#brown person than Trump will

[athetos]

Lovely how libs has spent a year going "yeah well Harris is gonna back and fund a genocide but at least she will stand by trans people in the US" just for her to come out as not giving a shit about trans rights lol

[umanta]

posts that made me think 'hmm, maybe there is a point to voting in the us election': a post simply mentioning that the next president will pick ppl for the supreme court, listing some of the judges who are likely to retire this term, and reminding us the kind of majority we have now and how we got to this point. no actual mention of voting, just info. an info post about how you can register to vote and why voter disenfranchisement is bad

posts which make me quite uncharitably and falsely feel like usamericans think a lukewarm centrist policy in their country is more important than a genocide of brown ppl: every blamey post that treats ppl choosing not to vote like they're a) stupid radicals who don't understand strategy or b) weepy emotional babies who are too childish to do what the adults are telling them

[creatingblackcharacters]

“The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” - Violence, Violent Imagery & Black Horror

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of death, violence, blood, hate crimes, antiblackness, police violence, rape

Note! I am going to be speaking from a Black American point of view, as my identity informs my experience. That said, antiblackness itself is international. The idea of my Blackness as a threat, as a source of fear and violence to repress and to destroy, is something every Black person in the world that has ever dealt with white supremacy has experienced.

There are two things, I think, that are important to note as we start this conversation.

One: there is a long history of violence towards Black bodies that is due to our dehumanization. People do not care for the killing of a mouse in the way they care about a human. But if you think the people you are dealing with are not people, but animals- more particularly, pests, something distasteful- then you will be able to rationalize treating them as such.

Two: even though we live in a time period where that overt belief of Blackness as inhuman is less likely, we must recognize that there are centuries of belief behind this concept; centuries of arguments and actions that cement in our minds that a certain amount of violence towards Blackness is normal. That subconscious belief you may hold is steeped in centuries of effort to convince you of it without even questioning it. And because of this very real re-enforcement of desensitization, naturally another place this will manifest itself is in how we tell and comprehend stories.

There are also three points I'm about to make first- not the only three that can ever be made, but the ones that stand out the most to me when we talk about violence with Black characters:

One: Your Black readers may experience that scene you wrote differently than you meant anyone to, just because our history may change our perspective on what’s happening.

Two: The idea that Black characters and people deserve the pain they are experiencing.

Three: The disbelief or dismissal of the pain of Black characters and people.

You Better Start Believing In Ghost Stories- You’re In One

I don’t need to tell Black viewers scary fairytales of sadists, body snatchers and noncoincidental disappearances, cannibals, monsters appearing in the night, and dystopian, unjust systems that bury people alive- real life suffices! We recognize the symbolism because we’ve seen real demons.

Some real examples of familiar, terrifying stories that feel like drama, but are real experiences:

12 Years a Slave: “This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana.” – Solomon Northup

When They See Us: I can’t get myself to watch When They See Us, because I learned about the actual trial of the Central Park Five- now the Exonerated Five- in my undergrad program. Five teen Black and brown boys, subjected to racist and cruel policing and vilification in the media- from Donald Trump calling for their deaths in the newspaper, to being imprisoned under what the Clintons deemed a generation of “superpredators” during a “tough on crime” administration. And as audacious as it is to say, as Solomon Northup explained, they were fortunate. The average Black person funneled into the prison system doesn’t get the opportunity to make it back out redeemed or exonerated, because the system is designed to capture and keep them there regardless of their innocence or guilt. Their lives are irreparably changed; they are forever trapped.

Jasper, Texas: Learning about the vicious, gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr, was horrific- and that was just the movie. No matter how “community comes together” everyone tells that story, the reality is that there are people who will beat you, drag you chained down a gravel road for three miles as your body shreds away until you are decapitated, and leave your mangled body in front of a Black church to send a message… Because you’re Black and they hate you. To date I am scared when I���m walking and I see trucks passing me, and don’t let them have the American or the Confederate flag on them. Even Ahmaud Arbery, all he was doing was jogging in his hometown, and white men from out of town decided he should be murdered for that.

Do you want to know what all of these men and boys, from 1841 to 2020, had in common? What they did to warrant what happened to them? Being outside while Black. Some might call it “wrong place wrong time”, but the reality is that there is no “right place”. Sonya Massey, Breonna Taylor- murdered inside their home. Where else can you be, if the danger has every right to barge inside? There is no “safe”.

It is already Frightening to live while Black- not because being Black is inherently frightening, but because our society has made it horrific to do so. But that leads into my next point:

“They Shouldn’t Have Resisted”

Think of all the videos of assaulted and murdered Black people from police violence. If you can stomach going into the comments- which I don’t, anymore- you’ll see this classic comment of hate in the thousands, twisting your stomach into knots:

“if they obeyed the officer, if they didn’t resist, this wouldn’t have happened”

Another way our punitive society normalizes itself is via the idea of respectability politics; the idea that “if you are Good, if you do what you are Supposed to do, you will not be hurt- I will not have to hurt you”. Therefore, if my people are always suffering violence, it must be because we are Bad. And in a society that is already less gracious to Black people, that is more likely to think we are less human, that we are innately bad and must earn the right to be exceptional… the use of excessive violence towards me must be the natural outcome. “If your people weren’t more likely to be criminals, there wouldn’t be the need to be suspicious of you”- that is the way our society has taught us to frame these interactions, placing the blame for our own victimization on us.

Sidebar: I would highly suggest reading The New Jim Crow, written in 2010 by Michelle Alexander, to see how this mentality helps tie into large scale criminalization and mass incarceration, and how the cycle is purposely perpetuated.

You have to constantly be aware of how you look, walk and talk- and even then, that won’t be enough to save you if the time comes. The turning point for me, personally, was the murder of Sandra Bland. If she could be educated, beautiful, a beacon of her community, be everything a “Good” Black person is supposed to be… and still be murdered via police violence, they can kill any of us. And that’s a very terrifying thought- that anything at any point can be the reason for your death, and it will be validated because someone thinks you shouldn’t have “been that way”. And that way has far less to do with what you did, than it does who you are. Being “that way” is Black.

My point is, if this belief is so normalized in real life about violence on Black bodies- that somehow, we must have done something to deserve this- what makes you think that this belief does not affect how you comprehend Black people suffering in stories?

Hippocratic Oath

Human experimentation? Vivisection? Organ stealing? Begging for medicine? Dramatically bleeding out? Not trusting just anyone to see that you are hurt, because they might take advantage? All very real fears. The idea that pain is normal for Black people is especially rampant in the healthcare field, where ideas like our melanin making our skin thick enough to feel less pain (no), an overblown fear of ‘drug misuse’, and believing we are overexaggerating our pain makes many Black people being unwilling to trust the healthcare system. And it comes down to this thought:

If you think that I feel less pain, you will allow me to suffer long before you believe that I am in pain.

I was psychologically spiraling I was in so much pain after my wisdom teeth removal, and my surgeon was more concerned about “addiction to the medication”. Only because Hot Chocolate’s mom is a nurse, did I get an effective medicine schedule. My mother ended up with jaw rot because her surgeon outright claimed that she didn’t believe that she was in more than the ‘healing’ pain after her wisdom teeth were removed. She also has a gigantic, macabre (and awesome fr) scar on her stomach from a c-section she received after four days of labor attempting to have me… all because she was too poor and too Black to afford better doctors who wouldn’t have dismissed her struggles to push.

As a major example of dismissed Black pain: let’s discuss the mortality rate of Black women during childbirth, as well as the likelihood of our children to die. When we say “they will let you bleed to death”, we mean it.

“Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black babies are more likely to die, and also far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that could follow them through their lives.”

Even gynecology roots in dismissal (and taking brutal advantage of) Black women's pain:

“The history of this particular medical branch … it begins on a slave farm in Alabama,” Owens said. “The advancement of obstetrics and gynecology had such an intimate relationship with slavery, and was literally built on the wounds of Black women.” Reproductive surgeries that were experimental at the time, like cesarean sections, were commonly performed on enslaved Black women. Physicians like the once-heralded J. Marion Sims, an Alabama doctor many call the “father of gynecology,” performed torturous surgical experiments on enslaved Black women in the 1840s without anesthesia. And well after the abolition of slavery, hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, and eugenics programs sterilized them.”

If you think Black characters are not in pain, or that they’re overexaggerating, you’re more likely to be okay with them suffering more in comparison to those whose pain you take more seriously- to those you believe.

What’s My Point?

My point is that whatever terrifying scene you think you’re writing, whatever violent whump scenario you think you’re about to put your Black characters through, there’s a chance it has probably happened and was treated as nonimportant (damn shame, right?) And when those terrifying scenes are both written and read, the way their suffering will be felt depends on how much you as a reader care, how much you believe they are suffering.

There’s a joke amongst readers of color that many dystopian tales are tales of “what happened if white people experienced things that the rest of us have already been put through?” Think concepts like alien invasion and mass eradication of the existing population- you may think of that as an action flick, meanwhile peoples globally have suffered colonization for centuries. The Handmaid’s Tale- forced birthing and raising of “someone else’s” children, always subject to sexual harassment by the Master while subject to hate from the Mistress- that’s just being a Mammy.

There’s nothing wrong with having Black characters be violent or deal with violence, especially in a story where every character is going through shit. That is not the problem! What I am trying to tell you, though, is to be aware that certain violent imagery is going to evoke familiarity in Black viewers. And if I as a Black viewer see my very real traumas treated as entertainment fodder- or worse, dismissed- by the narrative and other viewers, I will probably not want to consume that piece of media anymore. I will also question the intentions and the beliefs of the people who treat said traumas so callously. Now, if that’s not something you care about, that’s on you! But for people who do care, it is something we need to make sure we are catching before we do it.

“So I just can’t write anything?!”

Stop that. There are plenty of examples of stories containing horror and violence with Black characters. There’s an entire genre of us telling our own stories, using the same violence as symbolism. I’m not telling you “no” (least not always). I’m telling you to take some consideration when you write the things that you do. There’s nothing wrong about writing your Black characters being violent or experiencing violence. But there is a difference between making it narratively relevant, and thoughtlessly using them as a “spook”, a stereotypical scary Black person, or a punching bag, especially in a way that may invoke certain trauma.

The Black Guy Dies First

The joke is that we never survive these horror movies because we either wouldn’t be there to begin with, or because we would make better decisions and the narrative can’t have that. But the reality is just that a lot of writers find Black characters- Black people- expendable in comparison to their white counterparts, and it shows. More of a “here, damn” sort of character, not worth investment and easy to shrug off. The book itself I haven’t read, just because it’s pretty new, but I’m looking forward to doing so. But from the summaries, it goes into horror media history and how Black characters have fared in these stories, as well as how that connects to the society those characters were written in. I.e., a thorough version of this lesson.

Instead, I wrote an entire list of questions you could possibly ask yourself involving violence or villainy involving a Black character. Feel free to print it and put it on your wall where you write if you have to! I cannot stress enough that asking yourself questions like these are good both for your creation and just… being less antiblack in general when you consume media.

Black Horror/Black Thriller

We, too, have turned our violent experiences into stories. I continue to highly suggest watching our films and reading our stories to see how we convey our fear, our terror, our violence and our pain. There are plenty of stories that work- Get Out, The Angry Black Girl and her Monster, Candyman, Lovecraft Country (the show) and Nanny are some examples. There’s even a blog by the co-writer of The Black Guy Dies First who runs BlackHorrorMovies where he reviews horror movies from throughout the decades.

Desiree Evans has a great essay, We Need Black Horror More Than Ever, that gets into why this genre is so creative and effective, that I think says what I have to say better than I could.

“Even before Peele, Black horror had a rich literary lineage going back to the folklore of Africa and its Diaspora. Stories of haints, witches, curses, and magic of all kinds can be found in the folktales collected by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and in the folktales retold by acclaimed children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. One of my earliest childhood literary memories is being entranced by Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear and Patricia McKissack’s children’s book classic The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, both examples of the ways Black authors have tapped into Black history along with our rich ghostlore.” “Black horror can be clever and subversive, allowing Black writers to move against racist tropes, to reconfigure who stands at the center of a story, and to shift the focus from the dominant narrative to that which is hidden, submerged. To ask: what happens when the group that was Othered, gets to tell their side of the story?”

For on the nose simplicity, I’m going to use hood classic Tales From The Hood (1994) as an example of how violence can be integrated into Black horror tales. Tales From The Hood is like… The Twilight Zone by Black people. Messages discussing issues in our community, done through a mystical twist. Free on Tubi! If you want to stop here before some spoilers, it’s an hour and a half. A great time!

In the first story, a Black political activist is murdered by the cops. The scene is reflective of the real-world efforts to discredit and even murder activists speaking out against police violence, as well as the types of things done to criminalize Black citizens for capture. The song Strange Fruit plays in the background, to drive the point home that this is a lynching.

The second story deals with a Black little boy experiencing abuse in the home, drawing a green monster to show his teacher why he’s covered in wounds and is lashing out at school.

The fourth story is about a gangbanger who undergoes “behavioral modification” to be released from prison early. Think of the classic scene from A Clockwork Orange. He must watch as imagery of the Klan and of happy whites lynching Black bodies (real-life pictures and video, mind you!) play into his mind alongside gang violence.

Isn’t Violence Stereotypical or antiblack?

That last story from Tales From The Hood leads into a good point. It can be! But it does not have to be! Violence is a human experience. By suggesting we don’t experience it or commit it, you would be denying everything I’ve just spoken about. We don’t have to be racist to write our Black characters in violent situations. We also don’t have to comprehend those situations through a racist lens.

Even experiences that seem “stereotypical” do not have to be comprehended that way. I get a LOT of questions about if something is stereotypical, and my response is always that it depends on the writing!!! You could give me a harmless prompt and it becomes the most racist story ever once you leave my inbox. But you could give me a “stereotypical” prompt and it be genuine writing.

Let’s take the movie Juice for example. Juice in my honest to God opinion becomes a thriller about halfway in. On its surface, Juice looks like bad Black boys shooting and cursing and doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing! Incredibly stereotypical- violent young thugs. You might think, “you shouldn’t write something like this- you’re telling everyone this is what your community is like”. First- there’s that respectability politics again! Just because something is not a “respectable” story does not mean it doesn’t need to be told!

But if we’re actually paying attention, what we’re looking at is four young boys dealing with their environment in different ways. All four of them originally stick together to feel power amongst their brotherhood as they all act tough and discover their own identities. They are not perfect, but they are still kids. In this environment, to be tough, to be strong, you do the things that they are doing. You run from cops, you steal from stores, you mess with all the girls and talk shit and wave weapons. That’s what makes you “big”. That’s what gives you the “juice”- and the “juice” can make you untouchable.

I want to focus particularly on Bishop, yes, played by Tupac. Bishop, the antagonist of Juice, is particularly powerless, angry, and scared of the world around him. He puts on a big front of bravado, yelling, cursing, and talking big because he’s tired of being afraid, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it otherwise. So when he gets access to a gun- to power- he quickly spirals out of control. His response to his fear is to wave around a tool that makes him feel stronger, that stops the things that scare him from scaring him.

Now, that is not a unique tale! That is a tale that any race could write about, particularly young white men with gun violence! If you ever cared for Fairuza Balk’s character in The Craft, it is a similar fall from grace. But because it is on a young, Black man in the hood, audiences are less likely to empathize with Bishop. And granted, Bishop is unhinged! But many a white character has been, and is not shoved into a stereotype that white people cannot escape from!

Now would I be comfortable if a nonblack person attempted to write a narrative like Juice? Yes, because I’d worry about the tendency to lose the messaging and just fall into stereotype outright. But it can be done! The story can be told!

“But if Black violence bad, why rap?”

The short answer:

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds, and in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.”

Marwhan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

First, rap is not “only violence and misogyny”. Step your understanding of the genre up; there are plenty of options outside of the mainstream that don’t discuss those things. Second, every genre of music has mainstream popular songs about vice and sin. The idea that Black rappers have to be held to a higher standard is yet another example of how we are seen as inherently bad and must prove ourselves good. We could speak about nothing but drugs and alcohol and 1) there would still be white artists who do the very same and 2) we would still deserve to be treated like humans.

That said, many- not all- rappers rap about violence for the same reason Billy Joel wrote We Didn’t Start the Fire, the same reason Homer first spoke The Iliad- because they have something to say about it! They stand in a long tradition of people using poetry and rhythm to tell stories. Rap is an art of storytelling!

Rap is often used as an expression of frustration and righteous anger against a system built to keep us trapped within it. I’m not allowed to be angry? Why wouldn’t I be angry? Anger is a protective emotion, often when one feels helpless. Young Black people also began to reclaim and glorify the violence they lived in within their music, to take pride in their survival and in their success in a world that otherwise wanted them to fail. If I think the world fights against me no matter what I do, I’d rather live in pride than in shame with a bent head. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. But if you don’t want them to rap about violence, why not alleviate the things leading to the violence in their environment?

Whether you choose to listen to their words, because the delivery scares you- and trust, angry Black men scared the music industry and society- doesn’t make the story any less valid!

Conclusion

I am going to drop a classic by Slick Rick called Children’s Story. I think listening to it- and I mean genuinely listening- summarizes what I’ve said here about how Black creators can tell stories, even violent ones, and how even the delivery through Blackness can change how you perceive them. Please take the time to listen before continuing.

I’ve been alive for 28 years and have known this song my whole life, and it just hit me tonight: not once is the kid in this story identified as Black! My perception of this story was completely altered by my own experiences, who told the story, and how it was told.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can tell stories of violence that involve Black characters. I love and adore a good hurt/comfort myself! But you need to be cognizant of your audience and how they’ll perceive the story you’re telling, and that includes the types of imagery you include. It’s not effective catharsis via hurt/comfort for the audience if your Black readers are being completely left out of the comfort. “I wrote this for myself” that’s cool, but… if you wrote racism for yourself, and you’re willing to admit that to yourself, that’s on you. I’d like to think that’s not your intention! You can write these stories of woe and pain without mistreating your Black characters- but that requires knowing and acknowledging when and how you’re doing that!

@afropiscesism makes a solid point in this post: our horror stories are not just fairytales full of amorphous boogiemen meant to teach lessons. Racial violence is very real, very alive, and we cannot act like the things we write can be dismissed outright as “oh well it’s not real”. Sure, those characters aren’t real. But the way you feel about Black bodies and violence is, and often it can slip into your writing as a pattern without you even realizing it. Be willing to get uncomfortable and check yourself on this as you write, as well as noticing it in other works!

If you’re constantly thinking “I would never do this”, you’ll never stop yourself when you inevitably do! If you know what violent imagery can be evoked, you can utilize it or avoid it altogether- but only if you’re willing to get honest about it. You might not intend to do any of this, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t change the pattern, because as always, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[qqueenofhades]

Do you think Biden's age is an overblown issue? It does to me because like, believe or not, we do intact have a system to take care of this, and all the times we've had to use if before have worked

If Biden dies, Harris takes over

If Biden deteriorates to the point of being unable to perform his duties (personally I consider this unlikely but I digress), Harris invokes the 25th

If Biden feels he can no longer perform his duties he steps down and let's Harris take over

Which is more than I can say for trump or the lunatic he'll choose for a vp

And that last point about Biden stepping down is important, Biden's sharper than people give him credit for, I do think he intends to serve a full term if reelected, but I do think he's also considered the possibility of being reelected, serving a year or two in that term, and then stepping down and letting Harris take over

Of course the thing with Harris is people right now are transparently trying to do to her what they did to Hillary leading up to 2016, and infuriatingly, people either don't see it or they're falling for it again!

It's the most fucking overblown thing ever, and represents the usual insane double standard. The media mentions Biden's age ALL THE TIME, and yet doesn't mention that Trump is just three years younger at 77, demonstrably in far worse physical shape, and clearly on the express train to senility. Whereas Biden is fit, active, bikes, works out, and otherwise is fine. Is he old? Yes. Who cares? He knows how to do the job and he is certainly a hell of a lot healthier than say, Mitch McConnell (81), who has openly frozen up on TV twice and plainly is not well. If it was Biden doing that ONCE, let alone twice, the media would be howling nonstop bloody murder. McConnell? Eh. Footnote.

Also, a lot of the scaremongering about Biden's age is directly related to scaremongering about Harris. If you vote for him and then he doesn't finish his term for whatever reason, A WOMAN OF COLOR WILL BECOME PRESIDENT AND BE IN CHARGE OF THIS COUNTRY!!!! That is the underlying message. Of course there is a system that handles it if the president, God forbid, should happen to die in office. But Oh Noes It's Scary Female Brown Kamala. Do you want to risk your vote for Biden knowing that ____SHEEEEE_____ might end up finishing his term in some capacity!?!?! She is scary! And brown! And female! And brown!!! We can't let her be in charge!!!

Anyway, yeah. It's total BS, and the fact that the media is fanning it as hard as they can means that they can't think of any way to attack Biden on substantive policy or any other legitimate grounds. So they'll just go after the age thing nonstop, and cross their fingers that it works. Which if it did, would mean ending democracy for realsies this time, but as long as they make money, who cares!

[violexides]

before people get vicious i want to remind you all of a few things, starting with the fact that third party voters are not to blame for the results of the election, but rather that (1) the democratic party refused to end their genocide at every opportunity and, most influential in this specific case, (2) there has been a substantial rise of right-wing sentiment in this country that is what contributed most directly to the Republican victories we have seen in Congress and in the executive office.

regardless of who entered office, there would have been a substantial need to organize, and we are seeing that now more than ever. this is obviously horrifyingly scary shit, but queer people are resilient, Palestinians are resilient, the Black and Brown and Indigenous people of this country are resilient, the colonized people of the world are resilient. we will be able to organize until every last one of us is dead, so know that there is always something you can do. and that hope is a stronger thing than something one tyrant can end.

this is an interconnected struggle and at no point does our work stop. we don't owe candidates or politicians shit. volunteer with a hotline. call/sign petitions. go out into the streets. create art. form connections with people you may not have talked to before. cook for your friends. connect with unhoused people in your area. talk to the elders in your community. find sanctuary online if you cannot find it in person. politically educate, starting from the absolute basics because that is what is most lost in discourse sometimes. take everything one painful step at a time. maybe you got out of bed, maybe you brushed your teeth, maybe you ate breakfast, maybe you changed clothes-- these are all substantial things, and the movement suffers without you so keep doing them.

this is a terribly scary time in the world for all of us, but it has been a terribly scary time for a while across the world. don't let hopelessness stop you from fighting for the end of the genocide in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and many other places in the world. know that if you are queer, we have survived worse shit throughout our history, and there are so many more options now for us. we need mutual aid for queer people but also and especially for our siblings of color and our disabled siblings and our poor siblings and our altogether marginalized siblings, from here to Palestine, from Sudan to West Papua, from Tigray to Kurdistan, from Armenia to Congo, from the world to the world.

i don't take a second of my time on earth for granted and i haven't for a few years. i am really fucking scared right now, i have been for months and months but it's taken a new form. but, today, the sun is out and shining on my bedroom floor. i brushed my teeth and i'm going to eat some grapes now. my professor sent a kind email. i have a lot of work to do. i have to get busy loving a lot of people.

eat what it takes to survive. sleep what it takes to survive. talk what it takes to survive. learn what it takes to survive. love what it takes to survive. live where it takes to survive. these are our fundamentals. and know that from there, we organize and we fight for something better than survival.

i am not losing my family, my found family, my friends, my peers, my professors, my roommates, my community like this. we gotta get busy.

take as long as you need to grieve. i have been grieving for a long time (this past year, for Palestine; my lifetime, for Iraq) and will grieve these results for the next four years. but understand that no matter who wins any presidential election, we have to organize. we can learn from our past here. i don't care if it's a bush in office, an obama in office, a trump in office, a biden or a harris in office, we have work to do because they won't do it for us.

Palestine and the occupied nations and people of the world will be free. they will not make martyrs of all of us. the struggle will continue so long as we are all free. victory is assured so long as the struggle continues.

i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you as hard as i hate the empire. this hate and this love forges what we need to keep this struggle alive, until victory and liberation for us all.

[mariacallous]

The New York Times once dubbed the Princeton professor Robert George, who has guided Republican elites for decades, “the reigning brain of the Christian right.” Last year, he issued a stark warning to his ideological allies. “Each time we think the horrific virus of anti-Semitism has been extirpated, it reappears,” he wrote in May 2023. “A plea to my fellow Catholics—especially Catholic young people: Stay a million miles from this evil. Do not let it infect your thinking.” When I spoke with George that summer, he likened his sense of foreboding to that of Heinrich Heine, the 19th-century German poet who prophesied the rise of Nazism in 1834.

Some 15 months later, the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson welcomed a man named Darryl Cooper onto his web-based show and introduced him to millions of followers as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” The two proceeded to discuss how Adolf Hitler might have gotten a bad rap and why British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was “the chief villain of the Second World War.”

Hitler tried “to broadcast a call for peace directly to the British people” and wanted to “work with the other powers to reach an acceptable solution to the Jewish problem,” Cooper elaborated in a social-media post. “He was ignored.” Why the Jews should have been considered a “problem” in the first place—and what a satisfactory “solution” to their inconvenient existence might be—was not addressed.

Some Republican politicians spoke out against Carlson’s conversation with Cooper, and many historians, including conservative ones, debunked its Holocaust revisionism. But Carlson is no fringe figure. His show ranks as one of the top podcasts in the United States; videos of its episodes rack up millions of views. He has the ear of Donald Trump and spoke during prime time at the 2024 Republican National Convention. His anti-Jewish provocations are not a personal idiosyncrasy but the latest expression of an insurgent force on the American right—one that began to swell when Trump first declared his candidacy for president and that has come to challenge the identity of the conservative movement itself.

Anti-Semitism has always existed on the political extremes, but it began to migrate into the mainstream of the Republican coalition during the Trump administration. At first, the prejudice took the guise of protest.

In 2019, hecklers pursued the Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw—a popular former Navy SEAL from Texas—across a tour of college campuses, posing leading questions to him about Jews and Israel, and insinuating that the Jewish state was behind the 9/11 attacks. The activists called themselves “Groypers” and were led by a young white supremacist named Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who had defended racial segregation, denied the Holocaust, and participated in the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where marchers chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

The slogan referred to a far-right fantasy known as the “Great Replacement,” according to which Jews are plotting to flood the country with Black and brown migrants in order to displace the white race. That belief animated Robert Bowers, who perpetrated the largest massacre of Jews on American soil at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 after sharing rants about the Great Replacement on social media. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the gunman wrote in his final post, “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people … Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Less than three years later, Carlson sanitized that same conspiracy theory on his top-rated cable-news show. “They’re trying to change the population of the United States,” the Fox host declared, “and they hate it when you say that because it’s true, but that’s exactly what they’re doing.” Like many before him, Carlson maintained plausible deniability by affirming an anti-Semitic accusation without explicitly naming Jews as culprits. He could rely on members of his audience to fill in the blanks.

Carlson and Fuentes weren’t the only ones who recognized the rising appeal of anti-Semitism on the right. On January 6, 2021, an influencer named Elijah Schaffer joined thousands of Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol, posting live from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Eighteen months later, Schaffer publicly polled his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers: “Do you believe Jews disproportionately control the world institutions, banks, & are waging war on white, western society?” Social-media polls are not scientific, so the fact that more than 70 percent of respondents said some version of “yes” matters less than the fact that 94,000 people participated in the survey. Schaffer correctly gauged that this subject was something that his audience wanted to discuss, and certainly not something that would hurt his career.

With little fanfare, the tide had turned in favor of those advancing anti-Semitic arguments. In 2019, Fuentes and his faction were disrupting Republican politicians like Crenshaw. By 2022, Fuentes was shaking hands onstage with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. In 2019, the Groyper activists were picketing events held by Turning Point USA, the conservative youth organization founded by the activist Charlie Kirk. By 2024, Turning Point was employing—and periodically firing and denouncing—anti-Semitic influencers who appeared at conventions run by Fuentes. “The Zionist Jews controlling our planet are all pedophiles who have no regard for the sanctity of human life and purity,” one of the organization’s ambassadors posted before she was dismissed.

In 2020, Carlson’s lead writer, Blake Neff, was compelled to resign after he was exposed as a regular contributor to a racist internet forum. Today, he produces Kirk’s podcast and recently reported alongside him at the Republican National Convention. “Why does Turning Point USA keep pushing anti-Semitism?” asked Erick Erickson, the longtime conservative radio host and activist, last October. The answer: Because that’s what a growing portion of the audience wants.

“When I began my career in 2017,” Fuentes wrote in May 2023, “I was considered radioactive in the American Right for my White Identitarian, race realist, ‘Jewish aware,’ counter-Zionist, authoritarian, traditional Catholic views … In 2023, on almost every count, our previously radioactive views are pounding on the door of the political mainstream.” Fuentes is a congenital liar, but a year after this triumphalist pronouncement, his basic point is hard to dispute. Little by little, the extreme has become mainstream—especially since October 7.

Last December, Tucker Carlson joined the popular anti-establishment podcast Breaking Points to discuss the Gaza conflict and accused a prominent Jewish political personality of disloyalty to the nation. “They don’t care about the country at all,” he told the host, “but I do … because I’m from here, my family’s been here hundreds of years, I plan to stay here. Like, I’m shocked by how little they care about the country, including the person you mentioned. And I can’t imagine how someone like that could get an audience of people who claim to care about America, because he doesn’t, obviously.”

The twist: “He” was not some far-left activist who had called America an irredeemably racist regime. Carlson was referring to Ben Shapiro, arguably the most visible Jewish conservative in America, and insinuating that despite his decades of paeans to American exceptionalism, Shapiro was a foreign implant secretly serving Israeli interests. The podcast host did not object to Carlson’s remarks.

The war in Gaza has placed Jews and their role in American politics under a microscope. Much has been written about how the conflict has divided the left and led to a spike in anti-Semitism in progressive spaces, but less attention has been paid to the similar shake-up on the right, where events in the Middle East have forced previously subterranean tensions to the surface. Today, the Republican Party’s establishment says that it stands with Israel and against anti-Semitism, but that stance is under attack by a new wave of insurgents with a very different agenda.

Since October 7, in addition to slurring Shapiro, Carlson has hosted a parade of anti-Jewish guests on his show. One was Candace Owens, the far-right podcaster known for her defenses of another anti-Jewish agitator, Kanye “Ye” West. Owens had already clashed with her employer—the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, co-founded by Shapiro—over her seeming indifference to anti-Semitism. But after the Hamas assault, she began making explicit what had previously been implicit—including liking a social-media post that accused a rabbi of being “drunk on Christian blood,” a reference to the medieval blood libel. The Daily Wire severed ties with her soon after. But this did not remotely curb her appeal.

Today, Owens can be found fulminating on her YouTube channel (2.4 million subscribers) or X feed (5.6 million followers) about how a devil-worshipping Jewish cult controls the world, and how Israel was complicit in the 9/11 attacks and killed President John F. Kennedy. Owens has also jumped aboard the Reich-Rehabilitation Express. “What is it about Hitler? Why is he the most evil?” she asked in July. “The first thing people would say is: ‘Well, an ethnic cleansing almost took place.’ And now I offer back: ‘You mean like we actually did to the Germans.’”

“Many Americans are learning that WW2 history is not as black and white as we were taught and some details were purposefully omitted from our textbooks,” she wrote after Carlson’s Holocaust conversation came under fire. The post received 15,000 likes.

Donald Trump’s entry into Republican politics intensified several forces that have contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism on the American right. One was populism, which pits the common people against a corrupt elite. Populists play on discontents that reflect genuine failures of the establishment, but their approach also readily maps onto the ancient anti-Semitic canard that clandestine string-pulling Jews are the source of society’s problems. Once people become convinced that the world is oppressed by an invisible hand, they often conclude that the hand belongs to an invisible Jew.

Another such force is isolationism, or the desire to extricate the United States from foreign entanglements, following decades of debacles in the Middle East. But like the original America First Committee, which sought to keep the country out of World War II, today’s isolationists often conceive of Jews as either rootless cosmopolitans undermining national cohesion or dual loyalists subverting the national interest in service of their own. In this regard, the Tucker Carlsons of 2024 resemble the reactionary activists of the 1930s, such as the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who infamously accused Jewish leaders of acting “for reasons which are not American,” and warned of “their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”

Populism and isolationism have legitimate expressions, but preventing them from descending into anti-Semitism requires leaders willing to restrain their movement’s worst instincts. Today’s right has fewer by the day. Trump fundamentally refuses to repudiate anyone who supports him, and by devolving power from traditional Republican elites and institutions to a diffuse array of online influencers, the former president has ensured that no one is in a position to corral the right’s excesses, even if someone wanted to.

As one conservative columnist put it to me in August 2023, “What you’re actually worried about is not Trump being Hitler. What you’re worried about is Trump incentivizing anti-Semites,” to the point where “a generation from now, you’ve got Karl Lueger,” the anti-Jewish mayor of Vienna who inspired Hitler, “and two generations from now, you do have something like that.” The accelerant that is social-media discourse, together with a war that brings Jews to the center of political attention, could shorten that timeline.

For now, the biggest obstacle to anti-Semitism’s ascent on the right is the Republican rank and file’s general commitment to Israel, which causes them to recoil when people like Owens rant about how the Jewish state is run by a cabal of satanic pedophiles. Even conservatives like Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance, a neo-isolationist who opposes foreign aid to Ukraine, are careful to affirm their continued support for Israel, in deference to the party base.

But this residual Zionism shields only Israeli Jews from abuse, not American ones—and it certainly does not protect the large majority of American Jews who vote for Democrats. This is why Trump suffers no consequences in his own coalition when he rails against “liberal Jews” who “voted to destroy America.” But such vilification won’t end there. As hard-core anti-Israel activists who have engaged in anti-Semitism against American Jews have demonstrated, most people who hate one swath of the world’s Jews eventually turn on the rest. “If I don’t win this election,” Trump said last week, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”

More than populism and isolationism, the force that unites the right’s anti-Semites and explains why they have been slowly winning the war for the future of conservatism is conspiracism. To see its power in practice, one need only examine the social-media posts of Elon Musk, which serve as a window into the mindset of the insurgent right and its receptivity to anti-Semitism.

Over the past year, the world’s richest man has repeatedly shared anti-Jewish propaganda on X, only to walk it back following criticism from more traditional conservative quarters. In November, Musk affirmed the Great Replacement theory, replying to a white nationalist who expressed it with these words: “You have said the actual truth.” After a furious backlash, the magnate recanted, saying, “It might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done.” Musk subsequently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accompanied Ben Shapiro on a trip to Auschwitz, but the lesson didn’t quite take. Earlier this month, he shared Carlson’s discussion of Holocaust revisionism with the approbation: “Very interesting. Worth watching.” Once again under fire, he deleted the tweet and apologized, saying he’d listened to only part of the interview.

But this lesson is also unlikely to stick, because like many on the new right, Musk is in thrall to a worldview that makes him particularly susceptible to anti-Jewish ideas. Last September, not long before Musk declared the “actual truth” of the Great Replacement, he participated in a public exchange with a group of rabbis, activists, and Jewish conservatives. The discussion was intended as an intervention to inoculate Musk against anti-Semitism, but early on, he said something that showed why the cause was likely lost before the conversation even began. “I think,” Musk cracked, “we’re running out of conspiracy theories that didn’t turn out to be true.”

The popularity of such sentiments among contemporary conservatives explains why the likes of Carlson and Owens have been gaining ground and old-guard conservatives such as Shapiro and Erickson have been losing it. Simply put, as Trump and his allies have coopted the conservative movement, it has become defined by a fundamental distrust of authority and institutions, and a concurrent embrace of conspiracy theories about elite cabals. And the more conspiratorial thinking becomes commonplace on the right, the more inevitable that its partisans will land on one of the oldest conspiracies of them all.

Conspiratorial thinking is neither new to American politics nor confined to one end of the ideological spectrum. But Trump has made foundational what was once marginal. Beginning with birtherism and culminating in election denialism, he turned anti-establishment conspiracism into a litmus test for attaining political power, compelling Republicans to either sign on to his claims of 2020 fraud or be exiled to irrelevance.

The fundamental fault line in the conservative coalition became whether someone was willing to buy into ever more elaborate fantasies. The result was to elevate those with flexible approaches to facts, such as Carlson and Owens, who were predisposed to say and do anything—no matter how hypocritical or absurd—to obtain influence. Once opened, this conspiratorial box could not be closed. After all, a movement that legitimizes crackpot schemes about rigged voting machines and microchipped vaccines cannot simply turn around and draw the line at the Jews.

For mercenary opportunists like Carlson, this moment holds incredible promise. But for Republicans with principles—those who know who won the 2020 election, or who was the bad guy in World War II, and can’t bring themselves to say otherwise—it’s a time of profound peril. And for Jews, the targets of one of the world’s deadliest conspiracy theories, such developments are even more forboding.

“It is now incumbent on all decent people, and especially those on the right, to demand that Carlson no longer be treated as a mainstream figure,” Jonathan Tobin, the pro-Trump conservative editor of the Jewish News Syndicate, wrote after Carlson’s World War II episode. “He must be put in his place, and condemned by Trump and Vance.”

Anti-Semitism’s ultimate victory in GOP politics is not assured. Musk did delete his tweets, Owens was fired, and some Republicans did condemn Carlson’s Holocaust segment. But beseeching Trump and his camp to intervene here mistakes the cause for the cure.

Three days after Carlson posted his Hitler apologetics, Vance shrugged off the controversy and recorded an interview with him, and this past Saturday, the two men yukked it up onstage at a political event in Pennsylvania before an audience of thousands. Such coziness should not surprise, given that Carlson was reportedly instrumental in securing the VP slot for the Ohio senator. Asked earlier if he took issue with Carlson’s decision to air the Holocaust revisionism, Vance retorted, “The fundamental idea here is Republicans believe not in censorship; we believe in free speech and debate.” He conveniently declined to use his own speech to debate Carlson’s.

[sardonic-the-writer]

𝐂𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐖𝐞𝐭 𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐫

↳ summary: the janitor at your college is cute. too bad you're not the best at watching where you're going

↳ warnings: none

↳ song: sweet tooth—scott helman

masterlist | commissions | carrd

You had been running late to class when you met him.

Everyone had been crowding the building entrance that morning. It didn’t matter that you had set two alarms for the exact purpose of beating foot traffic that morning, or that you had skipped breakfast to make it to the lecture on time. Apparently nothing trumps the news of a published professor throwing himself from a three story window— at least that’s what you had bitterly thought to yourself while trying to push through a cluster of college kids.

College life was weird like that, you had come to learn.

Once you managed to part through the crowd— somehow surviving the abundance of school gossip that was only silenced by your occasional apology —you wasted no time in rushing through the scuffed hallways. Taking a few extra turns than usual, you opted for a shortcut you had only tried once or twice before in an attempt to avoid certain professors whose deadlines you had forgot about.

You didn’t see the wet floor sign, nor the damp mop resting on the wall, before it was too late and you were already belly up on the floor, blinking at the ceiling with widened eyes.

Your head gave a harsh throb. You touched it and frowned faintly. Ouch. That was going to hurt in a few hours.

“Woah!” Came a cheery call. It startled you momentarily, causing you to sit up. “I would tell you to slow down, but— ah, well, you know.”

It took you a second to process the strangers words, and before you knew why, you felt the back of your neck heat up. A brief moment passed as a strong feeling washed through you, and then again as you realized why. Ah, embarrassment. Your old friend.

“Need some help there?” The voice got closer, and it prompted your motor skills to finally kick into gear.

Picking up your bag that had fallen off during your tumble, your gaze finally lifted upwards. A gray jumpsuit and pair of keys stared back at you, and you mentally kicked yourself for not looking a little higher than the waist band. Whiskey-colored eyes and brown hair came into view after your second attempt, and you appreciated them a little more than the aforementioned utility belt.

The janitor’s lips were pulled up at the corners into an easy-going expression, and his top lip jutted out over his lower on slightly. His hair was pushed back slightly, and it looked like he had tried to style it this morning before eventually giving up and running a hand through it. You could relate to the feeling, and under different circumstances might have complimented him. He certainly was easy on the eyes, or easier than anyone you had seen on campus so far, but you felt like now wasn’t the time to put yourself out there. Tripping and eating shit can really do something for a persons self-confidence.

“Sorry for ruining the hallway, uh, mister?” Your voice was choppy as you apologized, and you cleared your throat awkwardly afterward in an attempt to get rid of any tightness. The janitor whose work you had just ruined gave you an oddly casual smile and extended his hand while keeping the other in his pocket lazily. You took it and shook, hoping your palm wasn’t too sweaty.

“Call me Gabriel.” He offered his name nonchalantly, but you caught a hint of hesitation behind his words. His breezy expression dipped into cautious territory for what couldn’t have been more than a second. You pretended not to notice, and gave him your name in return. His grin came back at full force.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” You let go of his hand to chew at your fingers.

“Don’t worry, most of it was dry.” He waved his hand and put it on his hip. Tilting his head over your shoulder, you heard as he sucked his teeth, and you knew he was probably imagining the wet spot on the back of your clothes at the same time as you. “Er, yeah. Most of it.”

His eyes trailed over your face in the moment of silence that followed. They seemed to be looking for something, and the sudden switch in tone left you to clench your jaw awkwardly. You stood there plainly, wondering if you should offer to help him redo it— or whatever he would need to do to fix your mistake —before he suddenly smiled again and gestured to a watch on his wrist. Funny. You hadn’t remembered that being there before.

“Shit!” The sight of the clock’s minute hand all but slapped you in the face as you scrambled to take your leave, patting yourself down as you hurried to collect your things and get out of there. You only stopped to turn around and walk backwards, gesturing stiffly to your surroundings.

“I’m gonna be late but, uhm, you sure I can’t—?” You weren’t exactly sure what you were offering to do, but Gabriel seemed to understand nonetheless. He grinned brightly, chewing on something you hadn’t seen him pop into his mouth earlier. A closer look told you it was bubble gum, and you felt odd for noticing such a small detail.

“Nah, you’re good kid. Stay safe. Try not to slip on anymore floors around here.” He waved you off with a wink of molten gold eyes, hands already reaching for the mop against the wall and beginning to wield it.

The nickname made you pause— he couldn’t have been but ten years older than you, and looked even younger —but you shook it off and started down the hallway as fast as your legs would allow, wincing as your stomach grumbled all the way to your lecture hall. You didn’t see as Gabriel paused behind you, waiting for you to turn down the hallway before snapping his fingers. He turned back to his work with a little whistle, mopping over the spot where you had fallen with an energy that hadn’t been there before.

It wasn’t until you were already sitting in class, digging through your bag for a spare pen, that you noticed the lollipop resting atop your books innocently.

[espinosaurusrexex]

If Only You Would Know

HenryCavill!Sherlock x Female!Reader

summary: You and Sherlock are in love, Enola is sure of it. But she is forced to watch you tiptoe around the topic for an eternity. So when the opportunity arises, and Sherlock is forced to confront his feelings towards you, she does not hesitate.

a/n: we're diggin' out old old drafts for this one, but I needed a little Sherlock again :)

word count: 4k

warnings: a little arguing, pining, someone gets injured, idiots in love™️ (it's a new genre of mine)

･ﾟ✫* 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ｡✭･ﾟ

You sighed as Sherlock moved about his office with hasty determination. He was a strange man. Oblivious, too, time and time again. But that did not matter for you loved him. You loved him and every strange habit he harbored. Whether it was the way in which he arranged his coats on the brass hanger by the door or that godawful pipe he seemed to always have hanging from his lips. He did not even like it - he had told you one time. “’tis just a habit, dear,” it would muffle past the brown bit in his mouth before he would clip it back between his teeth. 

But you did not care. And that must have been the very fact telling you just how deeply your heart had already fallen for the famous detective. Not a care in the world, especially not for what other people thought to say the least. Because all you ever thought about upon seeing him was love, warmth, and endearment. Nothing less. Not even a wretched criminal could ever shoot these feelings out of your heart. 

Oh well, it did not matter, anyhow. For there was one issue keeping this fairytale from becoming reality. And this issue was that Sherlock Holmes, the brightest man you knew, was blatantly oblivious to the feelings you had harbored in your chest. To be fair, you had never mentioned it to him before. For you were simply terrified of the consequences such a confession would hold. It was one thing to pine over a man who you were lucky enough to be in the same room with, but it would be undeniably humiliating to be rejected by said man as well. So you had chosen not to act on the fiery desire burning within your veins whenever your eyes hushed a glance at him. 

As much as that decision was made to protect your heart, it had turned out the circumstances provided the opposite of the desired effect. You were hurting more and more with every day you had to live with the realization that Sherlock Holmes did not love you back. In fact, he loved other women - many of them. And every single one more beautiful than the other. Sometimes you found yourself wondering if they were human at all. Never before had you seen such luscious hair as that of Sibyl or such a beautiful smile as that of Amelia. It was difficult to settle with these gorgeous women having a place in his bed and possibly his heart, but soon, you realized the importance of seeing him happy trumped your own desires. If he was happy, so were you. And if you weren’t the one making him happy, so be it. 

You had just come here to see Enola from her home to the city. Stopping by her brother’s apartment had not been on the agenda, at least not yours. But Enola was adamant to have you come when she raced up the stairs to his door. You had gasped when Sherlock had opened, his hair slightly disheveled and the shirt loosely tugged in his trousers. Your heart was pounding - it always happened when you saw him, and you swiftly averted your eyes to hide the flustered look on your face from him. 

Now you were standing in his messy home as you listened to Enola convince him to let her help him on a particular case of his - one she had a personal attachment to. Mixed emotions crawled up your spine at the sight of this professional yet intimate space. Not only one room over, Sherlock's bed was mockingly standing beyond the door, messy sheets indicating his prior endeavors, but there was no Sibyl or Amelia in sight. Still, your hands clamped around the silky material of your skirt, wrinkling the fabric harsher with every minute you spend in the deep-colored room. It smelled of musk and tobacco. Two things you had grown to miss whenever they were not surrounding you, but now, it was a shiver too much. 

Sherlock stood before you and Enola with his hands on his hips, a look of annoyance and disapproval etched on his features, but nonetheless, a sense of amusement in the edges of his frown. You knew him too well not to notice the slight pride swelling from his chest at his little sister’s determination. 

“I believe it is too dangerous for a girl like you to wander the streets, chasing criminals through London, Enola.”

“And I believe that you are an idiot, brother.”

“Perhaps,” your finger lifted in suggestion, stopping Sherlock’s head from tilting in disapproval at his sister’s array just in time. “She can be accompanied in her wandering?”

“And who would this accompany be?”

You knew it was not your place to negotiate, but you cared for Enola too much not to. And even though Sherlock’s stern eyes bore into your frame, you began to talk again: “I could-“

“Oh, dear lord. That is out of question.”

“Why brother? Do you not think Ms. Y/N and I can defend ourselves?”

A short silence lay upon the siblings as you watched the man’s shoulders draw up with a tense jaw. “I said no.”

“You are being irrational.” Enola cried. She was not one to accept defiance easily, you were well aware of it.

“No, you are being irrational. I will not vouch for having two women hurt on a mission to gather intel for my cases.”

“You cannot stop me.”

There was something itching in the glimmer of his eyes when the words left his lips, though you weren’t quite sure what to make of it.

“Enola!” Almost fearfully, Sherlock turned to you, his eyes wandering and desperation conveyed in his stare when you heard the young girl open the door.

“I am sure we can negotiate a way to have both parties satisfied.” Enola halted as you spoke. “I am certain your bother has other tasks that need fulfilling and are less prone to danger. Isn’t that right, Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock was not entirely satisfied with this turn of events, but his sagging shoulders told you that he accepted the compromise. A sigh eluded from his lungs and Enola turned to the dark-haired man with excited eyes. “I presume, there would be things you could do.”

“Thank you–“

“But,” his eyes turned stern again, “In the office only. No more wandering, is that clear?”

Enola beamed. “Yes.”

❁ ❁ ❁

It was not long after the discussion when you and Enola went about home from the city. Still, however, despite the seemingly fair compromise negotiated just minutes prior, the younger woman sloppily trudged next to you.

“He is an idiot, that is what he is.” Enola stomped past you with a pouty face. It was not ladylike, but luckily, she knew that you were not one to care about that. 

You understood Enola’s frustrations, but simultaneously, your heart were to break if anything ever happened to her. So you understood the settled worry in her brother’s words as well. He was a good man. “He is just worried. It means he cares.”

“Well, he could care a little less and let me do my job.” You hid a smirk. Only Enola would be as adamant about saving a boy she had only met days ago. She was just as goodhearted and justice-seeking as Sherlock, and your heart warmed at the similarities the siblings shared.

“It is not your job, Enola.” Sometimes you genuinely admired her fixation, though it mostly converted into trouble, still. Enola had a lot more freedom than you did when you were her age, and you too would have sprung at any chance to go and wander about, seeking adventures and perhaps a little more than that. Which was in turn, why your heart felt torn between the fulfillment of having her seek childhood dreams, and the subtle but strong tug Sherlock Holmes held you with. 

“Did you forget what we just found out yesterday? It seems no one cares about him. And if nobody else will do it, I consider it my duty to help.”

“Enola, dear.” You held her shoulders gently. “I understand your worries, but I understand your brother’s as well. I would be just as worried about you if something were to happen, and I do not want to see you hurt, either.”

“But we have to do something!” This was true. It would not be right to leave the boy framed with false accusations when you had the power to change his fate. There was something you could gather - information that may help him be acquitted.

“How about I go?” You silently cursed your good intentions as Enola’s eyes lit up. It was a blessing and a curse. But other than Enola, there would be nobody worrying for you, and in turn a lot less hearts broken if something were to happen - which it surely would not. “You can stay in the study and I will see to it that we may gather more information.”

“Alright, but be careful. And make sure to come back by five. Otherwise, someone will get suspicious.” The girl smiled, but her shoulders shook with excitement.

“What? Do you think I’m stupid?” You teased, awaiting a sassy ‘of course not’ which you returned with a wink.

❁ ❁ ❁

Enola watched the clock next to the window. Seconds, ticking by too fast for her liking. She needed more time - you needed more time. Her brother had given her files to sort and he would be coming back soon. Upon your agreement yesterday, you had gone out to gather information on the woman who accused the boy. But you would be back soon, she told herself.

“Is Ms. Y/N not here with you?” Sherlock’s voice called through the room and his steps approached her steadily. 

Enola was stiff. “She is out,” she told him while her fingers counted the pile of files on the desk.

“Out? With who?” He stepped around the polished mahogany, settling in front of her with his hands behind his back. “I didn’t realize she was being courted.” 

Oh. Enola’s eyes sparkled with amusement when she obtained a glimmer of jealousy in her brother’s. She had always had her suspicions. And she knew of your being madly in love with her brother, but Sherlock had always been secretive regarding the topic of love.

“She went to shop,” she smiled, averting her eyes. Waiting - no, anticipating a response from him.

“So she is not with anyone.” Sherlock leaned forward with squinted eyes. For a man as good at solving puzzles as he was, he did need an awful lot of confirmation.

Enola finally looked up. “Ugh, you really are an idiot.” 

“Would you quit calling me an idiot?” Disapproval swept his features and made a frown settle instead. 

“I would, but you won’t quit being an idiot.”

“Whatever do you mean?” It was quite amusing to see him clueless for once. And even though you tried to hide your feelings or the way you responded whenever he was as much as in the same room as you, it did not go past Enola how long your eyes lingered on his frame or the way the sadness overtook your features at the mention of another woman.

“Ms. Y/N is head over heels in love with you. And I do not understand why you refuse to see it, she is not hiding it very well, you see?”

Sherlock stumbled back, his hands seemingly finding their pace over his heart when he repeated her words. “Ms. Y/N? In love with me?”

“And you really call yourself the greatest detective of our time.” Enola shook her head. Still, the thought of the two of you together was one she liked to entertain. And she asked herself just how much you could talk Sherlock into once you were together. He was already caving when you suggested things - the possibilities of Enola getting her way when the both of you finally gave into the pining were endless!

“Oh, hush. I just never thought she would...” Sherlock trailed off, and if Enola was not mistaken, she caught a whisper of pink settle over his cheeks. Could it really be? The great Sherlock Holmes in love? Even better with a woman Enola adored as well?

“This is exactly the problem, brother. You don’t think when it comes to women.” Her mind wandered back to the women you had seen leave his chambers by the break of dawn. And just like then, Enola noticed a familiar sense of sadness wash over her brother’s eyes - the same one you hid from her in these moments.

“Enola...” But his words died on his tongue and Enola thought it wiser to resume her task. Sherlock was aware of his idiocy. For Enola knew just how insignificant all the other women were to him. And she hoped he had realized this fact.

A moment or two passed in which Sherlock paced the room mindlessly. His hands disappeared behind curtains and in bookshelves, until they reached for the pocket watch in his coat and a subtle grumbling eluded his lungs. “She should be back soon, anyhow. Should she not?”

“I suppose, yes.” 

“Well, it is quarter past five already. The shop is closed well over an hour now.” Sherlock did not hide the impatience in his tone, now. And Enola felt a wave of success wash over her.

It was difficult to hide her nervousness, though, for she now worried about you as well. But you were fine - she consoled herself. You were tough and intelligent, simply a little late - that was surely it. “She will come soon.”

An unusual tension fell over the room and Enola was certain, her brother had already dismissed her little story. But she would not falter. Her fingers kept cramming through the papers, counting pages she had analyzed and sorted two times by now. Her movements, however, became more frantic, and soon, her heart was pounding in her wrists.

“Enola, what in heavens did you do?” Sherlock urged impatiently, a look cold as a stone set on his face. 

“Nothing.” She did not look at him, then he would know instantly - the little lie she told.

“You sent her out to spy didn’t you?”

Why did he keep asking if he already knew the answer? Enola did not speak. She was fairly ashamed, though. She wanted to show her brother just how capable she and you both were. But having you not come back made for a serious difficulty to her plan.

She looked up at him now, just in time to see his shoulders sag and his head tilted up in frustration. “After I told you not to?”

“You only ever forbid me from going!” She cried, suddenly feeling attacked by his irrational outburst.

“I did not want Ms. Y/N out in the streets alone, either.” Sherlock was pacing again, his shoes clicked on the polished wooden floor until the reached the coat hanger by the door, only to gruffly rip the dark cloak from its place.

An accusing finger reached in his direction and a small smirk appeared on his sister’s lips. “So you are in love with her.”

The man frowned and his chestnut locks shook with annoyance. “That is not important right now. We need to find her.”

He did not deny it and Enola Holmes viewed it as a success.

❁ ❁ ❁

Sherlock swept through the streets as fast as his feet could carry him. Never had he thought that he would need to worry about your well-being. Enola’s? Yes, constantly. She did dangerous things all the time. But you were the one with the rational mind, the trait he adored most above all, for it eased his own every so often. It was enough to look out for Enola as much. He loved her and that was what love did: It made for weaknesses. Though Sherlock never wished to not adore you as much as he did, at this moment, it would have spared him trouble. 

He passed another alley filled with dubious fellows and willed his thoughts not to stray to dark paces. Normally, he could stay focused. Normally, he was able to separate his feelings from his tasks very well. Normally, he needn’t worry about you, however. 

Enola was many steps behind, he could hear her heels clicking in haste in her catching up, but Sherlock would not budge. He would keep on searching, keep on going straight until his sister gave him another direction to follow. She knew where you were after all, and he could not even begin to indulge in the worry-consumed anger this fact fueled him with. 

It did not take long for the detective to reach the house of the last suspect he had abandoned in his search for answers. You must have gone there. Enola had been especially furious about his dropping the woman upon questioning, urging her brother to stay on the lead. But Sherlock had already gotten enough information to place her in the entire scheme. Enola did not know this of course - he had never told her. So it was only plausible to send you to spy on said woman. What you had not known, however, was the dangerous affiliates this woman had, and the little to no hesitance of hers to pursue them.

The house lay empty on the street once the siblings reached its steps, no light shining through the glass windows, not the smell of dinner lingering in the air. It was odd, though nothing to be upset over. You had been here, Sherlock knew it. He was disappointed to find out, however, that you were not anymore. Of course, you had realized the danger of the situation and left, but where to? 

His head jerked to the left once Enola caught up to him, following the rattling of bins coming from the alley close by, where a faint trail of blood droplets mixed with the rain. 

“Bloody hell,” the detective mumbled with every inch it lead him further to your location. And sure enough, beyond the shielding confines of a wooden palette, he spotted your coat pressed into the wall. 

A small hiss, and then: nothing when he called your name.

“Ms. Y/N, heavens!” He rushed over once his eyes caught your distraught face behind the wood, your entire hand covered in blood, pressed to your head, where more seemed to have already dried on your scalp. 

“Mr. Holmes?” Your voice was weak, your eyes hazy - growing in the confusion the head injury most likely brought to you. 

Sherlock's arms reached out to engulf you, a handkerchief quick to be pressed on your head as he knelt beside you and let your body rest against his torso. “Enola, go and get help, immediately!” He commanded with urgency, having the young girl run off with a shocked nod.

His attention traced back to your body, where his eyes focused on your heavy lids and his heart clenched at the sight. You were hurt - seriously hurt - and Sherlock could not shake the feeling of it being his fault. Had he only consulted you in his case, had he talked to Enola, had he been less cowardly and finally admitted to his feelings. This all might have never happened.

“You should not have gone out alone!” He cried as he rocked you back and forth, his arms held you a little tighter, and he was certain that his heart beat through the several layers of clothing separating you.

“You have no right to rule over me.” Your hands pressed against his chest, forcing him to let you pull away from his embrace, and Sherlock instantly missed the warmth holding you had given him. He needed it back - confirming you were fine.

“But I told you not to go!” Big eyes stared up at him, but there was disappointment simmering beneath the sheer gleam of anger.

“Why are you upset? I can do whatever I desire!” It was meant to come out strong, but not even a woman as tough as you were able to hide the weakness taking over your body.

“But you got hurt!” Sherlock was juggling with empty arguments, he knew this much. But there was no right way to express what he wished to pursue with his words. It was all too much and not enough, all the same.

“Mr. Holmes, I can take good care of myself. I have done it my whole life.”

“And you shouldn’t have.” This seemed to have caught you by surprise. For you stopped in your shuffling away and held his gaze equal in confusion and intrigue. 

“Whatever do you mean?” You shrieked softly, your breath staggering when he came closer to you.

Sherlock found it incredibly difficult to talk, suddenly. His hands were clammy and that stupid tie around his neck seemed just a tad too tight. Christ, he could not even look at you. He was left staring towards the wet grounds with his hands wringing beneath him.“I- it has come to my attention that I lack perception in some categories.” He hushed a look at you and was not surprised to see utter confusion seeping through your stare. 

Sherlock sighed and his shoulders jumped heavily once he mustered up the courage to explain: “I do not wish to see you hurt.”

“Why?” Your eyes were big and wondrous, much like a curious child prying up in awe over what it was to become privy of.

Sherlock tried, he really did, to be steady and informative, but there was no use, for his heart had decided otherwise. “Because... because, I- my heart hurts when I imagine something happening to you.”

“But what about Sybil or Amelia… or Babette?” Every name stung another hole in his heart as your eyes saddened naming the woman he had spent previous nights with in order to get over you. He never loved them, never adored them the way he did you. They were simply a distraction. A petty compromise for the actual being he was sure would never return his affection. Now that he found out the opposite, Sherlock was uncertain about how to act. 

“These women... they were just compensation for the one I couldn’t have.” He confessed slowly, his hand reaching for you and finally getting ahold of your chin. “I did not think you would be interested in me.”

“Oh but I am, Sherlock.” Your fingers came to cover his. “I am.” And an unbelievable force of warmth and calmness washed over him. Despite the blood, despite the worry. Despite everything being wrong at this very moment, he was calm. You had this effect on him.

“I know that now. My sister told me.” Sherlock sent a silent prayer to the stars. Had his sister not been as persistent he would have never gotten the opportunity to hold you close - feel you the way he desired. 

“She is quite a smart lady isn’t she?” A low chuckle echoed through the darkening alley, though a shy blush crept upon the detective’s cheeks. 

“As much as I hate to admit it, she is a good detective.” His thumbs stroked gentle swipes over your skin, a sliver of warmth tasting your body with every movement, and it felt good to have you indulge in his touch. He would have never dreamt of having you this close, having you feel the same feelings he did. And to be perfectly honest, experiencing it, in reality, was a hundred times better than anything he had ever imagined. “God, Y/N. If only I had known earlier.”

“Let us not grieve what is already done. Embrace the possibilities of the future with me.” Your eyes locked with his once again and your aura seemed to pull him even deeper into a trance. Sherlock could not look away. He was captured by every loving emotion radiating off of you. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. But he would keep it guarded in his chest for eternity, even if nobody were to ever ask him about it. It was precious - this moment was worth hundred terrible ones. 

“You are right,” he agreed, and then, beyond his control almost, Sherlock pulled you into a warm kiss. 

Wanna be added to the Taglist?

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[captainjonnitkessler]

If there's one thing I've learned in the last year, it's that the only people they think are human are white Americans. Seen very clearly by the fact that as a first gen born to immigrants, queer, woc, these people either ignore me or dismiss me as a white liberal for daring to mention that Trump's rhetoric against black and brown people is scary. My family is scared, my friends are scared. But the only thing they can do is dismiss it as "fearmongering" and insist that we all lived through Trump's first term, therefore we'll all live again (conveniently leaving out that not all of "us" did, and the assumption Trump's second term wouldn't be any worse than his first)

The most callous and cruel behavior I have ever seen. Absolute pathetic advocacy for people of color. Cherry picking the poc that agree with them and ignoring and silencing the ones that don't. And like, even if you think certain poc are "liberal bootlickers" or whatever, I thought we cared about all poc? About poc as a marginalized group? Or is it just the ones that pass the purity test to be a Good Person?

They're so transparent about their politics it is sickening

Yeah there's been a growing sentiment in some spaces that if you care about what happens to you, your friends, or your country, it's because you're a selfish asshole who doesn't care what happens to anyone else.

It might make sense if the choice was, like, "vote Harris to retain your rights or vote Trump to stop the genocide but you can't have both", but that's obviously not the choice we have. Arguing that you're a bigot if you oppose having your rights taken away is a really shitty take and a surefire way to make sure your movement never gains any traction!

[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.

[kalisbaby]

[original]

Transcript: This one is confrontational. This one is for the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" people. How does it feel to have you genocide and ethnic cleansing cheerleader open the way for Trump to be able to bypass Congress when starting a war with someone?

How does it feel for him to be the person who is setting the precedence of bypassing Congress when it comes to offering military aid to whoever they want to? Are you still comfortable with your position? Is it still worth it? Because you must be aware, because you are from the United States, and I am not, that he has officially opened the doors; that the concentration that both him and Barack Obama have done of executive power is resulting in what we're seeing at this moment.

Because I know you won't be moved by, you know, 10,000 children plus lying under the rubble, but do you realize what's happening here? What is going to happen when the person you don't like is going to take power? And that you could have, I don't know, joined us from the start trying to force another candidate into the ballot because this wasn't worth it, rather than harass Black and brown people and Muslim people and threatening them with, "But what would happen if Trump went into power?"

"But you're not American? Why do you care?" Because I feel your fucking foreign policy in the flesh!

[assmaster-8000]

I need to know all your thoughts of cecile

i need to preface this spiel with thanking you for opening my can of worms. will this satiate my endless need for this freak? maaaybe not. but like gay sex, it's a temporary fix and by god will i take it.

so, this post will delve into multiple aspects of my thoughts on cécile. i'll have to section it because if not, you'd probably just have a post the equivalent of a werewolf barking at their reflection in a mirror. here they are;

i. visual design

ii. personality and traits (backstory) / character development + his romance arc

iii. comparison to other characters + what made him stand out to me

no read more will be added on this post because i'm forcing everyone to either scroll past a wall of text or indulge my insanity. is this analysis? my simple thoughts? who fucking knows, man. not me. i don't know anything ever. everything is speculation, because my man's ain't even in the demo yet. ask me this question again when the extended demo drops LMFAO

i. visual design

the most notable aspect to cécile is his metal jaw, facial scar, and black eye.

his metal jaw had me in a pickle. for the longest time, i thought it was a prosthetic. as in, he had his lower jaw removed - regardless of how and why - and it acted as a replacement. however, on the ravenstar tiktok account, they show a draft of cécile's sprite that caught my attention.

he doesn't have his metal jaw, nor his iconic scar or black eye. he does have his original lower jaw, though. maybe this is just a draft before they settled on his current design. maybe this is how he looked in the canon past. maybe! but on top of seyl (the director of lost in limbo) confirming that cécile still has his tongue, i believe he was always intended to have his lower jaw. so the prosthetic is out of the picture.

right now, i believe it's more like a retainer; teeth appears to literally be growing out of his cheek, and i don't think it's the teeth in his mouth jutting out. i can't tell what exactly is the cause of all this, too. my favourite medical student (bean ily muah) said his facial scar appears to have been caused by a controlled flame, and shrapnel to the face based on the scarring around his lip. so he could have suffered an act of assault (physical? magical?), an accident, or maybe he's afflicted with a curse that developed teeth on his skin + his red eyes. could he be turning into a monster as time passes?

i also find it incredibly tragic that his eyes used to be brown before The Incident (air quotes). there's always something inherently tragic about the mundane being unattainable - to think that of all things in the world you are forbidden from, you are barred from the sweet innocence of adam and eve, rather than the glorious garden. brown eyes are the most common eye colour here on earth; imagine how cécile feels, the interloper with a face unmarred. a face that was once his. his dislike towards mc runs deeper than his dislike for everyone specifically because they're a harbinger of danger to the master he protects, and they could just be the past he's been hiding like a wound underneath his clothes.

the gaze of his bloodthirsty eyes... is it really? as in, always bloodthirsty? or is it so because it's your blood he needs on his hands?

aside from the practicalities of his metal jaw, i just think it's super... metal. (i wink at a camera offset and i proceed to get shot a million times. where were these snipers at the trump speech smh)

cough... anyways. i think it's bias, but one of my own oc's has a metal jaw prosthetic because they lost theirs in a fight long ago, so you can imagine i morphed into the spiderman pointing at spiderman² meme when i saw him. it's just automatically intriguing when the character's face is unapologetically damaged, unapologetically different. cécile and lázaro attracted my attention instantly because of how unique they look, and i appreciate that cécile's face does all the talking of his character while his attire is rather subdued. (even that itself speaks for him tbh)

as for my personal feelings, i appreciate a man with a long/wide nose. hit tweet, let doja cat smite me down herself.

now, as for his sprite's body language. i was rather taken aback at the fact that cécile has a less imposing stance than envy - yes, there's a defensive undertone to the way he holds his hands in front of him, but it's not to close him off from the world the way envy's crossed arms communicate that. in fact, cécile appears to be comforting himself. most people who hold/rub their own hand tend to do so because they're revolving a subtle conflict within themself. it doesn't help that the hand being held is the one that appears to have suffered the brunt of whatever he endured, based on the scars around his wrist. he could be holding it because it's instinct - to protect the side of him that was hurt the most. cécile is a weapon of war and a shield to his very core. he hurts others, and i don't think it'd be a stretch to say he hurts himself (why wouldn't he? the man that stares back in the mirror is so very wretched and it wouldn't be wrong to want to tear it all away.) cécile protects others (literally only gael) from the world, and cécile protects himself from the world and the additional enemy of himself.

he is a walking wound of all that has happened to him, and he knows acutely where the gash continues to weep.

yet, his cocked head also denotes a level of serenity that not even envy has. atleast, that's what it reads to me. it could also be an expression of interest in his surroundings, and hence, he's actually more on guard than envy. he doesn't keep his arms crossed, and instead in a stand still, because he constantly needs to be ready to pounce. maybe!

back to his attire. i adore the idea that gael actually picked it out for him. cécile is, technically, a representative of gael, so it makes sense his attire needs to hint at that, with the purple and all. but again, i would like to think of gael comparing outfit after outfit on cécile, engaging his opinion on which he thinks is best - and all cécile offers is, "whatever you deem is best, i will accept." (never ask this hoe where he wants to eat /j). one of the few things gael can do for a man like cécile is offering him a part of him to carry around.

also, for anyone who missed it - cécile has freckles ;)

ii. personality and traits (backstory) / character development + his romance arc

cécile is stated to be an istj, and seyl confirmed he's likely to be a scorpio sun. if so, loyalty is legitimately built into this man. a man if the fates wept tears of their eternal duty onto the spool when they wove his life into existence.

his reliance on the past + his traditions is gonna be like a pair of crutches to a man with both legs lobbed off. routine is the prison that keeps him going - break it, and you break him. after all, experience is all he has to go off of. as much as he may try not to linger on his past - that's exactly what he does. his memories are like ghosts in the corner of his bedroom. every good and bad experience, and by god is there a plethora of the latter, stands out like bruises he can't stop pressing down on. that's why i believe it's especially harder for you to gain cécile's worship; gael is all the good he's known, and you're just a strange human. why would he love you, a fickle being that can barely stop themself from being killed by him, when he could have an immortal sovereign? why, indeed. and it's gonna be especially hard for a man like cécile to grow accustomed to a love that's soft, because he's known violence all his life. he was born of it, made of it, and will be undone by it. that's all he can offer you, so he will expect the same from you the day he accepts you.

also, like... cécile literally fits the bill of scorpio's holding life long grudges. aside from protection, his primary desire is vengeance. and it's not something you can dissuade him from. why would you? you loved cécile because he's a walking bundle of rage and despair. you love him because his heart bleeds on you like an open wound. you will kiss the blood off his lips after the carnage - yours? his? someone else's? who cares, it's ours - and he will only sigh on yours, a thank you for being the best constant in his life of spite.

i can also see where cécile's need for domination comes from, with that extraverted thinking (Te). he may be a bodyguard in subservience to a god, but even they must know when and where to call the shots. it's very clear that control was robbed from him repeatedly ("[...] those who snatched his soul away from him—"), so it comes as another instinctual need to maintain control in every situation. and if he must trap it in the iron-fisted palm, so be it. that's exactly why cécile, like envy, benefits from an mc who knows how to push past sharp commands and loud warnings to chase after him. he relies on people shrinking away from him when he snaps to establish a clear line of boundaries. ultimately, it is by obeying caution that you'll never romance him, because you're playing into what he wants - and what he wants is you away from him. he needs an equally dominant person in a way that has them constantly battling for ultimate dominance, or maybe someone who is more dominant, but not in a way that completely imposes on him. in a way that shows him why exactly you can be his new master, y'know? in this life, everything is chains and prisons to cécile. it's just a matter of picking the most luxurious one. if you're shameless about what you can offer him, he might just take you up on it.

i think it's pretty obvious that cécile has volatile emotions hidden underneath (aries moon maybe???). he buries his softer sentiments deep below, where they lie, they run rampant. i'm a little unsure as to how this'll manifest, but cécile obviously can be soft and sentimental when he wants to, especially or only when the mc isn't looking. he traces their face in the dead of night - he alleviates their burdens behind their back - his favourite sex position is one where they can't see his face, but he can service them just fine. he can be vulnerable, but he doesn't want you to see him when he chooses to be once in a blue moon, lest you get the impression that there is a secret goodness to this violence. there isn't. he's not like envy - standoffish and cruel on the outside, soft and pliable underneath. no, peel away layer and layer of rage and you'll find more rage. crack away at that and you'll find a hollow heart. he's doing it because every human, no matter how depraved, is capable of SOME tender intimacy.

also, man. i think switching his loyalties is gonna be the equivalent of ripping all his skin off. like, yes. he loves you. the need to worship is strong, but it is unbidden for a reason. it is essentially betraying gael, isn't it? loving someone else? a man like cécile has a lot of 'love' in his heart, and all that love can only be directed at one person.

now... extraverted intuition? coupled with his scorpio sun? i imagine it feeds into the possession and obsession. it's less about worrying that you might look at others - it's about knowing that everyone has their eyes on you. it's an irrefutable fact, that there's a bounty like a guillotine on your neck. and he promised to protect you. he did, he promised. and he will, no matter what it demands of him, because you're the one thing that makes it all worthwhile and he'll be damned if the world takes more from him.

i don't know if i can sum his personality up, and i'm not interested to. he's an enigma, and i prefer complexity. as for his character development? i don't know. i really don't know. would it be bad to say? that i don't want him to get 'better'?

the appeal of cécile is that he can't offer you a 'normal' love that even a god, for all they're entrenched in, can offer you. his love is always bloodied. his love is always cruel. his love is all-consuming, like a punch in the mouth.

i think the one thing i wanna see, or predict for him to have, is to learn that there is someone who will do more than passively accept him. there is someone who actively desires him - needs him, even, in all his depravity. i want him to realise that he's not the only one who loves like he's the forest fire, and they're the forest or the witness. fire meets fire. violence for violence, like beasts.

maybe i want to see him become more open to someone calling the shots for him? and know that he can trust them, that they won't use him like everyone else has. honestly, it's difficult to not 'use' him. he's a lover, a weapon. the only difference is the affection in your grip when you swing his blade down to take another head. i want romancing him to come slow yet fast, harsh and cruel and intimate. i don't want the devs to feel like they need to water his morality or cruelty down, because like... isn't that his whole appeal. he's a killer and a sinner and that's why you love him. so on that note,

iii. comparison to other characters + what made him stand out to me

i originally was not interested in lost in limbo, because i tend to prefer darker horror. that changed when i saw lázaro, because the knife scene made me believe they were a FREAK freak. turns out they're pretty chill; and that's simply not my cup of tea, so my interest waned even more.

until i saw cécile.

my favourite romance trope of all time is obsession, but it's something i abstained from for so long because it's ALWAYS one-sided. with cécile, there's the strong potential that you're mutually obsessive, because let's face it. you won't be able to get anywhere with cécile without matching his freak. AND I MATCH HIS FREAKY I LOVE HIS NASTY!!! I LOVE UNAPOLOGETICALLY VIOLENT CHARACTERS!!! I LOVE CHARACTERS WHO UNAPOLOGETICALLY KILL AND MAIM AND DESTROY!!!! FUCK!!!!

i am not someone who is made to enjoy the tender mundanity of love. i want to be loved like a body hits the pavement below and that is exactly what cécile is.

i think the biggest difference is that cécile's whole romance with mc, aside from his loyalty to gael, relies on the dilemma of knowing he's just a man. the main cast are gods, they can afford to put up a better fight against whatever is ailing the two of you.

but cécile? he has almost nothing. he's just a dog, after all. he'll fight tooth and claw just to keep mc because there is quite literally nothing else he can do in the face of it all. and i love that it would make his route a lot more desperate. in life, we will all suffer so very beautifully. he might as well be your suffering, in name and heart. then, is he truly yours. then, are you truly his.

also, i adore the fact that cécile is the only openly hostile love interest to mc! envy has that ease to growing flustered that endears him even in the face of his... lack of manners. but cécile's only official existing line of dialogue is warning you to stay out of his way lest he gives you a quick death. STAY AWAY is literally printed in big, bold, black letters on his forehead, and i don't doubt he isn't afraid to be the one to kill mc.

AND I LIKE THAT OK!!! GIVE ME A CHALLENGE!!!

i think that is... the brunt of my thoughts, off the top of my head. feel free to ask me any more questions and i will try to go in depth but for now... we rot. @ravenstargames this is all your fault cécile is chasing me around in his basement AND I CAN'T GET OUT

[motziedapul]

This is a great example of "scratch a liberal and a Nazi bleeds" because what do you mean you want deportations for Brown people and gleefully celebrate the killing of Palestinians as long as it's under Trump while pretending it wasn't happening under Biden?

Biden sure did show Israel by sending 20 billion dollars to them in 2024, providing 70% of all their major arms, and wagging his finger telling them "oh you better not kill more than 15000 children with these"!

And you sure showed me, a Filipino, how much you want to blame Palestinians for their own slaughter!

Awesome job @autumnalhalcyon! You've proven a wonderful point!

The point being that you only care about Palestinians when you can throw them under a bus. Congrats. I'm sure you're a wonderful person who spits on people who lost 80 family members to a Biden-Harris backed genocide and blames them for Harris running a terrible campaign. Definitely not a Nazi. "It's their fault Biden-Harris killed their families, they only have themselves to blame" is a great take.

Thank you for saying this so that whenever people search your name on Tumblr, they will now see your hatred for immigrants and Palestinians when they're not useful to your election, and your celebration for Trumpian policies so long as it affects people you're mad at.

[qqueenofhades]

what's been particularly vile to me is this group of white online leftists who insist that anyone who cares about more than this one issue for the election is a bad person, like, as if us black and brown people are making up reasons to be afraid and not.....believing the gop when they say they are coming for us. believing trump who has said previously that he does not bluff, that he will do the things he's said he will do (i hate what social media has gone to the word gaslighting but it feels like gaslighting. we lived through four years of trump. we saw the damage. stop treating us like we're being dramatic). it must be great to not have to worry about that i guess? "life won't change under trump" is such a telling admission because maybe theirs won't but mine will. and so many others' will.

and it is often again these (white) online leftists that love to call anyone who disagrees with them a white liberal (derogatory) because they know it would be racist (bad) to be this shitty and condescending to poc but they don't want to actually listen to anything black and brown voters are saying. it's easier to just call us white liberals and throw our opinions out, to ignore the work of black people for decades to gain the right to vote, to disregard the weight of telling them to not do that. it's genuinely appalling. they care so much about racism until it's time to engage with poc who have different opinions than their online echo chambers, then we're just stupid liberals with terrible opinions like..... wanting to live. not wanting four more years of trump. so sorry for that.

sorry for this vent in your inbox, i'm just so fucking tired of white people trying to rewrite history as if trump wasn't that bad. he was for my family and countless others and i am terrified for what's to come if he wins.

The thing about (the often-white) Online Leftists is that they have become just as much as a radicalized death cult as the diehard Trumpists. If you don't want to die for The Revolution and/or sacrifice your life, friends, family, the rest of the country, etc., then you're Insufficiently Pure and must be Purged. (Which I think is just complete BS, as none of them could actually handle sacrificing anything, but it's increasingly the only kind of performative rhetoric that is acceptable in leftist-identified discourse spaces.) This is functionally identical to "if you aren't willing to lay down your life for our Lord and Savior Donald Trump and the Great White Christian Nationalist Dictatorship, you're a liberal cuck," but with the names and justification changed. It doesn't change the underlying radicalization, nihilism, and insanity of the premise.

Another thing the Trumpists and the Online Leftists have in common is that they are busily rewriting just how bad Trump was in order to serve their Ideology. Ever since January 6, 2021, the Republicans have thrown everything they have at revising and whitewashing any suggestion that it was an "insurrection," and the Online Leftists have done the same, in an attempt to "prove" their insane point that Trump "would be better" than Biden. This is embodied in the recent ultimate-brainworm-nonsense maximalist-online take that "Biden has to lose so the rest of the world will see that the US rejects genocide!!!" That's right, the message that the rest of the world would take from Biden losing to Trump is that the US rejects genocide. Never mind if Trump literally wants to commit all the genocide possible and to install himself as a fascist theocratic dictator. In the deeply twisted minds of the Online Leftists, this is the only possible interpretation of Biden's loss, so they'll push for it as hard as they can! The Trumpists and the Online Leftists, at this point, are working pretty much in concert to damage Biden for similar insane reasons and get Trump elected. Etc etc., one Nazi and ten people at the same table is eleven Nazis.

Like. Sure. Four years ago, when Trump was president and people were dying by the thousands because he didn't want to wear a mask because it smeared his bronzer, just to name literally one of the terrible things he did every single day (and not even mentioning how much worse a second term would be) we were absolutely better off. Super-duper great. (Sarcasm.) Either that or "there is suffering and evil in the world and the only solution is to drastically increase the suffering and evil for everyone and to destroy what progress we have managed to make because It Does Not Fix Everything Now" is an absolute moral imperative, and either way, yeah. I'm calling bullshit.

[thebreakfastgenie]

My take on "white woman tears" is that the tears are real. There are people who can cry at will, but tears (or the lack of them) are most often an involuntary physiological response.

I think in most cases it's just that being told you're wrong and hurting someone is a humiliating experience, especially when it's true. Specific to the context of calling out racism, a lot of white people don't really understand systemic racism and see it more as there are The RacistsTM who are the bad people. I think the popular white American image of a racist is, like, George Wallace. This especially applies when you are dealing with white people who think of themselves as tolerant and are not only being criticized, they are being asked to reevaluate what may be a pillar of their sense of self.

The real issue with white women who burst into tears when they're called out for racism is that they have re-centered the conversation around their feelings. For white people who are actually committed to antiracism, one of the basic steps is learning that systemic racism is more important than their personal feelings. People are more likely to notice rank they lack than rank they have an abundance of, so white women tend to be more aware of how they are affected by misogyny than how they uphold racism. Once again, part of antiracist work is becoming conscious of that. You see this too with working class white people who have a negative emotional reaction to being told they have white privilege, because their understanding of their lives revolves around the economic privilege they lack.

The way "white woman tears" is so often framed is "[white] women are manipulative cunts who can all burst into tears on cue." This perpetuates misogynistic myths about women. It's also worth noting that privileged white people bursting into tears when faced with the possibility of consequences for their actions is not a female phenomenon. The poster child is Brett Kavanaugh, who is not only a man but a man who burst into tears when he was called out for sexually assaulting at least one woman, and he did not even face any real consequences. I also don't think Brett Kavanugh was crying on cue. When you've been protected from consequences your whole life, even the slightest possibility that you might face them now is a very emotional experience. His tears did not make me feel bad for him in the slightest, but that doesn't mean they were fake.

Which brings me around to another thought, which I think a more productive way to address this would be to stop treating tears like an emotional trump card. You don't have to comfort someone just because they are crying, especially if you know they're crying because they've been rightly called out. Crying is also not the only manifestation of negative emotional reaction to confronting racism. Arguing and defensively talking over people of color frequently comes from the same place. I think we tend to associate arguing with white men, and therefore see it as more logical, but it isn't.

I also want to acknowledge white women crying is especially frustrating for women of color and Black women in particular, because they have been forced since birth to limit their emotional expression. To return to Supreme Court examples, I cannot even imagine the media reaction if Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had shown any emotional response whatsoever to the Republican senators who would not stop talking about child exploitation materials during her confirmation hearing.

I also want to be absolutely clear that white emotions after being called out for racism should not ever be the responsibility of people of color. Antiracist work can be very uncomfortable for white people. It is our responsibility to work that out.

[daloy-politsey]

I respect your opinion a lot so I mean this as a genuine question that I want to learn from, not just trying to be an asshole - but in what way is not voting at all and letting Trump win better than using your vote as leverage to pressure Kamala into making better choices?

Literally just a couple days ago Trump threatened to invoke the Alien Enemies act of 1798 - the same act used to put hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in WW2 - against "illegal aliens", which by now we know he means "literally any brown person regardless of legal immigration status". Im terrified for my Latino & Haitain family and loved ones, and I'm terrified of Trumps response to "blame the Jews" if he loses this election - G-d forbid what he would do to us IN office. We can't fight for Palestine, Sudan, Congo, etc if we're IN concentration camps.

There is no magical world where neither candidate gets voted and the election is canceled, or a 3rd party wins, and we have a revolution - we don't have enough leverage for that. If Kamala loses, that INHERENTLY means Trump will win. How is that alone not terrifying ???

Well, first of all it is very valid that you are scared. However, voting for Kamala means you are saying she (and the rest of the Democrats) can take your vote for granted. Obviously Muslim voters in Michigan aren’t going to make Jill Stein (who I am not voting for btw) President, but it might signal to the Democratic Party that the country is changing and they must change too or they risk becoming extinct.

Anyways, what’s more important than voting are things like helping out your community, organizing your workplace, and fighting fascists. Liberals (and I’m not accusing you of being a liberal just to be clear) like to think that they can just show up to the polls on Election Day and do nothing else the rest of the year and that’s what gets us into this mess.