#false beliefs kill

[andersunmenschlich]

The Synopsis

...I promised @gramarobin I would share. (Promise in comments of this post: link.) It's long!

Brief summary of the post @buttebrat was responding to:

The Bible contains dirty stories. Many of the pornographic situations described are not condemned (for instance, Jacob regularly had sex with four different women and it's never so much as hinted that this might not be okay, Abraham married his half-sister and same, etc). .

Brat Jacob was married to two of the women, so that was fine. He was probably married to the other two, who were not slaves despite the fact that having sex with Jacob was not their idea (it was their mistresses' idea), so that's maybe fine? The Bible never says God approved of Jacob having sex with the two definitely-not-slaves.

Yes, Reuben did have sex with one of his dad's sex slaves concubines. I don't know where you got the idea that Yahweh approved of this. .

Anders They were slaves. If my wife can hand her 'servant' over to me and say "here, have sex with her and her kids will count as mine," that 'servant' is a sex slave. If God disapproved, he'd have killed some people. He's not shy about doing that.

I don't know where you got the idea that I thought Yahweh approved of having sex with one of your dad's sex partners. Go back, read again. I said that Yahweh didn't punish Reuben for having sex with Bilhah, and even when He got around to condemning this kind of behavior He condemned it for the wrong reason: because having sex with a body that belongs to your dad is gay, not because having sex with a woman who doesn't want it is rape. I think that's noteworthy. .

Brat I have school, but I'll get back to you. .

Anders Take your time. .

[One week later.] .

Brat I finished my midterms! How are you doing? .

Anders I just learned that my baby sister no longer has a left arm. Otherwise, I'm fine. Congratulations on making it through your midterms. .

Brat That's horrible. I'm so sorry. Can I ask what happened? .

Anders My parents relied on the Great Physician. Like the Bible says. Acted in accordance with their faith instead of in accordance with reality. My sister's 16. She might not make it to 20. .

Brat Now I understand why you're mad at God! You should be mad at your parents instead. This Bible verse about how faith is incomplete without corresponding action means that your parents should not have acted in accordance with their faith: they should have turned to secular medicine immediately. God blessed us with science, so we should use it!

This Bible verse where God scoffs at Moses for asking Him for help instead of waving a stick around and walking into the sea shows that your parents should have done the rational thing instead of depending on God! .

Anders Well, I'm glad you know God isn't dependable. Shame my parents don't. .

Brat I never said that! God's totally dependable! You just shouldn't depend on him for things you can do yourself. I think it's silly to rely on an all-powerful deity when fallible human doctors are right over there.

Also, God only heals people when he feels like it. Which is a good thing, because sometimes it's best for people to suffer and die.

It is. It really is. See, our physical bodies and physical lives are nothing compared to our immortal souls. God cares most about our souls. So it's best not to depend on him for anything physical. He's totally dependable, though. Just... you might die if you rely on him instead of modern medicine.

This line of thinking has upset me, so here's another Bible verse!

The Bible claims that everything will be wonderful after you die (ignore the following verses about the people who'll be burning in a lake of fire and sulphur and focus on this one about becoming incapable of negative human emotion).

God never meant us to suffer. That's why he created us with a capacity for suffering—because he never planned for us to suffer.

Life was never meant to be like this. We did this to ourselves when we turned away from my specific god. I'm really looking forward to the end of the world, when everyone will be judged I and the people like me will finally get to live happily, the way we were meant to.

...That made me feel better. I think I'll be able to sleep now. Bye! .

Anders Humans came up with medicine, not your god. But if you have to pretend your god came up with medicine so you can use it, fine. Please do.

Life was never meant to be like this, huh? According to the first part of your holy book, life was meant to be lived naked and ignorant. It's just a book. I wish people wouldn't take it so seriously. Taking it seriously leads to all sorts of tragedy.

Sleep well. .

Brat I'm not pretending. My god did give us modern medicine. By giving humans human brains. No other creature on earth has a human brain. The human brain is a gift from God.

Also, I think Genesis is a metaphor. God didn't want us to be naked, he wanted us to be vulnerable. He didn't want us to be ignorant, he wanted us to rely on him instead of being able to stand on our own. Eating the fruit wasn't an actual eating of actual fruit, it stands for the disobedience we have in our hearts—it's a metaphor for us not doing what God tells us to. God wants us to obey him. He wants us to trust him totally.

But he doesn't want to force us into it.

If he had wanted to force us to be vulnerable and dependent and obedient and trusting, there wouldn't have been a snake in the garden for Eve to listen to and trust instead of God.

God gave Moses the ability to part the Red Sea. He gave us the ability to go to doctors who he gave the ability to use modern medicine by giving scientists and researchers the human brains they used to create modern medicine, and aren't human brains amazing? We can read the Bible with them, and pray, and find the true kingdom of God.

Prayer is powerful, so I'm glad your family has that heart.

It's just strange that they would rely more on an infallible god than on the fallible doctors that infallible god gave them in such a roundabout way. .

Anders Of course you're not pretending to believe this bunk. You actually believe it. I know. I know you do.

And yes, only humans have human brains. (The president of the tautology club is the president of the tautology club, by the way.) Did you know that human brains aren't the only ones that possess a capacity for intelligence and self-awareness? In a few hundred years, African gray parrots may be campaigning for their own rights.

I'm glad you don't think the Bible means what it says. Keep pretending it says sane things instead.

You can't possibly believe that prayer is powerful. Prayers are only granted if they align with God's will, right? So if God wills a thing it'll happen and if he doesn't it won't, meaning that prayer does nothing. .

Brat Most of the things it says wouldn't make any sense if they were literal! So of course I'm going to carry on telling myself that they're metaphorical. Also, parrots are dumb birds and they'll always be dumb birds. .

[Long pause: from noon to one hour past midnight. No response to the bit about the power of prayer.] .

Anders Not sure whether you're ignoring the last bit of my message, or have been hit by a car. Hope it's not the car.

Here's a link explaining how intelligent some parrots are: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/harvard-study-shows-parrots-can-pass-classic-test-of-intelligence/

In short: pretty much every brain has the potential to develop human-style intelligence. At different rates, developing different areas in different orders, but given enough time and necessity it's a cert—it will happen. Here's where African grey parrots are right now: above human kids. .

Brat Do you honestly believe there is no difference between a human and an animal?

Happy Sunday, btw! .

Anders A human is an animal. Look at yourself: you're a mammal. Or do you think you're not warm-blooded? Does your species not give live birth?

I know Christians believe humans have an extra, invisible, impalpable, unverifiable, supernatural thing called a "soul" that makes them better than all the other mammals on planet Earth. Frankly, I could just as easily claim that capybaras have a supernatural thing called a "storg" which makes them better than all other living things, which are merely animals in comparison.

Happy sun's day to you, too. Though it's nearly the day of the moon now! .

Brat Some prayer is about asking for things, but some prayer isn't. Also, sometimes we pray with a bad, non-humble attitude. Sometimes we ask for things that God knows would be bad for us. Obviously God wouldn't grant those prayers. Anyway, it's best to pray for insubstantial things like humility, not for substantial things like good grades. The power of prayer is much more spiritual than physical. The soul is spiritual. Do you believe in the Big Bang? Then you're religious too. You believe in something coming from nothing. .

Anders If you recall, the powerful prayer we were talking about was in regard to my sister's arm. Is that prayer powerful? No? There's only spiritual power in prayer? Prayer has no real power in the real world?

There's no evidence that souls exist. There's not even an agreed-upon definition for the word "soul."

No, I don't believe in the Big Bang. I believe that experts in the field of cosmology have settled on that as the mostly likely explanation for all the evidence available to them, and I don't think I have more evidence or expertise in that area than they do. They could be wrong! But they're way more likely to be right than me, a non-expert.

Also, from what I understand, Big Bang theory does not postulate something coming from nothing. It's just a description of the expansion itself, not of where the expanding stuff came from.

Would you like to shove your god into that gap and pretend you already know where the initial singularity (or whatever) came from instead of waiting for more information to come in?

Happy day of Tiw, by the way. .

Brat No, I remember about your sister. Notice how your family still believes in the power of prayer even though relying on it cost your sister her arm? That's because they have faith. Faith is not about what we see. It's about all the stuff we believe is going on in the spiritual realm we believe exists but that we have no idea about.

I would definitely fit God into that gap you're speaking about and I think you know that lolz.

Our hope isn't about what will happen in this lifetime, but in the next. The next one is forever, this one our bodies on average won't make it past 100 years. We are fragile beings if you ask me. .

Anders Thanks for admitting that prayer does nothing in the real world.

Applying prayer did nothing to save my sister's arm. This implies that God didn't want my sister's arm to be saved (if her having two arms had been aligned with his will, he'd have answered that prayer). So what do you think would have happened if my parents had applied science instead of prayer? Do you think God would have intervened to make sure she lost her arm anyway?

Thanks for admitting that you think real life—the life that definitely, provably exists, that everyone knows for a fact exists—is much less important than a hypothetical afterlife.

I care about real life. I wish Christians (specifically my parents) did too. .

Brat Prayer always works, it's just that sometimes the answer is no.

It's okay that you don't understand why Christians value eternity more than finitude. Faith is hard to understand if you don't have it. (I realize that I just said something very rude. Time to empathize!) I am very sad this is happening to you, though. This must be really hard for you. It's hard for me, too: I'm really struggling to empathize with you because no one I care about has lost an arm.

(This is not making me feel better about myself. I'm a good person! What can I offer an angry person who hates God? Oh, I know!) If I can help you in any way, please let me know what I can do. Even if you want to just call me up and scream. I'd listen. .

Anders Prayer has no effect on the real world.

I know why Christians value eternity more than finitude. I would too, if the eternity was real. For over thirty years, I did! Somehow I failed to notice that while real life is obviously and definitely real, this supposed afterlife is not.

Faith is easy to understand. It's belief without evidence, often because the believer doesn't know what evidence is.

And thank you for the offer, but no, I'm not going to call a young lady [a number at the top of her blog said 22; this has since been changed to 25] and scream at her. I'm not angry at you. It's the blind faith—pardon the redundancy—that you share with my parents which I wish I could wipe out of this world.

Why believe things when A) they can't be proven to be true, and B) believing them can be proven to harm people? .

[10 days of silence.]

Anders All right then, back to the original discussion.

You were attempting to deal with the fact that God blessed Jacob's polygamous relationship with four different women.

You went on a bit of a tangent arguing that a woman who can be handed over to a man with a "here, have sex with her and her kids will count as mine" is not a slave, but never addressed the polygamy at all.

Is it moral for a man to have a harem? Is this a part of God's moral law that shifts and changes like sand with human cultural norms?

Did God disapprove, and merely bless all four unions with sons because he didn't care to condemn this immoral behavior? Or were these people wrong in thinking that sons are a blessing from God? .

Brat I'm going to copy and paste my first arguments as though you didn't already address them, and then tack on a bit about how sons are totally not a blessing from God because they aren't specifically called that during the course of this one story.

Incidentally, I no longer remember why we're having this exchange. .

Anders We're talking because you ran across a post pointing out bad things in the Bible, denied the facts, and I agreed to spoonfeed you the information (while you continue to try and spit it out).

To reiterate: in the Old Testament, God is not shy about killing anybody who does anything he dislikes. He doesn't kill Jacob. Instead he gives Jacob multiple sons. The Bible presents sons as a blessing from God. You have read the Bible, right? At least tell me you've read the bit in Genesis that we're talking about. Remember how Jacob's wives kept saying things like "God has given me a son"?

God blessed Jacob's polygamous unions with lots of sons, and then he blessed the sons and created the twelve tribes of Israel through them. Remember that? This is not condemnation. This is approval. This is a blessing of Jacob's sex with all four women. This is a reward for polygamy.

Can you see how "oh, you're having sex with four women at once—okay, I'll give you sons with all four women and then I'll make those sons into a great nation" is the opposite of disapproval?

If not, that's okay. There are smaller words I can use. .

Brat I don't understand your arguments at all, and you're making me feel stupid!

Obviously God is only capable of approving one form of marriage! He can't like both monogamy and polygamy! Because of this fact (which I don't even need to state because it's so obvious), I can logically argue that if God thought polygamy was okay he would have made Adam polygamous!

Also, because it's stupidly obvious that children aren't a blessing from God in the real world, the Bible can't possibly state that they are! The writers of the Bible weren't ignorant enough to believe that, so they didn't believe that and didn't write it!

I hate your tone! Respect me! Respect me and my beliefs or I'm not debating with you anymore! .

Anders Look, I respect you just fine. Not as an authority on anything! But as a fellow human being, yes. And as a fellow human being I'm gonna point out when you've started talking out of your ass, because to do otherwise would be disrespectful: it'd be giving you up as too stupid to talk to.

On the other hand, your beliefs are stupider than hell and I refuse to give them any respect at all because they don't deserve any.

Also, this was never a debate. You asked to see the bad things in the Bible. I showed one of them to you. You rejected it. That's not a debate, that's you refusing to accept what's right in front of you. .

Brat No, every chance you got you twisted my response. Maybe you'd be better talking to yourself in a mirror.

Also the backhanded replies is what made me feel disrespected. .

Anders Twisted your responses, did I? Well, let's look at them.

In my argument that the god we see in Genesis sometimes approves of immorality, I pointed out that:

1) the god character in Genesis punishes actions he disapproves of with curses and death, and offers "having lots of descendants" as a reward for actions he approves of (he's the one who controls whether women's wombs are open or closed).

2) Jacob had sex with four women (two of whom were "gifts" and may or may not have had a choice).

3) The god character does not punish him for this. No cursing him, no putting him to death. Instead,

4) All four of Jacob's sex partners have sons, giving Jacob lots of descendants.

To this, you responded that:

1) Jacob was definitely married to two of his sex partners and may have been married to the other two as well.

2) The first two women were using the wombs of the second two to "go over God's head" and have children without his approval, which was selfish.

3) There's no verse that straight-up says "and the Lord blessed Jacob's polyamory and opened the wombs of his sex partners."

4) God could have been blessing Jacob for something else.

When laid out this clearly, I hope you can see that your supposed counterpoints are nothing but disjointed, irrelevant statements. Does being married to multiple women make polygamy moral? If what Leah and Rachel did with the bodies of their "servants" was immoral, shouldn't God have punished them? If the Bible doesn't bluntly say "and God approved of this," does that mean we should ignore the evidence of his approval and lack of evidence of his disapproval?

Does the god we see in Genesis make a habit of not punishing people for immoral things, instead rewarding them (for moral things that they definitely did just off screen)?

If none of these things are so (and they certainly seem to not be so), then none of your points were at all pointy. Yes, Jacob was a polygamist who might have been married to all four of his sexual partners. Yes, his wives tried to use their "servants" as secondary wombs because they didn't like what God was doing with the wombs they had in their own bodies.

Yes, God's approval (and disapproval) is not always directly stated; often it's implied by his actions or the results of his actions. Yes, God could have been blessing Jacob for something else while not punishing him for being a polygamist (and possibly a slave-raper).

Does all this make God look good to YOU? If not, why say any of it?

.

This last message was sent March 4th. There have been no replies.

[pyr0cue]

uhmm anyway the way Amanda is sees herself in Gabriela which is why she feels so guilty about hurting her but she sees a friend in adam which is why she can’t let him live

[disgruntledexplainer]

honestly, the greatest threat to any religion is not the forces that actively seek to destroy it, but rather those that seek to twist it into a weapon to turn on their enemies, or a means of social control. it is much easier to fight an enemy that declares itself an enemy, but one that disguises itself as an ally, or even as your champion, can deceive you into willingly betraying all that your faith stands for, turning it into a farce of the worst kind.

Islam is used for oppression in Islamic countries, Christianity is used for oppression in Western countries, atheism is used for oppression in China, Shinto is used for oppression in Japan, Native religions are used for oppression in our tribes, etc, etc. The point isn't that any or all religion is inherently evil or violent, just that cruel and selfish people seeking power will use anything they can to control others.

[restlesssinner]

Hey listen. A bunch of people will now try to convince the public that the killing of Brian Thompson was ethically wrong. They will try to use the same old tired arguments: that murder is always wrong, that we should stand against political violence in all forms, that CEOs are people too, etc.

Now, you probably won’t fall for all that bullshit, but a lot of people might. Here is what you need to tell them in return - it’s not guaranteed to change their minds, but every time you offer someone a chance to accept the truth you’re making it ever so more likely to take it.

In philosophy, the idea that people should never do certain “bad” things (e.g. killing) is called deontology. The thing is, unlike utilitarianism (which states people should choose actions that create the most wellbeing in society), deontology is inherently flawed as a morality system.

See, only through deontology can people end up finding themselves having to choose outcomes that will lead to more suffering in the world; think, the trolley problem. Now, ask yourself, what kind of morality system expects its followers to selfishly pick the choice that ensures their own moral purity, even if it dooms the wellbeing of possibly hundreds or millions of others?

Understanding this, you might ask yourself: who benefits from having deontology be the crux of understanding morality for so many people? Who benefits uplifting rules like the Ten Commandments as the ultimate guideline to ethics, as opposed to what it was in the original context of it’s religion - a simple list of base laws meant to instruct a small group of escaped slaves several thousand years ago?

The answer is twofold. First, there are the authoritarians, who wish to instill obedience by making people believe that breaking their rules, no matter how justified, is wrong. Secondly, there are the bystanders, who watch nervously as the world crumbles around them, but excuse their inaction by latching onto a false belief that they are still somehow better than the people who are doing something about it in a way they find aesthetically displeasing.

Therefore, it is imperative to look at the world through a utilitarian perspective, and judge every incident like so. Brian Thompson is part of a very exclusive club; he had wronged so many people so severely that the suffering caused to him and his loved ones by his murder is still innumerably outmatched by the joy his unlikely retribution will give the literal millions of people he’s wronged.

Remember, by similar logic it is still very unethical to kill 98% of people, so think of all the choices Thompson had to make to put himself in the top 0.1% of the 2% of people who’s murders can be justified. In a better society, a society that prevents and punishes exploitation, it would be hard to even conceive of a murder that could ever be so righteous.

In fact, in a society that uses classism and bigotry to block people from achieving their fullest potential through non-violent means, we must celebrate those who risk their lives and legal rights to push humanity forward, bringing to justice the true criminals of decency.

TLDR: Brian had it coming.

[mx-paint]

.

[whatevergreen]

Two migrant teens, Alan Magalles Bello and Yeremi Colino were confronted by 3 people in Lower Manhattan and stabbed. Colino has died.

As for CNN, they and other news outlets also had the full Luigi Mangione manifesto (more of a note) for days but wouldn't release it, and instead made intentionally false statements about the contents.

This is what he actually wrote and doesn't come across as "unhinged" (despite the cringe opening):

As for Luigi Mangione:

It's no good judging him on his background or his social media alone. His twitter wasn't updated for months, and such as Goodreads shows a somewhat different side, more relevant to recent events - though there are hints of it on twitter. And something has clearly changed radically recently. Conservatives or alt-right people (or whatever label some have been trying to fix on him) do not normally refer to corporate executives as "parasites" who "simply had it coming" and then go out and kill one of them.

It seems like he has been trying to find his way... and it's led him to target a key figure among the many responsible for the suffering, and too often deaths, of millions of people over many decades through insurance and other healthcare profiteering. He didn't take out his personal problems and his ideologicial issues on random strangers or random employees like many have in the past. He took out one of those most responsible. Indeed it's just been revealed that he considered using a bomb to kill Brian Thompson but decided against it because he did not want to harm anyone else.

As for his being born into a wealthy Republican family, so what?

Countless socialists, communists, anarchists and others more difficult to label - famous, infamous or little known - have come from a privileged background. For a start Karl Marx was the son of a wealthy lawyer and married a member of the aristocracy. He lived in poverty for most of his life however. Engels was the son of a wealthy industrialist. Mao's father was a wealthy farmer and landowner. I'm not comparing Luigi with them too deeply of course but this needs to be considered.

Don't throw him or anybody like him under the bus when they do a neccessary thing for the right reasons, and are possibly rising above some of their older ideas, just because of those said ideas or beliefs. We don't know what his current state of mind is on any issue beyond the healthcare one.

It has been suggested that there may be some connection with possibly using psilocybin (magic mushrooms). Some people have been making that point to discredit his actions when actually such may have made him more empathetic and hence more enraged by the suffering of others. And his interest in such drugs was because of his chronic pain problems.

As a side note, apparently 2/3rds of Penn students support his actions. It's not really that surprising considering that the so-called health care system can be a nightmare for anyone but the very richest.

[val-of-the-north]

The "Hornsent deserved it" sentiments make me lose my goddamn mind

Short answer: No they didn't.

Long answer: Oh my gooooooooooood can we NOT do this shit, please???

There are two underlying sentiments to this line of thinking.

The Hornsent hurt Marika's people, thus Marika did nothing wrong, therefore they deserved to die badly

The Hornsent hurt Marika's people + Midra and some others, Marika is still evil, but the Hornsent deserved to be destroyed

Both may even come to the extreme of "Messmer wasn't cruel enough" or some other nonsense in the same vein.

-

Number 1

To tackle number one, we need to remember a little thing called Elden Ring's base game. The Hornsent's jar ritual is undoubtedly abhorrent, that much is true. But I urge you to remember the things that happened during Marika's reign. She:

Murdered all of the Fire Giants but one, subjecting him to a fate similar to hers but worse, forced into labor confined on the mountain among the remains of his people and culture. She mocked him, to boot. All of this because they might have burnt the Erdtree.

Enslaved the Misbegotten from birth "or worse" because their species just so happened to have made contact with the Crucible.

Rewarded her own loyal Crucible Knights with scorn because of it too, as they didn't fit her current society that they fought to establish.

Made sure the Albinaurics were seen as lesser just because they were graceless, which influenced the way they were treated. She even had her Inquisition, run by Rykard, torture them in needlessly cruel manners, as they appear to be their main victims.

Just in general, she allowed Rykard to run a sadistic Inquisition to torture heretics to the Golden Order in the first place, and she saw nothing wrong with it or their practices.

She entombed the entire Great Caravan over a false rumor, which is the sole reason why the Flame of Frenzy was even a problem during her reign. This has also scarred the remainder of their people greatly.

Made the lives of all Omen a living hell either by cutting their horns just as they were born which often kills them, hunting them down in as cruel a way as possible by using their trauma and body parts against them, or throwing them in a sewer to fester with evil spirits hidden from view. She also used to shackle them, including her two children, just to make extra sure they wouldn't crawl out.

Shunned anyone who saw a vision of the Erdtree burning, regardless of who it was, and chased them away from their homes.

Literally allowed the belief that shorter people are somehow lesser, for apparently no reason at all (her most random discrimination decision tbh). This forces them to band together and take up honorless jobs just to get by, and in turn, people start to spread rumors of their inhuman practices, which are likely all untrue.

Had people literally work as slaves for the nobility just by virtue of "being born into obscurity", whatever that means. As well as other accounts of slavery like the Fallen Hawks (likely tied to the defeated soldiers of ancient Stormveil).

Likely endorsed viewing anyone without Grace as inferior beings, which includes the Tarnished that only exist because she divested them of it. She has done nothing to ease their discrimination (despite potentially seeing them as a future asset of sorts), as even the members of the Crusade are more than ready to kill us, like Fire Knight Queelign.

All of this was done in service to HER religion and order. Killing all the Fire Giants and burying the Nomadic Merchants alive? Oh, they could have ruined her age with those pesky flames of theirs.

Systematically oppressing Omen, Misbegotten, Albinaurics and the likes? Oh, they are impure creatures, unlike her people, blessed with the Grace of Gold, elevated from the rest. (Which is the exact same line of thinking as the Hornsent and their horns for crying out loud).

"Oh but the Hornsent stuffed her people into jars" yeah, and I am not arguing the contrary! It was a cruel, deranged practice, born of simple superstition that their victims would be reborn as "good people". But Marika's answer if you don't fit her vision of the world is to either get rid of you and your people through extermination, by literally hounding you from your rightful home, or by enslaving you.

Both sides are genuinely awful... but there's only one side that people are justifying, and it sure as hell isn't the Hornsent.

Marika's backstory is meant to make her less a god, which is all we have ever known her to be before the DLC, and more a human, which is what she once was. It gives her complexity as a character, it's meant to be the catalyst from which we learn why she took the path that she took. It is absolutely not meant to make us go "holy shit guys, Marika was the good guy all along???", because what she brought upon this world through her burning desire for vengeance has ruined it irreparably, and ruined the lives of most of the creatures who inhabit it.

This includes her ruthless, honorless, pointless Crusade against the Hornsent. Sure, it was her own son that started it, but it was for her sake. It was her who allowed him to wage it, he had her full support... until the thing turned to such a slaughter-fest that even she could not associate with it anymore due to how appalling it all was. And what better way to do that than to seal her own son away to wage war endlessly? And not just because his actions made her look bad, but also for the same crippling fear and prejudice that saw her kill all Fire Giants but one and scar the Great Caravan.

Gratuitous violence across the board, and for what?

(I want to make it absolutely clear that I don't mean you can't like Marika now. In fact, I'd say the DLC made her much more of an interesting character to me as well. I just cannot fathom seeing the entirety of Elden Ring and coming out thinking "wow Marika was the good guy" because she isn't. Heck, coming out thinking that she'd be disgusted with what her grandson Godrick is doing with grafting as if she isn't the queen of having zero empathy for those who are graceless or aren't her family, which the Tarnished he grafts are neither. She'd probably be very proud if anything. Marika is a monster. She became one the moment she obtained godhood, because no milestone would quell her. She did all the wrongs, so take this whole section as a refresher in case you had forgotten)

-

Number 2

Now, to tackle number 2... this one seemingly has more nuance, but falls for the tried and true pitfall of "the many must pay for the crimes of the few" which is exactly where it rots and collapses onto itself.

Apparently, because of the perpetrators of the Jar Rituals, ALL Hornsent, INDISCRIMINATELY, deserve to be destroyed. They all, each and every single one, deserve the Crusade and the absolute pointless ruin that it brought them. From the children, to the ones who were friends with people with no horns, to the ones who found their own practices grotesque, to the ones that weren't even tied to the Tower's religion and were just simply living their lives.

They ALL, EQUALLY deserve to be burned, to have their cities destroyed, to have their lives ruined. All of them. Ok.

Number 2 works with the assumption that the Hornsent are some sort of hive mind. Some sort of all-encompassing religious order who believes in their superiority. But that's just the Tower's religion. Hornsent are a people. And people are individuals, with their own opinions, their own lives. In fact, from the perspective of the average Hornsent citizen, they were attacked out of nowhere as they were living in peace, which likely means they weren't even at war with Marika before this event.

People also have the assumption that all of the Hornsent were benefiting from their society, which is blatantly false. In fact, outside the treatment of the Shamans, the people that we know the Hornsent have hurt the most are their fellow Hornsent. We know of quite a few of them suffering at the hands of their kin BECAUSE of their religious and cultural practices.

Being Hornsent isn't a "free from mistreatment" card. If anything, the large Gaols where they were imprisoned were built specifically to house them. The main prisoners we find in large numbers are commoners, the same types as the ones scavenging the ruins of their ravaged towns. They are often seen eating maggots off the floor and cowering in fear. All of them were Hornsent too, locked away for who knows what crime. Could have been big and important, small and insignificant, or even just a failure to do something properly (there's precedent), point is, it's clear the Hornsent weren't having a good time in there.

The jar rituals were used mainly as punishment for the imprisoned Hornsent themselves, as a way to have them become "good people". This was just as horrifying for the Hornsent prisoners as it was for the Shamans I assume. Look how terrified this Hornsent seemed at the prospect of sharing that fate. This is the reason why they chopped up Shamans in the first place, as ritual ingredients for a punishment meant primarily for their kin.

And there were more Hornsent who suffered because of the leading ideology. Curseblades were once shunned because they failed to become tutelary deities, and so they were thrown in the Jar Gaols. They were only let out so they could use their expertise and flowing movements to defend their homeland when Messmer invaded, otherwise they'd be rotting with the Innard Shamans and the other Hornsent prisoners the way Labirith is.

It's also worth pointing out that Midra's Mense was filled with Hornsent attendants who sided with their sagely master regardless of his lack of horns and what the Inquisition believed of him. If we were to operate with reasoning number 2, they too would deserve to be murdered in the Crusade because they just so happened to be Hornsent. Because ALL Hornsent deserve extermination for what happened to the Shamans.

And we also know that the Hornsent can find what happens in Bonny Village revolting. In fact, we know that from someone who was born and raised there.

This sounds nothing like someone who thought any of that was ok. So who is to say other Hornsent weren't like this too, especially those who DIDN'T live in Bonny Village? Those who risked being stuffed into those same jars themselves? We make waaaay too many assumptions about an entire race, and that in itself is foolish enough.

If there's someone to blame, it's the Tower's Inquisition. They are the religious order that governs the Hornsent. They have all the power in their society... and yet, would you look at that? Enir-Ilim, their sanctum, the one place where those calling the shots reside, is completely untouched. And what about Bonny, the most structurally fine Hornsent settlement, when you'd expect it to be a black stain of char by now. But nope, no sign of Messmer activity and the Greater Potentates are just running around naked, doing their thing as usual.

The Crusade isn't even a good tool of vengeance, the only ones suffering are the civilians who were likely the ones with a higher risk of ritual jar punishment anyway. If this isn't proof enough that the Crusade is a completely petty, useless revenge war that accomplishes nothing I don't know what else to say. I'll just leave with what the people taking part in it were taking pride in doing.

These are people who, without a shadow of a doubt, would have chopped up most of the oppressed groups described earlier and stuffed them into jars if Marika had told them to do so. (Heck, something like this was being done to the Albinaurics already, as we have seen previously...)

They have zero moral superiority, their deranged zealotry is the only reason they act in the first place. Not to mention that they have no connection to Marika's struggles or past, nor were they informed of them I bet. It's likely only Messmer truly knows the reason for the Crusade, and that's only because he is her child and shoulders all the blame onto himself.

"Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death" is LITERALLY their motto. Do you really think they stopped at the Hornsent? They were just their main target, but judging by the way all of Messmer's soldiers, including Queelign and the other Fire Knights, and even HE HIMSELF, attack us on sight for the simple fact we are Tarnished and lack Grace in our eyes, I have no doubt in my mind these people were just rounding up and killing anyone who didn't conform with the Golden Order.

THESE are the people who should be allowed to play judge, jury and executioner with the entire Hornsent race. And people will genuinely, with a straight face, tell you "That's right".

-

To conclude... I think I actually hate reasoning 2 more than reasoning 1 lol, despite not liking either at all. At least 1 is understandable. Marika is a very interesting character, one that we have known for a few years now. We have an attachment to her, heck, sentiments of her being some sort of misunderstood/rebellious figure were already there before the DLC. In that regard, I understand the emotional response, even though I still think it's a wrong mindset to have. I have at least some hope that it is purely in the realm of fiction because it's a beloved character, nothing more...

Reasoning 2, on the other hand, attempts to be nuanced, or at least pretends to be. In reality, all it peddles is the "an eye for an eye" mentality which is much too common irl as well. Not only that, but it deals in monoliths. All people belonging to a group or race are equally responsible for stuff they didn't even commit, stuff that could have even harmed them, because their leaders decided to commit crimes against another set of people. And don't get me wrong, there will be even commoners from that group or race that will agree with and celebrate that bad deed, but just as many will not, but will be either scared, powerless, already being punished for speaking up through physical violence or elaborate shunning, or currently protesting and doing something to hopefully ignite a change.

But that reasoning only exists to perpetuate cycles; of war, violence, and hate for the most part. And sadly, this mindset is very prevalent, a lot of people fail to see the issue with wanton violence as long as it's to stroke that lust for vengeance. And vengeance is a theme that Elden Ring criticizes multiple times in a row, even beyond the obvious horror of the Crusade.

[charmedreincarnation]

I shifted and manifested with your Morphics challenge !!!!!

I am sharing this on an alternate account because I don’t feel comfortable posting on my main account. I want to continue using my main account so, I hope that’s okay.

I’ve been in the LOA community for a while and have consumed every piece of information. You know how it is.. I had a Reddit and TikTok shifting account and was literally helping people shift with my advice. But aside from maybe slightly hearing or seeing my DR, I had never succeeded, and even that was years ago.

I’ve gotten lazier yet more somehow ambitious since 2020 when I first started this journey, which is insane because you know how when you first find out about shifting, you have a lot of symptoms and almost do it, but then months and years pass, and you’re more desperate yet doing the same useless things. It was like that. I was enlightened; I could spew every method to you backwards, studied many years from teachers like Neville Goddard, Joseph Murphy, Florence Scovel Shinn, Wayne Dyer, Earl Nightingale, Louise Hay, Esther Hicks (Abraham-Hicks), Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wallace D. Wattles, Rhonda Byrne—okay, everyone and their teachers. I also spent so much money on paid subliminals, meditations, teacher personal subscriptions, witch spells, lucid dreaming supplements, etc., but there are some things money can’t buy, so really, don’t waste your money lol.

I’m not here to be wise and do nothing with that wisdom, so I realized maybe instead of trying to do everything so mighty and intricate and be pretentious in my intelligence, let me try something so simple I would be shocked if it worked. Then I came across a post that was like, "Everyone is going to shift in September," and I almost cried because I have been trying for almost 5 years. I’ve given everything, and I was starting to think LOA is a cult because, let’s be real, it checks off all the things of a cult:

1. Charismatic Leaders: Many LOA teachings are popularized by charismatic figures who attract devoted followings, similar to leaders in cults.

2. Promised Benefits: LOA often promises significant personal benefits, like wealth and happiness, which can be enticing and lead to strong adherence.

3. Community and Belonging: Followers of LOA often form tight-knit communities, sharing experiences and supporting each other, which can resemble the communal aspect of cults.

4. Us vs. Them Mentality: Some LOA teachings might create a divide between "believers" and "non-believers," fostering an exclusive mindset.

5. Simplistic Solutions: The idea that simply thinking positively can solve complex life issues might be seen as an oversimplification, similar to some cult ideologies.

It’s almost religious, but most people are religious, and you know what? Without faith in something, people might have probably just (TW) killed themselves. Everyone has some kind of cult behavior—religious, politics, loyalty to family who don’t love or respect them. At this point, if it was a cult, I guess I was okay with that. Hopefully, the belief would at least give some sort of false comfort. Because having awareness and enlightenment and still suffering is even worse. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Then I came across your challenge, and tbh I had tried every subliminal, meditation, binaural beat, etc., so at first, I thought, how will this be any different? But then I saw the LOA Bella success story, and I just felt this was my calling because I had never related to a success story so much. I wanted to cry because it felt like a sign.

This isn’t a very exciting or good story, but all I did was:

Morning
https://youtu.be/gOpZAPo8VvU?si=FA2oxWQkR6l2KU_M

During the day (together)
https://youtu.be/67T-wX2iqfM?si=-f-TvsYyQ_D-od1L
https://youtu.be/xwaSBZFucGg?si=8-XLLROuoIypBSu0

Overnight
https://youtu.be/uBHMmHbQwa0?si=h01rp0Ngdl7Xhv9C

Basically I had a lucid dream and woke up in my waiting room because I had used lucid dreams to get into the void state, but they were also fake voids, and it was annoying to think, "Wow, I’m going to wake up with my dream life," and then fail. So I was taking no chances. I had a dream I was at work, and this lazy girl was being lazy as usual but an actual nuisance. We were outside, and I was like, "Wait, I don’t work outside," and then I got too excited, so I started jumping around and did a backflip because I heard that helps stabilize the dream. Then I commanded my annoying coworker to take me to a portal, and she did. I envisioned my waiting room and set the intention that when I close my eyes and enter the portal, I would wake up in my WR. I walked through, and then I fell. I was scared to open my eyes, so I affirmed just in case as I fell, and I heard the beach waves, and I knew it was there.

I only did this for manifesting purposes because then I intended to shift back to the same reality but where I had my dream life and master shifting abilities and void ability.

Honestly, I was so depressed at that point I didn’t particularly have any dreams or aspirations, so I didn’t know what would make me happy, as sad as it sounds. But I just slid into my WR bed and set the intention because I knew anything is possible in my WR and fell asleep. When I woke up, I woke up in a brand new house with a brand new family in a beautiful room.

Now, like I said, I didn’t have any intentions, so for the last few days, I’ve been having so many surprises and things happening that I now realize, of course, I would want this. I am just very happy, and I can’t believe it was so easy after almost 4 years.

I don’t have any stupid enlightenment advice that I would have thought I would have when I finally succeeded. As stupid and cult-like as it sounds, don’t give up—something will click.

That's amazing! I'm so happy for you and your success :)) and I am even more happy that you’ve found happiness when you don’t even know what you wantedand that it worked out.

I had a very similar experience and what I took from this is to be open to experimenting with different methods because what might not work today could be the key tomorrow and it can seem random.

I wish you the best with your dream life and I hope you continue to find happiness in different ways

[xueyuverse]

It's ironic to me that part of the fandom insists so much that Hua Cheng's personality revolves around Xie Lian when in fact MXTX created Hua Cheng first and then had to make Xie Lian his ideal type. Like, the truth is that Xie Lian was molded for Hua Cheng. I find this contradiction very funny, I'm sorry.

But they were indeed created for each other.

Hua Cheng has a strong personality, he is firm in his ideals and beliefs, assertive in his opinions, cold in his justice and someone who does not bend the rules just to fit in, he creates a third way instead of adapting to a world that hates him and was cruel to him.

His ideal type would have to be someone as confident as him, who not only does not bend the rules, but also does not get corrupted by difficulties, someone benevolent enough to see people like him with kindness, because only someone faithful in his beliefs would be able to be so different from everything that the world says is right — because the right thing is for you to annihilate people like Hua Cheng, whether they are innocent or not, just because of a supposed curse that they did not ask for.

This meta is based on this excerpt from the afterword that MXTX put in TGCF ↓

When it comes to character designs, the Shou’s were decided on first for the first two novels, but I was torn over the Gong’s for a long time, and needed a run-in period. Hua Cheng, however, was an exception. Inspiration struck and there he was; inspiration struck again, and I blinded one of his eyes.

[...]

It was actually the Shou, Xie Lian, who tortured me for up to half a year’s time. When the novel started serializing, I was still torn over him for a long time.

[...]

But the most important thing is, by my instincts, someone like Hua Cheng will most definitely love someone like this. So, after a good half a year’s worth of qualms, in the end I still typesetted him: It’s you!

Speaking more about this postscript, I found it interesting how for MXTX, Xie Lian was the most difficult character she has ever played. People tend to think that Xie Lian only has two personality traits: (false, for many) kindness and idiocy. The idiocy may even be right lol, but when you stop to think about it, Xie Lian is a really difficult character to create and, mainly, to develop.

For all the layers he has, he could easily be a snobbish prince, a vengeful and bitter ex-prince, a fallen prince who rises again to reconquer his kingdom and reclaim his throne or a spotless saint who is always intelligent and wise and is above things like sadness, anger, lust, etc.

We know that Xie Lian is none of these things, he was not made for these plots. But if he is none of these things, then what could he be? Honestly, I find it very difficult for anyone to come to the conclusion that your protagonist is a "loser" who failed and has no ambition to rebuild his kingdom and become the new king. It's bold to make your protagonist a poor and extremely unlucky nomad, especially with the princely background that you gave him, we can see from the amount of stories out there about protagonists who lost their kingdoms and then have a path of reconquest that it's difficult not to be tempted to follow that path.

Of course, Xie Lian is a god, something greater than a prince or king, but he is a poor god, known as "the joke of the three kingdoms", he has no wealth and for 800 years he only had 1 believer that he didn't even know existed and he is also known as the "god of plague" and "immortal scrap collector", unconventional titles in the literary world lol

He must experience youthful ignorance, overestimation of his own abilities, have been laughable, been foolish, made mistakes, despaired, felt hatred, gone crazy. But he can’t run, and he can’t hide; everything is what it is. All this was killing me. Not just within the text, but outside the text too. My mediation was useless, and I’ve no energy anymore either, so in order not to be affected, I stopped looking at comments altogether. Since I always habitually vaccinate myself before a serialization begins, speculating on all the worst possible scenarios and preparing myself mentally, by the time serialization started I had already expected how all the negative comments would go down. But after much hesitation, I still thought, why not try all different kinds of characters? I haven’t tried writing a main character like this before.

— MXTX

[dragon-ascent]

Hi hi hi!!! I absolutely adore your Zhongli fics your characterization of him makes me swoon he’s such a cutie

Out of curiosity, what’s your opinion on the Zhongli/Morax x reader trope of reader initially being a sacrifice to the dragon god only for Zhongli to be like “What no I don’t take sacrifices???” And just taking reader in as a sort of roommate or something like that. It’s a trope I find really interesting and funny and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on it :)

Hi hi and thank you! Zhongli's the cutest patootie :) <3 And I freaking LOVE that trope!!! Like, easily top 3 trope for Zhongli if you ask me. (I could make a whole tierlist of tropes for him, but that's a post for another day haha.)

Ik you just asked for thoughts but have a little write-up, as a treat. :)

xxx

Rex Lapis is a tad offended that he'd be perceived as the type of god to take human sacrifices, since he does everything in his power to ensure mortals feel comfortable and safe around him. But he's assimilated many groups of people into his land, so it's only natural some may still retain the beliefs and customs they did under the deities preceding him, as grim as that may be.

When you're left in front of his abode as a sacrifice, he sees how urgently he needs to rectify those customs.

You're a jittery thing, all nerves and shudders and, to his dismay, rather scantily-clad especially given the season. He does his best to push the implications of your clothing to the back of his mind as he brings you into his home and warms you up by the fire with some nice warm blankets too.

He assures you he will not lay a finger on you with malicious intent, but you're staring at him like a deer in headlights - like he'll throw you into the fire at any moment if you so much as breathe wrong. Every movement of his makes you stiffen, and even the tea he brews for you is met with trepidation in every sip.

He can't send you back to your people as they'll believe you're a faulty sacrifice and kill you off themselves - so Rex Lapis takes you in his care instead.

He feeds you, clothes you, and even lets you rest in his bed while he takes the floor beside you. You're mostly quiet at first, but as the days pass and there's no sign of him hurting, devouring, or killing you, a seed of trust in his words blossoms. You believe the God of Contracts when he gives you his word he will keep you safe and cared for.

Given the way he treats you, there's no reason to feel otherwise - you've become something of a close companion to him, someone to share the tender joys and sorrows of life with. He used to go on strolls by his lonesome, but now he finds that having someone to walk with is much more enriching, giving his evenings an added tinge of fulfilment.

People do stare and whisper when they see you by the god's side, but if this is how Rex Lapis chooses to make use of their 'sacrifice,' who are they to argue?

Some watch, agog, as the golden deity takes you to the market and practically splurges on you. You shyly point to a sweet treat that looks appetizing, and he boxes a dozen of them without a moment's hesitation. A pretty accessory catches your eye for a second longer than the others, and when you turn to move on to the next stall, Rex Lapis is having said accessory taken off display and handed to you.

"These are the calligraphy brushes I spoke of yesterday," he tells you casually as he runs a finger along the sleek wooden writing instruments. "Would you like to give the activity a try?" It only takes one meek nod from you for him to get you a whole set of the brushes, promising to teach you when you both get home.

It's a shocking sight to everyone who'd betrayed you, everyone who'd so easily given you up for some false belief they held on to so stubbornly: here you are, being treated like you're actually worth something to the god, what with the way he smiles and laughs softly at something you say, the way he gently touches your elbow to veer you away from the evening rush, the way his footsteps fall in rhythm with yours.

As you pass certain familiar faces, your head snaps down and you fall silent, and Rex Lapis immediately knows they're the ones responsible for your plight. He throws them a sharp, stone-cold glare over your downcast head, and they recoil in fright, quickly turning the other way to pretend they can't feel like a whole landslide of shame now hurtles along their spines.

Needless to say, he is greeted by no more human sacrifices at his door. The one he does have, he ensures a long, happy and healthy life for.

[etz-ashashiyot]

You know how sometimes arguing a point is losing?

Like if you engage the argument at all you are inherently putting up for debate things that should never be up for debate and the argument itself is degrading?

You see this with interpersonal gaslighting:

A gaslighter doesn’t simply need to be right. They also need for you to believe that they are right. In stage one, you know that they’re being ridiculous, but you argue anyways. You argue for hours, without resolution. You argue over things that shouldn’t be up for debate  – your feelings, your opinions, your experience of the world. You argue because you need to be right, you need to be understood, or you need to get their approval. In stage one, you still believe yourself, but you also unwittingly put that belief up for debate. In stage two, you consider your gaslighter’s point of view first and try desperately to get them to see your point of view as well. You continue to engage because you’re afraid of what their perspective of you says about you. Winning the argument now has one objective :  proving that you’re still good, kind, and worthwhile. In stage three, when you’re hurt, you first ask, “What’s wrong with me?” You consider their point of view as normal. You start to lose your ability to make your own judgements. You become consumed with understanding them and seeing their perspective. You live with and obsess over every criticism, trying to solve it.

[Source]

But you also see this on a broader societal level, with people asking unfathomably awful questions about minority groups, such as:

[Source]

It should go without saying, but no group of people should be forced to explain that yes, they really are real people, dickheads. The question doesn't deserve an answer; it deserves at best a disgusted eyeroll + "Are you a Nazi?" and at worst a punch to the face.

There is also the related phenomenon of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" type questions. The question is framed as a yes or no question, but the real answer for the innocent is: "I've never beaten my wife and never would." But even that answer still dignifies the question with a real response and puts the idea in the mind of the listener that hey maybe that's a real possibility and this guy is lying because of course he wouldn't just admit that. Now I don't know what to believe, but I'm skeptical.

Even if he answers, doubt has been cast on his character and many people (maybe even most people) neither have the attention span to listen to his full counter argument and supporting evidence nor are invested enough in strangers' lives to take the time to dig for facts on their own. Critically, it comes from a good impulse that shouldn't be repressed or taken too far in the opposite direction; namely, that we want to believe survivors and make it socially acceptable to speak out about abuse.

This leaves us with the uncomfortable reality that balancing believing survivors and whistle-blowers against not automatically believing allegations that very well may be false and/or in bad faith is a very tricky balancing act indeed. Because of this, people tend to struggle with taking survivors seriously and with presuming innocence until guilt has actually been proven, both. And as for the latter, this is at least partially due to the same psychological factors underlying the Don't Think of an Elephant problem.

Why am I discussing this?

See the thing is that these types of discourse have all been used, heavily, against the Jewish community, especially since Oct 7th, but really going back hundreds of years.

If you want to be our ally, you need to be on guard for how people use this rhetoric to accuse Jews of absolutely batshit cookoo bananas allegations (like being lizard people or having horns, or secretly running the world, or killing Christian babies to use their blood in our matzah, etc. etc.) and get away with it. Now obviously if so many people weren't already racist towards Jews as a people and had a vested interest in maintaining their supercessionist cultural worldview from Christianity and Islam, it would be a lot harder for this to work. Alas, the past 2000 years has created a bit of a snowballing effect.

This culminates in the effect described so well by Sartre:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Right now, Jews are facing extreme levels of these types of rhetorical abuse, and are receiving very little help in the way of pushback.

We have to stop trying to explain ourselves and start just naming these tactics instead.

[oraclesblog]

Sakura Blossoms

One of the most significant character moments for Sakura Haruno in the original series of Naruto remains one of the most misunderstood. This can, no doubt, be attributed to the fact that a large portion of shonen fans are incapable of understanding any form of writing that isn’t surface-level and doesn’t have to be spoon-fed to them. Many view this scene as an example of illogical decision-making by Sakura because she had an “opening” to stab her opponent, as shown here:

However, Masashi Kishimoto goes out of his way to provide two specific reasons as to why this approach wouldn’t work: a practical reason and a symbolic one.

Practically speaking, it is explicitly stated that had Sakura attempted to stab the Hidden Sound shinobi, it wouldn’t have worked.

It was also established very early on that there was a massive power imbalance between the two and that, no matter what Sakura did, the Hidden Sound shinobi would always have a counterattack because they were more skilled and had more experience. Hence, instead of using the Kunai to stab her opponent, as this particular Hidden Sound shinobi expected, Sakura decided to cut her hair—not only to catch her opponent off guard but because Sakura herself knew that stabbing her wouldn’t work; she’d simply be overpowered.

Symbolically speaking, the reason Kishimoto had Sakura cut her hair (the most important reason and the entire purpose of the scene in the first place) was to signify the beginning of her character arc. To understand this, we need to look at Sakura’s initial character traits and the perceptions she carried at the start of the series.

Initially, Sakura is introduced as a superficial, appearance-obsessed, boy-crazy girl who has a no real understanding of what it means to be a shinobi.

She even outright admits to already considering herself a full-fledged ninja despite having done nothing to earn that title.

This false self-perception is what leads Sakura astray compared to her teammates. She becomes disinterested in the idea of training to become stronger and doesn’t work for the skill she so desperately needs at this point in the story. In her mind, there’s no point in training if she’s already graduated the academy and become a “full-fledged” shinobi. Her own arrogance and naïveté on the subject even lead her to believe that she’s fully superior to her teammates on Team Seven.

However, as the story progresses, we see Sakura’s inexperience in battle and taijutsu, combined with her misguided priorities (particularly her obsession with Sasuke) and her arrogance regarding her own self-perceptions, make her overly reliant on her teammates. This not only makes Sakura a burden to her team but shows the consequences of her actions, behaviours, and beliefs.

The forest of death arc is so crucial for Sakura‘s character, as it pushes each member of Team Seven into moments of growth. For Sakura, it where she learns the true meaning of being a shinobi and the trials and tribulations that come along with it. Sakura is put in a situation where she’s forced to fight on her own for the first time in her life to protect her two teammates. As she does, her enemy grabs her by the hair, trapping her. With no escape, Sakura takes her Kunai and cuts her hair.

In this moment, Sakura is physically cutting off an aspect of her identity that aided in the superficial virtues of her character, both physically and emotionally. She is unbinding herself to the girl she used to be, freeing herself of her negative qualities and traits, and most importantly, her false self-perception regarding the identity of a shinobi. The act of haircutting within literature can carry various meanings, but the most common symbolism behind it is to mark a character’s transition into a new stage of life. In Ancient Greece, it was tradition to cut one’s hair as a sign of mourning, symbolizing a positive or negative change for the character. In Sakura’s case, she is “killing” her past self and mourning this loss through the act of cutting her hair, while also stepping in to a new sense of self with a clearer understanding of what it means to be a ninja and the harsh realities that follow it. That’s why this line:

Is so important because it serves as a representation, both figuratively and literally, that it’s Sakura’s turn to step into the role of a true shinobi—to be someone her teammates can count on and, most importantly, to say goodbye to the girl she once was.

What’s more is that we actually see how this character development impacts Sakura’s throughout the series. The Forest of Death scene is more than just words; it marks a transition she carries forward, not only becoming someone her comrades can rely on but also becoming someone who understands the deeper nature of things and people rather than viewing them through a superficial lens. This growth is especially evident in her desire to become stronger, seeking out training from a Sanin, and in the way she begins to see Sasuke after the Forest of Death. Instead of viewing him merely as an attractive classmate she has a crush on, she starts to see him for who he truly is—a traumatized boy falling prey to his own pain and going down a dark path. This new perception makes her want to help him, both physically and emotionally, rather than simply wanting to make him hers, as she did initially.

Ultimately, this scene is what gave Sakura the development to become the character she was at the end of the series—a strong kunoich and a true, full-fledged shinobi, as well as someone who can genuinely understand the pain and trauma of others.

[astraystayyh]

We recently learned in our media class about the four indicators that reveal a country's use of propaganda to justify its actions/build a national and international consensus over its stance. This is exactly what Israel is doing now. Please read this to learn more about the Israeli propaganda (with sources) :

i. Establishing a distinct "us" versus "them"/"the others" divide: The Israeli media has been actively engaged in crafting a narrative that portrays Palestinians as sub-humans and animals, that deserve to be killed, butchered, and deprived of essential resources such as water, electricity and fuel. This dehumanizing narrative serves to rationalize the grave atrocities committed against Palestinians, reducing them to mere statistics, rather than acknowledging them as fellow human beings who have the right to be protected as well.

A recent example of this dehumanization (that encompasses children as well) is Israel's Prime Minister's words in a now-deleted tweet, on Oct 16, stating: "This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle."

This is also a common practice in Western media as a whole. In the context of conflict, the choice of words plays a significant role: Israelis are often described as "killed," and Palestinians are referred to as having "died" (example of BBC). The distinction can be seen as a way to omit Israeli responsibility, portraying the deaths of nearly 10,000 Palestinians as a result of circumstances beyond its control, rather than the outcome of deliberate and targeted actions.

ii. Use of emotion instead of logic: a stark example would be the whole international outrage that was first sparked due to the false claim that Hamas had beheaded 40 babies. This fake news was confidently shared by U.S. President Joe Biden, who later admitted that he had never actually seen any pictures of such events, neither did anyone in the IDF because there was never any instance of 40 beheaded babies (source) (also trust me if Israel did have any pictures of killed children they would not hesitate to share it)

CNN journalist who first shared this fake news has later apologized for being "misled." (which isn't the case that was a conscious choice of the news agency but that's another conversation)

Israel knew what it was doing by sharing this particular false information, they knew that the simple imagery of such a horrifying notion, even without concrete proof, would be a strategic tool to garner international support through emotional manipulation.

They are still trying to use emotion when it comes to children particularly to sway the public opinion : Israeli government spokesman has shared images of "fallen teeth of burnt children." This post has been debunked by dentists, pointing out many contradictions in the pics that conclude that these are props and not the teeth of actual children found in rubbles. (source)

(Meanwhile, there are factual documented videos and pictures of dead Palestinian kids and babies, decapitated, injured beyond belief, tangible proof of the war crimes Israel commits and yet the public outrage isn't the same, because Israel has already established that Palestinians are lesser people)

iii. Attempting to Influence Both Elites and Ordinary Citizens: In addition to their efforts to secure international support from world leaders, Israel has employed a multifaceted approach by spreading advertisements that regular civilians view. These ads serve to rationalize their actions, and they are strategically placed ahead of unrelated programming, including children's shows or games.

This tactic aims to integrate their ideology into various aspects of our lives, in order to promote their agenda and inundate us with recurrent pro-Israel messages. This strategy capitalizes on the psychological principle that the mind tends to retain information it encounters most frequently. (a more detailed video explanation)

iv. media manipulation tactics : For example, the night before Israel bombed the Baptist hospital in Gaza killing more than 1000 people, BBC published an article with the headline "Does Hamas build tunnels under schools and hospitals?" giving way to a "justification" for the heinous, war crime act that is bombing a hospital, under the guise of targeting Hamas hidden bases.

The use of the Israel-Gaza war as a headline for the news leads us to believe that this is a war with two equal (or slightly disproportionate) parties who are both able to defend themselves. Whereas this is a genocide led by Israel (a powerful military with international backing by the world's most powerful nations- U.S, U.K, France, Germany.. to cite a few) and CIVILIANS. Because those are the people that Israel is targeting, by bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, refugee camps.

It is a genocide, an ethnical cleansing, an attempt to eradicate entire families, then to relocate the survivors out of Gaza, making it impossible for them to reclaim their land, and resulting in a total takeover of Palestine by Israel.

Another manipulation example (because there are so many) is the first and most prominent question that many Western journalists ask their guests: "Do you condemn the attacks of Hamas on Oct 7?"

This question completely disregards the root of this entire conflict, which is the 75-year ongoing colonization of Palestine. By omitting all the previous crimes against Palestinians that led to the attack (the killings, the wrongful imprisonments, the torture, the stealing of land…) these 'journalists' actively manipulate the public opinion, portraying the Hamas attack as unprovoked, when you cannot possibly expect a colonization to have 0 resistance.

And an honorable mention to the zionists who are trying to morph the anti-Israel stance into an anti-Jew one. This isn't about religion, I've said this once and I will say it again, Jews around the world are condemning the actions of their government. Just recently, Jews were arrested in NYC for standing against Israel. (source)

This is a humanitarian cause. We're humans, this is the one denominator factor that unites all. We read about previous genocides in history. We wondered how people could support the killings of innocent people, men and women, and children and babies. It is happening right now again, and media propaganda plays a significant role in shaping public perceptions.

I couldn't include everything here but please, I urge you to use your critical thinking. Don't believe everything the media tells you, and this is coming from a graduated journalist. We learn about propaganda and how to counter it, which also means we learn about how to manufacture it.

So don't be gullible, boycott the companies who support Israel (mainly HP, Siemens, AXA, Puma, Israeli fruits and vegetables, Sodastream, Ahava, Sabra. check BDS for more information) and urge your governments to support the ceasefire. We have a voice and we should use it, even if we're uncomfortable, even if we're scared. Do it. By staying silent you become complicit in genocide.

[mithliya]

on refugees in europe

this post feels necessary because of how pervasive far-right populist rhetoric is, including in supposed “radical feminist” spaces, where such rhetoric is becoming more and more normalised in the name of “protecting european women”. these posts include a lot of misinformation about the reality of refugees. i will preface this by saying i am a woman of colour, an immigrant, and live in germany. for work, i help traumatised refugees receive psychological support. this means in more ways than one, i am quite familiar with refugees in germany. 

plenty of people seem to be under the impression that being a refugee is easy, that they’re just “illegal immigrants” too lazy to fix issues in their countries. this is false. refugees are overwhelmingly people being specifically targeted *for trying to fix the oppression in their nations*. an overwhelming portion of the refugees i have worked with were political prisoners, meaning they were active in opposition political parties or actively speaking against their governments. as a result, many have experienced torture, sexual violence, police brutality, and have felt their lives were under threat. after facing immense trauma and danger, they had to flee to preserve their lives. that’s part of what being a refugee means. 

another bit of misinformation is the implication that refugees are just “illegal immigrants” with “nothing to lose”. this is also false. refugees flee their countries because they face imminent danger. many of them, if deported to their countries, are bound to be killed. refugees without stable status in germany live in constant fear of their claim to asylum being rejected, because of the fear of being killed in their home countries. this means that to be deported from germany is to potentially lose the one thing no one can afford to lose: their lives. so no, refugees aren’t people with nothing to lose. they’re people who have already lost a lot and are afraid of losing even more. moreover, they’re not in the country illegally, they have their fingerprints taken and have heavy restrictions placed onto them by the government. they undergo a pretty tiresome, thorough legal process and often require lawyers to represent them. this process takes months, sometimes even longer than a year. their application being accepted does not mean their status in germany is safe for good, either.

i’ve also seen someone call refugees “illegal economic migrants”… also a myth. many refugees actually lived more luxuriously in their home-countries. sure, some lived in extreme poverty, but a significant amount say openly that they wish they could go back to their country. they say that they lived in a bigger home, and lived more comfortably, before having to flee for whatever reason. this is not the reality of economic migrants, who leave their countries to live in a country where they can have a better class status and earn more. there is no economic incentive for the majority of refugees. there is no secret luxuries to being a refugee.

claims that refugees are “undocumented”: untrue. as mentioned before, their fingerprints are taken. they are thoroughly investigated. many, even if their case is legitimate, have their claim to asylum rejected initially and then have to combat that. sometimes nothing works and they do have to be sent back to their countries, and potentially are killed once sent back. 

another false belief is the idea that it’s very easy to be a refugee and anyone can just claim to be a refugee and then be allowed to stay in a european country, no questions asked. even in germany, one of the better countries to refugees, this is not the case. for example, 50-66% of refugees from iraq had their application rejected. in germany, you can appeal this decision, but most appeals are rejected, too. the people who receive the highest percentage of positive responses to their claims to asylum are syrians (0.1% rejection rate in 2023), afghans (1.0% rejection rate in 2023), and somalis (5-6% rejection rate in 2023). i hope it goes without saying why that is the case. IF their application is accepted, they receive a residence permit that is valid for 1-3 years (depending) and their stay is evaluated again upon the expiry of their residence permit. if their country is deemed safe enough to be sent back to, they lose the right to stay in germany. if, before coming to germany, their fingerprints were taken in another EU country, they are likely to be deported to that country even if that country will inevitably deport them back to their country. 

there are many more false claims i’ve seen spread in “feminist” spaces, but the point of this post is: please stop blindly believing misinformation. please educate yourselves on what a refugee is and the actual process of asylum applications in the EU. if you’re european, maybe go outside more and try to volunteer somewhere to personally get to know some refugees. they are just human beings, like you and i. just because their skin colour is more likely to be brown does not mean they are walking caricatures of a disney villain. 

[smallgodseries]

She slithers in through any opening she can find, so much smaller than she looks from the outside, so much larger than anyone wants her to be.  Her coils can constrict empires, her jaws encompass unions, and her venom can kill creatures so much larger than she is that it seems ridiculous.  What is the purpose of any single creature carrying so much potential to destroy?

Some say that she could slaughter gods, if she ever got it into her head to think there would be a benefit to her in the act, and so when she slides through heaven on her scaled belly, no one meets her eyes, and no one moves to attract her wrath, and no one lingers in her presence.

She must be very lonely, this serpent god of the unspent dollar and the unfinished deal.  She must yearn for the company of her kin.

But you wouldn’t know it to watch her moving through the world.  She thrives on the false belief that twenty dollars today is better than ten today and ten tomorrow, sparking the impossible belief that twenty today will mean twenty tomorrow, and not nothing tomorrow when every cent is spent, every dollar is divested.  She puffs herself up to seem threatening, and her faithful point and claim this proves that profit without end is possible, endless growth, endless expansion.

She will swallow the world, given room enough and time.

She will take both those things if no one intercedes.

But look: there’s a sale tomorrow.  And what beautiful things there are to buy, what wonders, what delights…

What a profit to be made.

[angelsdean]

*record scratch* freeze frame. Reality Check. "You're the one who came and got me at school. You're the one who dragged me back into this." let's re-evaluate that statement, Sam, because that is not, in fact, what happened.

The context in which Sam makes this statement is that he's arguing Dean used to care about the revenge quest and killing the demon because Dean is the one that came and got Sam and thus "dragged him back" into the quest to kill the demon. But, that is not why Dean went to get Sam at school, it was to find John, who was missing and possibly dead. Dean didn't even Know about the demon at this point (they don't find out that "the thing that killed mom" is a demon til 1x11) or that John was closing in on it. Dean goes to Stanford to ask Sam to help him look for John, that's it. Then, at the end of 1x01 Dean brings Sam back to school in time for his interview as promised, and drives away. He only turns around when, in the deleted scene, he notices his watch has stopped, cluing him in that something is wrong. And he gets there in time to save Sam from the burning building.

Sam then makes the choice to leave with Dean because now that he's lost someone, he is personally invested in finding John because John knows more about the thing that killed Mary (and now Jess) than anyone, and Sam is the one who is now consumed by the need for revenge and the first step in getting that revenge is finding John, something he had no vested interest in doing before, but is now heavily invested in, even more than Dean is, as we see throughout the first half of s1 where Sam is often the one calling around looking for John and is more interested in searching for John than taking on random cases.

Anyways, it's just so interesting to track this revisionism of events and how both Sam and Dean come to accept this as the truth when it's literally not what we saw happen throughout the season. And we see Dean start to absorb this belief after Meg plants the seed in their heads in 1x16, trying to drive a wedge between them, by falsely saying Dean "drags Sam around like luggage" when literally the whole reason Sam and Meg meet is because Sam wanted to part ways in 1x11 and Dean let him go. Sam then comes back and decides to stay all on his own, even after Dean offers to drop Sam off somewhere.

Dean expresses in 1x16, that yes, he wants Sam around, he wants his family together again, but at the end of that very episode Dean is also the one who says they need to split up from John, even though it's the last thing he wants. Dean consistently is willing to let people go, even if it's not what he personally wants. And especially Sam. Over and over throughout the season he expressed how he wants Sam to have a normal life, is willing to let Sam go, or stay in some random town and drop the search for John. So even IF Dean did secretly want Sam to stick around when he went to get Sam at Stanford, he never expected it. Never enforced it.

That Sam comes to think Dean "dragged him back" into hunting is a purely revisionism and a bit of projection, I think, because Sam might not want to face the truth of the matter which is that he consistently chose to stick with hunting, and actually enjoys it more than he'd like to admit. And, as both he and John express, this quest to kill Yellow Eyes becomes "their" obsession. Not Dean's. Dean is the one who says he'd rather they never find the demon if it means losing his family. Dean is the one that says getting revenge isn't worth dying for. And then, Sam takes this to heart, when at the end of 1x22 he refuses to kill John Possessed by Azazel at Dean's pleading, AND when he tells John that killing this demon does not come "before everything" while eyeing Dean bleeding out in the backseat.

Dean was never the one invested in revenge. He did not come get Sam from Stanford to aid in the family revenge quest, he came for help in finding their missing father, something Dean cared abt simply because that's family, and Dean cares deeply, despite everything John put them through. Dean is the one that cares, the heart of the narrative, etc etc. He comes to Sam because he is alone in the world, because their only other blood relative is missing, because it's a very human thing, to reach out, to want family around. And still, he was always going to let Sam go after the 1x01. He didn't like it. It's not what Dean wanted. But he was going to let him go back to his life. Sam chose to follow Dean and continue searching for John.