#but a freedom from self hatred and repression

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Firstly, this isn't me vagueposting, just me gathering my thoughts (I feel passionately about these points).

If Sarcean and Anharion are a allegory for queer trauma and the collar is unveiled to be Sarcean's compulsion wholesale, it renders the Light's campaign against him as righteous regardless of how hypocritical the Light is revealed to be.

It turns his relationship with Anharion into something that was not a relationship at all. Not love at all. It makes it into a sordid sexual fascination. Just as the Light says it was. If the Light represents antiqueer religious and societal pressures within this queer allegory then the story cannot be a pro-queer narrative if that sentiment becomes something tangibly true.

Sarcean can be terrible to everyone else in the world but not to Anharion because their relationship, within this allegory, is what they are fighting to protect. A place to be, to exist. To surrender to each other. To love each other in peace. Without condemnation and judgement. Without constantly being besieged.

Is Will not looking for that very thing? An oasis. One person he can be his entire self with. Is James not as angry as their past selves? Not as vindictive? "I'll show them an abomination!" Perhaps, if that's the case, Anharion and Sarcean also liked to put on a show. Rub their relationship in the faces of the Light. They'll show them. Sarcean cannot be the sole puppeteer of all that queer fury without it becoming an abuse narrative. Once it becomes an abuse narrative, and the Light's campaign becomes a righteous one, the queer allegories start to fall apart.

If Sarcean represents the urges you suppress to conform to a cruelly narrow but socially dominant interpretation of 'goodness' then Will's triumph isn't in suppressing those urges, it's in embracing them. If Will becomes but another good boy suppressing his dark urges for the Light then he's buying into the dominant social narrative. The aforementioned antiqueer one. He may as well marry a nice girl from a respectable family, never once ordering her around.

[secretmellowblog]

Another reason I dislike Les Mis adaptations that make Jean Valjean constantly openly angry/violent is because they miss that Jean Valjean is not allowed to be angry. The fact he is forbidden from expressing anger is, I argue, actually a very important part of his character in the novel!

One of the subtler political messages of the story is that some people are given freedom to express anger, while others are forced to be excessively meek and conciliatory in order to survive.

Wealthy conservatives like Monsieur Gillenormand can “fly into rages” every five minutes and have it treated as an endearing quirk. Poor characters like Fantine or Jean Valjean must be constantly polite and ingratiating to “their superiors” at all times, even in the face of mockery and violence, or else they will be subjected to punishment. If Gillenormand beats his child with a stick, it’s a silly quirk; if Fantine beats a man harassing her, she is sentenced to months in prison.

(Thenardier and Javert are interesting examples of this too. Thenardier acts superficially polite and ingratiating to his wealthy “superiors” while insulting them behind their backs. Javert, meanwhile, is completely earnest in his mindless bootlicking. But I could write an entire other post on this.)

The point is that….Jean Valjean has to be submissive and self-effacing, or he puts himself in danger. He can’t afford to be angry and make scenes, or he will be punished. The only barrier between himself and prison is his ability to be so “courteous” that no one bothers to pry into his past.

Jean Valjean is excessively polite to people, in the way that you’re excessively polite to an armed cop who pulls you over for speeding when you secretly have a few illegal grams of marijuana in the your car trunk. XD It’s politeness built on fear, is what I mean. It’s politeness built on a desperation to make a powerful person avoid looking too closely at you.

It’s politeness at gunpoint.

Jean Valjean has also spent nineteen years living in an environment where any expression of anger could be punished with severe violence. That trauma is reflected in the overly cautious reserved way he often speaks with people (even people who are kind and would never actually hurt him.)

So adaptations that have Jean Valjean boldly having shouting matches with people in public and beating cops half to death without worrying about the repercussions just make go like “???”

Because that’s part of what’s fascinating about Jean Valjean to me? On one hand, he is a genuinely kind compassionate person, who cares deeply about other people and behaves kindly out of altruism. But on the other hand, he was also “beaten into submission” by prison, and forced into adopting conciliatory bootlicking behaviors in order to survive. And it can sometimes be hard to tell when he is being kind vs. when he is being “polite” — when he is speaking and acting out of earnest compassion vs. when he is speaking and acting out of fear.

The TL;DR is that I think it’s important that even though Jean Valjean is very (justifiably) angry about the injustice that was inflicted on him, his anger is harshly policed at all times— by other people, and by himself. He has been told his anger is wrong/selfish so often that he believes it. His anger takes weirder more unhealthy forms because he has no safe outlet for it. His rage at society becomes a possessiveness towards Cosette and silent hatred of Marius, but primarily it becomes useless self-destructive constant hatred of himself. And while I might be phrasing this wrong, I think that’s what’s interesting about Jean Valjean’s relationship with anger— the way his justified fury at his own mistreatment gets warped into more and more unhealthy forms by the way he’s forced to constantly repress it.

[fuckyeahlabynight]

Fang Fest 2024

EDIT: Apologies! The first image I made for this had the date wrong. it's fixed now, so please reblog this version. Thank you!

Hello Tumblr Vamily! first of all, thank you to those who participated in the Fang Fest poll(s) I posted. I read all your tags and comments and I decided to go ahead with this year's Vampire the Masquerade Fang Fest!

This year’s theme is “Tarot.” These prompts are intended to inspire fanart, fanfic, and other pieces of fanwork. Anything you wish to create and share with the vamily is very greatly appreciated!

The Fang Fest will run from June 1 - 22, 2024.

Each day, starting with The Fool on June 1 and finishing with The World on June 22, post whatever fan work you've made inspired by the Tarot card prompt (eg. art, fic, gifs, poetry, music playlists, mood boards, whatever). Please include the hashtag #vtmfangfest24 so they can all be collected here. I know there are a lot of prompts this year compared to past years, and if you can't think of anything for a particular prompt, or are otherwise unable to finish, it's perfectly fine to skip it.

Those who are not taking part in making fan work are encouraged to like, comment on, give kudos, and share their favourites! Collaboration is also encouraged, so reach out to your fellow Kindred and see what you can come up with!

Another list of the prompts and their general meanings will be available under the cut. See y'all in June!

The Fool Innocence, spontaneity, free spirits, new beginnings, (reversed) recklessness, taking foolish risks, being held back.

The Magician Being resourceful, inspiration, manifesting plans, (reversed) poor planning, manipulation.

The High Priestess Intuition, divine femininity, sacred knowledge, (reversed) keeping secrets, withdrawing, being silent when your voice should be heard.

The Empress Femininity, beauty, abundance, (reversed) over-reliance on others, suffering creative block.

The Emperor Authority, father figures, structure, (reversed) domination, excessive control, lack of discipline.

The Hierophant Spiritual wisdom and beliefs, traditions, established institutions, (reversed) freedom and challenging the status quo.

The Lovers Love, harmony, relationships (romantic or otherwise, but usually romantic), your values aligning with others', (reversed) disharmony, arguments, hatred.

The Chariot Taking action, success, willpower, being in control, (reversed) lack of direction, opposition.

Strength Courage, compassion, persuasion, (reversed) self-doubt, low energy.

The Hermit Soul-searching, introspection, being alone in a positive way, (reversed) unwanted isolation, withdrawing, loneliness.

Wheel of Fortune Karma, good luck, destiny, a turning point in your life, (reversed) bad luck, resistance to change, cycles breaking.

Justice Fairness, truth, cause and effect, (reversed) unfairness, not taking accountability, dishonesty.

The Hanged Man Surrendering, letting go, considering new perspectives, (reversed) stalling, delays, indecision.

Death Endings, unstoppable change, transformation, (reversed) resistance to change, unwanted purging.

Temperance Balance, moderation, patience, (reversed) imbalance, excess, needing self-care.

The Devil Addiction, who you are when no-one is watching, sexuality, (reversed) releasing limiting beliefs, exploring your dark side safely.

The Tower Sudden change, chaos, upheaval, (reversed) personal transformation, averting disaster.

The Star Hope, faith, purpose, renewal, (reversed) despair, losing faith, disconnection.

The Moon Illusions, anxiety, intuition, (reversed) letting go of fears and repressed emotions, inner confusion.

The Sun Positivity, fun, warmth, success, (reversed) disappointment, toxic positivity, overly optimistic.

Judgement Rebirth, retribution, (reversed) self-doubts, ignoring opportunities.

The World Completion, accomplishments, travel, (reversed) short-cuts, delays, not yet finding closure.

[cuddlytogas]

there was some Twitter madness recently where someone left a comment on someone's art to the effect of, "Ed shouldn't wear a dress, he's a man!" which I do disagree with on principle, but unfortunately, it brought out one of my least favourite trends in the fandom

so, naturally, I had to write a twitter essay about it. and I already largely argued this in a post here, but the thread is clearer and better structured, so I thought I'd cross-post for those not on the Hellsite (derogatory). edited for formatting/structure's sake, since I no longer have to keep to tweet lengths, and incorporating a couple of points other people brought up in the replies

so

I want to point out that the wedding cake toppers in OFMD s2 aren't evidence that Ed wants to wear dresses. Gender is fake, men can wear skirts, play with these dolls how you like, but it's not canon, and that scene especially Doesn't Mean That.

People cite it often: 'He put himself in a dress by painting the bride as himself! It's what he wants!' But that fundamentally misunderstands the scene, and the series' framing of weddings as a whole. I'd argue that Ed paints the figure not from desire, but from self-hatred; it's not what he wants, but what he thinks he should, and has failed to, be.

(Yes, I am slightly biased by my rampant anti-marriage opinions, but bear with me here, because it is relevant to the interpretation of the scene, and season two as a whole.)

The show is not subtle. It keeps telling us that the institution of marriage is a prison that suffocates everyone involved. Ed's parents' cycle of abuse is passed to their son in both the violence he witnesses then enacts on his father, and the self-repression his mother teaches, despite her good intentions ("It's not up to us, is it? It's up to God. ... We're just not those kind of people. We never will be."). Stede and Mary are both oppressed by their arranged marriage, with 1x04 blunty titled Discomfort in a Married State. The Barbados widows revel in their freedom ("We're alive. They're dead. Now is your time").

But even without this context, the particular wedding crashed in 2x01 is COMICALLY evil. The scene is introduced with this speech from the priest:

"The natural condition of humanity is base and vile. It is the obligation of people of standing ... to elevate the common human rabble through the sacred transaction of matrimony."

It's upper class, all-white, and religiously sanctioned. "Vile natural conditions" include queerness, sexual freedom, and family structures outside the cisheteropatriarchal capitalist unit. "The obligation of people of standing" invokes ideas like the white man's burden, innate class hierarchy, religious missions, and conversion therapy. Matrimony is presented as both "sacred" (endorsed by the ruling religious body), and a "transaction" (business performed to transfer property and people-as-property, regardless of their desires), a tool of the oppressive society that pirates escape and destroy. That is where the figurines come from.

When Ed, in a drunk, depressive spiral, paints himself onto the bride, he's not yearning for a pretty dress. He's sort of yearning for a wedding, but that's not framed as positive. What he's doing is projecting himself into an 'ideal' image of marriage because he believes that: a) that's what Stede (and everyone) wants; b) he can never live up to that ideal because he's unlovable and broken (brown, queer, lower-class, violent, abused, etc); c) that's why Stede left. He tries to make himself fit into the social ideal by painting himself onto the closest match - long-haired, partner to Stede/groom, but a demure, white woman, a frozen, porcelain miniature - because, if he could just shrink himself down and squeeze into that box, maybe Stede would love him and he'd live happily ever after. But he can't. So he won't.

The fantasy fails: Ed is morose, turns away from the figurines, then tips them into the sea, a lost cause. He knows he won't ever fulfil that bride's role, but he sees that as a failure in himself, not the role. It's not just that "Stede left, so Ed will never have a dream wedding and might as well die." Stede left when Ed was honest and vulnerable, "proving" what his trauma and depression tell him: there's one image of love (of personhood), and he'll never live up to it because he's fundamentally deficient. So he might as well die.

This hit me from my very first viewing. The scene is devastating, because Ed is wrong, and we know it! He doesn't need to change or reduce himself to fit an image and be accepted (as, eg, Izzy demanded). Stede knows and loves him exactly as he is; it's the main thread and theme of season two!

(@/everyonegetcake suggested that Ed's yearning in these scenes includes his broader desire for the vulnerability and safety Stede offered, literalised through unattainable "fine" things like the status of gentleman in s1, or the figurine's blue dress. I'd argue, though, that these scenes don't incorporate this beyond a general knowledge of Ed's character. Ed is always pining for both literal and emotional softness, but the significance of the figurines specifically, to both Ed and the audience, is poisoned by their origin and context: there is no positive fantasy in the bride figure, only Ed's perceived deficiency.

Further, assuming that a desire for vulnerability necessarily corresponds with an explicit desire for femininity, dresses, etc, kind of contradicts the major themes of the show. OFMD asserts that there is nothing wrong with men assuming femininity (through drag, self-care, nurturing, emotional vulnerability, etc), but also that many of these traits are, in fact, genderless, and should be available to men without affecting their perceived or actual masculinity. It thematically invokes the potential for cross-gender expression in Ed's desires, especially through the transgender echoes in his relieved disposal, then comfortable reincorporation, of the Blackbeard leathers/identity. It's a rich, valuable area of analysis and exploration. But it remains a suggestion, not a canon or on-screen trait.)

Importantly, the groom figure doesn't fit Stede, either. Not just in dress: it's stiff and formal, and marriage nearly killed him. He's shabbier now, yes, but also shedding his privilege and property, embracing his queerness, and trying to take responsibility for his community. In a s1 flashback, Stede hesitantly says, "I thought that, when I did marry, it could be for love," but he would never find love in marriage. Not just because he's gay, but because marriage in OFMD is an oppressive, transactional institution that precludes love altogether. All formal marriages in OFMD are loveless.

So, he becomes a pirate, where they reject society altogether and have matelotages instead. Lucius and Pete's "mateys" ceremony is shot and framed not like a wedding, but as an honest, personal bond, willingly conducted in community (in a circle; no presiding authority, procession, or transaction).

That is how Stede and Ed can find love, companionship, and happiness: by rejecting those figurines and their oppressive exchange of property, overseen by a church that enables colonialism and abuse. Ed is loved, and deserves happiness, as he is, no paint or projection required.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY: draw Ed in dresses! Write him getting gender euphoria in skirts! Write trans/nb Ed, draw men being feminine! Gender is fake, the show invites exploration, that's what 'transformative works' means! But please, stop citing the cake toppers as evidence it's canon. Stop citing a scene where a depressed Māori man gets drunk and projects himself onto a rich, white, silent bride because he thinks he's innately unlovable and only people like her can find happiness, shortly before deciding to kill himself, as canon evidence it's what he wants.

(Also, please don't come in here with "lmao we're just having fun," I know, I get it. Unfortunately, I'm an academiapilled researchmaxxer, and some of youse need to remember that the word "canon" has meaning. NOW GO HAVE FUN PUTTING THAT MAN IN A PRETTY DRESS!! 💖💖)

[melkyt]

Cora Lives au, Marine!Law and Luffy doing his pirate thing as per usual canon xd

They make it back, Law remembers enough medical knowledge from growing up with his parents while they were spending every day trying to cure their disease. Its enough to use his fruit and save Cora as soon as he can get the chance and approach, maybe this is his first time being able to do room and shambles as he has two thoughts, save Cora and get closer to do so. His power answers his needs.

It takes time, but they make it back to Sengoku. Cora goes back to being a marine, it is his home.

Law doesn't want to disappoint the man who took him in and saved him, so he learns and trains. He joins the Marines but there is a pulsing hatred under his skin. Years and years of pushing it back so he can 'earn' the love and repay the man who saved him. Law is struggling and repressed.

Law is high-up in the organization just with having the ope ope no mi, Imu and the elders are paying attention to him, which is why it is even more stifling, the vice admiral title he never wanted, and a promotion in the near future that he wants even less if not for the freedoms it will grant him. That is what Law wants most in this life, freedom and the ability to follow his dreams, but he owes a debt, and it traps him just as much as anything.

One day he is sent on a mission after a young crew that is making waves around loguetown. He is responsible for the area beyond. Law is glad to be out on the open sea, he takes his sweet time going after the strawhats, not as driven as Smoker or others sent after the pirates. He goes after them but it always turns out they just miss each other. The brats have done shit but nothing he would find big enough like hurting civilians that would make him move. That is the usual, everyone knows that any mission Law goes on will take forever until he finds a reason, and then he will slaughter whoever crosses his particular moral code. Worse he will make them into an art project, left to suffer on display as a warning.

He is ruthless as a marine, taking out his anger out on his targets.

It goes like that for a while, them missing each other until the Summit War. Law is called back, and he first is against going. The warlords will be there, Doflamingo will be there. He would rather never see that mans fcking face. Yet Cora is also summoned, the powers that be know that will make Law go, just to protect the only person he can call family.

He shows up.

Summit War is a mess, sides unclear and Doflamingo is getting on his nerves. The bastard having the time of his life just like in canon. If not for Cora's silence power shutting him the fuck up and way more self-control and patience for his brother than Law has, Doflamingo would be dead.

Law is going after the strawhats, and Doflamingo follows him to mess with the boy and also with Crocodile and be a problem for everyone xd

Since I make the rules, Ace's death here does not happen, Law snaps at the very end and unleashes room over the entire battle, casting shambles. His only focus as a marine has been to improve his power, as that is the only thing he can control. So it is a threat. He splits each side onto their own sides, ruining more than a few plans. Only those in logia are not affected, the confusion is enough to stop the fighting and to slow Akainu. Then promptly collapses in front of Luffy.

Luffy, who saw Akainu's attack coming, saw the man about to kill him, Ace getting in the way, then they were a few feet away and a dead marine in their place.

He looks at Law and is immediately obsessed in a way only Luffy can be, but they don't have time to take the weird admiral that saved them for some reason, but he remembers as they leave.

Later Law gets a lecture even if Akainu wants to murder the brat for getting in the way. His fruit is too valuable, and the marine elders put too much time in the kid to allow him to be killed. The ope ope no mi wielder needs time to gather knowledge for the immortality surgery and a certain devotion, which is what Law has for Cora and they are looking to use that.

So he gets yelled at and gets promoted, which pisses everyone off.

Law is even lazier in his missions, doing his own thing.

Luffy on the other hand after working to get stronger so he doesnt feel like he cant do anything ever again as in Sabaody, as during the war when all he could do is watch his brother almost sacrifice himself, sets off again.

In the two years, Law never left his mind. Luffy not only wants to thank him. But also free him, he knows that look of being trapped by obligation. He has seen it in Nami, Sanji, and many many others over his journey.

So they go looking for the admiral, raiding marine ships and bases, Luffy always running around shouting for him, even if he doesn't quite remember the name.

Ace who is just as interested in finding Law and thanking him, same wavelength as Luffy but more cautious, only a little xd. This is an admiral. He mentions that the man hates one of the warlords, they were bickering all fucking day during the war.

Luffy perks up, grins, and sets his eyes set on kicking Doflamingo's ass. He does a very Luffy thing and announces it at the next base they raid. Something like "Yo, yah saved my brother, so I'm gonna beat Doffy's ass for yah, Traffy!" He did not feel like writing the whole name out, so the nickname is born xd.

Law gets the message and sets out for Dressrosa, hoping to intercept them on the way. This is idiotic even by strawhat standards. He doesn't need their help, and they are going to get themselves killed. He goes alone without any backup, using his power to travel in some creative way.

The strawhats are unpredictable and fast, so they avoid him and only meet up in Dressrosa, with the birdcage falling as soon as the strawhats dock.

Dressrosa almost goes the same, with all the trauma hitting Law full force, even worse as he buried it so deep. It breaks the shields he had up for so long.

He is a mess, and Luffy is there for him in his usual enthusiastic way determined to be friends. There for Law in his most vulnerable moments like nobody has been since Cora saved him all those years ago.

The fights go on, and Doflamingo beats the shit out of Law, who is stronger, but he is tired and broken, and scared as if he is a child again. Law is going through it. He has not been working for years to make his life about revenge and did not face his trauma in the same way.

He watches as Luffy never gives up and wins where he failed, sitting alone on a roof, tears that he can't control spilling as Luffy takes that final blow against Doflamingo.

In the end, Law leaves behind his Admiral coat, with a letter of apology to Sengoku and Cora, that he can't lie to himself anymore, that he needs to be free and that's what the strawhats gave him, that's what Luffy gave him. So he joins the crew, not as anything useful in his opinion. They have a doctor and a historian, they have everyone that makes a crew useful but they don't care. They still make room for him.

Luffy said he is part of them now, and so he is. Even if the world government is hunting him for his fruit, they are all being hunted.

It is the best time of his life, for the first time he is happy. The warm feeling when Luffy smiles at him is something else. The soft touches, the stolen kisses when nobody is looking. Law for the first time understands what it means to be in Paradise, and hopes that this newfound peace will never end.

[superectojazzmage]

Me: Fallen Order was good but the story was pretty run-of-the-mill as far as Star Wars goes and didn’t really do anything special, was very risk averse in general, I bet Survivor will be about the same.

Jedi Survivor: This is the story of Cal Kestis, a man broken by a life of constant war, struggling to maintain his faith and morality while fighting as a guerrilla rebel under the tyrannical reign of a brutal Empire. Traumatized and worn down, he finds himself increasingly forced to compromise his code to survive, prompting him onto a quest to find a possibly mythical world where he can escape the endless bloodshed and become something more than a killer.

In his quest, he finds himself confronting the failures of the Jedi Order and learning to reject the dogma that led them astray, while also facing his trauma and embracing the things that make him human, that which the Order had taught him to repress. Yet he does this without losing the core positive teachings of the Jedi, instead learning to follow the true ways of their predecessors rather than the shallow, rigid, close-minded thinking that the modern Jedi Order had fallen into.

He finds sanctuary and closure in neither violence nor stoicism, but in the arms of his family and the love he feels for them, eventually facing and defeating individuals that the system failed, allowing him to learn from their mistakes as well. He discovers new ways of viewing the world yet retains his own self.

In the end, despite loss and struggle, he regains his faith in the Force and what it really means to be a Jedi, beginning his journey of healing and forging a meaningful life even with knowledge that the dark times persist, accepting that he cannot single-handedly change the world only do what he can, as well as that he cannot fight hatred with hatred, only with love, and that even if the times ahead will be full of challenge and hardship, life is still worth living and freedom is still worth fighting for.

Me: 🫠

[howtostandinsilence]

Alina's sun summoner ability cannot be a metaphor for her escaping the cycle of abuse and living her own peaceful life when its very presence indicates something entirely different about her character. When her abilities are tied more closely to her identity and her growing path to self discovery, any framing of their presence in her life as only a fight against abuse comes across as cheap and shows a spectacular misunderstanding of her character.

Alina losing her abilities doesn't show a need to no longer fight. It doesn't show freedom or liberation. It shows instead brutal oppression and cruelty. 'She can be on her own and the darkness cant get to her anymore' is a funny way of describing the loss of a light power that could by nature repel the darkness and bring her kinship. In fact, it is almost a direct misinterpretation of the events that took place, and through its very wording contradicts itself.

Alina losing her powers cannot be a big metaphor for letting go of the past and moving onto internal peace when it drives her into a horrific regression and throws her into an eternal misery and grief stricken state. Where her very being is repressed so that she may conform and assimilate to her oppressors.

You cannot state that this hatred of her ending is only because it has been done terribly to other female characters before as if this is all some transferred bias. Alina's story is itself regressive through it's own path throughout the books. Her repression and the championing of her internalized bigotry through a narrative that structures itself around restrictive and puritanical morality can be easily tracked, picked apart, and analyzed as itself a story that rejects any real liberation or character progression to force the main female character into a box of conformity.

While Alina strives to be loved and cared for, she states multiple times what she truly wants. Which is the ability to accept and love all of herself in every way, with the freedom to love who she wants and to craft an ending that she wants, where she does not have to give up any of this. That Alina's very desire to have an ending where she can live freely is rejected so that fans can pat themselves on the back for liking her canonical regression feels grotesque. She did not actually want her ending. She could barely stomach it.

Alina's powers did not only represent her fight against abuse. They represented something more to her fundamental character and her arc of self actualization. There is no peoticism in her losing her powers except that of a greek tragedy and it's unfortunate protagonist. Alina didn't even choose to lose her powers. They were stripped from her against her will. In every way, her agency and pershonhood and very wishes are violated. But this is ignored in favor of championing some "subversive" and "enlightened" and apparently feminist story that simply does not exist.

[tenebris-lux]

The more Jekyll let Hyde out, the harder it was to keep him in when he wanted to. Because on one level, it means going backwards, back to being repressed, even if repressed was “safer.” After letting Hyde out so much, he learned more about himself than he probably ever wanted to know, and none of it is easily forgotten. Some of it can be repressed, but only some, and it takes a LOT of consistent willpower for a long time to get to that point if one wants to; it’s not so easy as “just don’t,” or “turn it off.”

As Hyde, he’d revel in the freedom. Then later, when he had to stay shut inside because of the spontaneous transformations, it went against a major part of what Hyde was. As Jekyll, he can cope a little better with being shut inside—1, because he’s used to it; 2, because as Hyde his passions are more intense—but only to a point. The point, in fact, that brought out Hyde in his life in the first place. And then he’d shift into Hyde, the part of him that’s supposed to come out, and all he can do is fight it uselessly, feel that need to be OUT … and just keep himself inside his cabinet. All that restless energy, that desire to just BE HIMSELF, and it’s no longer a safe option.

He only has himself to blame for this situation. Himself for having these desires, himself for indulging, himself for letting it go too far… so he takes it out on himself in his room. Everything that was a symbol of who he used to be got vandalized, who he can’t seem to go back to and, at the same time, is forced to imitate. Self-hatred, and at the same time resentment that he can’t just be like that. No wonder he loses sight of who he is. It’s too much to deal with. And he’s stuck with just himself….. I could ramble on and on and on…..

I can’t get over this story. It’s such an amazing work of art and took such skill to create so perfectly. It’s so short, yet it’s so dense. How on earth did Stevenson get all these ideas and themes across without spelling it all out? It’s truly a work of genius, and one that people can learn so much from.

[bandofchimeras]

I have to say this: the education on fascism in American education is largely limited to "Germans in 1940s." And the settler hatred and right wing extremism we are surrounded by, growing up in my privilege felt invisible as water to a fish. The first cracks in the limited America centric blinders however into international awareness came from relationship: learning about Chiapas and the Zapatistas from my ex, from my friend's education on Armenia and refugees.

It started to click in my brain because researching the situation on Instagram, even on pictures of natural landscapes or other posts not even about the genocide, you would see these accounts with the most hateful vile dehumanizing language - Azeri. And out of the American context and programming it was easier to see that for what it is, baseless aggression towards Indigenous people based on insecurity. And how insane, how strange and baseless it was. I had to block and report and argue with a few of the trolls just from commenting something harmless on an Armenian's post.

Then a few months later - that aggression erupted into white phosphorus bombs. I did not respond in the way that Palestine has been responded to, or much at all. There was less on the ground reporting but that's not really an excuse for how little the waves of pain hit me, how invisibilized Artsakh occupation and land grab was and emotionally unattended to. I was still in my own bubble of settled misery.

It's easier to share content about Palestine because there is so much content made. And the visibility is so high that propaganda can't counter it. In contrast my friend had to put in a lot of work to educate me and most people around them about Armenian history. I regret that. And the resistance and ignorance I exhibited. And I regret coming so late to awareness of colonialism's tangled roots and the history and work of resistance and persistence of indigenous peoples. However it was that particular encounter with the Azeri hatred which laid the tracks for understanding my friend, and also for this further and intense assault on Palestine. Which was already in my proximal awareness but I am ashamed to say, never fully awakened by relationships with real people here.

And meanwhile, happening, and now, people are speaking up about the Congo. About Sudan. About Tigray. About extraction and assault and bombing and execution and horrors and violence which can scarcely be out to words. About the freedom they want for their people and the immense load of pain they have been carrying for far too long as refugees, as colonized people fleeing their own lands.

About these I know even less.

And I do not think it is wise to pretend to know more. I have been called in for posturing or getting ahead of my self in ignorance, of the heart of the movement which is care for and being in community with the people who are caretakers of the land and/or doing the work of survival and fighting colonial oppression and repression.

So what I have to say from where I stand is: the future is coming. If you do not know the survivors of this generation you do not know how strong they are, and their vision of the future. Beyond all the trauma and the need for care and support, this strength is not arguable. The ancestors are with people now.

There will be a future and Armenians, Palestinians, all of these nations will be in it. I choose to believe that, believe in them but not to hope for it because there is an absolute chasm of work to be done, reconciliation and listening and conceding and fighting. And hope can let us get off easy. No, but the work is joyous if you surrender to it.

Do not lose heart, do not be afraid to sacrifice and do not lose yourself in fear, guilt and doubt. They are a maze I've been lost in for years. And only finding my way out through the hands of these friends, having done harm and been corrected in it, witnessing the meaning of pain but also spirit, of God, of joy of true undying Love. This is what revolution is and requires is a total eclipse and regeneration of the heart, the ego, the mind.

I have only taken the first baby step but already despite the horrors laid out before us, the future is glimmering. The evils of settler colonial rabid fury are stains on the world that cannot be washed out. Every second they are allowed to persist kills the collective soul of humanity. Especially the souls of those of us complicit in settler states. We must release our fears, and fall in line with the call for reparation and return.

And our time is running thin but i do believe it is here. The road ahead is very dark, very brutal and very long. But we have the strength to walk it side by side because we must. Or stand aside.

[tpwkwriter]

u r my fave writter everrrr! And I wanted to recommend H helping the reader with anxiety, depression, an eating disorder and like a traumatic childhood. THANK YOUUUUU

My comfort.

First of all thank you so, so much Not only for your request but lovely words! 🥰

And wowser A traumatised y/n! 🫢but luckily H is there hey!

*Warnings* mentions of depression, anxiety, trauma,drug use!, body dysmorphia, struggles with eating and various mental health issues! My dms are open always! 🤎

Love your beautiful selfs! 🫶🏼

— — — — —

Ever since a young age y/n had been through various battles.

Her childhood was far from mundane, when she was about 9 her parents took to several different substances and would happily leave y/n and her sister alone for many hours through the day.

When the girl hit her early teens she was aware of what was going on and that realisation hit her like a ton of bricks, knowing her parents would rather be out doing his knows what, with god knows who then actually looking after her and her sister

When it was time for secondary school, y/n would still admit that this was the worst time for her. 7 hours of constant work to come home and play mother. The constant comparisons to her and her classmates drove her mad, the reminder of exams and work it was all a bit much.

When she hit 17 she went to college and took part in a weekend job to earn some money on the side. Of course her parents eyes lit up once they heard money was being made.

On y/n’s sisters 12th birthday y/n was finally able to buy her gifts and treat the young girl. However this didn’t go down with the rest of the family, y/n recalls this memory very clearly even though she’s been trying to repress it for years.

The argument they had that evening was booming, her father threw anything he could get his hands on, her mother threw every insult and shaming word there was, all of this because she wouldn’t lend them money?

The night quickly escalated when an empty vase was threw at y/n leaving a cut on her wrist that scarred and she still sees to this day.

From that night y/n picked up longer shifts, and more hours just for a bit more money and financial stability.

By her 18th birthday she could afford her first car, wasn’t anything grand but the freedom it allowed her was amazing, she finally felt proud of how she’s done this all herself, she finally felt pride in herself and not self hatred.

Fast forward to age 25 and her life was something she wasn’t expecting.

She was with one of the most recognisable faces, who was able to show her parts of the world she never thought she could, he gave her the biggest comfort and safe feeling that she ever so lacked.

Her sister was currently 21 living with her own boyfriend and was equally as happy, and both of them was as close as ever.

Y/n loved Harry with everything in her, and wanted no chance or risk that he would walk out on her. Y/n adamantly worked on her figure everyday, she started off her morning in the gym, went for a run at-least once a week, this was good n all but she slowly started slipping meals and going past them.

It was currently nearing 6pm and H had just come back from the studio and long day.

“Alright love?” He asks putting a hand on her waist and kissing her cheek as she was finalising dinner.

“Oh my god H” she giggled

“Y’made me jump! Didn’t hear y’come in” she smiled

“Was m’plan” he smirked kissing her again.

“How was y’day” he ask, reaching the top cupboard for too glasses knowing she wouldn’t be able to reach them.

“Was okay, got Tomorrow off so no excuse to get rid of me” she smiled.

“You?” She asked

“S’okay busy, happy to have our day tomorrow”

Dinner was finalised, and the both sat at the table speaking through there day to each other.

“Y’been to the gym today?” He asked

“Yeah” she answered.

“Did 2 hours in there today!!” She said proudly.

“M’proud of you darling, make sure we’re not overworking ourselves right?” He asks slipping her a look that was all too familiar.

“M’not, I just wanna stay, like this I guess?” She smiles.

“What do you mean baby? Y’gorgeous” he states.

“Have you eaten today?” He asks stopping in his tracks to watch her.

“Um” she wonders.

“I mean, m’eating right now, but I just wasn’t hungry really” she claims, taking another spoonful of her food to her mouth.

“Y/nnnnn” he playfully drags

“I promise I’ll eat more tomorrow, just, wasn’t hungry today!” She smiles.

“Y’did 2 hours in the gym and didn’t eat anything after?” He asks tone getting deeper and eyebrows raising.

“I really I didn’t mean to, I was running errands after and I forgot” she says standing up from her seat collecting the plates from them both.

H joins her in kitchen and helps her tidy up.

“Thanks H” she said.

“N’worries, thanks for dinner love” he says kissing her temple swiftly.

“Gonna get dressed, and then we can watch one of your bloody documentaries?” He smiles

“Y’know it H” she blushes.

They reluctantly parted, y/n found herself bundled up on the couch with a fluffy blanket awaiting her loves return, she found herself scrolling mindlessly on instagram.

When your current boyfriend has exes in the like of Kendall Jenner, cara delavine and Camille Rowe it’s often hard not to feel worse compared to them, curiosity took y/n over and she clicked on Camille’s instagram page, she was greeted with selfies, pictures of events she’s been too, her with her friends and various other things, her beautiful eyes, her shiny long hair, her model figure, she was straight out of a magazine.

Suddenly all of y/n’s work felt pointless, no matter what she would always be compared to these fashionable girls, that familiarity hits her once again.

She set her phone down and focused on the Tv in-Front of her and fell deeper into her fluffy blanket she was cuddling.

Without a word of exchange H joins her back on the sofa, sits next to the girl and guides her legs to his lap, allowing his fingers to gently trace over her shins and ankles.

“I love you” she says eyes remaining glued to the screen.

His movements stop and he turns his head to her.

“I love you too”

The night was slowly closing and the couple slowly started there evening routine.

Y/n was in there shared bathroom going through with her skincare before bed, a million thoughts popped up at once, she didn’t know if It was her anxiety or just her clear overthinking tendencies

Y/n glanced in the mirror, all she saw was all imperfections, she couldn’t even compare to Taylor swift or Kendall Jenner in anyway shape or form.

“Baby Y’alright?” Harry asked from the other side of the door.

She quickly tapped her phone to see the time just to realise she’s spent nearly an hour locked in the bathroom.

“Yeah baby m’now Coming out” she said shaking the train of though out of her head.

Silent tears roll down her face.

Him. He was so amazing in everything he did. His voice was safe. His words were so comforting. The thought of him not being around her terrified the shit out of her.

— — — — —

Part 2 coming soon!

Hopefully you all like this! There will be a part 2 as I don’t want this to be a really long fic, because I have many ideas what I want done with this!!! 🤎

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Abigail Shrier

Published: Dec 2023

According to a popular meme, “Queers for Palestine” is like “Chickens for KFC”: To sign on to that slogan, you’d have to be suicidal or an idiot. That, at any rate, seems to be the prevailing view in the circles I travel in when it comes to the transgender activists who support Hamas. The climate activists, the feminist extremists, Gays 4 Gaza, and sad-sack members of Jewish Voice for Peace—each of them strikes us as dupes of a regime that would happily jail, repress, or massacre them. Can they really be this self-defeating? Can they really be this gullible and dumb? Well, at the poker table of today’s leftism, if you don’t know who the fool is, more than likely, the fool is you.

Consider Black Lives Matter Chicago, which announced its support for Hamas in the days after the massacre with a gleeful post on X (né Twitter), featuring a Palestinian flag and a silhouette of a paraglider, presumably on his way to rape women and butcher children, as Palestinian paragliders had just done. “I stand with Palestine,” the poster read. Does BLM, an organization whose aim is to “bring justice, healing and freedom to Black people across the globe,” not know how Ethiopian Jews would be treated if they dared visit Gaza?

Similarly, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, called Israel a ���white supremacist Zionist project.” Anyone who has ever visited Israel knows this to be absurd on its face. The 100,000-plus Ethiopian Jews are far from “white,” and a majority of Israel’s population—the Mizrahim, or Easterners, who have been living in and around the Middle East since antiquity—could not be and should not be considered any “whiter” than their Palestinian neighbors.

The foolishness extends beyond race. Climate activists like Greta Thunberg took to Twitter to pledge support for Gaza in the days after the massacre—almost as if they didn’t know that the unprovoked war launched by Hamas on October 7 and the thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel will result in both increased carbon emissions and devastation to the local environment.

Meanwhile, gender-studies departments in the United States have sought to “amplify” the call from Palestinian feminists “to join the struggle for Palestinian liberation.” So, in a struggle between an Islamist police state—quite literally, a patriarchy—whose terrorists were encouraged to rape Israeli women on October 7 and a society where women enjoy full rights and serve in the military, Western academic feminists choose the former. And at Columbia University, the queer nonbinary women student group, LionLez, held a movie night: “It’s FREE PALESTINE over here. Zionists aren’t invited.”

Why are the BLM supporters, climate extremists, academic feminists, and trans activists so quick to side with Hamas? Why are those who champion women’s reproductive rights so quick to align themselves with a Hamas-controlled Gaza where women lack the right to drive, let alone get an abortion? Why would they rally to a society where men are encouraged to hit the stray uppity wife? For that matter, why would so many LGBTQ+ groups side against a society that hosts some of the largest Pride festivals worldwide so that they can throw in with another that puts homosexuals to death?

Conservative thinkers James Lindsay and Christopher Rufo have painstakingly traced the Marxist roots of all of these groups, showing that they all branch from the same rotten revolutionary trunk. These groups aim to overthrow the West, and so they support one another. Nests of critical theory fill their interchangeably empty heads.

But I want to suggest a motivation less highbrow and more straightforward. They are all fed by the same polluted water source: hatred, envy, and resentment.

What leads them to show up at the pro-Hamas rallies in remarkable numbers is not ideological commitment. Sure, some may want Marxist revolution, if they even understand what that is. But whatever beliefs they may hold about gender, race, or climate quickly unravel under the clumsy weight of the obvious contradiction of supporting a regime so hostile to these causes.

Which means they are no more motivated by ideology, in other words, than Adolf Hitler was when he allied himself with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Arab mufti of Jerusalem, or the Japanese—another race allegedly inferior to whites in his despicable hierarchy—and made war upon the white French and British. Hitler believed Nazi racial theory, of course. But sometimes hatred simply burns brighter and hotter than all other ideological commitments combined.

So don’t bother informing Gays 4 Gaza that same-sex attraction is proscribed by criminal law in Gaza, backed by a penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment, in that very territory they’re so wild about. No need to educate them about the finding by Pew Research that the Palestinian population’s opposition to homosexuality is among the highest in the world; that in 2016, Hamas responded to a senior commander’s homosexual activity with a firing squad; or that gay adoption and gay marriage are strictly forbidden in Palestinian territories.

They already know—and they really, truly don’t care.

You could plead with Greta Thunberg and her dead-eyed friends that Israel leads the world in desalination efforts and technology. You could suggest to any of the climate activists marching for Hamas that if they cared about conservation, they might want to side with the state leading the world in renewable-energy technologies. You could remind them that Israel turned over ecologically advanced greenhouses to Gaza worth $14 million as part of the 2005 disengagement—only to see those greenhouses promptly destroyed by the Gazans. If these activists can’t be moved to care for the women who were raped, the babies and elderly butchered, then perhaps Israel’s remarkable efforts to produce electricity from the ocean and seawalls ought to earn it a shout-out from the climate-change warriors? Nah.

They aren’t stupid, and they aren’t suicidal.

Here’s what they are.

They are LGBTQ+ activists who aren’t primarily motivated by gay rights. They are climate radicals who aren’t principally motivated by concern about the climate. And if there were ever a BLM member sincerely concerned about racial justice, no doubt he has long since left the organization behind. Its remaining rank-and-file are no more committed to their putative causes than Hamas is to improving the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

The postmodern left celebrated Lia Thomas, the mediocre male athlete who swapped genders his senior year in college and won NCAA female swimmer of the year, not because it wants to improve the lives of gay and transgender Americans. Had that been the goal, the left would have accepted a fair and sustainable solution, such as an open category for all gender identities alongside a female-only team, and safe transgender changing rooms.

No, they want to take over women’s teams and women’s restrooms, for the same reason a vandal loves a clean white wall. They enjoy making women afraid. They enjoy deleting girls’ names from the record books. They thrill at seeing average Americans squirm.

When a DEI staffer named Nahliah Webber informs parents and children, “There is a killer cop sitting in every school where white children learn,” that isn’t a statement of values. You don’t glue yourself to the Mona Lisa, as eco-warriors have done, or vandalize the Wellington Arch in central London because you love the earth that much. You do it because you despise the civilization that cradles such treasures, because your desire to inflict pain on those you resent deeply overshadows any aim you may espouse on behalf of Mother Earth.

Same with the tearing down of a poster with an image of a child held in captivity, then laughing at a woman who tries to stop you, crying out for mercy. In videos, those who vandalize the posters rarely even react. Their indifference is chilling. At Boston University, confronted by a man holding a camera phone who tells her she should be ashamed of herself for taking down the posters and allying with movement that spreads anti-Semitism, a woman named Anna Epstein stares him coolly in the face. “Dude, you literally know I’m Jewish,” she says.

The great 20th-century economic journalist Henry Hazlitt once noted that Marxism itself ultimately reduces to highly concentrated envy: “The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are.” Universities may add intellectual arabesque to the expression of this hate. But in the end, when these groups bang their bongo drums, their chants reduce to a single creed: Hate those who have something you don’t.

That is what unites this motley crew of mutually exclusive values. When they cry for genocide of the Jews across America’s campuses—“Intifada Revolution,” or “Glory to Our Martyrs,” as one George Washington University student group did—they simply want to inflict fear and instill chaos in a peaceable civilization they despise.

They are not the dupes of a hideous regime in opposition to their values—racial justice, reproductive rights, women’s liberation, climate awareness. We are the dupes for believing they sincerely held those values in the first place.

[2p42m]

hiya. I see you so hard on gavgirls. KRISTOPH ESPECIALLY. the absolute repression oh my god you are so correct. we will free christine together at any cost

you understand the vision .... the eighteen million billion levels of emotional incomprehension contained within kristoph/kristine gavin to create the most complicated glass closet i have ever seen. what self-respecting man paints his nails my ass. now i mustn't be allowed to yap too much about them despite the. well everything about me and my blog lest i simply recreate my gavgirls conspiracy board and i do have other responsibilities probably but

tldr i'm normal in the head and kristoph is "i wish i was a woman so i could be your wife so i could tell you what to do" you get it

i am so obsessed with the complications created between siblings and especially the gavin siblings i'm afraid it's terminal. the love and hatred intertwined can be so potent i'm eating my way through capcom's walls. that kristoph created a safe space in her shadow for klavier to explore and express freely, and she's happy for her little klavier, she really is, but there's something about the jealousy she feels towards her for being so open and carefree at every second. she shoves it down with the rest because then she must ask why she's jealous of such a thing and she should never feel that way towards her little klavier, anyway. and she's far too much a busy man to wallow in those kinds of things. still it persists.

that kristoph only dares to feel that fluttering in her chest and finally find a name for it while rotting away from the world in a cell block: finding the freedom to exist only when the very thing has been robbed of her. did i mention my dear friend @princepqul has a lovely fic for this in atroquinine, my love and i'm going to fucking Get him by the way. and her life may as well be over but it's the first time she's lived it in thirty-two years and it's when nobody is left to see it. whether that's a blessing or a curse she couldn't say.

that miles away in an empty home klavier reckons with the loss, perhaps in this way more than ever, of the one person who she felt understood, and saw, and would always be there by her side. and continues to lose her every day as she's forced to question if that person ever existed and even safe in the conclusion that she did, that klavier will never have the opportunity to repay her. will never be able to openly respect who kristoph was to her beyond who kristoph was to the world and. and.

i have no canon basis for any of this but they told me themselves so i know this to be true btw. klavier is my wife

[roobylavender]

although i have a lot of hard feelings about romance novels and often come out of them 9/10 times with hatred and embarrassment laced into my heart i do think most people can agree that romance novels at large have developed in response to the control over people's sexual lives and how that's subsequently led to a desperate desire from the sexually repressed to be equal participants in a sexual environment. it's not so much that women want to be in relationships with dominant men to whom they play housewife or baby incubator or worse. it's that women want to be in relationships at all. and because the standard for relationships at large is the nuclear family, this is what subsequently shows up in your literature. why do you think religious women in particular are such a huge audience for romance novels despite the often conservative environment they grow up in? it's bc the consumption of romance novels does not exist in spite of that conservatism but bc of it. to be gatekept from any expression of sexual desire until you marry or until you fornicate for the purposes of having a child is to breed in young women a desire for what we would now no longer consider practices entailing any self-respect. you're kept in an ideological cage all of your life, naturally you reach for what's immediately out of reach rather than consider that there could be more out there that is available to you. it sucks! it's sad, it's horrific, it makes me wanna cry. but i can also never quite blame women for it bc they're not the ones who've created this environment of sexual conservatism (ie the real puritan culture, the one that hypersexualizes virgins by obsessively protecting their chastity prior to marriage bc said chastity can only ever belong to one man). man has. religion has. patriarchy has. why would i focus my hatred on women who are merely coping with the status quo rather than the systems in place that we actually have to change to allow for more sexual freedom and agency?

[oldguardleatherdog]

Hey! I've been following a little while, and I was wondering if you had any advice for getting past the shame from puritanical/sex negative upbringings? Sex has always felt taboo, as a topic or even just having thoughts about it, and I'm hoping to fix that.

Hello! Nice to hear from a favorite mutual, and thanks for a great question!

I'm lucky to have escaped a situation very much like your own. My parents had me very late in life, and they were born and raised in the 1920’s and 1930’s during the Depression, so my environment was influenced by the values of that era – father fought in WWII, boys were boys and girls were girls and you went to Sunday School from the cradle and got beat if you resisted. I was groomed and indoctrinated in an independent Fundamentalist Evangelical church that was exactly the way you’re imagining it now. By the time I’d graduated high school and done a tour in the Army overseas, I was a repressed mess.

How did I escape? Activism. Queer activism. I was still a straight boy when I moved to San Francisco just before I turned 24, and at that time California was faced with a ballot measure by Lyndon LaRouche (a fringe figure and crazy as a loon) that if passed would have sent anyone even suspected of having HIV or AIDS to a remote quarantine facility – there was serious talk that the WWII-era Japanese internment camps would be reactivated just for us – and it was on track to pass until Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor got involved. When I realized what was going on, I couldn’t *not * get involved.

As I began to engage with the protests, for the first time in my life I got to know people who were “out” – gay men, lesbians, and trans women who I honestly thought for years were RG’s – real girls! Yeah, I was fresh and green. It took me a year to come out fully, and the time I spent working for a righteous cause alongside LGBTQ+ people who shared my values was the key to my sexual and spiritual freedom.  

Fighting by their side, making close friends, watching how they lived in the face of that huge threat and the constant specter of AIDS, investing my spirit in them as theirs took root in me, finding myself caring for them and coming to love them, was so personally powerful and transformative and moved my heart and spirit so profoundly that the shackles of shame and sexual self-hatred and cultural Puritanism that had caused me so much grief and despair fell away before I had the chance to shake them off me. I was free, I could breathe, I could stand!

Today, we’re faced with political and cultural threats that are orders of magnitude worse than a local ballot initiative by a fringe figure, and we need every soul we can muster. If you’re inclined towards justice and looking for a thing to do, maybe by engaging in the fight against this tide of hatred you could find your own set of keys that can free your thoughts from the prohibition of shame and taboo, give yourself permission to embrace the truth of who you are, and live each day in a way that lets you stand up too as you walk your path each day in the years to come, fully and freely, with all the joy you deserve - and when you can do that, your spirit and your presence here will add light and sweetness and power to us all. Best woofs to you!

[dsasasadasdasda]

The Anti Semitic Awareness Act Declares that the United States has Completely Become a Puppet of Capital

As protests erupted on many universities in the United States against Israel's invasion of Gaza, the US House of Representatives passed the Anti Semitic Awareness Act on the 1st local time. The bill was proposed by a bipartisan group and passed with a vote of 320 to 91.

In fact, the definition of anti Semitism has always been a concern, especially as demonstrations related to the Israeli Palestinian war are taking place on university campuses across the United States. Student protesters criticizing the Israeli government's military actions in the Gaza Strip will continue to face accusations of anti Semitism, and politicians who do not agree with the ideology are responding to the expanding protests on university campuses. Moreover, there have been numerous interpretations of the protests by American college students from the outside world, some even calling it a showdown between Central Asians and Jews. What’s even more interesting is that the president of Columbia University used theology to curse his own students, which is truly ridiculous.

What kind of huge force is influencing the Anti Semitic Awareness Act? In fact, this protest by college students itself does not have any political attributes, but the actions of the American high-level are confusing, including repression, arrest, suspension of classes, and even hiring politicians to publicly condemn the students’ illegal behavior. 

In fact, it is not difficult to see from this incident that the US government did not listen to the voices of the American people, but attempted to use sophistry to stigmatize the controversial anti Semitism. And the Anti Semitic Awareness Act actually requires the Ministry of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Union’s effective definition of anti Semitism when implementing federal anti discrimination laws. This definition states that anti Semitism is a specific view of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. The definition includes claiming that Israel is a racist state, denying Jewish self-determination, and comparing contemporary Israeli policies with the Nazis.

What is behind the bill? As is well known, the United States is a very pure capitalist country, and from a different perspective, whoever has the money has the right to speak. As the United States begins to transition from a de industrialized to a financial empire, it has always been Jewish people who control Wall Street finance. This is also the most important factor for the United States to pass the bill quickly this time. The current United States has completely become a pawn of capital, and the “building” of America, which has admired freedom and democracy for hundreds of years, has collapsed with the intervention of Jewish capital. The people of the United States are also about to enter their own dire straits.

[hollow-writer]

Notes on Whale (Cheon Myeong-kwan)

“Whale” seeks to emulate folktales, using the fantastical to depict a world with only specious agency. The characters' stories are sprinkled with the refrain: “This is the law of …”. The law of life, of capitalism, of ideology amongst others, served as a cadence at the end of events, reminding readers of the omnipotent hands of fate from which individuals are helpless to escape. Even the acts of humans, supposedly within the realm of freedom, were governed by the “law of rumours”, the “law of inertia”, the “law of servants”, etc. At a seemingly indifferent rhythm, the laws of the human and the non-human used, maimed, emptied then thoroughly destroyed the characters we follow.

And this is the law of gender. Gendered violence was rife in all the intertwining strands of the stories, but the author never explicitly states it. Rape and beatings and all kinds of demeaning treatments fell upon women for not conforming to the patriarchal needs, and most of the time for no reason at all other than their just being women. Those who were deemed unattractive were shunned; while the beautiful ones were herded into brothels. All creatures, male and female and otherwise, were eaten and churned up by the heartless world, but it seemed to devour women with an extra-acrimonious zeal.

It is a feature of mythology that acts of resistance against the system could not escape the laws of the world, never being able to emancipate anyone. This manifests in all the major characters who rebelled. The “old crone” toiled her entire life and afterlife to take revenge on the world. Geumbok worked and schemed and harangued her way to a male position of power – just so that she could find respite from the fear the death in the same way a man would, using status and power. As they strived against the law of the world, the law that brutally restricts and represses women, they fought blindly, hitting out at anyone and anything (the old woman) or aiming for vain objectives that were only empty distractions. They were anomalies and deviants in the world, but their struggle for self-determination still fell within the cruel laws of the world. The old crone’s hatred crystallized into the murders of innocents; in other words, not knowing what the true “essence” of the world she so despised was, she acted on its laws of gratuitous deaths and suffering. Geumbok, a victim of trauma and abuse, was so hurt for so long that her virtues of craft, resourcefulness and resilience became the vices of greed, cruelty and ruthlessness. Trying to escape the fear of death led her to become the ultimate symptom of death in human life: the Sisyphean wish for wealth and status for its own sake. She could only truly embrace this development by adopting the appropriate social role identified by such characteristics – the traditional man. As such, Geumbok, too, became an instrument imposing the cold laws of the patriarchal world.

The characters reproduced the world they detested in the destruction they wrought on others, but they did not find any redress either. Arguably, the “old crone”, in seeking vengeance, only found negative rewards – harms on the world – while the positive evaded her: she did not get to make a happy life of her own with the money she earned, never got the love or respect that she desired. Meanwhile, Geumbok was haunted by death until the very last moment, and she died horrifically after having watched everything she worked for go down in flames. At the end of her life, she was once again an insignificant, short footnote in the book of time; not only that, once Pyeongdae vanished, so did she – there was no immortality to be found in memory for there was no one left who remembered her extraordinary life.

As with many folktales, “Whale” is more about ontology than about ethics, that is more about how the fantastical world functions than about what to do and how to live within it. Consequently, it did not truly matter if a character was active (Geumbok) or passive (Chunhui), kind (Mun) or evil (the man with the scar), each and every one of them was merely a puppet in a prewritten melodrama. While stripping humanity of freedom of action and control of their own lives, “Whale” gives humans a means to go on. A brief light was lit in the epilogue: “We’re disappearing for good. But don’t be scared. Just like you remembered me, you exist if someone remembers you.”. The one thing humans have left is a social and psychological path to meaning: recognition. It is in the interdependent social network where people recognize one another as respectable humans worthy of life that they can make sense of their own existence. And it is only when this recognition lives on in memories, transcending the meagre temporality of individual life, that humans can overcome the fear of death. For one only dies if one is forgotten. Chunhui is denied recognition while alive in all manners possible, but she is the only main character who lives on in one form of collective memory: mythology. It was this world’s leaving hope in  Pandora’s box: people will suffer and they will not be free, but they will always have hope anchoring them. It is crucial though that this hope is materialized through a social world, not by an alienated individual alone.

This is the law of the human condition. What I took away from reading “Whale” was this: we may not be free, we may suffer but we must find ways to provide one another with recognition. This was the ultimate tragedy of the entire cast of characters: they were alienated from one another, bound to agony as atomistic individuals, and they died as such. It is naïve and dangerous to apply fantastical tales directly to life, and we must believe in the real possibility of freedom in our real lives. However, one lesson we can take from this enchanted fever dream is to turn towards one another for hope and recognition.