#and where are these people who morally abstained?

[whisky-soul]

My respect for the US as a country has never been high, been consistently dwindling for the last 25 years, and is now effectively at zero. It has been the annoying, loudmouth, bully neighbour my entire life. Fuck I wish we could more effectively trade elsewhere and have at least one day where it’s not a thorn in our side. If the US wants to burn itself to the ground I’d appreciate it not taking us with it. We’re just here minding our business. Leave us alone!

[clandestinegardenias]

Okay fine. I teach an ethics course and I just keep seeing all of this discourse on whether or not to vote in the upcoming US presidential election and I just wanted to lay a few things out here.

People who are saying they will abstain from voting because they see voting for anyone as supporting/endorsing genocide are operating from a Rights Theory perspective.

Basically, Rights Theory posits that you should never take any action that could violate someone else’s rights. EVER. The balance of benefits and harms does not matter. There is NOTHING that can justify taking away the right to, for example, life.

And I think that’s where these anti-voting folks are predominantly coming from. They see voting as endorsing/enabling genocide, full stop, and therefore it is morally indefensible EVEN IF IT WILL RESULT IN LESS OVERALL HARM.

People who are arguing that you SHOULD vote, and vote for Biden specifically, are operating from a Utilitarian Theory perspective.

Utilitarianism is all about balancing benefits and harms, and essentially prioritizing overall harm reduction. They recognize the harm the system is creating, but are willing to participate in the system because through doing so they can ensure that various harms are minimized--certainly not eliminated, but reduced, and, importantly, made easier to eliminate eventually.

Through utilitarianism, we can actually make people's fundamental rights EASIER to defend! But a lot of people are so caught up in the idea of moral purity, and Rights Theory, that they're willing to let their inaction erode people's rights because at least they aren't actively participating in the system. (they are still passively participating, however, and we can argue about inaction being a form of action, but I digress)

Point being, VOTE. Because of Utilitarianism, but also because, if you believe in the inalienability of people's fundamental rights? Voting will make it much easier to protect those in the long term, and that's frankly more important than you getting to feel exempt from an exploitative system you are nonetheless inherently a part of and complicit in.

[grison-in-space]

Has Biden actually done anything at all? There's evidence going around and I think it's compelling, the alternate to voting is instead doing actual social work and participating in protests and organizing political action, which is a good idea i think

1) Yes. Inarguably this has been the most effective progressive domestic administration since I have been alive, and I'm in my thirties. What in the fuck are you talking about? It's not perfect, but it's better than we've seen in fifty years: Obama tried, but Democratic Congressional organization was just not yet used to working with a completely obstructionist GOP Congress in the wake of the tea party.

Even in terms of foreign policy, this is also pretty much as good as US involvement gets. Sorry. Our foreign policy has been shaped by monsters for decades, and that's even without dealing with our huge and active branch of Christian doom cultists. There ain't a candidate in the world that could stop the entire accumulated momentum of geopolitics with a snap of the finger, and I'm not really willing to pretend that Biden is particularly notable for not managing to fix Israel/Palestine relations.

2) In your own words, anon, what precisely does organizing political action entail without participating in the political process? Do you think that abstaining from the part of the gig where you, the citizen, get to say which official gets the job somehow makes your opinions matter more to your elected public officials? Have you ever organized to get so much as a municipal one-time library project budget expanded? Are you perhaps only skilled at political argument with people who already agree with you on the Internet?

What is your leverage, and could it reasonably be described as "extortion" or "blackmail" or "political corruption?" Because those are pretty much the only things on the table that can work more effectively to drive an elected official than a disciplined coalition of political allies (who can be purchased with, you guessed it, votes) or a reliable bloc of voter support. Your vote matters less than the ones you bring with you, sure. Do you think that not voting yourself somehow helps people organize to drive more votes? Have you perhaps replaced your complex reasoning skills with a rapidly dying jellyfish?

3) Holy passive vagueness, Batman! "Evidence is going around." What a masterpiece of a sentence! How it suggests everything while providing nothing! What evidence? Who collected it? Who is talking about the evidence "going around?" Who is listening? How many of them are there? What did they think before? The more I think, the more questions I have, and damn if they ain't predisposing me to be even less charitable.

Like, this is so catastrophically poorly supported that I have to confess that I not only believe this is probably an ask in bad faith (i.e. by someone who is expecting to piss me off or otherwise engage with me adversarially, probably spammed to a whole host of blogs at once with no expectation of response) but I actively hope that it is. The alternative is to have to grapple with the reality that some people are so uncomfortable with the responsibility of moral agency that they're willing to release useful levers of legal and social power just so that they never do anything problematic with that power. Much better, of course, to wash one's hands of anything that might have the stink of responsibility clinging to it. Might fall from the membership of the Elect if you actually get yourself all muddy by doing things, I reckon.

I don't even believe that voting is the only lever we have when it comes to our elected officials or that votes are necessary to secure change, and I am certainly not talking about the presidential ticket alone when I talk voting. What I do believe is two things: one, that voting is a potential lever of power on the emergent chaos of the society in which we live. And two, that anyone telling me to leave a lever of power on the ground without a damn good reason is either incompetent, malicious, or both.

[verdantwyrm]

Anya, The Virgin Mary or the Vengeful Bitch

Or, shorthandedly, the Anyalysis.

I'm going to be occasionally stealing some points from my Curly thread over here, which you should absolutely also read. And also some segments from here, my small analysis of Jimmy and him being a monster vs choosing to be.

This analysis will be going over partially some of how she's treated in-game, but also how she's treated outside of the game as a representation of sexual assault and abuse victims, which is to either make her a mournful, bleeding heart virgin Mary, or a vengeful, final girl that's a violent, hysterical she-bitch. Which she is neither.

I think it's perfectly fine to orchestrate fictional characters killing their abusers, there's nothing inherently wrong with just that, it's more how people actually write it.

Just like any other trope, there are ways to go about it that are extremely harmful and ways that are generally inoffensive. As a victim myself, I personally see so many issues in wishing harm against your abuser, and there is nothing wrong with acting that out in characters you feel comfortable and relatable towards, but there are ways to do this that don't end up doing more harm than good— which is where most people fail. It's an objectively hard topic to address, because it requires nuance and understanding, possibly even lived experience to truly understand why someone would want this. Grieving, the absence that comes with being a victim, is not straightforward or black and white, it's an uncomfortable topic thats often on a spectrum of anger, grief or sadness that most people do not want to engage with because they have a very nearsighted opinion on how a victim should react– the perfect victim.

No one actually likes her as a character, they only like her for what she represents.

The Sexism of the Final Girl

I am sick and tired of people making up the realities in their heads where Anya overcomes Jimmy and kills him,

The trope of a "Final Girl" is not the feminist girl boss you want it to be and is incredibly misogynistic. The definition, as told by Wikipedia

"the final girl in many movies shares common characteristics: she is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, and avoids the vices of the victims like illegal drug use. She sometimes has a unisex name such as Avery, Chris, or Sidney."

There are feminist ideals and intentions behind it, but it is not inherently feminist as a concept and is often very misogynistic despite its intentions to display the woman of the group to be strong, better or uphold moral superiority for declining sex, drugs or any of the vices mentioned forehand. It is a sexist trope, and all it does is ridicule women for "falling" for said vices as if that inherently makes them inferior or deserving of murder or assault.

On the surface, the use of the final girl trope may seem like a progressive portrayal of feminist strength and ideology. It can be satisfying to see a strong, independent "girl boss" overcome an otherworldly predator or rapist. However, upon further examination, it is clear that this trope perpetuates prejudice and reinforces societal expectations for women. The final girl is typically portrayed as a straight, white, morally superior woman who abstains from "immoral" activities like drinking, drug usage and sex. She serves as a voice of reason and represents the ideal woman in our society.

Most importantly, she survives while those who deviate from societal norms face violent deaths. This trope is a subtle commentary on the expectations placed on women in our society - good girls will prevail while those who do not conform will suffer a violent and brutal death, usually at the hands of a man. Ultimately, it seeks to shame women for behaving in ways that are not considered "ladylike."

The film industry as a whole has a history of using females as vessels for pain and suffering. Hollywood loves to profit off of female suffering. These male directors may believe they are earning brownie points with audiences by having female survivors in their films, but in reality, they are simply using feminism as a disguise while indulging in the fetishization of female pain.

It is rather exhausting seeing who we are being reduced to one note Virgin Marys with bleeding hearts, scorned mothers or wounded victims of assault who will never recover, never love or never will have sex again. I do think Mouthwashing does an excellent job of telling the story of a rape victim, but how other people treat her beyond that, it's almost impossible to even have a character like Anya or even Angela from Silent Hill 2 without people stripping them and violating what their character is and instead of focusing on what they represent, a victim.

But back to Anya specifically, she does not even exert any interest, desire or want to murder or harm another person. People dehumanise her the same way Jimmy dehumanises her. They strip her of everything she could be, everything she wanted to be and make her out to be a perfect victim, a bleeding heart, a weak and pathetic woman.

How about Anya has a nice day, how about Anya smiles, and she's happy and safe. What about that? Huh? Or do you only like her when she's a victim. People care more about Anya being a victim they can save, a victim they can nurture and heal and rescue than anything else. They care more about her being weak, sad, frail and miserable. Always the mother, always the victim, always the virgin Mary and a sacrifice but never ever a woman and most definitely never a person.

It's even worse when I see people continuously writing and "re-imagining" Anya being Raped just so Curly, Daisuke, Swansea or even a self-insert reader situation to save her. I totally get that you want her to be happy, and to be rescued and for that to never happen but you severely miss the point of the story that there was no one there to save her. And constantly rewriting it to put a man in the favour of the situation comes off as very shallow and misogynistic the way you're all so ready to have someone rescue her like she's some distressed maiden in need of a big strong man, it also takes the point away from her entirely.

The horse that bites

Jimmy's constant dehumanisation of Anya affects how other people perceive her character as well, that she's weak, small or a crybaby in some sense because of how she responds to situations - emotionally, which is then amplified by Jimmy's pre-existing hatred and lack of respect for her.

Jimmy tears her down every chance he gets, makes her feel little and even compares her to Polle in his hallucinations. And Anya knows that he and Curly have a very lengthy history, so her caution and anxiety about even mentioning the incident, let alone saying the word “rape” is borderline impossible for her. It’s a manifestation, it’s a verbal acceptance and confession that it’s even happened. Something she has been trying to avoid coming to terms with.

And when she does eventually tell Swansea what happened, as much as you want to think she told him- she most likely told him to not do anything, to try and keep the peace for as long as possible.

Again, her vagueness is not her fault, nor is it her responsibility. It was Jimmy’s responsibility to not abuse and rape her.

It’s also very present that Jimmy is verbally abusive to her, putting her down at every opportunity by ignoring her very talented medical skills by saying Pony Express only hired her to cut corners in an attempt to reduce costs because she failed Medical School and that she’s not a “real nurse” because of that, and how he constantly questions her skills despite keeping Curly alive for such a long time in such a state.

After being insulted by him multiple times, she fawns to get him to actually do something beneficial because she knows he responds well to praise, and he complies, all while still insulting and belittling her for being "weak" and "sentimental"

Anya shows a clear fear of Jimmy and has consistent fawn responses around Jimmy. She is extremely careful not to make him upset and praises him to keep him amused and compliant to a degree.

Just like Anya says, our worst moments don't make us monsters. It's one thing to fuck up, and immediately suffer the consequences and acknowledge your mistakes— But it's another thing entirely to purposefully make it so you never have to deal with the repercussions and then make yourself out to be the victim. Jimmy takes every opportunity to blame everyone around him. All the time and Anya is no stranger to this.

Curly genuinely saw the good in Jimmy, in the same way, Anya sees the good in others and possibly even tried to see the good in Jimmy despite the pain as one of the key important things about how everything went about is that Anya never directly refers to her rapist as Jimmy, nor does she ever actually insult or talk badly about him, she only expresses her disinterest in talking to him because of his reluctance to cooperate with her. They both believe that our worst moments don't define us, and Curly had his own interpretation all of how we're defined by our past, but not slaves to it.

She is scared, she is terrified at this point and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that nor should we rush to change that. Her being scared is realistic, she is a scared lady in a very scary situation with an even scarier man who constantly switches between dissociation and lashing out depending on what's going on around him. And she is not that person to fight back, to be violent or to hurt him and that is perfectly fine. She doesn't need to be a girl boss feminist and fight back, she can just be a scared and quiet woman stuck in her own terror, and trying to infer that one Is the "better" option downplays victims who freeze in their own terror and makes them out to be weak or a hapless damsel because they're incapable of "standing up for themselves"

She has every single right to be absolutely terrified and that is in no way a bad thing. I actually really, really dislike the interpretation that Anya is angry, resentful or has any revenge towards Curly, or that she has to be this, hysterical mad woman sent out to kill or hurt Jimmy. I don't believe she's either of this. Anya deserves peace, and I think it's extremely important to understand just how similar she is to Curly. And I'm full of the belief that if Anya had actually done something to Jimmy (hurt him, kill him, whatever) she would be demonized and the misogyny she already faces in the fandom would be worse tenfold. Do not lie to yourself.

Not to even mention one of the many, many reasons as to why Anya OD'd in a room with a lock in the first place. It was to make sure Jimmy could never touch her again? Or do something awful to her body, even when it was lifeless and cold? It was to keep the gun safe, to protect Curly, to protect herself, to take control of the situation, to finally not have to worry about him ever touching her again. And Jimmy still violates it, even after she's dead.

He touches her, drags her body, and props her up in that chair. Even after death, she is never free from him. She thought she was going to finally be free of him, his rage, his desires, his touch, and she died thinking this, that he would never ever be touched or hurt by him ever again. She died thinking all was well, that it would all work out in the end, it had to. She died thinking Daisuke and Swansea would somehow make it out of there, tell her story, and make Jimmy face the consequences of his actions, it was the ultimate sacrifice, it was the greatest thing she could ever do.

Jimmy ruined her life, and he ruined her death, her sacrifice. To keep herself safe, to keep Curly safe, to keep the gun away from him, it all meant nothing.

Thinking outside the Ship

Anya is fun, she is enthusiastic, loves to make jokes, draw, play board games with Daisuke, read, and teases Swansea about his love for sweets which he doesn't even bother to object to and Swansea hands her a note so that she could give it to Curly during his psychological evaluation,, implying that they're casual enough for an exchange like that to occur, and even has what seems to be a budding relationship with Curly himself, taking to his comment about being fit to fly in her eyes like it's a common exchange of flirting between the both of them and she even teases him at the birthday party to "hop to it" in terms of the cake. She is at ease around him, her walls have dropped, and she feels safe to talk to him, and even attempts to try and get him to open up more to her.

She reads psychology books, she is extremely determined having applied to Medical school on total of eight different times and obviously has the skills and interest to keep doing it despite failing and only joined Pony Express so she could make money and keep trying to get into medical school.. She also has good taste in music, one that Swansea and Curly enjoy very much. She also seems to get along well with Daisuke and even allows her emotions to show with anger when they play games they seem to have much of the same sense of humour, judging by how Daisuke is genuinely worried about her when she locks herself in the Medical, they seem to have a positive relationship. We don't know much about her relationships with the others beyond what the wiki can provide.

She seems to have the best relationship with Curly, although. And after the crash, she can't bear to give Curly his pills due to him being in visible agony and her own trauma of forcing him to do something he very obviously doesn't want to endure, likely due to memories of her assault being triggered by both the act of forced insertion and the sounds produced by Curly during it.

Anya also spends most of her free time studying. She runs to clear her head. And when she really needs to destress, she binges on the worst reality television and fast food. She is a very free-spirited woman who is eternally doomed to be reduced to nothing but a hapless, miserable victim.

Final Comments and Thoughts

I don't have much to say here unlike my last analysis, but the situation on the Tulpar is not as straightforward as people would like, I understand it's extremely cathartic to think of a situation where Jimmy gets what he deserves but it isn't realistic, and thats what this game is trying to say. Abusive corporations, exhausting capitalism, this environment breeds Abusers like Jimmy and victims like Anya and Curly. There was nothing that could be done. Pony Express is what doomed them all, they're the catalyst.

Anya deserves to be written and viewed as more than just a representation, a victim or a vengeful hysterical bitch. She deserves to be happy!

Thank you for reaching the end of the thread, please don't be scared to share your thoughts in the tags or in my inbox, I'd love to hear them! good job! (っ˘з(˘⌣˘ ) ♡

[nothorses]

May I ask why you think Biden stepping down and Kamala being the candidate to be 'good news'? I'm still voting for whoever the Democratic candidate is ofc, but I worry this move threw away the average swingvoter who may have been swayed towards voting blue. I don't see how anyone who may have been okay voting for Biden by virtue of him being an old white dude is gonna be as nice towards a brown woman. I mean, people were too sexist for Hillary, the most milquetoast white woman imaginable. I'd really like to hear your perspective.

Biden has been polling like shit for months, and basically fucking everyone has been calling for him to step out of the race for a while now. It's been the opinion of political experts that he doesn't have much of a shot in this election for a variety of reasons. The vast majority of his own base is incredibly dissatisfied with his stance on Palestine (an understatement), and numbers have been reflecting that he was going to be running against some truly miserable odds because of that.

It is genuinely the best option for him to step out of the race. Literally just about anyone else has a much better shot at winning than Biden did. Kamala included! There was a press conference a while back where someone actually asked him if he'd step down if Kamala polled better, and he said he wouldn't. Which is extremely worrying, because it demonstrates that he may have been prioritizing his own personal ego over the importance of keeping Republicans out of office this election.

I don't like Biden, and I really didn't like his odds in this race. Nobody else did, either. The fact that Obama came out and said Biden needs to step down is indication enough that this happened because the situation is really that dire; you have to remember that Democrats are all about Doing Things By The Book, especially in the last 8-ish years when it's been useful for them to be Rule Followers in contrast to the tantrum-throwing chaos machines that Republicans have been. If there was even a sliver of hope for Biden to stay in the race after being chosen in the sad sham that the primaries were this election cycle, they would have kept pushing just to stay within the bounds of convention.

I was ready to push for Biden regardless, because keeping Republicans out of office is priority #1. But I've been saying for a while now that he needs to drop out (just... not on Tumblr, where the dominant conversation is "does voting for a flawed political pawn make you personally responsible for everything they ever do, or should we abstain and let the fascists hijack our government and kickstart several new genocides for the sake of personal moral purity" and I don't think that kind of nuance would be well-received).

I use my grandparents as a litmus test in a lot of this stuff, because they are very much the Typical Liberal Democrats, and their opinions on these things tend to fall in line with the majority of voting Democrats. They absolutely loved Biden in 2020, long before he was chosen as the candidate. They don't anymore. Seeing them lose any and all enthusiasm for voting for this corpse of a man was evidence enough to me that we needed someone else. Ideally someone people can get excited about, because I think folks have mostly lost the perspective we had in 2020 when Trump's nightmarish presidency was fresh in everyone's minds, and served as motivation enough to get to the fucking polls- regardless of who the Dem pick actually was.

From what I understand, Kamala is actually polling better than anyone else right now. I have my fears about voters' racism and misogyny too, but if she's doing well in the polls, I wonder if maybe there's some other factors counteracting that. She's also got name recognition, and the general impression of Being Qualified (because she's been VP already, like Biden was), and Being Likeable (because she comes with the general positive associations of the largely successful Biden presidency, without any baggage of perceived responsibility that Biden himself carries- like Biden did with Obama). She's been flying under the radar while still reaping the benefits of positive associations, and people know who she is. That feels like a good combination, but I don't know enough, and I haven't read enough into it to make any decently educated guesses.

That said, I don't really know as much about who the other potential candidates might be, either. I've heard Pete Buttigieg's name tossed around, but nobody liked his ass back in 2020 and idk if that's actually changed at all. I just know that every politically-knowledgeable/politically-active leftist whose opinion I've heard on the topic has been citing Biden dropping out as the literal only hope for a non-Republican to win this election, and I'm really fucking excited to see that come to fruition. I just hope the Dems pick someone who really does have a good shot.

As a sidenote, I also really hope this marks a shift in how they make decisions, too. It's become increasingly obvious how out-of-touch Democrats are with their voters, and Biden 2024 was just the latest and greatest indicator of exactly how bad that's gotten. The fact that the party has been able to make such an unconventional decision in response to what their voters actually want gives me a little bit of hope that we might be able to influence more change with them going forward than we have been.

[juvive-1234]

The Stewards and what they represent

A few weeks ago I made a post where I expressed my opinion about the Stewards being a representation of religious trauma. In this post I will be going into a more further and in depth explanation on why I think this.

! Spoilers for dark rise and dark heir !

1 - The stewards being a cult:

The definition of a cult is "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object." You could apply this term to the Stewards who devoted their lives to serving the light and more so the Lady. Everything they do, all the rules they've enforced its all for the Lady. They start their morning off with a chant dedicated to the Lady, they end their day with a chant dedicated to the lady.

It goes beyond just chants, cult leaders typically set rules for their followers. The reason is obviously to assert leadership and keep the control. The main rules the Stewards have are;

You must participate in the morning chants

You must take a vow of celibacy

You must sacrifice yourself when the time is right

Now, lets breakdown how these can control the Stewards and links them to a cult;

Morning chants - In cults, chanting is a mind-altering practice that can be used to break down a person's defences and make them more susceptible to cult ideology. Cult leaders use chanting to direct their followers' emotional and psychological attention to a specific ideology or person - In this case the light side and the lady. This can be dangerous because it can re-wire how the brain works.

Celibacy - Celibacy is the act of one restricting themself from entering a relationship that could be romantic or sexual - in a way, it's abstaining from sex. Cults typically promote the idea of a romantic/sexual relationship being taboo as a way to keep its members from devoting themself to anyone but their cause.

Self sacrifice - Yes, I know. The reasons the Stewards do this is because of the shadow living within them, but dark rise is one big metaphor for all sorts of things (Homophobia, racism, etc...) and so, I believe this act of self sacrifice is more then something for the fantasy plot. It represents how self sacrifice in cults work. Self sacrifice in cults is usually associated with identity fusion - a psychological concept that describes a deep sense of belonging and oneness with a group. This can be the result of intense collective experiences, such as drinking from the steward's cup which of course ruins the drinker's life.

Additional points:

Cults typically wear uniforms - Stewards wear their white/grey/blue uniforms

Cults isolate their members from the outside world - The Stewards are quite isolated from society and only go out when necessary. Their first reaction to Will is enough.

Abuse - Cults typically abuse their members - James. Enough said.

2 - Attempting to destroy anything different then their morals/Brainwashing

Would this really be a Juvive post without the Novitiate trio? This time, I'm going to use them to explain how fast a cult's opinion can change.

When Will and Violet are spending their first day at the hall, Emery and his friends are the only three people - Novitiates more specifically - who willingly talked to Will and Violet. The duo is usually seen with them and the three explain their traditions to the two. The time skip from chapter 14 to 15 is two (?) months, and during that time I want to bet money Will and Violet continued being Emery, Carver and Beatrix's friend.

Of course, it all goes to hell when Violet is outed to be a lion. When the army of Stewards corner Will and Violet, Carver is in that crowd. Yes, he's a Steward. Yes, he's following duties. Sure, but he didn't even try to rebuttal the higher powers? Didn't try to stand up for Violet? Carver knows Violet and Will are good people, his friends are friends with them- HE'S friends with them. All this is to say that Carver changed his opinions faster than the speed of light.

Why though? How though?

Simple, brainwashing.

The ideas of the Stewards were being jammed into his head since he was young. He's been training to be a Steward for years. He was taught lions were terrible beings. His opinion was not even his own, it was the Stewards. It was forced into his mind. If you don't believe me, brainwashing is defined as the process of compromising someone's freedom of choice and action by altering their perception, motivation, or behavioural outcomes. 

Makes sense now, right?

3 - Leadership

Jannick.

Actually, that's not enough. He deserve more.

3.5 - Jannick.

I hate this fucker.

You can associate this guy with being leaders of the cult. A cult leader is the leader of a group that requires unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices - The lady and the light side in this case. Cult leaders are often described as pathologically narcissistic, and may be narcissists.

Let's break him down:

Jannick:

Called his son a "catamite" in front of hundreds of people - Shows lack of empathy which is a trait narcissists have

Implied that he pushes/pushed all three of his sons to the absolute limit and pushed them to be perfect. In the book he does show that he had a desire to be a Steward - Shows both need for admiration and envy, two traits shared with narcissists

"That thing is not my son." - Shows arrogance and just being a dick, arrogance is a trait narcissists have

While the Elder Steward is technically the leader of the Stewards, Jannick seems to have more power and influence over certain things.

Wrap up

In summary, I do believe the Stewards represent a more deeper meaning then what has been shown to us. They're a metaphor. A metaphor for a cult and religious trauma.

Thank you so much for reading. Take care you yourself, ok?

[artistformerlyknownasbutttrumpet]

You’re a genocide apologist, and we will remember until the day your favorite genocidal politicians wipe us off the planet - which you’ll pretend to care about until your own comfort is affected.

I hope nobody buys your book.

if there had been a choice available to me that would ensure not a single further act of genocide would ever take place--a choice that would make it so families weren't viscously slaughtered, children's bodies wouldn't be lining the streets, innocent people wouldn't be stuck with lifelong traumas i cannot even begin to comprehend the magnitude of--of COURSE i would have picked it. of COURSE. the problem, tho, is that there wasn't. my options were "pick the person who would kill everyone if he got the opportunity" and "someone who will make it so fewer people suffer," and i went with the one that would make fewer people suffer. bc at least that would save some children. some innocent people who did nothing but be born. bc to me, some was better than none

think of it this way: i work at a domestic violence shelter. sometimes we get calls from people who are in dangerous situations but for whatever reason (needs are too high, we don't have the resources available, they're out of scope, our grants will only pay for intimate partner violence, not family violence, etc etc), we can't offer them the resources needed to help them

now, what i could do, when that happens, is quit my job and refuse to work for an organization that would ever turn someone in need away. i could say "i don't care what your reasons are, letting even one person suffer is wrong, and i can't be complicit"

but the thing is, if i decided to take that stand, it wouldn't change anything, bc it wouldn't change any of the circumstances. it wouldn't provide more funding to the shelter. it wouldn't give us staff who can deal with higher needs. etc etc

what it WOULD do, however, is put me in a position where i am suddenly not helping ANYONE. my stance that nobody should be without services, no matter what, leading to a boycott, means that everyone suffers

what i CAN do, tho, is continue to work at the shelter, while actively advocating for improvements on the side. i can help with fundraisers, and offer suggestions to my higher ups, and help with grants. i can spread the word. i can make my voice heard. i can fight for these people we have to turn away, but i can do it while still helping the people we can serve

the moral stance of "these people should be helped" is an admirable one. it's the one you should have. it's one of compassion and human connection. but we also have to recognize that we can't always save everyone all at once. i would argue that most of the time we can't. sometimes we have to pick the choice that causes the least harm, and then continue to advocate for bigger changes on the side. abstaining from helping entirely just means everyone gets hurt, and that's completely counter to that core belief of compassion

i care SO much about the victims of this genocide. there is nothing i can ever do that will make me understand the horrors of what they're facing. and did it feel fucking gross to advocate for someone who aided the perpetrators? of course it did. but i did it, despite the discomfort, bc i knew that, in the end, it would at least save some people, and that was better than none

but too many people didn't agree with that. too many people abstained, or decided to try leaning to the right, and now i'm terrified bc i don't know how this ends, but i don't think it's good. i think a lot of people are going to be hurt, and i think we could have prevented it, but instead of coming together, we split apart and caused something terrible to happen. we didn't just quit working at the shelter--we shut the whole thing down. and now where do the people who need help go? where are they going to go? don't you see there is nowhere for them to go?

the doors to safety have been shut, and i don't know how to open them, and now we're all stuck outside

we have nowhere to go

and that's terrifying

[ayeforscotland]

"If you vote for labour you're enabling this behaviour" but like it's that or another 5 years of Tory government who are also anti-trans and pro-genocide etc. I don't see the point in trying to morally condemn people for voting labour when many people (depending where you live) don't have a third choice. Voting for a minor party is enabling the Tories. Abstaining from voting is enabling the Tories. There is no morally pure way to vote in the current system we have.

Tories are getting obliterated this coming election, your options are to vote for a labour majority in which they’ll steamroll on with everything the Tories are doing or to try and make sure they need to do deals with minority parties for concessions.

[sageandred]

Today, I saw someone say "I do not want that genocide on my conscience" in regards to voting Democrat or Republican, and opting for a third party in place. I ask you, do you want stripped rights of American minorities on your hands or innocent children's lives due to gun violence and no efforts to reform? Because that's what this is! For the love of god, I do not understand the take of fighting for a better outcome and aiming for world peace when the unlikelihood of a third party is evident as history has shown. We live in a democracy (supposedly), but we live under a system, regardless. It's Democrat or Republican; it's Democrat or Trump, now; it's Democrat or fascist. I'm not arguing that Kamala is perfect or parts of where she focusses her attention in policies won't disappoint; that's of the reality with anyone that gets in office; that's every politician. The goal has never been vote the "lesser of two evils;" do nothing else. (I hate the indication of "evils" when I don't think every politician is an awful human being (in a system guaranteed to codemn them with questionable ethics, but that's another post). The goal is make the logical and correct decision, so you have the chance to make it better again and for them to make it better in office. If you vote third party on the basis of moral terror, you will not have that chance to make the world better how you aim to. Trump has shown you what he'll do, and made it worse.

You are fighting the war for Palestinians and all who are being attacked by Israel, because they are targeted minorities and you cry for the innocent lives of children being taken, but that ethnic and communal cleansing is exactly what Trump is fighting for in dictatorship in America. If you vote third party, you will also have blood on your hands, because you are voting for Trump based on the historical unlikelihood of the 3rd candidate winning. If you choose not to vote, you are forfeiting your choice and indirectly voting for whoever comes into office. You will not feel like there is no blood on your hands if you see what comes of his presidency. The amount of people I've known & seen who felt stupid for abstaining in his election after the reality of his leadership is a large pool and proof of the regret and realized actuality. Do not put yourself in the position to feel like them!

Trump has said, he will have it "fixed" so you will never have to vote in another election again if he wins. You do not get to easily rectify your choices if your opted third party loses. You will not have that chance. (Let it be noted, that also the 4 years a president spends in the house are not so easily reversible (we have still been dealing with Trump's damage in Biden's term).

P.s. Here's what Kamala has said about Gaza:

x x

Here's what Trump has said:

x

Former President Donald Trump said that Israel needs to “finish what they started” and “get it over with fast,” as he continued arguing Israel was “losing the PR war” because of the visuals coming out of Gaza.

“You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy. And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. You have to have a victory, and it’s taking a long time,” Trump said in an interview with The Hugh Hewitt Show that aired Thursday.

x

Harris also recognized antisemitism, showing support for the community that's faced it, and that's not what this is.

Be definitive; make the choice; and don't be passive when your options are historically laid out between two separate parties!

Vote for hope, not a never-ending apocalyptic genocide with Trump.

Also, relevant to note, it's just as important to vote down ballot. Get supporting figures who will back the better choice, so that it's not all for nothing.

[thegirlmirage]

I was a vegan for 6 years and I think abstaining from food does fuck all for animal rights. I think the movement is full of very angry people with no nuance who, even on a quiet level, like to feel superior to others and have never seen a sheep or cow in their life.

It wouldnt take very much dialogue to get retailers to ensure their meat was purchased from farms with better conditions for animals, but that's seen as "consorting with the enemy". Meanwhile the conditions remain unchallenged from the majority of vegans.

The idea of a meat-free world as it currently stands is impossible, and vegan food replacements have failed to provide protein replacements. Even when I had sufficient money, I still needed to take supplements to avoid getting sick. I know two people close in my life who will get extremely sick if they do not eat meat. Beans is not an alternative.

Debate with practicing vegans has been largely frustrating to me. Eventually there is a point where they will eject and claim the conversation is too traumatic to continue.

Eating food isn't evil. Moralizing about this has seen PoC, the poor, and other cultures harassed for practices a white vegan majority refuses to engage with in good faith.

The main argument that does hold weight to me is that industrial farming is filled with terrible practices, and because we have engaged with these animals, we have a duty of care towards them. I do not excuse mass industrial farming practices, but I do believe that if a farm animal is happy and safe for it's whole life, there is nothing wrong with eating it. I recognise that with the exception of small farming, we are a long way from that reality, but certainly much closer than a meat free world, which I consider impossible, if not just for humans but for the carnivorous animals we care for.

When I was much younger, and vegetarian, the culture was very different. It was not uncommon to be harassed by meat supremacists. We campaigned for vegetarian options to be available. We weren't campaigning for vegetarian meals to be the only option. What works for one person is not a blueprint for everyone.

There are vegans who do campaign effectively for animal rights, but in terms of actual action they are absolutely in the minority

[gemshroud]

Some little secret characterization guidelines I have for writing Artemis on here:

Artemis is super smart. This is typically most apparent in dialogue, where he is clever and funny, and also in his quick problem-solving.

(Side note: Artemis and Jarlaxle are equally smart--it's part of why they like each other--but they have different strengths and weaknesses there. Jarlaxle will always have the slight upper hand in most ways, but Artemis has the slight upper hand in emotional sincerity which is potentially ruinous and also part of why Jarlaxle likes him.)

He's pretty chill tbh. Don't get me wrong, he carries around a Gale-like orb of explosive anger and resentment inside himself at all times, but he is very restrained in his dealings with others, very calculated. If anything this makes him more dangerous.

Along similar lines, he's on the quiet side.

He likes people who challenge him.

He hates inept people more than he hates cruel people. He can vibe perfectly fine with cruel people tbh. He's got sleepless retail middle manager energy--if you're a lovely sweetheart but you can't do your job he will wish unholy things upon you. (Unless you're Babsi, apparently.)

He has an understated confidence in his physicality and his words that makes him weirdly charismatic despite the Everything about him.

I joke about him being a murderhobo but he isn't at all actually. He doesn't kill people for no reason, he kills when it's useful, and will even abstain from killing if that's the wiser option. He considers the larger dynamics of people and power in these situations.

He is perfectly aware that killing people is morally wrong, he just does not care. Again, he works murder retail, man, he's just after that paycheck and enough respect for people to leave him alone.

He's secretly a fop. He enjoys luxury and high quality things but this is constantly at war with his inclination towards "I must hone my body through abstinence of earthly pleasures." Proximity to Jarlaxle brings out the dandy in him.

Despite everything, he's just a human at the end of the day, in a world of magical demigods and main characters. If you can manage to back him up against a wall, you might catch a glimpse of someone just scrambling and clawing to survive. He still won't back down.

In his BG3 verse where he's been tadpoled he's a lot more frayed at the edges than usual. He's a pragmatist and 100% doesn't believe the tadpole gang are gonna survive this asdfasfsdfk. He's still going to keep fighting til the last breath, of course, but he's also liable to make more desperate choices than he might normally.

Despite living in a fantasy world, he does not have time for fantasy bullshit, and he WILL say so.

When he's comfortable around you, his default state is bitching about something.

[just-antithings]

I wanted to piggy-back off the Harry Potter ask regarding performance activism specifically regarding Harry Potter fandom.

I'm a little woozy after a medical emergency I had this week but I'm scared ill forget this, so bare with me, please.

JK Rowling coming out as a TERF was absolutely heartbreaking especially as a queer person who grew up on the series. The series was a life-line in a time where I was being drowned in loneliness. I literally grew up with the books. I started when I was eleven and read the final books ad an 18 yr old.

And when she first came out, I was one of the many who wanted to walk away and no longer wanted to associate with it, but felt so wrong.

It felt wrong on many levels. On the most noticeable, it made me incredibly sad that I felt I was no longer allowed to read the books, enjoy the movies with my family, got to some of the Harry Potter exhibits with my family. A huge part of my adolescence was suddenly forbidden.

Abstaining from the series was hurting me more than it was impacting her.

Then, from a more social justice perspective, what does us abstaining actually do? I mean really, it's like the trnasphobes dumbing their beer over Dylan. Or burning merch over finding out someone is gay or whatever. We make fun of people destroying their merch because the corporations already have their money.

It's the same thing with JKR. She already made her money. She doesn't care what her fans think because she doesn't have to.

Refusing to engage with a piece of media to feel morally superior just makes the individual feel better and I think we do it because people feel powerless and like they have no other way to advocate and fight against transphobia.

It also feels like a way to feel morally superior and as an opportunity to punch down.

So, I, a queer person, let myself enjoy a piece of media creates by a transphobe, because that piece of fiction has grown to be so much more than its creator.

For advocacy?

I donate. I engage with the community. I'm mindful of the conversations I engage in. I speak when needed and listen when needed. I donate when I can. I support trans creators when I can. I vote. I learn our queer history and understand where we've come from and what has allowed us to grow into the community we are now.

Personally, I find it more satisfying and more rewarding, and more impactful than ignoring a fandom and piece of literature that has brought myself and my family joy.

Anywho, hope this makes sense. Thanks for your time!

.

[takerfoxx]

On the night of the election, I had an honest-to-God dream where I woke up and found out that Harris had shockingly come in from behind and won the election. I remember how relieved I was that the nightmare had been averted. That we did choose to not elect a senile fascist back into office. That most of my country weren't willing choosing evil over progress.

Then I woke up, literally and figuratively.

Obviously, this has been a heavy blow. Honestly, as someone who was raised as a conservative Christian, who was a huge fan of Linkin Park, Kanye West, JK Rowling, Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, and the Undertaker for years, and who felt like I could trust my friends and family to have my back, it's been like these last few years have been a relentless train of disappointment and disillusionment in everything and everyone I once believed in and looked up to, and who I would go to for escape when things were bad. I know you should never meet your heroes, but damn, could they just have been like salty jerks who were caught being mean to the waiter instead of fascists, abusers, bigots, and so on? Could the entire world view that I had been raised in and fervently believed for over half my life not have turned out to be so awful? And yeah, I'm including the friends and family part in that as well.

Obviously, since the election, there's been a lot of finger pointing. Did Harris run a bad campaign? Did she abandon the working class? Was it the Gaza issue? Was it the fault of moral abstainers or third-party voters?

And honestly, I get it. Given the sheer horror of what we're facing, I get being frustrated with people who don't help and/or vote against their own interests only to go all Shocked Pikachu face when the worst possible scenario occurs. But I've been doing some thinking, and I personally believe that even if all those groups came out in support of Harris, whether it be because they do support her or even just as a way to block Trump, she still would have lost. This is the first time in a long time that a Democratic nominee lost the popular vote, after all. I think Biden would have lost too, and he only won in 2020 because of the very unique circumstances caused by the pandemic.

I think we need to face the facts. America's been sliding into fascism for decades.

Reagan. The extremism that erupted after 9/11. Birtherism. Gamergate. The Manosphere. The far right has been busy, whether it be stacking the deck politically or pinpointing the fears and insecurities of every generation and tuning their messaging to draw people in. They tell them what they want to hear, that it's not their fault that they aren't getting what the American dream promised them, and it's all the fault of (insert minority group here). It's been targeted. It's been methodical. And it's been working.

Trump won. He's going to get away with everything. The far right won. This sucks. I wish I had some inspiring words about never giving up the fight, but I'm not that guy. And honestly, I'm starting to feel that spiteful part of me come out, the one that sort of hopes that everything does get much worse so that every braindead moron who voted against their best interests gets exactly what they got coming to them.

But I also know how dangerous that line of thinking of. So please, Do NOT listen to me. There are plenty of people still rallying the troops, still encouraging people to fight, people who are in far more danger than I am. I'll be fine. I'm just a tired and disappointed middle-aged white guy living in a boring California suburb. I'm safe. But there's a lot of people that aren't. And those are the voice that you need to be listening to.

As for me, I'm not giving up, I'm going to keep voting, going to keep supporting the causes I believe in, and going to keep helping how I can. But I'm also going to go away for a while. Not long, probably just a few weeks or so. But I'm going to disengage from social media for a bit to keep from doomscrolling and just focus on writing, because that's all I really know how to do. And when I do come back, I'll have a lot more stuff for you guys.

In the meantime, please be good to yourselves. Be good to those who are scared and hurting. The world needs you in it, now more than ever.

[spirit-meets-the-b0ne]

Hot take but Alicent x Cole’s sexual relationship being canonized is not exclusively the cool edgy feminist girl boss move people are going to try to warp it into it. And for those of you who are going to violently disagree with the rest of this take then I’m sorry but don’t give me two ���religious” characters and expect me to not examine them critically under a religious theory lens because idk what to tell you…

Now listen I have nothing against this ship personally, if anything the people I know who do ship it are equally dissatisfied. Personally, I don’t fold to bullshit and hypocrisy or complete incoherent characterization as it is at this point. If Alicent is gonna get painted as saintly and be purported as a pious woman of the Faith then she CAN’T take back her sexuality through sin. Thats kind of an antithesis of religion. The entire point of celibacy in religious terms is to devote your body and soul to your God or Gods. It’s a voluntary thing that’s supposed to provide you comfort in knowing your relationship with your higher power is “pure” and you save yourself from sin by abstaining. Chastity is not seen as oppressive to devoutly religious people and that’s very important here. The alternative means that the person was either A. Never pious at all or B. Should be burdened with guilt for the sins of the flesh. So it’s not congruent with someone who is truly religious and adhering to their faith. Rebelling against it and abandoning it and/or returning to it seeking confession, is also vastly different. Alicent won’t be treated as an apostate, in a patriarchal society (!!!!!) a woman who abandoned her chastity and likewise broke a knights vows in the process will not be treated kindly. This will be weaponized against her instead of uplifting her for her autonomy (a woman expressing her sexuality and being punished for it is not what we would call progressive!). Now, herein lies the issue, if you likewise have a male character who is in a position where he not only observes the same religious beliefs but VOWED celibacy, now it’s even BIGGER issue. Because Criston may have consensually abandoned his chastity despite the cloak and for the Faith but in this society and context it would be Alicent who is demonized NOT him. He can’t be in a position to “reclaim” his sexuality either because again it is a conscious choice on his part to be celibate, this is seen as part of a greater system of honor and chivalry it is not oppressive in context. So there’s really only one way this works out in a religious aspect, and it’s not great. The greater issue from there is now not only are these two characters just blatant hypocrites who can have this relationship weaponized against them but that it’s now intrinsically tied with the events of B&C - BIG OOF. So now their love is not only a perversion of Courtly Love but it’s also completely engrossed in the characters relationship with that event. They will use this against Alicent and Criston when/if it’s revealed. If this is supposed to be a feminist moment of a woman reclaiming her sexuality this simply isn’t the way to do it: because it will ultimately be used against her in a deeply affective negative way and at best the audience could view them as morally gray. At worst, they’re going to be saddled with a guilt that doesn’t need to be a part of the equation. Other characters who struggle with their faith and temptations (ie. Charlie from LOST) might waffle from going to confession and then sin again and then coming around to forgiving themselves or feeling spiritually content/overcoming temptation. That is not easily made possible when your GRANDCHILD IS DEAD and died during your “sin.” An exploration of a characters relationship with their religion and identity is an interesting plot and could have existed without the need to associate this with a horrible violent event.

Now IF the case was, Alicent said “fuck the Faith, I don’t care for their rules and your vows are to me Ser Criston so I’ll forgive you for them being broken, we can be sinners together” (Cue “From Eden” and “Francesca” by Hozier) then THAT would be development. If the characters say “everyone else abandons duty and vows so why not us?” and rebels against the oppressive forces they’ve endured outside their own choices that’s fine but it’s a different character than the “devoutly religious saintly figure” and “white knight.” Otherwise it’s a caricature, a parody; it’s Father Peter from Derry Girls but much more violent. Not to mention being a member of the King’s Guard is not seen as an oppressive position (contrast to the Nights Watch) but an exalted one. That is a very important distinction. The King’s Guard is voluntary organization meant to be the pinnacle of knightly virtue and make vows they are expected to keep for life. While this aspect IS different from the Faith of Seven, they’re not mutually exclusive and the principle is the same, as in you wouldn’t call a septon or a priest oppressed because they chose to devote their lives to their beliefs and not hold land, marry or father children.

Do I understand the tension of courtly love and recognize that both Criston and Alicent have many compounding reasons to consummate their feelings for one another in the face of complete and utter danger? Sure. That’s not the problem. The problem is this is an amalgamation of fan service and fan fiction in a way that isn’t going to deliver a cohesive storyline for this plot change and if I’m being really critical it kind of just reeks of HBO sexualizing Olivia and Fabien to write a sex scene with no validity in the text and in fact create MORE plot holes and create more negative repercussions for both characters. This is violence porn completely devoid of uplifting meaning for the couple and only further muddies their morals. To reiterate, this isn’t just my personal opinion this is simply a critical look at these events through the religious lens these characters were presented to us in. While I personally would take a more liberal view in-world with my own biases and made them religious that would put me closer in line to the Dornish followers of the Faith. Considering their views on homosexuality and sex outside of wedlock/bastards is more accepting they still consider themselves followers of the Faith but the Andals look down on them for this. So the Dornish culturally expand on some of these liberal ideologies but Criston is not embracing that - he’s leaning in hard to the Andal beliefs.

I have also seen people defending Alicent from hypocrisy saying Alicent didn’t condemn Rhaenyra for having sex (which is a lie) but that it was because she had bastards. Which is equally hypocritical in this context because … Alicent at this point …. Is not menopausal … she could have Criston’s bastard easily. Maybe that’s how Daeron will show up in the story? 😭

Since I doubt that Aegon is going to have progressive policies for the Faith and see this as an opportunity to creat the Westerosi equivalent of the Church of England (Church of Andals?) it spells disaster for Criston and Alicent. Having a crisis of faith and being a heretic are completely different circumstances and again from a religious point of view it’s hard to look at the characters as anything other than the latter.

Personally I fully support fan fiction and I fully support anyone who ships these two platonically or romantically. I would even say I have a healthy level of acceptance for fan service too. Still, it’s disingenuous to say that this situation is totally acceptable. As two characters who modeled themselves as morally superior and serving dutifully they cannot have this relationship and continue it as if still from that position. They’ve both contradicted their beliefs, one of them has committed (for the second time) breaking a vow that could have him justifiably thrown from his order and any sexual gratification they might have had is ruined by associating it with an unnecessary guilt for the murder of a child. There were ways this story line could have worked independently not as a consequential act now tied to B&C and shame on Sarah and Ryan for once again letting their own fanfic ideas get the better of the plot.

[gatheringbones]

[“To be associated with prostitution signifies moral loss. In 1910, US district attorney Edwin Sim wrote that ‘the characteristic which distinguishes the white slave from immorality … is that the women who are victims of the traffic are forced unwillingly to live an immoral life’.This belief – that to be a sex worker is to live an ‘immoral life’ – has persisted. Mark Lagon, who led the US State Department’s anti-prostitution work during the George W. Bush era (and went on to run the biggest anti-trafficking organisation in the US), wrote in 2009 that women who sell sex lead ‘nasty, immoral lives’ for which they should only not be held ‘culpable’ because ‘they may not have a choice’.

In the 2000s, the blog Diary of a London Call Girl, written by escort and anonymous blogger ‘Belle de Jour’, was a smash hit, leading to books and a TV show. After its author was named in 2009 as the research scientist Brooke Magnanti, journalists, like Lombroso before them, attempted to read her supposed moral loss in her physical body: ‘I scrutinize [Magnanti’s] face without quite knowing what I’m looking for … dead eyes, maybe … or something a bit grim and hard around the mouth.’ Sex work, categorised as the wrong kind of sex, is seen as taking something from you – the life in your eyes. In her imagined loss, Magnanti is transformed in the journalist’s eyes into a threat, a hardened woman.

This supposed sexual excess, and the loss that accompanies it, delineates the prostitute as ‘other’. The ‘good’ woman, on the other hand, is defined by her whiteness, her class, and her ‘appropriate’ sexual modesty, whether maidenly or maternal. Campaigns for women’s suffrage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries drew on the connection between women’s bodies and honour and the honour and body politic of the nation. These campaigns were intimately linked with efforts to tackle prostitution, with British suffragists engaging in anti-prostitution work ‘on behalf’ of women in colonised India to make the case that British women’s enfranchisement would ‘purify the imperial nation-state’.

This sense that people (particularly women) are changed and degraded through sex crops up in contemporary feminist thought about prostitution, too. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, who runs a diversion programme for arrested sex workers in Arizona, claims that ‘once you’ve prostituted, you can never not have prostituted … having that many body parts in your body parts, having that many body fluids near you, and doing things that are freaky and weird really messes up your ideas of what a relationship looks like, and intimacy’. Sex workers who go through that programme have to abstain not only from selling sex but also from sex with a partner.

Even more punitive responses were common in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and even twentieth centuries. Orders of nuns across the world ran workhouses and laundries for ‘fallen women’ – prostitutes, unmarried mothers, and other women whose sexualities made their communities uneasy. Conditions in these ‘Magdalene laundries’ were primitive at best and often brutal; even in the twentieth century, women could be confined within them for their whole lives, imprisoned without trial for the ‘moral crime’ of sex outside of marriage. Many women and their children died through neglect or overwork and were buried in unmarked graves. In Tuam, Ireland, 796 dead children were secretly buried in a septic tank between 1925 and 1961. The last Magdalene laundry in Ireland closed only in 1996.

The Irish nuns who ran the Magdalene laundries did not disappear. Instead, they set up an anti-prostitution organisation, Ruhama, which has become a major force in campaigning to criminalise sex work in Ireland, and now couches its work in feminist language. The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity continue to make money from the real estate where the Magdalene laundries stood, while largely stonewalling survivors’ efforts to document or account for the abuses that took place there – and refusing to contribute to the compensation scheme for survivors.”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018

[dross-the-fish]

you think your white guilt helps anybody? LMAO. Stop boosting scammers.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'd rather run the risk of a couple dollars going to scammer than deprive someone for whom those dollars might be life and death. Even if I can't confirm they were vetted (so far very few haven't been) I'd rather err on the side that they're genuine. And I'm going to level with you, I cannot be motivated to do or abstain from doing something through shame. I cannot be moved to action or inaction because someone is trying to manipulate a sense of guilt or responsibility onto me and I have zero respect for the people on whom that tactic works. If I advocate to free Palestine and an end to genocide then that's because I believe that's what is morally correct. Moral conviction, unlike guilt, is not built on a need to appease someone so you can be on the "right side of history" or "one of the good ones" I find that to be a flimsy reason to do anything as we have no idea how history is going to view us in 100 years or and it is highly unlikely to remember us at all. Likewise I have no interest in wasting my time going around wagging my finger at people I don't know and acting like I have some kind of moral high ground, unlike you who felt the need to come to my inbox and castigate me because you believe dying people asking for help are scammers and the people who see them and want to help them are only even doing so because they feel some kind of self centered need for atonement. What did you think you were going to accomplish? That I'd be embarrassed into stopping? That's I'd go, "Oh wow, I was only doing this out of a sense of white guilt, you're right, anon! I should change my whole stance!" Believe whatever you want, be jaded and cynical about people's reasons for helping and be jaded and cynical about the people asking for help and then pat yourself on the back because you validated your own reasons for not lifting a finger. If you think these posts are scams then block them and move on, unless you feel some sense of guilt or responsibility in which case where do you have room to call anyone else out for having that as their motivation?