every bit as capable of being diverse as different religious cultures, so it's weird to insist that evilsoup wants there to only be one culture when they never said anything to indicate that.

[edenfenixblogs]

Why do I post so much about antisemitism?

I post about it exactly as often as I experience it

People think antisemitism isn’t real

People think antisemitism isn’t that bad

People think antisemitism is justifiable as long as it is directed toward “bad” Jews. Like any other form of bigotry, it is always bad. Candace Owens has terrible anti-Black, extremely racist opinions. It’s still not OK to hurl racist insults at her. Isis and Hamas are terrorist organizatjons committing terrible crimes against humanity while invoking Islam . It’s still not ok to insult Islam while talking about them or to be racist and Islamophobic toward Muslims or Arabs. Netanyahu is an actual monster whose actions are destroying lives in Palestine, Israel, and worldwide. Jewish West Bank settlers are being extremely hostile, racist, and terrible. It’s still not ok to use antisemitic conspiracies, tropes, or insults against them. Ever. And it’s certainly not ok to use them against ordinary civilians who happen to share a race or religion with the worst people who share those identities.

I want to show all the ways antisemitism hurts.

I want to show how the damage from antisemitism lingers long after the first moment its experienced

I want people to understand that even if I don’t support Netanyahu or the Likud government or the broad actions of the IDF or the indiscriminate bombing of Palestine or the subjugation of Palestinians (and to be very clear—I do not support these things) I’m still allowed to be upset about the global hatred toward Israel right now based solely on the fact that I am Jewish. To say that makes me a supporter of colonialism or genocide is antisemitic. Why? Because half of the Jews in the entire world live in Israel. If half the Muslims in the entire world lived in America or half the Christians in the entire world lived in Japan, then everyone started calling all Christians or Muslims in that country evil/colonizers/oppressors and saying that they should lose protection and citizenship from those places, then it would make sense for all Muslims or Christians around the world to be very upset by that. Not because the Muslims or Christians in those nations are always perfect. But because, hey, seeing that people are perfectly ok condemning half everyone with whom you share a religion will cause you to be sad. And empathetic. And because obviously condemning that many people for anything as if they are all equally responsible is fundamentally wrong. Especially if your only basis for that condemnation is someone’s religion and where they live.

My trauma response is to fawn. To be aggressively kind and complimentary to show I’m not a threat. That I don’t deserve to be hated. That I promise I’m not worth your aggression. This is unhealthy for me personally. This is a bad way to live. This is a disservice to my fellow Jews who don’t deserve to experience antisemitism, regardless of any of their other actions. Instead, I am laying my pain bare for you all to see. I am using my pain to educate you. I am using my desire to help you to keep me patient while I try to educate you while experiencing an endless barrage of hatred all day every day. That hatred is not all violent or aggressive. Very often that hatred is neglect, erasure, and the revocation of societal privileges until I behave in an acceptable manner. But sometimes it is aggressive and violent as well.

People say that I am making a genocide “all about me,” but I’m not. You are. Why do your actions in preventing and fighting an ethnic cleansing on the other side of the world involve causing me emotional pain, social isolation, and ethnoreligous erasure? The problem isn’t that I’m speaking up. It’s that you’re too busy speaking over me to listen to what I’m saying and to stop being harmful.

Because I have the emotional capacity to be patient and to engage when many of my Jewish peers do not. I have the position of relative safety where I can post about these things without facing actual physical harm. Many of my Jewish peers do not. While I would never speak on behalf of other Jews’ opinions, I will certainly speak FOR my fellow Jews. For the dignity, respect, safety, love, and community they all deserve.

Because when this conflict is over or even just calmed down enough to not be at the top of the zeitgeist anymore, I don’t want any of you to have the excuse of saying you didn’t know what you were doing or the harm you were causing. You know. I’m telling you. Repeatedly.

Because despite everything I’ve just written, I know most of you won’t even listen until I confirm that I do support Palestinian self determination, citizenship, equality, and indigeneity. Which I do. I support all those things. I shouldn’t have to in order to avoid antisemitism though.

Because most people in my life have pulled away in this time and if I don’t share my pain here I’ll explode.

Because I have nobody else non-Jewish to share this with. You’ve isolated me. I’m alone. You did this. I could have been marching with you. But you hate me too much to let me fight for a cause we both believe in alongside you. And you aren’t even aware you hate me at all, because it’s so ingrained in you.

[outeremissary]

The Hierophant, Strength and the Hanged Man for Carmen?

Thanks for the ask! For once, there is something resembling brevity to my answers.

(also reordered to obscure some aeon spoilers for anyone for whom those are a concern)

[tarot asks]

Strength: On what issue is your character persistent?

The abomination thing. It’s the abomination thing. It’s most certainly that, the abomination thing. Carmen has developed a fringe theory of the cosmos in which the pristine world of Golarion has been corrupted by the unnatural incursions of creatures and forces not meant to exist on it. History is full of hubristic supernatural overreaches, evil wizard tyrants, and wicked gods and demons sowing destruction. Fey tricksters run rampant in the wilds, the self-righteous so-called good gods leave doctrines of discord for their followers while turning their backs on disaster, the unquiet dead have so infested the earth that a whole disgusting nation of them has taken root. People turn to religion for salvation and the gods feed on their fears and their hopes and all their beautiful, rich lives like parasites. And hardly anyone can see the connection, that there’s not good and bad types of abomination, but that it’s rotten all the way down. That you need to purge it all: the angels and the demons and everything else. The Worldwound is but one corner of a far greater crusade, one that mortals fight endlessly every day just to survive. She’s absolutely miserable to discuss religion with.

(From a meta perspective, this was an adaptation of her impractical and logic resistant tabletop philosophy that every arcane magic user ever born was, deep down, evil, because magic is inherently evil and corrupts everything it touches.)

The Hanged Man: When has your character needed to step back and look at things from a different perspective?

Honestly, just being appointed Knight Commander was a major moment for this. Carmen has never thought of herself as a leader. She knows she doesn’t have a lot of social savvy or patience for trying to parse issues outside of her skillset. Her skills in compromise are generally poor. She doesn’t like delegating tasks. She’s most comfortable receiving orders, not giving them. And grand strategy? She’s a soldier, she doesn’t know what it is that generals do. It’s hard to understand what she’s being asked when Galfrey makes her intentions clear, and it took some processing to come to terms with and accept. Trying to push outside of her usual narrow view of the present and to consider Galfrey’s reasoning, Galfrey’s character, and the state of the crusade did help. As much as the symbolic reasons or the reason of blessings she knew she hadn’t received and disliked being associated with didn’t resonate with her, she could see logic to the crusade needing new blood and fresh morale. The disaster of Kenabres made that much clear. And some morally superior part of her could also be swayed by the logic that she was the right choice for being more upright, for being more clear-headed, for being willing to do what others wouldn’t, just like when she purged the Wardstone.

I suppose in the end it would up less the empathetic understanding of others and more a roundabout way of reaching her own warped perspective there though. Common Carmen L. She does respect Galfrey though, mostly. She has very complicated feelings about Galfrey. All part of the toxic yuri love triangle.

AEON SPOILER ZONE

The Hierophant: Who has served as a mentor to your character?

Carmen has had effectively zero people in her life in the recent past she would consider mentors, especially in the crusade. To “mentor” her would require demonstration of shared values, valuable skills superior to her own, and a temperament she finds agreeable and worthy of respect. Let me just say that there are no characters in the game who meet these standards. She respects some, like Greybor or Galfrey, as equals or near equals. But there’s no one who can put her in a position where she feels that she is a student. The closest that you could probably come is the aeon in the mirror (it’s always that damn aeon in the mirror), and that’s because to her, it is very much not a separate being. It’s just her. She’s just spending time clearing her head and thinking- that’s normal, everyone does that! And she easily internalizes insights she picks up from there. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.

Would love to see a dynamic of mentor and penitent disciple between her and Hal if she ever halfway shaped up her act though, that would be fun. I thought about that periodically in 2021.

[atiny-for-life]

Ateez's Full Storyline Explained - Part 8

Masterlist

Fever Epilogue Diary Entries:

The Intro consists of a news report detailing the theft of a Mayan relic from an exhibition at the National Museum of Korea

The trio of thieves were arrested mid-heist and when questioned by a reporter, one of them stated:

"I had to steal the relic to save humanity before they face the world's end."

They were also identified as believers of the religion named 'Sciensalvar' which was established by scientist Henry Jo in 1999 who used it to spread his beliefs about (1) humans being made up of energy, (2) his faith that all uncertainties about the future can be resolved with science, and (3) the energy condensed inside the Mayan relic (which is shaped like an hourglass) will be the key to saving humanity

It's at this point that the parallels between 'Sciensalvar' and the Central Government in the Z-World become evident

I'd also like to note that the name "Sciensalvar" is likely just a combination of "Scien" from "science" and "salvar" which is Spanish for "to save, to rescue" - saved by science

The Mayan relic Henry Jo mentioned is an hourglass artifact that imitates the moon's movement.

Experts have long speculated about the artifacts purpose but the common theory is that it was "crafted through an uncommon metallurgy technique" and used for "ceremonial purposes"

Ateez, now back in their own world, find themselves back in time to before Yunho's brother's accident which they presume to be a side-effect from smashing the Cromer

Yunho is, of course, thrilled by this because he's been handed a chance to save his brother but San feels conflicted

From San's entry:

I can understand Yunho, but deep down in my heart, I felt bitter against him. Whether we are in the past or present, one thing was clear. We may be alive, but Yeosang isn't here with us.

With the Cromer broken, San doesn't see a way for them to go back and safe him

Just then, Seonghwa rushed toward them with a shouted "This is the Cromer, right?"

He's holding the article from the Intro about the museum heist

Hongjoong is quick to draw the conclusions that the Cromer Yeosang just broke was from the other world so it's quite possible this world has its own version which would allow them to bring back Yeosang; they could just put it back in the museum after

The other members are immediately against Hongjoong's idea because of how dangerous and illegal it is

From Seonghwa's entry, we hear Hongjoong's reply:

"Whether it is legal or illegal, what about Yeosang? You are telling me that you want us to leave him there?"

Seonghwa admits to himself that he would've protested too in the past but now:

I'm not the person who I used to be. Saving Yeosang is my top priority. "We decided not be stuck in the past. When we left to another dimension, we all made up our minds, didn't we?"

Since they're sure they traveled back in time, they've been given the chance to make things right so, one by one, the other members agree to Hongjoong's plan

As everyone was coming together, Yunho quietly said, "I want to stay here. I can't leave my brother."

Shocked by Yunho's words, Jongho and Mingi distance themselves from the rest

From Jongho's entry:

"I respect Yunho's decision." I looked at Mingi, perplexed. He carefully went on. "When I thought that I may lose my grandmother, everything felt meaningless, even my dreams and our members. I believe it will be even worse for Yunho. He already lost his brother once. He'd never want to let him go." At that moment, I remembered when I punched Mingi. When Mingi told us he wanted to quit, saying that our dreams are meaningless, I felt betrayed and swung my fist. Obviously, my heart was instantly flooded with regret.

Mingi then, for the first time, shared his side of the story: his grandmother was the only family he had left, so when he thought he might lose her, he couldn't bear the thought of having fun with the members while her condition was worsening

It's then that Jongho finally understands where Mingi had been coming from back then and comes to the conclusion that Yunho must have it rough as well - torn between wanting to save Yeosang and his brother

They discussed things with the other members and decided to still go through with the plan; this time as six

Despite being back home with his brother, Yunho is nervous but hopeful that everything's going as planned

He keeps checking his phone every few minutes for which his brother scolds him

From Yunho's entry:

"You are so weird! You've changed so much! Well, I like it a lot better than when you were wandering around on your motorcycle... But I still can't get used to this sudden change in the last two weeks."

Yunho proceeds to switch the topic to the state of his brother's legs - his right has been dysfunctional since birth so his left tended to swell up a lot

Yunho massaged the left for him while he joked it must be what he traded for his musical skills to which his brother laughed

His brother calls it a blessing in disguise and switches on the TV just as the news came on

The report was about Henry Jo who'd just stormed the museum with 100 followers

Some boys who were trying to stop them from stealing the relic, are now being held as hostages. I jumped up. The hostages were my members. I took out my motorcycle key from the cabinet and yelled at my brother, "Stay inside. You should stay inside no matter what!"

From Wooyoung's entry:

Thought Sciensalvar was a religious group. But why... Why is Henry Jo pointing his knife at my throat? How did this happen?

The plan had been to show up at the museum at 4pm and enter the museum in two groups of three - one to distract the security guards which tend to loosen up at this point, and one to steal the Cromer before they got out of there and switched to the Z-World to get Yeosang

However, they didn't even get into the building before things derailed

A group of red-clad people entered the exhibition hall; they were gathered around one lone figure in black techwear holding the Cromer

It was in that moment that some high school girls with red blankets passed Wooyoung who snatched one of the blanket and covered himself, leaving the girls with embarrassed expressions behind

The five other members also proceeded to join the red-covered mass, but just before they reached Henry Jo, the police fired a blank and surrounded the group

At that moment, I reached towards the Cromer... But Henry Jo pointed a blade at my throat even more quickly. He whispered in my ear, holding back his laughter. "I just needed a hostage, so thank you for coming!"

From Hongjoong's entry:

'Think Hongjoong. Think!' My head blacked out. My head stopped because of this fear I've never felt before. Bang! The police shot another blank fire shot. As the final warning, the police yelled that if the hostages were not released, they would fire shots immediately.

Henry Jo orders his followers to not be swayed, no matter what

Just then, a group of six bikers races toward the museum and begins to circle the Sciensalvar followers who are visibly getting nervous

The noise from the bikes drowns out Henry Jo's instructions

Hongjoong's gaze catch sight of a familiar sticker on one of the bikes: "ATEEZ YH" - these are Yunho and his friends

I intuitively knew Yunho's plan. As Henry Jo lost control over his believers, he turned towards the crowd. "Wooyoung!!!" I wasn't sure if Wooyoung heard me, or if he intuitively knew it was Yunho, but Wooyoung snatched the Cromer and started to run.

The moment they split from the crowd, the motorcycles pull up and give them a chance to hop on before ramping up to put some distance between them and the museum

When Hongjoong looks back, he finds Henry Jo also splitting from his followers while the police were distracted by the chaos

From Mingi's entry:

"Ah, I knew you'd come back!" I shouted with excitement behind Yunho. As I was shouting with joy, I heard Hongjoong saying, "There's a car behind you!!"

The six motorcycles swerve hard to dodge the oncoming car, resulting in each of them crashing to the ground while the car rushes past and runs over the pedestrians on the sidewalk

Yunho trembles as he catches sight of who got hit

"Brother!" Yunho screamed as he ran to the pedestrian. It was Yunho's brother on the ground. He seemed like he was heading towards the museum after seeing Yunho's motorcycle on the news. Yunho's brother slowly opened his eyes and asked: "Is it 5:07 right now?" I checked my phone and it was 5:07 PM. "Your diary said that I got hit by a car at 5:07 PM." Yunho looked at his brother, startled. His brother went on, saying: "Sorry. I read your journal on the desk. I knew something was going on, but you never told me what you're going through." He painfully continued breathing. "It didn't make any sense, so I thought it was a lie. I guess it wasn't." "We need to go to the hospital right now." Yunho wiped his tears and tried to pull his brother, but his brother grabbed his arm. Yunho held on to his brother's hand as if he'd never let him go. "There's something I need to tell you... It wasn't your fault that I got injured back then, and even now, it isn't your fault. So leave me in the past and move on with your own life." Yunho was weeping. His brother slowly patted Yunho's head. "I love you, my brother. You know what I always say, right? You're doing your best just by going through the day. I was happy enough for the last two weeks. I appreciate it." Then, Yunho's brother passed out. Yunho put his head down on his brother's chest and wailed.

Henry Jo stumbles out of the flipped over car, blood dripping from a head injury as his gaze zeroes in on the Cromer in Wooyoung's hand

He pulls out a knife and rushes toward him but get interrupted when Yunho's fist sends him flying with an accompanied shout of "Turn the Cromer!"

Henry Jo picks his knife back up and climbs to his feet but just before he can reach them, Wooyoung turns the Cromer

From Yeosang's entry:

How long have I been in this glass room? It felt like an eternity being in this tube without any light.

All Yeosang has to look at are the resistance fighters covered by a black sheet with their biological energy stolen; among them, the Grimes siblings (their deaths are later fully confirmed in The World Ep Fin Diary Entries)

Left Eye and the siblings had been alerted by the bright light the Cromer emitted when it shattered but only Left Eye managed to escape the bunker, though even he lost his right arm in the process

I don't know how much time has passed. The pain was so great that I desired to lose my emotions instead. I wished that the Guardians would just kill me.

Just when his thoughts got that desperate, trumpets can be heard from outside

The Android Guardians rush outside and an audible fight breaks out

Yeosang begins to beat against the glass tube

"Somebody please get me out of here! Please!" The light that I hadn't seen for ages slid in when the door opened. Men in black fedoras were fighting with Android Guardians behind the opened door. "Hey, Yeosang." I heard a warm voice calling my name. A guy came near my glass room and pulled down his black mask. Tears of relief burst out of my eyes. It was Seonghwa.

Back in the Black Pirates' underground hideout, Left Eye, missing one arm and seeming more fragile under the weight of another loss, receives a morse code transmission

Left Eye interpreted the Morse Code he wrote down. The light of hope spread on his face gradually. Left Eye turned to the people and shouted: "They're back! They came back!!" The cheers of 'Black Pirate' echoed in the underground hideout. The messy handwriting of Left Eye on the paper reads: "SAY MY NAME. ATEEZ."

Side-note: this is also a callback to Hongjoong's diary entry from the Fever Part 1 Diary Entries

[cyndaquillt]

please give the rant bestie 🤲

Sorry it took me a while to get to this cause I was turning the rant into a mildly coherent essay. (This is very long, I'm sorry :/)

TL;DR : India is a modern nation state that will face the challenge of falling apart if each indigenous group is indeed given sovereignity over their land, culture, and language so its easier to instead perpetrate the myth of an ethnically united Indian people with common language(s), religion, culture, etc to if the priority is to maintain a united, big country regardless of your political stance.

OK SO!

To preface this discussion, I want to point out that settler colonialism in South Asia predates the global modern perception of colonialism which comes largely from a European colonial lens. The subcontinent itself being a victim of modern European colonialism means a South Asian's default understanding of colonialism through lived experiences comes largely from a situation where we are the victims of colonization, not the perpetrators. This means there are deep rooted nuances and systemic privileges that the average Indian gets, that are easy to miss entirely if one is not actively looking for dogwhistles or watching out for propaganda, especially because the way Indians get introduced to colonialism is through the independence movement where there is a clear foreign entity that hasn't clearly assimilated into South Asian societies and whose parent country still exists. Then things get more complicated when the interplay between conquest and colonization comes in because the timeline of South Asian settler colonialism has heavy overlap with conquests where, for better or worse, stable monarchies were established with kingdoms where rulers that generally assimilated with the populace and were even well received by the people they were ruling over. Also note that I am going to be writing this from an Indian lens. There may be bias when I make general sweeping statements applicable to all of South Asia, because I am Indian and know Indian society best (at least macroscopically).

South Asian settler colonialism goes wayy wayy back, to the establishment of a Brahmanical Aryan society and benefits to being an upper caste Aryans over everyone else is very evident even in Ancient India. Let's take the Arthashastra as an example. In his 1987 translation of Kautilya's Arthashastra, political economist L. N. Rangarajan notes that not only being an Aryan had benefits in a Kautilyan society, but falsely posing as an Aryan to avail those benefits had grave consequences. You can find this translation in its entirety here. In the introductory section titled 'Kautilyan State and Society', the translator compiles points on not only the treatment of Non-Aryans, but details the consequences for interactions between Aryans and Non-aryans and even the difference in treatment each demographic gets. Eg: An Aryan man in a relationship with a Svapaka (dog-breeder, non-aryan) woman was branded and exiled, whereas a Svapaka man in a relationship with an Aryan woman was to be executed. Banished, an aryan man still lives. But if you cross the same line as a non-aryan man, you die.

The translation also has details on how to settle a 'virgin land' in Part IV of the text. While the general advice is to leave native 'jungle tribes' alone, the reason for this isn't granting territorial sovereignty, but to avoid being attacked by them. Granting indigenous groups territorial sovereignty is also bad for monarchic control so instead, non-aryans are given tasks and a place in the society as guards, labourers, slaves, etc (note that Arthashastra is very clear that aryans cannot be enslaved and slave labour must come from outside of Aryan social structure/outside of the Varna system).

The reason I bring up the Arthashastra here is due to a couple reasons. Arthashastra, to my knowledge, is one of the earliest known complete socio-economic treaty, dated either 4th Century BCE or 2nd Century BCE (contingent on if Kautilya is indeed Chanakya). It is exceptionally thorough and while it is uncertain whether what's detailed in the Arthashastra was reality or simply an ideal kingdom according to Kautilya, it does address and often disagrees with its contemporary or preceding socio-economic schools of thoughts, providing a multidimensional and ideologically diverse image of politics of the times, something revisionist history born out of nationalism wants to ignore. The other major reason I chose to bring up Arthashastra here is also to point out the revision of the perception and image of Kautilya to fit post-colonial, nationalist idea of the earliest historical entity to kickstart the subcontinent's unification, as opposed what it actually must have been, which is simply establishing a nation state through tactful conquest and settlement of lands. (Mauryan settler politics is also a separate rant btw, hmu if you want that too but that would be a digression here).

Settler colonialism of people present in the land before Aryan migration into the subcontinent of course, predates Arthashatra and Mauryan rule. But we are going to move forward in time instead and talk a bit about the medieval times. By the time European colonialism reached South Asia, our lands were hosting a myriad of communities, ethnicities, religious beliefs, etc. Foreign perception of 'the land beyond the Indus', the Greek 'India' or the Arabic 'Hind' and its people the uniform 'Hindu' is convenient for a west centric perspective trying to build a colony or a nation state out of South Asia. But the reality was not that homogenous and ethnic divides were rife in the subcontinent. Eg : Shivaji's rivalry against Aurangzeb was not a religious issue, it was born out of the sovereign claim of Marathas and Shivaji over Bijapur (source). While religious divide is most certainly present in the medieval India around the same time (eg: Guru Gobind Singh's establishment of the Khalsa and resistance against Aurangzeb), I believe ethnic divide was equally important.

The reason I bring up the dichotomy of religious and ethnic divides is because I believe division in terms of religion benefitted British control of India a lot more than ethnic division did. To that end, the British fanned the flames of the religious divide to break up ethnic solidarity. A good portion of South Asian kingdom split was by ethnicities (Marathas once again a good example of it). If ethnicities unite, they can come together to claim an independent nation state. But religious unity with multiple ethnicities doesn't work as a good model for a rebellion because ethnic divide is so dominant and not to mention, even a single South Asian religion was never that united to begin with, especially the blanket religion of Hinduism with its caste heirarchy, untouchability, non-aryan tribal politics, etc, etc. A religious divide would aide British control. A united Bengali front could ask back for an independent nation state of Bengal but a divided Bengal based on religion is a good way to cultivate infighting so that we may never unite against the oppressor.

200 years of fanning the religious divide flame required as strong of a uniting front if the British were to be thrown out and the freedom movement, especially the one born out of Gandhian efforts provided just that. Caste, ethnic, and religious unity were always a front for Gandhian politics and they served their purpose well against a common eenemy. But what after the common enemy is gone? Modern South Asian society then ended up with the same old ethnic and religious tensions, though at this point in time, religious divide is far stronger than it has ever been. Though no division of a multireligious ethnicity could be clean, and considering that ethnic unity has been a glue far stronger than religious unity before now, the Indo-Pak partition that broke that glue of ethnic unity and was so bloody that our scars from then bleed to this day.

However, in my experience, the modern Indian who has never seen a time where ethnic unity overpowered religious unity or isn't part of an indigenous community whose land has been taken by the modern nation state, finds religious claim to the land ideologically easier to comprehend than indigenous claim to the land. The Kashmir issue is a great example of this. Azad Kashmir has its own self governing body with its own PM and President, albeit being under the administration of Pakistan. I am not Kashmiri, do not live in Azad Kashmir, and have no direct experience of the Kashmir conflict but from what I know, on paper Azad Kashmir is a sovereign piece of land inhabited by various ethnic groups from Punjab, Jammu, Kashmir valley and the Pothohar plateau. However, as an Indian, this region was introduced to me as Pakistan occupied Kashmir and the map of India I was taught includes this as a 'rightful' part of India. A third option of an independent Kashmir is never introduced to us by formal channels. The only two options we get are either Indian or Pakistani control and if you are Indian, there is a supposed right answer that is very wrong on multiple levels. J&K's handover to India was messy because the land was sold to Gulab Singh by the British when the British had no indigenous claim to the land. Kashmir issue is an issue of indigenous sovereignty spun around as an issue of religious divide. The Kashmir Valley didn't get independence with India because its authority went from European colonizers to a vassal princely state to a newly formed nation state, making the said newly formed nation state of India its new settler colonizer. Just like Tibet did not get independence when Nehru ceded it to China when he had no right to. Kashmir didn't become a part of India like Goa did either, where the Indian army fought a second war of independence against the Portuguese, though it is unclear to me if this was/is a move the native populace was okay with (did we make Goa India's Hawaii? Something I need to read up more on). At the very least, in case of Goa, it seems the colonial rule was overthrown in line with the native Goan Liberation Movement's sentiments (source but it is a govt website), though the Indian army fully intended to annex Goa regardless of local resistance. But the Kashmir Valley was ceded to India by someone who had no right to do so. This would have been wrong regardless of the majority religion in the Kashmir Valley, but because religious extremism and violence did happen in the valley and the post-independence territorial India/Pakistan issue was indeed a religious one, the Kashmir issue is best understood by the average Indian as an issue of religious divide and not an issue of indigenous sovereignty when it very much is so. This also means any nationwide Kashmiri liberation movement does not get any traction and the small pockets it exists in can be relabeled as militancy or terrorism.

Modern nation state of India discredits any indigenous movement by flipping it into an issue of religious divide, when it can. It's even more evident post-2014 when religious polarization has been consistently used as a tool to deflect from various policies and national issues that the government should be held accountable for. Changing Gurgaon to Gurugram along with a wave of name changes like Allahabad -> Prayagraj or Mughalsarai -> Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar as a statement of 'reclamation' and decolonization like Bombay -> Mumbai or Calcutta -> Kolkata were, is an example of this. If we are to even admit that all Islamic rule in South Asia was foreign colonialism and ignore the fact that Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay had no claim to the land of Mughalsarai before it was named Mughalsarai, the switch from Gurgaon to Gurugram in 2016 was blatantly discrediting indigenous languages spoken in the region in an attempt to make its Sanskritic and Vedic associations more accessible to those not native to the region.

Adding Sanskrit as the second the state language of Uttarakhand after Hindi in 2010 by its then CM is another such move. Note that this is pre-2014 but the CM of the time who made the addition, Ramesh Pokhriyal, is a member of the BJP. Also note that there are no Sanskrit speakers in the region. Though, Kumaoni and Garhwali, the most spoken regional languages as per the 2011 census are not currently one of the 22 languages recognized in the constitution and there is an ongoing motion for both to be included in the constitution as one of the 38 additional languages. A genuine push to preserve indigeneity of the ethnic groups in Uttarakhand in 2010 shouldn't have been making Sanskrit its official language but for inclusion of Kumaoni and Garhwali in the constitution and giving them the status of official languages of the state that they so rightfully deserve.

Undermining local languages and bestowing superiority to a blanket language isn't a rare tactic when it comes to colonialism of any kind. Both Hindi and Urdu serve this purpose in modern South Asia and Sanskrit serves the same purpose in revisionist history in hopes of peddling the front of a united nation state with credible historicity. The myth of 'we are one people and always have been' is propagated so that it can be used to bind a nation state that was fundamentally never together. While the imposition of language as a way of control is more evident in the South, especially with anti-Hindi sentiments coalescing into full fledged movements, even the idea of 'The Hindi Belt' and a uniform North India are a result of this. The Gangetic plains where the Hindi Belt is supposed to be, isn't linguistically uniform. But barely any language from the region is recognized in the constitution. Take Bihar for instance. A state with some of the most underprivileged population in the country often victim of nationwide elitism and classism, it is very conveniently drafted into the Hindi belt and any recognition of linguistic diversity it gets is derogatory, be it mocking Bihari Hindi or mocking Bhojpuri. However, despite Bihar's national image of a supposedly Bhojpuri speaking state, Bhojpuri isn't one of the languages recognized in the constitution. What's even more interesting is that the Bhojpur region is split between Bihar and UP and is by no means the only language native to the state. There are multiple linguistic spheres in the state and there is active dispute and infighting on what's a language and what's a dialect. Take this map for instance (English added by me) -

If you can read Hindi, notice that Chhapariya and Bhojpuri are labeled as dialects of Hindi. But are they though? Hindi/Urdu or Hindustani/Urdu were born out of a need for a lingua franca in the Delhi region and include vocabulary from northern languages that broke out of Shauraseni Prakrit (like Awadhi, Brij Bhasha, Khariboli) as well as Persian, Arabic, and Chagatai. Meanwhile, languages of Bihar broke out of Magadhi Prakrit, an entirely different dialect than Shauraseni Prakrit with its own quirks and features. Bhojpuri's split from Magadhi Prakrit likely started happening in the 7th Century CE, independent and in parallel to formation of Hindustani as a language (7th to 13th century CE). How can a language be a dialect of another language if their histories, linguistic progression, and demographics are all different? Well, if you never acknowledge that it was dialects of Prakrit that Indic languages come from and not Sanskrit, then you may be more successful in enforcing cultural homogeneity instead of retention of indigenous diversity. One could argue that this map may be an isolated case of the issue but the fact that linguistic diversity of culturally northern states is erased when speaking about establishment of an ideal national identity modelled after the strawman people of the Ganges-Yamuna region (The 'Hindi Belt') is a mark of settler erasure to ensure a united front for the nation state of India.

Homogeneity is easy to control/unite. A religious ethnostate is one way to get that homogeneity but sovereign governance for indigenous groups isn't something the center or the left is keen on either, and it won't ever be on the national agenda because it shakes the very foundation of a united Indian nation state. Indian nationalist propaganda relabels and creates a strawman/ideal 'Indian' identity (uniformity in religion, language, looks, etc). Language in particular is an interesting case of this and even the so called 'Hindi belt' is not homogenous and the languages in the said Hindi belt are barely even recognized in the constitution. No recognition of official languages means there will be no official records or means of propagating the language beyond informal familial and community structure which eventually erodes linguistic diversity, a phenomena that has already started happening in cities in particularly upper and upper middle class urban families, who are leading this change by either only teaching their children English in the name of 'progression' or only Hindi for assimilation. The elite, classist left will not suddenly abandon English and the right wing will take up Sanskrit or Hindi as opposed to their ethnicities' native languages. Mockery, microaggression, exoticism of different ethnicities and indigenous groups is also going to stay and any movement for claims of landback will be subject to allegations of dwindling patriotism at best and militancy at worst. Even if a Hindu nationalist sentiment is eradicated, settler colonialism will continue in India for the foreseeable future.

I hope this was somewhat coherent and apologies again for it being so long....

[bread-and-roses-too]

In light of people being shocked that Evangelicals are both supportive of Israel and antisemetic, I want to talk a little about my experience with the religion and how people in it view the world.

First of all, Israel being a country is important to the Evangelical religion for reasons that were never really clear to me even after being a part of the church for a long time. From what I understand a war in Israel is supposed to be a sign of the End Times or apocalypse (it being the apocalypse would be a good thing for Evangelicals) and Israeli people are supposed to be God's chosen people. Siding against them in anything is seen as going against the will of God.

Second of all, Evangelical Christians do not exist peacefully with other religions. Evangelicalism as a concept is, in very short form, "if someone doesn't find Jesus before they die, they go to Hell". The only solution to this according to the Evangelical Church is aggressive conversion of everyone to Christianity as quickly as possible. Everyone who is converted is immediately pushed back out into the world to do missions work, either at home or abroad. If you've ever met an extremely pushy, vocal Christian in the wild they were probably Evangelical. Evangelicals are not afraid to discriminate on the basis of religion, one of their base beliefs is that every religion is pulling people away from the One True God and eternal life in Heaven. You should not be surprised that Evangelicals are antisemitic. You should not be surprised that Evangelicals are islamophobic. You should not be surprised that Evangelicals are pushing for Christian nationalism and against any "secular" laws like equality for gay and trans people. The goal of Evangelicalism is to reach a Christian world as quickly as possible. Many Evangelical people believe that the End TImes will not come until everyone knows about God and Jesus, so this aggressive conversion is seen as speeding up the end of the world and the return of Jesus who will take all Christians (dead and alive) to Heaven.

This is not a call to be cruel to people involved in this religion. I spent the first 16+ years of my life in an Evangelical church (Assemblies of God). The people in these churches are often extremely anxious and genuinely believe that they're responsible for the souls of every individual person they meet. It essentially cultivates a life of constant urgency and stress. I'm saying all of this because the Evangelical Church is one of the strongest religious entities in the U.S. and it is causing most of the problems we see today. More leftist energy needs to be put into (gentle) deradicalization of Evangelical working class people and exposing the horrifying scale of Evangelical control over U.S. politics and daily life. This is especially true in light of the genocide in Palestine, the U.S. government is garnering support for genocide by manipulating existing beliefs about the spiritual importance of Israel, and it's working because of the way Evangelicalism is set up.

*This post does not represent the viewpoints of every individual Christian or even Evangelical, "I'm an Evangelical and I'm not like that" responses are missing the point. This is not an anti-Christianity or anti-religion post and those sentiments will not be tolerated. Evangelicalism is bad mostly because it aims to violate freedom of religion. If you also have that goal, you are just as bad.*