#anti religious fanaticism

[agentfascinateur]

Zionism is an antiquated mechanism used by power hungry Europeans intent on politicizing religion as a cult that has since radicalized others by default and divided people who used to peacefully coexist such as in Palestine. It's an evil that drags its members into a bottomless moral abyss such as what we're now witnessing.

Go away Zionism

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[troythecatfish]

[gryphona]

Dear DeviantArt users,

There's a user by the name of Baggerz1 commenting "repent to God" on just about every pro-LGBT post. Any DA users out there wanna help me get them to STFU and mind their own damn business?

[marchlione]

ok, but like, why do christians romanticize suffering and subservience so much 🤨

[mckitterick]

Christofascist Republican calls LGBTQ people "filth" during public forum

The culture of hate among Christofascists recently led to the violent beating and subsequent death of Choctaw two-spirit teenager Nex Benedict in Oklahoma.

When questioned about how 50+ anti-LGBTQ bills might have affected this case, State Senator Tom Woods said,

“We are a Republican state - supermajority - in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma.”

Several audience members clapped at his statement, while others appeared shocked.

“We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state - we are a moral state,” Woods said. “We want to ... let people be able to go to the faith they choose. We are a Republican state and I���m going to vote my district, and I’m going to vote my values, and we don’t want that in the state of Oklahoma.”

State Representative David Hardin added, “How you live your life personally, that’s between you and God... but what goes through our public schools - I will fall back on my faith. I want to make sure that at least the children in our public schools have that faith... what I want to make sure of is that our young children have the right to grow up with that faith."

After the forum, Woods reiterated his stance on the matter: "I support my constituency, and like I said, we’re a Christian state, and we are tired of having that shoved down our throat at every turn... I stand behind my statement, and I stand behind the Republican Party values."

When asked what he thought of Woods’ characterization of LGBTQ people as “filth,” State Senator Dewayne Pemberton said, “No comment.”

Again and again, today's christofascist Republicans (any other sort doesn't get elected these days) reveal that they want to indoctrinate public school kids into their own bigoted hatred, forcing children to hate anyone who doesn't subscribe to their narrow interpretation of their religious texts. Christofascists seek to impose their personal, misguided religious biases on the general public, including creating laws codifying hate and authoritarian control over the lives and bodies of everyone, not just others in their own religion.

Make no mistake, Nex Benedict's death was caused by christofascist indoctrination of the three girls who brutally beat Nex in that school bathroom. Nex Benedict's death was caused by the school failing to take their injuries seriously, by hate codified in Oklahoma state laws designed to harass LGBTQ folks and normalize bigotry against them, by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters appointing hate-speech villain Chaya Raichik (responsible for "Libs of TikTok") to the Oklahoma Department of Education's Library Media Advisory Committee even though she doesn't live in the state (but he likes that she used Benedict's school and teacher for targeted hate). And on and on - it's a systematic attack on personal freedom and human rights - and the lives of queer folks.

Nex Benedict's death is exactly what christofascists seek through indoctrinating children into their hate that perpetuates bigotry into the future and forcing their religious fanaticism into the public sphere through unconstitutional laws built on hate and control.

Do you want to live in a theocracy dictated by those who narrowly interpret their personal religious texts to promote hate? Because as long as citizens fail to speak out against these harbingers of civilizational collapse, they'll only feel more and more emboldened to turn hate crimes into victories.

We must not let another of our people become victim of systemic bigotry. To protect children and end generational indoctrination, we must fire all public officials who subscribe to christofascist hatred and, when appropriate, prosecute them for the violence they incite.

If we fail to end the careers of hateful christofascists, we fail our children.

[dailyanarchistposts]

In mid-August, a three year-old lawsuit charging that environmentalist groups were religious extremists comparable to some of the more violent, intolerant, ultra-orthodox Islamic sects collapsed when the attorney failed to meet a re-filing deadline with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The suit had been brought against the Forest Guardians, the Superior Wilderness Action Network, and the U.S. Forest Service by the 125 companies that make up the Associated Contract Loggers (A.C.L.) of northern Minnesota. The loggers were asking for $600,000 in damages and permission to plunder timber from the Superior National Forest.

Lawyers for the A.C.L. argued that deep ecology was actually a religion, and so by extension, environmental groups that espoused its philosophies were cults, and by outlawing timber cutting on so-called “federal land,” the Forest Service was favoring a particular set of religious doctrines and was therefore violating the guarantee of neutrality in matters of religion purportedly vouchsafed in the U.S. Constitution.

According to theological scholars at the logging company syndicate like former executive director, Larry Jones, Deep Ecology is an “earth-centered religion,” a “belief system” that holds that “trees and Man [sic] are equal.” Anti-logging activists who extol the virtues of forested spaces over industry profit and environmental degradation are spiritual zealots, and the government functionaries who are swayed by their proselytizing may turn out to be fanatical closet druids themselves.

Stephen Young, the A.C.L. lawyer and a former Republican Party senatorial candidate, explained his legal action on such esteemed venues as Rush Limbaugh’s radio show by saying that clear-cutting in national forests had been restricted by the Forest Service for no reason other than reverebce for some fringe New Age religion.

A U.S. District Court judge in Minnesota dismissed the case as “frivolous” in February 2000, but the A.C.L. petitioned the Supreme Court last year after reports that Wahabi Islamic extremists were responsible for the blitzkrieg attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“The doctrine of Deep Ecology is the very worldview that gave rise to eco-terrorism. We feel that after the events of September 11, it’s an obligation of the Supreme Court to keep religious fanaticism in check,” Young said. “Just as devout faith in the literal words of various Hadith of Mohammad gave the Taliban license to impose through state power harsh conditions on the women of Afghanistan, so Deep Ecology gives license to its adherents to take extreme actions against those who would live by different beliefs.”

Perhaps the less said about this sleazy episode the better, which is just as well, since it is so hard to get a firm analytic grasp on it because it is sad and sick on so many different levels. For instance, likening the plight of women in Afghanistan to that of lumber barons in northern Minnesota is staggering in its shamelessness, as it has been my experience that women living near industrial logging camps are subjected to at least the same sort of abuse, derision, and masculinist domination as women who had been living in Taliban-controlled Kandahar.

And we all know that if the U.S. government was serious about keeping homicidal religious terrorism in check, then John Ashcroft and the Army of God anti-abortionists would be in the Guantanamo Bay gulag. It was all obviously just a miserable attempt to slander and jam up anti-logging activists with legal action, and it failed.

But I can’t help thinking about the broader philosophical implications of who supported it. I have no idea as to whether or not there are Deep Ecologists involved in Forest Guardians or the Superior Wilderness Action Network (and I suspect that none are to be found among the Forest Service feds), but in demonizing Deep Ecology as an alien fanatical religious practice in this lawsuit, we can see once again how tighly Christianity is bound to capitalist exploitation and ecological destruction.

Deep ecology is not a single doctrine, but rather an ethical sensibility informed by a variety of perspectives on the relationship of hummankind to the whole of nature’s systems. We can oversimplifydeep ecology by saying that its fundamentals include a belief in the intrinsic value of all forms of life as well as the holistic diversity of those life forms. The economic, technological, and ideological beliefs that prop up Western civilization antagonistically threaten the existence and diversity of natural life systems.

Individuals who adhere to the ideas of Deep Ecology are obligated to work towards radically changing those deadly attitudes and social structures. Deep ecology challenges the long-held anthropocentrist notion which entitles humans to take advantage of and destroy wilderness at will and for private profit, a view obviously held sacred by the A.C.L. timber industrialists.

Anthropocentrism derives from core Judeo-Christian values that have been part of the settler-capitalist catechism on this continent since the early seventeenth-century. Consider, for example, the preaching of Puritan minister, John Cotton. In his popular pamphlet of the 1630’s, “God’s Promise to His Plantation,” Cotton claimed that God desired colonists to “take possesion” of land in New England, saying that whosoever “bestoweth culture and husbandry upon it” has an inviolable divine right to it.

The Native Americans, dying in large numbers from exposure to European diseases was proff that God wanted to wipe the slate clean for the Puritans and thereby better facilitate His decree in the Book of Genesis that humans aggresively “subdue” the earth. Christians were the center of the universe, exclusively licensed by Almighty God to dominate the land, eradicate wild nature, and replace it with the purity of civilization. “All the world out of the Church is as wilderness, or at best, a wild field where all manner of unclean and wild beasts live and feed,” Cotton proclaimed in 1642.

There were many others during the period who were at least as enthusiastic about Christ, colonization, and commercial cultivation as Cotton was, and these ideas, linked to distinctly Judeo-Christian models of linear (rather than seasonally cyclical) time, became ingrained in the settler psyche, especially during the era of westward expansion some two centuries later. Justified by the Calvinist capitalism of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations — complete with its fallacious notions about the ennobling “civilizing” powers of wealth, marlets, and economic growth — the implications of Puritan repugnance for the wilderness and wildness on the North American continent becomes depressingly clear.

As inheritors of Puritan fanaticism that have erected the violent, intolerant faith of capitalism, it is individuals and organizations like the A.C.L. who hold a worldview that advances a five hundred year-old campaign of terrorism against entire bioregions and “empowers its adherents to take extreme action against those who would live by different beliefs.”

[agentrouka-blog]

Given Dany’s... flexible stand on slavery and the pretty blatant parallels between the Unsullied and the wights (feel no pain, unquestioningly obedient, strength is in stubborn endurance not agile mentality, remnants of personality/memory remain), I’d say we’re looking at a case of mirrors. Dany does almost nothing to aleviate the conditioning of the Unsullied, and everything to benefit from it. They are not counted among “her freedmen”, they are “her Unsullied”. 

I don’t think the comparison is that off, the Others are animating the dead and robbing them off their rest and dignity for their own ends. Another mirror is the warging, obviously a form of mental enslavement. Another mirror is the religious fanaticism stoked by R’hllor leaders and the Faith Militant alike. Even the de-humanizing training of the Faceless Men. 

It reduces human beings (dead or alive) to mindless tools without regard for their actual well-being or benefit. Perpetrating it, taking advantage of it, it’s all bad. 

It’s all coming to the forefront in the text at this point. I don’t think the comparison is wrong, their incomplete take on Dany simply blinds them to her role in this imagery.

I was being a sticky beak reading BNF metas and I saw one of them call the Others 'mind-rapists'... someone get me out of here, I feel a bit sick lol. Ok, here's a real question, what do you think of the notion that the Others are magical slavers - and D/aenerys, as an anti-slaver figure (bear with me) is meant to free humanity from them?

Personally I find such a black and white conflict a little off brand, but that's me.

Given the alleged origin of the Others, wouldn't it be the children of the forest who are the slavers?

It sounds a little forced, and like we're trying to insert Daenerys into a storyline she has nothing to do with.

[ghelgheli]

Recognizing this central ambivalence in regard to so-called Western values—whereby they are cast out as “postmodern authoritarianism” only to be embraced as the “true spirit” of societies to come—is essential to understanding the strategic significance of the anti-gender misappropriation of postcolonial language. This ambivalence sheds light on the fact that the superficial takeover frames the “gender ideology” colonizer not simply as the “West as such but [rather as] the West whose healthy (Christian) core had already been destroyed by neo-Marxism and feminism in the 1960s” (Korolczuk and Graff 2018: 812). Very often, the anti-gender misappropriation takes on a decidedly Islamophobic hue; for all their catering to anticolonial sentiments, anti-gender thinkers often claim that “gender ideology,” with its historical roots in anti-European “neo-Marxism and feminism,” goes hand in hand with the threat of (Muslim) immigration. A blatant example of this can be found in former Cardinal Sarah’s proclamation against the two unexpected threats of our times:

On the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between “gender ideology and ISIS.” . . . From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West [and] the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy [and] female subservience. (Sarah 2015)

Sarah aggressively draws up a dual picture of the true enemy—the biopolitical survival of the family is threatened on the one hand by excessive secularization and sexual freedom, and on the other by “ideologized Islam’s pseudo-family,” which marks the degraded and uncivilized counterpart to Christianity’s proper tradition. This discursive construction of “terrorist look-alikes” as possessing an excessive, uncultivated, and dangerous sexuality yet again plays into the same fundamental racialized mapping of progress that colonial gender undergirded (Puar 2007). This rhetoric is mirrored by Norwegian right-wing politician Per-Willy Amundsen (2021) when he writes that:

I will never celebrate pride. First of all, there are only two sexes: man and woman, not three—that is in contradiction with all biological science. Even worse, they are allowed access to our kids to influence them with their radical ideology. This has to be stopped. If FRI [the national LGBT organization] really cared about gay rights, they would get involved in what is happening in Muslim countries, rather than construct fake problems here in Norway. But it is probably easier to speak about “diversity” as long as it doesn’t cost anything. (Amundsen 2021; translation by author) Here Amundsen draws on the well-known trope of trans* and queer people “preying on our kids” while at the same time reinforcing the homonationalist notion that Europe, and in particular Norway, is a safe h(e)aven for queer people—perhaps a bit too much so. In his response to Amundsen, Thee-Yezen Al-Obaide, the leader of SALAM, the organization for queer Muslims in Norway, aptly diagnoses Amundsen’s rhetoric as “transphobia wrapped in Islamophobia” (as quoted in Berg 2021). Amundsen mirrors a central tenet of TERF rhetoric by claiming to be the voice of science, biology, and reason in order to distinguish his own resistance to “gender ideology” from the repressive, regressive one of Muslims. In this way, his argumentation, which basically claims that trans* people don’t exist and certainly shouldn’t be recognized legally, attempts to come off as benign, while Muslim opposition to “gender ideology” is painted as destructive and anti-modern. This double gesture, which allows Amundsen to have his cake and eat it too, is a central trope in different European iterations of anti-gender rhetoric. In France, for example, such discourse claims that, “while ‘gender ideology’ goes too far on the one hand, the patriarchal control of Islam threatens to pull us back into an excessive past. Here of course, ‘Frenchness’ is always already neither Muslim, nor queer (and certainly not both)” (Hemmings 2020: 30). Therefore the French anti-gender movement sees itself as the defender of true Western civilization, both from Western “gender ideology” and from uncivilized “primitives” who are nevertheless themselves victims of “gender ideology.” A similar dynamic plays out in Britain: “Reading Muslims as dangerous heteroactivists and Christians as benign points to how racialization and religion create specific forms of heteroactivism. . . . Even where ‘Muslim parents’ are supported by Christian heteroactivists, they remain other to the nation, and not central to its defence” (Nash and Browne 2020: 145). In the British example, it is clear that white anti-gender actors represent themselves as moderate, reasonable, and caring—often claiming that their resistance to the “politicization” of the classroom has nothing to do with transphobia and homophobia.

Is “Gender Ideology” Western Colonialism? Jenny Andrine Madsen Evang

[blues-valentine]

Dune Spoilers:

I like the Dune book series - it’s one of the first sci fic books I ever read and we all know they're the blueprint. And Deni's movies are a visual masterpiece. With that being said, I have some issues with the movies because of their use of Arab culture to build their world while most of their cast and staff isn’t even middle eastern. But I don’t feel I have the authority to talk about it so I’ll refer to some posts. (x x x)

But with a lot of criticism I disagree with the takes about the movie showing us a "white savior trope" and I don’t want to yell that media literacy is death when it comes to analyzing entertainment but yes because Paul Atreides is being portrayed as a cautionary tale since the very first introduction to Dune in the movies. Chani starts the movie explaining Arraki’s story about being invaded and under the ex rule of an imperial house and asks the following question: “Who’ll our next oppressors be?” while cutting directly to Paul and starting his journey. Paul isn’t being shown as the white savior that will free the Fremen from the imperial rule and get them the paradise they see in the prophecy. He quickly becomes a power hungry leader with a god complex and I think Dune: Part Two heavily showcases this transition. Paul spends a lot of time denying what he could be and when he has the ability to see he can win and rule the world - his greed takes over.

Paul’s ascent to power in the 3rd act isn’t even being portrayed as a good thing — it’s supposed to be dark and full of warnings about the tyrant he’ll become. It’s there in his scary speech and Chani’s face. Both Paul and Jessica are being shown as manipulative people that are leading the Fremen into false hopes and religious fanaticism. Paul knew from the very start that the Bere Gesserit were planting ideas on the Fremen about him being the one - and he knew he needed to convince the remaining doubtful people of the prophecy if he wanted them on his side for his revenge. He was using the Fremen for his vengeance agaisnt the emperor. And he might’ve fallen in love with Chani and genuinely believe his place is at Arrakis' but he quickly transforms into the Messiah that plays into people’s false worship. He knows the easiest way to control the Fremen is by playing into the prophecy.

Paul’s Atraides isn’t about a hero’s journey but mostly the journey of an anti hero. We are not supposed to think he is the good guy. In the books there’s this important quote from Frank Herbert’s himself: “No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a hero.” because Paul isn’t there to save them from colonialism just replacing their old oppressors (Harkonnen) with him.

And I was pleasantly surprised with the changes in Chani’s character by her having more agency by being a freedom fighter and the only one seeing the wrongs in the increasing fanaticism towards Paul and the dangers this means for her people instead of playing the passive girlfriend that sticks by his side despite him becoming everything he swore won't be like in the books. And I really hope they change some parts of her arc in the last movie and she goes against him. Or at the very least have her still present a strong opposition to his world view. It would turn their relationship more interesting than her spending 12 years as his concubine wanting to bear him children and dying for it. I think Denis seems to be planning a better way to portray the women in the last movie and I can't wait to see what he does with them.

I just feel like people will get to Dune: Messiah and be so confused as if Paul going into a dark path and becoming Arraki's next oppressor wasn't pretty much there all along.

[grubloved]

But the most insidious source of the anti-trans movement in this country is, quite simply, liberals. Butler, in their survey of the political landscape, misses the liberal faction altogether. I suspect this is because the anti-trans liberal sees himself as a concerned citizen, not an ideologue. He is neither radical nor a feminist; he is not so much trans-exclusionary as he is broadly skeptical of all social-justice movements. He is a trans- agnostic reactionary liberal - a TARL. The TARL's primary concern, to hear him tell it, lies in protecting free speech and civil society from the illiberal forces of the woke left, which, by forcing the orthodoxy of gender down the public's throat and viciously attacking anyone who dares to ask questions, is trafficking in censorship, intimidation, and quasi-religious fanaticism. On trans people themselves, the TARL claims to take no position other than to voice his general empathy for anyone suffering from psychological distress or civil-rights violations.

(...)

Now, to be clear, the TARL will typically acknowledge the existence of a group of fully developed adults whose medically verified gender dysphoria is so persistent and distressing that the argument for compassionate care outweighs the Hippocratic prohibition on harming a perfectly healthy body. The basic strategy here is to create a kind of intake form with exactly two boxes on it. Every trans-identified person is either a participant in a craze or certifiably crazy. (Checking both boxes is permitted.) There is a touch of genius to this approach. It draws a bright line between the kids who say they are trans and the kids who really are while pathologizing all of them as either delusional or dysphoric. This line is as old as gender medicine itself, which for decades was careful to distinguish impersonators and fetishists from the "true transsexual." So in most cases of gender variance, the TARL informs parents that it is perfectly healthy for boys to wear dresses and for girls to climb trees regardless of their biological sex, which need not be altered after all. He reassures them that the risk of suicide among trans-identified youth has been inflated by cynical activists trying to blackmail the public; what he means by this is that he does not think most kids are suicidal enough to be trans. In those rare instances of true misery, he advises the practice of "watchful waiting," preferring to see the patient through the often- irreversible changes of puberty to adulthood, when her childhood experience of gender incongruence will finally acquire the weight of medical evidence. If only she had said something sooner!

Andrea Long Chu, "Freedom of Sex: The moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies." Mar. 11, 2024, for New York Magazine

[hummingjay]

KSAR, Kasuar, the fanatic ground infantry of the Eusan Nation.

Under the cut is two pages of lore!

KSAR  (Kampf-schlicht-angriff-replika) “Kasuar”

(Combat-simple-attack-replica) “Cassowary”

Light infantry units, 180 centimeters tall. Kasuars,  Kampf-schlicht-angriff-replikas, (Combat-Simple-Attack-Replicas) or KSAR units, are light infantry used mainly on frontal ground attacks. Kasuars possess a combat-capable persona that is easy to manage with melee weapons such as axes, swords, and clubs as fetish obkects. In most situations, Kasuars are composed and easy to manage, although they will display extremely violent tendencies in battle. Composed should not be confused with either relaxed or quiet. Originally manufactured to be a light infantry to support other combatants, Kasuars are so very front-facing and violent that they quickly adopted the main role in frontal attacks. Kasuars especially excel in siege and trench warfare, and seem to experience a sort of thrill upon breaching an area.

The gestalt Neural template of Kasuar units was a soldier stationed on Heimat, who before her compulsory military service, was a religious zealot of a religion banned by both the empire and the nation. The original fanaticism of the gestalt is now directed into the near-religious bloodlust and patriotism that makes them so useful in battle. Kasuars will let off this energy in the form of wrestling with one another when not in combat, often sustaining injuries in the practice. Kasuars will imprint on either STCR or STAR units, sometimes both, admiring them for their prowess in hand-to-hand combat. It is not unknown for Kasuars to become romantically attracted to their protektor compatriots.

Generally, Kasuar naming conventions follow that of bugs and medieval gear, such as “Mantis” and “Stahl.”.

When boots are unavailable Kasuars will insulate their legs’ armor shells with tape and thick mud in trenches to prevent sickness and disease.

They will do the same to the ventilation holes in their stahlhelms in cold environments. SAPR units  are generally regarded as parental units to Kasuars, admired for their supporting anti-tank role, and their motherlike personality not dissimilar to a Mynah’s that will quickly put them at ease. Kasuars will typically display calmer personalities around Schnäpper units, if only because they feel safer. Kasuars are also generally very fond of medical units such as Eules, and will go out of their way to protect said units in combat. 

Kasuars have a strong group culture akin to Starlings, displaying similar activities such as wrestling and sharing weapon-care products, though they strongly loathe physical punishment, even among themselves. If a superior attempts to administer corporal punishment, they will often find themselves on the bad side of numerous angry and aggressive Kasuars. Although cases are somewhat rare, some units who Kasuars are especially fond of, i.e, medical Eules, can be allowed into their cadre. Some Eules report that Kasuars are surprisingly gentle with less rowdy units, and will allow them to decorate or style their hair, which is longer than most replikas and kept in a ponytail. Kasuars enjoy decorating their weapons and stations with flower petals, and are fond of Ara units who help them grow or find plants for the endeavor. Kasuars will dig large indents for Aras who frequently aid Kasuars to make them more comfortable. Kasuars carry medieval melee weapons such as swords, axes, clubs, and sometimes spears or pikes. The fighting style of Kasuars is simple and extremely aggressive. They will take cover as needed and will maintain an offense, storming trenches and fortifications akin to wild dogs upon prey, viciously maiming enemies unless told specifically to take prisoners. Disarmed kasuars will use whatever they have on hand as a weapon, sometimes taking form in decapitated limbs of enemies, which. after battle, they will take the bones of which and carve into totems. Technically, these totems are contraband. However, it is seldom recommended to confiscate the morbid carvings. 

Kasuars are a superstitious bunch, and after carving small totems from either bone or wood, will tie them with string into bracelets, necklaces, or around the waist, which they then believe will grant blessings. Common totems include totems of courage, rage, strength, patience, undying, love, and fearlessness. Kasuars will often gift totems to friends or lovers outside the cadre.

One can grow close to a Kasuar unit by catching them sharpening their weapon, when they are at their calmest, and initiating conversation. Kasuars are flexible and enjoy speaking of nearly any topic. However, it is deeply forbidden to converse about any religion with a kasuar. One can also grow close by gifting a weapon to a Kasuar. Generally, the more elaborate a weapon is, the better. Never give a Kasuar a dagger. For reasons unknown, Kasuars view daggers akin to wedding rings, as awkwardly learned by well-meaning if oblivious allies, and it is never recommended to gift a dagger unless one is willing to reciprocate.

Degraded Kasuars are angry, paranoid, and difficult to control.They will first cry for hours before reverting to a state of rage-induced violence towards both allies and enemies, what ÆON psychologists call ‘wutblindiet’,  which causes seeing all people as a threat. This stage is untreatable but temporary. Once the state passes, it is recommended to decommission the degraded Kasuar. Other practices by degraded Kasuars include carving odd symbols into one’s own flesh and armor, drinking oxidant, usually their own, and self-harm. The best strategy to decommission a Kasuar is by sending one on a task with an abysmal survival rate.

Outside of degradation, Kasuars who face either heavy losses or endure an overly traumatizing experience will hide in small concaves, and will either cry or go completely silent. Their combat-capable personas limit such incidents and combat fatigue, though such cases exist. The most effective way to calm them down is to have a respected Starling, Storch, or Schnäpper talk to them.

For reasons unknown to ÆON psychologists, Kasuars have a deep fondness of animals, especially horses and canines. It’s not uncommon for Kasuars to befriend the wild hounds in the area. They also have an odd love of insectoids and arachnids, often carrying centipedes and large spiders on their person, even with them into battle. Kasuars will often allow their bug pets to create burrows or other habitats onto vehicles and trenches. Kasuars are fearless at the worst of times, or at least are so adept at working through fear that the line between brave and fearless is blurred. When presented with a seemingly insurmountable enemy or unbreachable fortification, kasuars attain a certain adrenaline thrill through charging said tasks. 

Although fearless, Kasuars will display uncharacteristic and deep fear and agitation around FLKR units, and will resort to rubbing the neck and forearms, as if checking for wounds. It is speculated but technically unknown that the voicebox module of Falke units resemble the mother of the kasuar gestalt neural template, who has a civil record of domestic violence and abuse. If a Falke harshly reprimands a kasuar, the latter will retreat to tents or trenches, where they can be heard crying and pleading for either safety or to be kept away from ‘her’, presumably the falke unit. Physical touch, even gently, from a Falke unit will quickly and suddenly agitate a Kasuar, causing them to freeze up.They can be calmed down by respected STCR, STAR, and SAPR units. 

On paper, Kasuars are easy to manage so long as they are given time to care for their weapons. However, Kasuars also have a subconscious need for approval from respected figures, constantly seeking to be loved or cared for. Once they find such a figure, they will remain physically close, attempting to stay in the same general area, as if either consciously or subconsciously seeking physical protection from an unknown force.

Kasuars, although fearless and difficult to stress, Kasuars have an underlying and intrinsic paranoia. They will keep watch on all exits in an area, keep their backs to walls, rarely doors or open areas, will check for odd sounds, and refuse to sleep without someone keeping watch. They often listen for footsteps, even outside of combat, and if a Falke unit is present, will keep tabs on her location at all times, keeping distance.

please love her

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Watching this video essay about Yellowjackets and somehow HOTD came up and I saw the tweet and I roll my eyes so hard

Uh. Yeah. Bc she uses the faith (basically Catholicism or Christianity) to act as this pious queen when she is paying maids to keep their mouths shut about her own son raping them.

And she didn't just hang up some four pointed stars, if I remember, she REPLACED, the targs sygils with the faith of the seven stuff.

Alicent stans just love to forget her fanaticism until they can use it to make her look more pathetic. I have to say, accusing Rhaenyra of religious fanaticism is a new to me lmao. I've only ever seen people call her a godless whore, but I'm not on X, so maybe I've been spared.

Targaryen antis don't seem to grasp just how much of the Valyrian culture the Targaryens have given up for the sake of Westeros. Calling the Valyrian wedding ceremony an "arcane marriage ritual" is not only insulting to the Valyrian culture but also completely hypocritical.

Valyrian culture was steeped in magic, they themselves have magic in their blood. Is it any surprise their marriage customs would be the same? That's like expecting the Starks' ceremonies to happen separate from the Old Gods. The Targaryens have given up their gods, most of their magic, their language, and their marriage traditions. They never forced other people to follow their traditions, they never forbade following the Faith and the Old Gods, they fucking conformed as much as possible aside from the incest, which was the only way they know to preserve the last bit of Valyria's magic.

Alicent wouldn't be seen as a religious extremist if she didn't actively repress and hate other religions. She badmouths the Valyrian traditions, not just the incest, but also their love of dragons and their art. She removes all the Valyrian and Targaryen heraldry and artifacts and replaces them with the the symbols of a religion known for being intolerant and repressive.

As I said earlier, the Valyrian culture is dying out and the Targaryens have given up so much of their mother land. Removing the last pieces of someone's culture just because you follow a different religion is fucked up. Alicent isn't even the actual ruler or a Targaryen, it's not her place to choose to abandon their Valyrian heritage while her husband is too sick to interfere.

But the real issue of Alicent's actions are her motivation. She doesn't actually care about morality and her own religion, she cares about supporting Aegon and undermining Rhaenyra. That's why she criticizes Valyrian incest then turns around and forces Helaena to marry Aegon. That's why she calls Jace and Luke savages when her own son bullies his siblings constantly and later rapes women. That's why she harps on about honor and decency while actively protecting and covering up the actions of a rapist, a murderer, and a kinslayer. That's why she removes the Valyrian heraldry while Rhaenyra is gone and replaces them with the symbols of the Faith.

She's literally the definition of the hypocritical woman for Trump. She harps on and on about morals then turns around and does reprehensible things for her own gain. She complains constantly about a culture different from hers and actively tries to remove its influence. She hates people who don't conform to her ideas.

Alicent isn't a good person, period. She's a hypocrite, constantly upholds the patriarchy, sacrifices others for the sake of her interests, and is xenophobic. The efforts to take her flaws and project them on other characters, usually Rhaenyra, by her stans is ridiculous and really shows how little they actually like her character. They like her aesthetic and the idea of a perfect suffering victim.

[ruscha]

been down a fallout dunwich mystery rabbit hole lately and while i don't take much stock in bethesda's lovecraft references (they're very silly), i actually can't stop thinking about how horrifying the lead-up to october 2077 could have been for the psyches of humanity. because— if a lot of the terminal entries scattered throughout the games are to be believed— although the bombs were a shock, they weren't completely unexpected.

imagine the false alarms. the missile attack drills. the countless flare-ups of mass paranoia, rampant conspiracism (not all unwarranted) and religious fanaticism (every religion is on the table, even impossibly old and occult ones, any one that has a chance of saving us) that must have swept the world in the months before it finally happened. the wasteland we know is filled with this type of thing, but imagine the fever pitch it would have reached during a time where every rumor around every corner spelled "the end is coming soon and no one can stop it."

reported sightings of gods, aliens, ghosts, demons, mothman-style harbingers. strange animal activities. a rumored increase in black site kidnappings, secret government laboratory testing of civilians, hidden societies of elites congregating in the newly constructed vaults. constant talk of the rapture, the antichrist, the four horsemen, armageddon, ragnarok.

anti-communism in its most rabid and senseless form. your neighbor could be communing with satan to bring about the apocalypse, giving the other side information that would lead to our doom, have you checked? can you trust your friends? your coworkers? your children? do you want them in the same bunker as you when push comes to shove?

the world unraveling and no one discussing it. the american exceptionalism attitude doesn't allow for showing fear, and it's all fear inside. back to the old rituals, the old superstitions. walking down the street in the middle of the day mumbling inaudible prayers and wondering why everyone else isn't screaming. back to work. we're all in this together. everyone playing a months-long game of russian roulette, just waiting for the bullet to have its final spin.

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Real talk: i have been pretty absent from this blog (i wouldn't say slacking necessarily because it is first and foremost a hobby, a means of communication second, and i do not consider it a job to any degree). Do not worry, nothing bad has happened, and a big part of it is rediscovering my love of literature. Got my hands on a copy of Thomas Kinsella's The Táin, read The Handmaid's Tale, and recently finished Ivanhoe through audiobook.

I've already been singing the praises of the Táin Bó Cúailnge so i'll spare you having to read through that gushing. Ivanhoe is incredible and shockingly sensitive on the topic of antisemitism for something written by an early 19th century Christian author intended for a majority Christian audience. The scenes with Robin Hood also filled me with a childish glee and i think it was suppose to be a surprise that this guy is Robin Hood but he introduces himself as Locksley and wins an archery contest and leads a gang of outlaws in the woods, including a hermit who refers to Alan-a-Dale quite a bit so it's very obvious to a modern reader. Handmaid's Tale was also as good as i've heard it was, but there's a specific detail i want to discuss that feels relevant to how i think of this blog and how others use it.

I've read the reviews and the plot synopses amd analyses, i knew about the epilogue that frames the story as a historical document a century or so in the future. This did not surprise me. What did catch me by surprise, and something i feel is entirely overlooked, is that this story of an oppressive theocratic regime that uses Biblical precedence to excuse extreme atrocities of human rights violations and turned out to not even last very long, is contextualized as the topic of a discussion hosted by First Nations academics who study white people cultures. You can be pedantic and say "oh but technically they're only First Nations coded because it's presented as a transcript with no physical descriptions" and to a degree you would be right; but when you see names like Maryann Crescent Moon and Johnny Running Dog used for professors of a University of Denay (an anglo-phonetic spelling of Diné/Dene) in Nunavit, there isn't much room for speculating what ethnicity they're supposed to be.

There are so many little details in the book referencing Indigenous genocide. Details suggesting forms of genocide Atwood would be familiar with as a Canadian citizen. To only bring up religious fanaticism and patriarchal regressive politics in Middle Eastern nations like Iran and Afghanistan as well as the United States as inspirations for a surface level five minute summary is one thing, but to ignore all the anti-Indigenous policies that are also obvious inspirations (literally just read the passages about how the Narrator/Offred's daughter was taken from her, renamed, and given to a "proper home" to get what i mean, it's that blatant) when the iconic epilogue makes it as explicit as it can be without writing "THESE ARE NATIVE ISSUES" in big red letters? I won't lie to you, it feels like a slap to the face. Especially when the take away message of such a conclusion seems to be that Native peoples will outlive these regimes.

[muppet-meddler]

You May Call Me Kanaya.

While I Do Not Necessarily "Kin" Her, I Do Feel A Strong Connection To Her Character, As I Hold Much In Common With Her. Perhaps That's What Kinning Is, At It's Core. Much To Consider.

Much Like Kanaya, I Enjoy Sewing And Fiber Crafts, Am A Virgo, Enjoy The Color Green, Imagine Sawing My Enemies In Half, Am In A Long Term Queer Relationship That Began Online And Long Distance, And Often Meddle In Matters That Aren't Necessarily My Business.

Really, The Resemblance Is Uncanny.

For Clarity, While I Consider Myself To Be A Member Of The Brotherhood, I Am Not Fond Of Partaking In Religious Fanaticism.

And No, My Vampirism Does Not Make Me Affiliated With The Religion Of Emo. I Practice Ethical Vampirism.

The Brotherhood Has Seen The Rise And Fall Of Many Emotionally Charged Movements, Only For Views To Shift Gears In Mere Moments. I Intend To Report On These Happenings, Not Necessarily Partake.

At Times, I May Write On Viewpoints Of The Croaker Or Other Such Members That Contradict My Own, Or Others That I Have Posted. This Is At It's Core A Collection Of Ponderings, Not A Manifesto.

My DNI Consists Only Of TERFs And Other Forms Of Bigotry.

All Viewpoints Of The Brotherhood Are Welcome To Be Voiced On This Blog. Pro And Anti Croaker, Skeptics And Believers, Followers And Haters Alike.

However, Slurs, Racism, Transphobia, Homophobia, Zionism, And Other Sentiments Of Predjudice Will Not Be Tolerated Or Given Platform.

I Will Let The Contents Of This Blog Evolve Organically, But I Have A Few Ideas On Where I Would Like For It To Go.

Some Ideas Are As Follows:

The Brunt Of My Work Is Hopefully To Be A Platform For Interviews, Theories, And Musings From The Masses. I Would Like To Be A Mouthpiece For Lurkers Who Wish To Not Unmask Themselves, And Shed A Spotlight Onto Prominent Brotherhood Figures Who Wish To Speak Openly. Perhaps Even The Croaker herself.

In True Auspististic Fashion, I Hope To Be A Bridge Or A Mediatory Presence. I Have Noticed What Seems To Be An "In" Group And An "Out" Group, And While The Brotherhood Has Been Welcoming To Myself And Others, I Understand The Nervousness That Comes With Speaking To Some Members Directly.

Requested Research Topics. There Are Many Events, Seemingly Disjointed, That May Be Confusing Or Daunting To A Newcomer That May Be Commonly Referenced. If You Have An Inquiry On Brotherhood History, Ask And I Will Do The Research For You. There Are Many Blogs Of Which To Keep Track, And I Have My Ways In Finding Answers For You.

A "Daily Digest" Of Sorts, Not Necessarily Always Daily, Of Notable Happenings Within The Movement.

Backlog Summarizations Of Major Events And Connections. I Have Been Lurking Since April, And Joining Only Recently In The Open Means There Is Much To Be Notated. I Do Not Mean To Step On Other Croaker Archive Blogs' Toes- But Rather Provide Supplemental Material And My Own Work.

With All Of That Out Of The Way... Where Shall We Begin?

[mask131]

There was something abominable in France that took place just two weeks ago or so, and just as it happened everybody was speaking about it - but now due to the fucking elections nobody speaks of it again. And given French news rarely reach out to other countries, I'll leave this horror below. Because it actually is the culmination of two of the current festering and massive problems that have been on the rise in France since a very, very long time.

On one side: the growth of antisemitism. Yes, a lot of it was rekindled and awakaned recently due to the Israel-Palestine war, and the left-leaning movements' of France sternly opposed the actions and deaths caused by Israel - only for the extreme-left to have it all slip into "Zionist=Jew" and "French Jews are the same as the Jews of Israel", and "All of Judaism is responsible for Israel", resurrecting the old far-left antisemitism ; but antisemitism was already on the rise long before that, with regular antisemitic defacings and vandalizing, and the return and grow in power of both neo-nazi groups and fanatical small groups of Catholic cults - and as I posted before we have Russian agents literaly spreading oil on the fire by putting antisemitic tags on memorials and putting anti-Jewish signs on the walls.

On the other side: the problem of the misery, violence and cruelty of today's youth. It has been attested and documented since the last dozen years - violence, criminality and inhuman actions have been slowly sliding into younger people and younger generations. The gang wars are involving much more minors than they ever did, and caused the death of more kids than before. Drug dealers are using younger and younger helpers, "assistants" and "right-hands" each year. Teenagers and kids have been proven much more influenced and sensible to terrorist propaganda and religious fanaticism - causing many problems in schools of all sorts, ranging from the breaking of the laicity principle to actual murders. Youth is becoming the stage of atrocities of all sorts.

And when you have these two growing evils conflicted together? You get this.

A teenage girl of the city of Courbevoie, who was out to go join a friend of hers, was lured by three teenage boys into an isolated area, where she was brutally beaten up and then violently raped, all while the three boys threatened to kill her and used antisemitic insults. The teenage girl was indeed Jewish, and the reason she could be lured like that is because she knew one of the three boys from her school. They didn't kill her however, and she could return home. Her mother was already worried, since the girl hadn't come back home at the hour she was planned to return and had already called the police. When her little girl, wounded and sobbing, returned to her, she called back the police to report the attack and the rapes.

And you know what is the more shocking thing?

The age of those involved. Because they are not actually "teenagers". They are pre-teens. The girl who was raped and beaten up? She was 12 years old. And her three attackers? Two of them were 13, the third one was 12. They were arrested and yes, when asked by the police, they did confirm that the reason they organized this was for "revenge" - because... the girl had not openly told the other kids at her school that she was Jewish. They perceived this as some sort of offense or insult, or as the girl attempting to "hide" the "truth", and they decided to "punish" her she had to be beaten up and raped. So she would know what it costs to be a "dirty Jew" (dirty Jew being one of the several insults they threw at the girl while raping her).

Of course everybody is in shock - but more importantly, every is at lost because the judiciary system was NOT made for 12 years old rapists...

A lot of people joke that we are currently living in a "Clockwork Orange" world but honestly... sometimes yes, when you look at the hyper-violence today... I mean come on, 13 years old boys RAPE a 12 year old girl and try to kill her because she is Jewish! There is really something sick