#exilees

[spilladabalia]

Ut - Exilee Goes Out

[eevesvilla]

I know I do not deserve life the way my white comrades do. That is why my great grandmother was murdered in front of my father. That is why my aunt went into a coma after the assassination. We are subhumans. Cockroaches under the carpet. Ugly bastards born into scum and brutality. I wish it was over. I wish I was a free person. I want to go home and bury my brother in his rightful resting place. I want to die in my own homeland. I want to be buried with the rest of my family. I don't want to live in exile anymore.

[techmomma]

Spotting Zionism in Media

So when I recently realized a particular piece of young adult animation was pretty heavily leaning into Zionist ideology, it got me thinking: how does one spot it? I've started to recognize some patterns, but this is an open forum: if you are learned in this or have found ways to spot zionism in stories or zionist dogwhistles, I encourage you to add them onto here.

So here are some things to look out for, WITH A HUGE CAVEAT: individually, these may not necessarily indicate a zionist story or an author who is sympathetic toward zionism, but together with other elements, could indicate the intent of the author to create sympathy for Isn*reall. In fact, I would really encourage you to look for more than one of the items on this list. We're looking for patterns, not individual instances. That being said.

Exile of a people from their homeland many generations prior. We're not talking like the grandparents of the current adult generation, we're talking like hundreds if not thousands of years prior. Not necessarily Zionist itself, but may come with themes like, "why were they kicked out? because the other native population kicked them out. why? because I don't know, they're mean or are hoarding resources or whatever," or themes like "the other indigenous population was there just as long if not longer but exiling the other population was cruel and unecessary." Themes like, "The exiled population has to constantly fight for their own survival, sometimes ESPECIALLY against that other native population." Themes like, "the homeland is a verdant paradise that the Other will not share with its rightful inheritors." Liberal zionist reads may offer a more sympathetic few of the ones who kicked out the exilees, but the end result is the same: "this is our homeland too, so everyone should share." Which, you know, on a surface read sounds innocent enough, but is twisting the actual, real history of the Levantine area and its indigenous peoples, and does not understand actual concepts of indigeneity. And also y'know. Completely glosses over the whole "britain and america had colonies in the levantine area and basically chopped it up without the permission of the people living there to shove colonists in to control the area." And then continued to massacre the people already living there.

Appropriation of Holocaust and genocide imagery. Zionists looove to pull the whole, "these people endured an unimaginable genocide or massacre of their people" which again sounds innocent enough, but zionist narrative often then go on to use this cataclysm to justify further violence enacted by the main people (it's always going to be the group the protagonists are made of) for the sake of "survival."

Related to this is often a theme of villainizing rebel or resistance groups. More liberal reads may even offer sympathy toward these groups in kind of "well the rebels do have a point but both sides have hurt and been hurt" philosophy, but inevitably, the resistance or rebels are framed as "going too far." The rebels may mean well in the kindest zionist portrayals but are just too violent and that will be their downfall, while the real protagonists will try to foster peace by saying "all violence bad." Many times the original cause of the violence between the two groups is like swept under the rug or written off as "its just always been this way" or even "no one can even remember why they hurt each other anymore." Which again, sounds innocent enough. But that is the insidousness of zionism, which is that it uses these surface readings that sound good or things most people would agree with, in order to erase the context what happened and happens in Palestine--which is that of a brutal colonizer attempting to subjugate and erase an indigenous people. It also attempts to erase or delegitimize the idea that armed resistance is absolutely necessary to occupation

Related, there are often themes of the two opposing factions being on relatively equal footing (the protags will always been at least a little bit of an underdog tho for the sake of garnering sympathy) which is again an attempt to delegitimize the idea of palestine being occupied by a brutal aggressor. Instead being, again, painted as "two fairly equal warring factions fighting for survival," which also serves as an attempt to legitimize their own brutality and violence enacted on palestinians.

This theme is probably the MOST highly contextual, so I would very much not jump on calling a work zionist just because you see this, but look at it in context of other themes. If you see any of the above themes, then this one is probably being used in conjunction, but is not any kind of smoking gun by itself. That is a theme of sympathy towards morally objectionable actions done for the sake of protecting others. MANY STORIES HAVE THIS ELEMENT which is why I urge caution if you see it!! Please, god, don't show that you are chronically on the piss on the poor website and instead use a little reading comprehension. But in the context of zionist stories, this element is used to help justify the idea of "well it's okay to burn a village with everyone trapped inside their buildings because there were people there who would kill my family." It's sometimes framed as a "I had no other choice," again to legitimize zionist violence, and perpetuate this idea of the Other (usually middle eastern) always being out to kill them. It's the tactic used to justify the idea of "well to insure my people's survival I need to use this thermobaric bomb against a civilian population :( "

Speaking of, there will often be light to heavy racism against middle easterners and muslims. Even if put in a sympathetic light, the middle eastern stand in will, inevitably, be an antagonist or even an outright villain. Liberal zionists are even starting to use poc as protagonists to help sell this idea that zionism isn't deeply rooted in racism because "look! we have black people on our team! this isn't about brown people!" (you will often find, however, that most of the story still centers around the lily-skinned characters no matter how much they laud their poc). Related to this, there may be themes of Good Minorities who become part of the protagonist team because they have started to embrace the protagonist culture.

Going back to the villanization of rebels, you will often find those rebels, especially the ones being framed as bad, to be religious fanatics/extremists or heavily believe in martydom. They may even go so far as to say things like, "well you can't reason with them, they're fanatics!" I do not need to explain how this is a racist caricature. Bonus points for "racist caricature" if the rebels usually operate in small strike teams causing massive damage to civilian populations. something something terrorism is usually mentioned.

Those rebels may even be portrayed as racist themselves! Because they do not like the protagonist (zionist) culture, and will be xenophobic toward the culture of the protagonist.

Not all zionist media likely has this but heavy sympathy for cops, soldiers, and autocrats (or analogs for each) is usually present.

And the last and most unfortunate one, appropriation of jewish culture. THIS IS NOT AN INDICATOR BY ITSELF because we need jewish representation! We need jewish names and themes and ideas, but the problem is when you see these OTHER themes first, and then you see a bunch of jewish names? That probably is going to lean a story toward zionist propaganda. And that is… so, so incredibly infuriating and sad. PLEASE FUCKING USE CAUTION WITH THIS THOUGH.

Think of it this way: having a bunch of german names and ideas in a story does not make it a nazi story! No nazi themes, then it's just a fuckin german story. However! If a story has a bunch of nazi themes? Then all of the german names and ideas are probably going to be a nail in the coffin as to the question of "is this a nazi story." It'll take you from "95% sure it's a nazi story" to "99% sure it's a nazi story," if that makes sense. God I hope it does. CONTEXT.

I really do hope this helps you all spot zionist propoganda! I cannot emphasize enough that you CANNOT take any one of these individually as proof of a zionist story. Even the racist points don't necessarily mean a story is zionist; could just be good ol' fashioned racism! However, finding patterns or finding multiple themes that fit the zionist bill can usually tell you whether or not the author, or authors, have zionist sympathies. And hopefully all of this can help you look critically at the media we watch, because one you see it, it's real hard not to see it in like. a lot of places. If you want really good words on zionism in games, this article is a fantastic dive into the zionism of the Last of Us II.

I'm not making this rebloggable for now because… oh my fucking god. But maybe if you all play nice I'll let you. :) I encourage comments with your own observations or any zionist themes you think I might have missed! I do suspect I missed a couple, so feel free to comment with any you think I missed.

Eugh, this is sounding like a youtuber outro. Get out of here. Use your knowledge for good and also to fuck up a zionist's day.

[warmcoals]

me when im not harboring a piercing crush on the serious girl diplomat exilee that will surely shape the course of my whole life

[bonefall]

Speaking of disabled characters, i recently read Exile from shadowclan, and the book did give Volepaw/Volewhisper a disability - afer Bronkestar and Clawface took him and Littlepaw to fight rats for warrior assesment, Volepaw gets attacked by two rats that leave a deep wound on his hind leg, messing it up pretty bad (muscle/nerve damage?), giving him a permanent limp. Afterwards he is taken into the camp of the exilees, where Nightfur becomes his mentor, who underestands some of the struggles as a disabled cat himself, and Volepaw starts to learn how to hunt, ect with his disability. Volepaw doesnt really appear in any of the other books, but he is very much alive at the end of Exile! It would be nice to see him in any other book, if he ever appears again.

I can't believe I completely forgot about Nightstar and Volewhisper god dAMN it

On that note I also completely forgot that Gray Wing develops asthma after a fire. I'm not sure if that will stay or not; DotC is the one arc I'm seeking to rewrite from scratch and just keep the "Best Hit" concepts.

Nightstar is going to die in a similar way to canon-- but this time, the ShadowClan epidemic was actually caused by Runningnose. He wanted Nightstar out of the way for Tigerstar, who was an old ally of Brokenstar, and infected the fresh kill pile with raw bat. A lot of cats are caught in the crossfire.

Volewhisper is implied to be a victim of that epidemic in canon, but I would actually like to keep him alive instead. I haven't worked out very much for him yet though, which is why I forgot to list him last night.

I may have that back leg amputated instead of just giving it nerve damage. Ghost pains would be a good substitute, I think

[bugflies00]

EXILEE EKJGSHKJSDFOUGH

[andichoseyou]

EXILEE😭😭😭😭😭

[badassbutterfly1987]

okay just a bit of worldbuilding culture ideas for the White Court:

we know vamps can be banished/disowned from Blood Rites. while that was partially a cover for Lara taking over the family, i think we can assume Thomas is a good example for how exiles usually go: get kicked out of the court for awhile and, once the exilee sufficiently demonstrates their loyalty and dedication, they can be brought back into the fold. In Thomas' case, this took about five years and helping out in White Night and Turn Coat.

but surely there are lines even the White Court won't forgive the crossing of? in canon I'm not sure what those lines would be, since we don't know if they have a firm law code or what they hold sacred. so i'm going to have to pair this with fic ideas

Keepers: a religious/historical role, one assigned to each house. in modern day they're mostly living record keepers, recording the names and deeds of each member, but earlier in WC history they would also have been spiritual guides to the house leaders

so let's say even the WC has limits and you're not supposed to harm the Keepers. So let's call our potential problem causer 'James' (real name hidden for security reasons) of whichever house, and James decides to kill his house Keeper.

the consequences? permanenet banishment, the stripping of his name and house status, his very presence in history actively erased, and a permanent 'kill on sight' status. a case where that doesn't happen would be a very special exception and not something they would want to acknowledge.

[mightgetawaywithit]

EXILEE??? IM SO LATE IM SORRY

[narukorankofan]

I know why the episode is called "Thanks to Them"! It's because thanks to them (i.e. Masha), the Boiling Islands exilees and Luz would find out how to get back to the Boiling Islands!

Fall Characters #4 Veesha

Quick sketch of them before heading to bed ^^

[drusic]

Dw dw, even though I've departed from the fandom, before anything I am an inniter at heart. Tommy dragged me in kicking and screaming and thankfully toxic inniters didn't change that!

I've found a lot of fellow exilees and it's been so nice to be able to openly enjoy any cc and not worry about people thinking differently of me (which is such a thing on SBI, if you liked Dream make sure you never tell anyone about it unless you really trust them) and also seeing no random neg about them. Like, obviously there's people that dislike them but for some very strange reason they don't make a habit of interacting/talking about cc's they don't like, wild right?

yep!!!! it’s crazy how some fandoms are so obsessed with the people they hate. hell sometimes qolos get dream updates faster than i do lmfao. i wish everyone would stay in their place, it honestly sucks that you have to stay quiet about liking someone because ppl might go insane if they find out. i’m glad this fandom is (somewhat) normal!

[root-spring]

"I'll always be here if you need me. I may not share your faith, but I will always help you fight for what you believe in."

[owlovo]

youtube comment section takes on dsmp characters my absolute ABHORRED

i want to punch something

[carcrash-white]

Like why did you give Longclaw to Jon. He's just some kid, the son of the dude who exileed your son! You have family in Bear Island! Send it to them! I'm sure they'd love to have the 500 year old priceless heirloom back!

Looking back what the hell was Jeor Mormont's problem?

[sudaca-swag]

I think its bullshit that a book about five gay uruguayan women during the dictatorship was released in the english world before it comes here

[craftybeanbo]

The absolute lynchpin holding the dream smp together???

that one person who said "pink sus" in tommy's chat in pogtopia, and his mom (specifically- asking him to unload the dishwasher.) They're high-fiving and carrying this server