#fuck terrorists and the way they weaponize religion to do harm

[sudamaniparva]

I got a message about the kerela story on my main blog today. I answered it there, but I wanted to detail my responses here.

a lot of the apologia for this film stems from the idea that it is criticizing terrorists like ISIS, not the religion of islam. and normally, i can get behind something like that. it's perfectly okay to criticize the abuses that people perpetrate in the name of religion, which is why it drives me nuts that people do not raise their voices in protest against hindutva and casteism. we all will benefit from their eradication.

the problem that films like kerela story, kashmir files, and this whole subgenre of revisionist history surrounding muslim-hindu conflicts is that it equates the religion of islam with the actions of these terrorists and it weaponizes isolated horror cases into dismantling interfaith relationships. this isn't 'telling a story'; it's propaganda designed to demonize muslims.

we can absolutely talk about how hindus are oppressed in other parts of the world; we can sympathize with the horrible things that happened to these women of all faiths. however, this film exploits the trauma of these women, and weaponizes it as propaganda that all muslims are bad.

the history between our peoples is long, bloody and filled with horror for both sides. however, our history does not give us the right to inflict evil upon innocent people who did not commit the atrocities of their ancestors. we need to end islamophobia in the hindu community, and i know that it's not something that a tumblr post can solve, but we can start by criticizing and boycotting films like these.

[writercole]

My dog woke me up and yes, it's not quite 2 AM as I start typing this, but I have several thoughts weighing down my mind and I need to get them out.

My oldest child had high school orientation this week. They opened with the pledge and a prayer. We did not stand.

No one confronted us. No one asked why. Which, frankly, surprised me as I'm in South Louisiana. But I'm still crafting an answer to the question that never came.

I didn't stand for the pledge of allegiance because the tenants of that decree are no longer being upheld. Liberty and justice for all have become words that are just recited.

The neighborhood that I live in, the Northside, is socioeconomically low. It's a neighborhood full of blacks and other POC. I love my neighborhood.

More than once, I've had to school my own mother on the way she talks about my neighbors and my community. Because it is a community. But this community is more policed and has less tax revenue because of its makeup. Is that liberty and justice for all?

The high schools in our district are installing weapon detectors. Our politicians are more worried about policing genitals. Is that liberty and justice for all?

Our most vulnerable citizens, our children, go to school every day and we never know if they're going to come home. They go home not knowing if they're going to eat or have lights on. Our government is trying to cut funding for school meals while letting gun lobbies do anything they want. Is that liberty and justice for all?

We spend more on healthcare than any other nation in the world but have some of the worst maternal mortality rates, infant mortality rates, and rates of preventable and treatable diseases. Because we cannot get doctors to accept state-funded medical insurance, the private insurances have priced themselves out of the middle class, and the amount that it costs for the uninsured to have treatment is unattainable for most people. Is that liberty and justice for all?

People go to church and praise and worship their gods, and that is their right. But on Monday mornings, these same people are decrying the 'woke left' for trying to teach things like...tolerance and history. They say that other religions are heathens and terrorists and do everything they can to stop them from holding positions of power. Is that liberty and justice for all?

Police corruption is higher than it was in the 1940s and the mob didn't have to lift a finger. It's filled with hatred and bigotry, racism and misogyny, power trips and harmful ideology. These departments are left unchecked, free to rape and pillage all they want under the guise of law enforcement. Is that liberty and justice for all?

Our lawmakers are collectively trying to enact laws that will hamstring our children and keep them from knowing what actually goes on in the world, will keep adults in this country from knowing what goes on in the world. While we have the highest standards perceived for our education, when ranked based on actual data and not an opinion survey, we don't even crack the top ten.

I wrote to our senator about this KOSA bill and he basically said 'fuck you I'm doing it.' Our congressman didn't even deign to give me an actual response, just an automated message to let me know that they received my email.

That is definitely not liberty and justice for all. Not to mention, porn is restricted by government ID here in Louisiana. Yet, my 14 year old still has access to it. It's all over twitter, discord, tumblr, and dozens of other sites that would have exemptions to the bills aimed at protecting kids from that kind of material.

Instead of sheltering, we need to educate. We need to teach kids bodily autonomy and not force them to hug their family. They need to know the proper terms for their body parts to be able to report sexual assault and molestation. They need to know that there are things that adults should not be doing.

We need to enforce the laws already on the books protecting children from rapists and child molesters and sex trafficking before we try to keep them off of the internet. Because the whole world has access to the internet. It's either all children, or just our children. The latter seems most likely.

In IT, when there's an issue for one user, the error is identified to being a single user error. Not an error with the entire network.

In order for me to want to participate in pledging my allegiance to a country - which, by the way, is something communist nations do, indoctrination at the kindergarten level - you have to make me believe in the words that I'm reciting.

"One Nation" if you're cishet and white.

"With Liberty and Justice for All." If you're not a minority group or female.

And don't get me started on the 'under god' portion.

[edenfenixblogs]

Uhhhhhh holy shit. No. Nuh uh. Absolutely not. This is not “tantamount to the Holocaust” by any fucking degree. And also I am so personally offended by this (and honestly be everything I’ve seen posted by determinate negation, to the point where I have them blocked but they keep showing up on my dashboard).

Honestly, if someone honestly believes this I do not ever want to see or speak to them again

It’s not that fucking hard and I am begging goyim to think before Reblogging bullshit like this. Think. Think for just one second. We can all hate what is happening to Gazans. But at this point, any goyim sharing shit like this uncritically must be aware that this is insane.

1. If you’re not Jewish, keep the Holocaust out of your fucking mouth.

2. If you are Jewish, like determinate negation is, you’re at best disingenuous or misinformed. I don’t understand you as person at all. I don’t approve of calling people a fake Jew or a self hating Jew. I know that such accusations are often leveled at Jews who don’t conform to whatever opinions right-leaning Jews have. And that’s not what’s happening here. But I think that this person is either oblivious to the harm their causing to the larger Jewish community or is literally reveling in it. Either way, if this person is your main source of a Jewish perspective or you consider them in any way representative of most progressive Jews, you need to recalibrate. I consider myself extremely pro Palestine and very reasonable in discussions with goyim about addressing issues arising from the conflict we are all living through right now. So I hope anyone who knows me personally knows how serious I am when I say that this person is posting in bad faith and is not interested in how their words impact fellow Jews.

3. Let’s get one thing fucking straight. And if you know me personally, I’m gonna need some actual message from you to show me that you understand this: WE WERE TREATED AS VERMIN TO BE EXTERMINATED. Do you fucking understand that??? People said “we hate Jews and want them all dead” and then alllll over the world, people went to find us and murder us. They used our skin for leather and our fat for soap. They starved us and then took photos forcing us to smile to that they could write about how well they cared for us after we were gone. They stuck needles in our arms and tattooed us with numbers—blatantly disrespecting our religion and also robbing us of the basic ANIMAL dignity of names. No. I am not pro Israeli government. But Israel is not going across EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD LOOKING FOR PALESTINIANS AND HOW TO MURDER THEM IN THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY POSSIBLE. Israel is hurting and murdering Gazans without regard for the loss of civilian life. That is bad. That is morally bankrupt. That is genocidal. But it is not the fucking Holocaust in any meaningful way.

4. Jews in the 40s didn’t have a fucking terrorist group with weapons constantly bombing Germany or any other nation. Do all Palestinians support Hamas or do they all have weapons? No of course not!!!! But let’s not pretend that we are dealing with one side of only unarmed civilians and one side of evil Jews who want to go from country to country and strategically murder unarmed people on the basis of their ethnoreligion with the widespread support of their own population and most of the countries for the express purpose of ridding them from the world.

5. We were your neighbors. Your professors. Your bakers. Your grocers. And you sold us out. You took the gold fillings from our teeth to accumulate wealth. You took made us take off our shoes before you gassed us to death so you could use the leather for tires for the tanks you rolled into our communities. You melted down our glasses to make the bullets you used to kill us. You turned our bodies into weapons you used to slaughter us. Mothers smothered their own babies so they didn’t have to watch them starve. Soldiers tossed newborns in the air and used them as skeet in shooting practice.

6. This was not a colonial imperialist issue affecting civilians or an theocratic state acting with genocidal disregard for human life or even a genocidal leader hoping to oust people from his territory by any means necessary—which by the way are already stark and inadequate interpretations of the current I/p conflict. This was a coordinated mass murder of Jewish people based on their Judaism after independent attempts from various countries to do the same thing failed for nearly 2 millennia. So, as disrespectfully as possible, fuck off. I have never been this mad or this scared about actual people in my life believing these things. This is vile. Presenting this idea as a reasonable argument is vile. Anyone who believes this bullshit is vile and an antisemite.

6. If you can’t condemn Israel and it’s government without comparing them to Nazis, you’re an antisemite. I’d you can’t condemn violence against Palestinians without invoking the Holocaust, you’re an antisemite.

7. You know what didn’t happen before Hitler rose to power? Jews didn’t invade goyisch public gatherings and private homes and mass murder babies and the elderly while cheering themselves on. Jews didn’t follow this nonexistent event by firing back thousands of rockets into Goyisch population centers unceasingly for weeks. Why? Because 100% OF US WERE CIVILIANS. THERE WAS NO JEWISH TERRORIST GROUP OR COORDINATED JEWISH GROUP OF ANY KIND FIGHTING BACK AGAINST NAZIS. THERE WAS NO ABILITY TO FIGHT BACK. I’m not defending and will never defend Israel’s response to 10/7 in this extremely brutal way. But y’all have to stop acting like Jews aren’t being attacked all over the world too. Y’all have to stop acting like we weren’t the victims of a terror attack ONE FUCKING MONTH AGO. Y’all assholes haven’t given us a moment to grieve before expecting us to respond to all this with the most nuanced and respectful discourse. You don’t care about Jews. You don’t care about Jewish grief. You don’t care about Jewish history. If you reblog shit like this you certainly don’t care about anything but that sweet sweet feeling of getting to harm Jews while feeling like you’re doing Activism. If you claim to want to amplify Jewish voices and perspectives but only amplify jews who spew drivel like this, you’re actually just trying to find jews to confirm your deep hatred of us.

I have heard it said by some leftists that the rhetorical comparison of the invasion of Gaza to the Holocaust is tantamount to Holocaust revisionism because the two are categorically different. Is this accurate

PLEASE consider reading about the holocaust yourself instead of just asking me to tell you. read about the conditions in gaza and israels racist apartheid laws and read about the nazi race laws and the ghettos and the warsaw ghetto uprising. come to your own conclusions idk. i might make a post specifically on the rhetorical purpose of comparing the two since this seems to be an issue people are talking about but i dont have time rn.

[aces-to-apples]

Your Reputation Precedes You

A response to “On Fandom Racism (and That Conlang People Are Talking About)” because lmao that cowardly bitch just hates getting feedback from people that she can’t then harass into oblivion

i.e. God I Wish I Could Use The Tag Fandom Wank Without The Titty Police Nerfing My Post

-

To be frank, I'm not here because I think you or any of your little cronies are going to change your minds. If the 'name' wasn't a giveaway, your group of ~likeminded individuals~ have quite the reputation for espousing ableist, antisemitic, and, yes, racist views under wafer-thin the veneer of "calling out racism." I think we both know that what you're actually doing is using the relative anonymity of the internet and progressive language to abuse, harass, and bully fans that you personally disagree with. You and your group are toxic, hateful, and utterly pathetic, using many peoples' genuine desire to avoid accidentally causing harm and twisting it into this horrid parade of submissiveness to You, The One And Only Arbiter Of Truth And Justice In Fandom. Never mind that you have derided autistic people as lacking compassion and empathy, that you've used racist colonizer dogwhistles to describe a fictional culture based heavily on real live Maori culture, that you've mocked the idea of characters having PTSD, or that vital mental health services are anything more than "talking about your feelings with friends uwu." Let's just ignore that you have ridiculed the idea of adults in positions of power exerting that power over children in harmful and abusive ways, that creating transformative fan-content that doesn't adhere to the spirit of canon or wishes of the original author garners derision and hatefulness from you, and that you've used classic abuser tactics in order to gaslight people in your orbit into behaving more submissively towards you in order to avoid more verbal abuse.

Let's toss all of that crucial context aside in favor of only what you've written here.

What you've written here is nearly 3,000 entire words based on, at best—though, admittedly, based on your previous behavior, I am actually not willing to extend to you an iota of good faith—fallacious reasoning. You posit that a constructed language, to be used by a fictional religious group located in an entirely different galaxy than our own, is othering, racist in general, and anti-Asian specifically. This appears based in several suppositions, the first being that a language unknown by the reader will, by nature, cause the reader to feel alienated from the characters and therefore less sympathetic, empathetic, and caring towards the characters. That idea is patently ridiculous and, I believe, says far more about your ability to connect to a character speaking an unfamiliar language than any kind of overarching truth about media and the human condition. New things are interesting; new things are fun; the human brain is wired from birth to be fascinated with new things, to want to take them apart, find out how they work, and enjoy both the process and the results.

The second supposition this fallacy is based upon appears to be that to move away from the blatant Orientalism of Star Wars is inherently anti-Asian. While I find it... frankly, a little bit sad that you cling so viciously to the Orientalist, appropriative roots of Star Wars as some form of genuine representation, that's really none of my business. If you feel that a Muslim-coded character bombing a temple and becoming a terrorist and a Sith, a white woman wearing Mongolian wedding garb, a species of decadent slug-like gangsters smoking out of hookahs and keeping attractive young women chained at their feet (as it were), a species of greedy money-grubbers with exaggerated features and offensively stereotypical "Asian" accents, and an indigenous people wearing modesty garb based on the Bedu people and treated by most characters as well as the narrative as mindless animals deserving of murder and genocide are appropriate representation of the many, varied, and beautiful cultures around the world upon which they were "based," then that is very much your business. Until you pull shit like this. Until you accuse other fans, who wish to move away from such offensive coding and stereotypes, of erasing Asian culture from Star Wars. Then it becomes everyone's business, especially when you are targeting a loving and enthusiastic group of fans who are pouring their hearts and souls into creating an inventive and non-appropriative alternative to canon.

Which leads into the third supposition, that a patently racist, misogynistic white man in the 1970s, and then again in the 1990s, intended his universe to be an accurate and respectful portrayal of the various cultures he stole from. I understand that for your group of toxic bullies, the term "Death of the Author" holds no real meaning, but the simple fact of the matter is that George Lucas based his white-centered space adventure on Samurai movies while removing the cultural context that gave them any meaning, because he liked the idea of swords and noble warriors in space. He based the Force and the Jedi Order on belief systems such as Taoism and Buddhism, but only on the surface, without putting any real effort into into portraying them earnestly or accurately. He consistently disrespected both characters of color and characters coded to be a certain race, ethnicity, culture, or religion, and likewise disrespected and stole from the cultures upon which he based them. He was, and continues to be, a racist white man who wrote a racist story. His universe has Orientalism baked into its every facet, and the idea that fans who wish to move away from this and interrogate and transform the text into something better than what it is are racist is not only laughable, but incredibly disingenuous and insidious.

As I said, I am not writing this to change your mind, because I truly believe that you already know that "cOnLaNgS aRe RaCiSt" is a ridiculous statement. The way you've comported yourself in fandom spaces thus far has shown to me that you are nothing more than a bully who knows that the anti-racist movement in fandom can be co-opted for your benefit. If you tout your Asian heritage and use the right language, make the "right" accusations and take advantage of white guilt and white ignorance, you can have dozens of people falling at your feet, begging for forgiveness, for absolution. And I think that gives you a thrill. So, no, none of this will change your mind because none of this is genuinely about racism—it's about power, it's about control, it's about fandom being the only space where you have some.

So I'm writing this for the creators of this wonderful conlang, which has been crafted by multiple people including people of color, who don't deserve this nonsensical vitriol, and for the fans reading this manipulative hate-fest, wondering if they really are Evil Racists because they don't participate in fandom the way you think they should.

Here it is: fandom has a lot of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, queerphobia, ableism, etc. baked into it. Unfortunately, such is the nature of living and growing up in societies and cultures that have the same. The important thing is to independently educate yourself on those issues and think critically about them—not "think critically" as in "to criticize" them, but to analyze, evaluate, pick apart, examine, and reconstruct them again in order to come to a well thought-out conclusion. Read this well-articulated attack on a group of fans who have always welcomed feedback and participation, are open about their backgrounds, their strengths and weaknesses, and wonder who is actually being genuine.

Is it the open and enthusiastic group who ask for the participation of others in this labor of love? Or is it the ringleader of a group of well-known bullies who have manipulated, gaslit, and then subsequently love-bomb people who did not simply roll over at the slightest hint of dominance? The ones who spent hours upon hours tearing apart, mocking, deriding, and falsely accusing authors of fanworks and metatextual works of various bigotries and -isms, knowing that those evaluations were spurious and meant only to cause harm, not genuine examinations of the works themselves or even presumed authorial intent. The ones who made their own, quote-unquote, community so negative and toxic that even after the departure of a large portion of them, including this author in particular, that community still has a reputation for being hateful, toxic, and full of mean-spirited harassers who will never look critically about their own behavior but only ever point fingers at others. The ones who are so very determined to cause misery wherever they go that as soon as their usual victims are no longer immediately available, they will turn on each other at the slightest hint of weakness.

This entire piece of (fan)work is misinformed at the most generous, disingenuous at the most objective, and downright spiteful when we get right into it. The creators of Dai Bendu, along with various other works, series, and fan events that these people personally dislike, have been targeted because it is so much easier to harass, bully, and use progressive language as a weapon against them, than it is to put any effort into making fandom spaces more informed, more positive, more respectful.

As someone rather eloquently put it, community is not a fucking spectator sport. You want a better community, you gotta work at it. And conversely, what you put into your community is what you'll get out of it. This author and their friends have put a lot of hate into their communities, and now they're toxic cesspools that people stay well away from, for fear of contracting some terrible form of harassment poisoning.

Congrats, Ri, you've gotten just what you wanted: adoring crowds listening to you spout your absolutely heinous personal views purely to live out some kind of power fantasy, and the rest of us staying well away, because fuck knows nothing kind, helpful, or in good faith has ever come from Virdant or her echo-chamber of petty, spiteful assholes.

No love, bad night.

P.S. Everyone actually in the Dai Bendu server knows your ass got kicked because you didn’t say shit for a full thirty days and ignored the announcement that inactive members would be culled. You ain’t cute pretending like it’s because you were ~*~Silenced~*~ after ~*~Valiantly~*~ attempting to call out racism. We see you.

[androgynousblackbox]

Looking at the tags in the post you reblogged brought me some old memories, I had a heated argument with an atheist about religion, and when I say heated I mean only the atheist was yelling at me while I was trying to explain my point of view, it was an online argument and was about whether religion as a whole is harmful or no, I couldn't finish the argument, felt like they came into my house and called me terrorist, when I closed the argument I cried so much, never doing similar arguments (1)

I was 15, or 16, I mean, now as I'm older, I'm more aware of the way a number of religious people would weaponize their religion against women and lgbt people and others, and I understand that, because I myself got lots of opinions regarding those topics that are considered unpopular and controversial among the follower of my religion, but damn, that argument was too much, never felt hated to this point, sorry I'm sending these long messages (2)

You see, even as I was coming to term with being atheist myself, those were the exact kind of atheists I would see on every single atheist circle I ended up in. They were just a bunch of fucking bullies with a superiority complex that thought of every religious person as a brainwashed dummy who deserved every insult possible. And the fucking cherry on top? Even these guys with all their science, evolution and "critical thinking" were still fucking racist, queerphobic, transphobic and believed the wildest fucking shit just as SOME religious people were capable of. Being an atheist does not make you a better ally for any marginalized person, sometimes it makes you even worse. Surprise, surprise, it actually matters a fuck ton to be a good person more than anything else!

[cobieeliseforsh]

I'm getting pretty annoyed with the amount of bullshit in the media right now. I just read an article about the "antisemitic" conspiracy theory Qanon. Calling Qanon antisemitic is like calling the KKK a group opposed to the career of Will Smith - technically true, but clearly a small subsection of a greater whole.

So, to remedy this...

COBIE'S FRUSTRATED GUIDE TO QANON FROM SOMEONE WHO LOVES CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND WISHES THIS ONE WOULD FUCK OFF BECAUSE IT IS BORING AS SHIT BUT NOT FIZZING WITH ENERGY, EVEN ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL, BECAUSE IT IS A DUMB AND LAZY REHASH FROM THE 80S OR EARLIER!

PART 1: DA FUCQ IS QANON?

Qanon is a grooming organisation for the Christian Far Right Death Cult that has held the Republican party in its sweaty hands since the ascent of Reagan in the 1980s. They believe in some bullshit I won't reprint here because I have no intention of spreading their ideology, but if you've heard of the Satanic panic, this is Satanic Panic 2: Now With Pizza!

Qanon is, by definition of their own supporters attacks on Muslim terrorism, a terrorist organisation. And, though it seems impossible, they're stupidier than ISIS ever were, because at least there was some twisted logic behind ISIS: poor young men fighting revolutionary wars against what they see as corrupt and immoral authorities and ideologies is nothing new. Qanon is literally the powerful declaring war on those without power out of fear that those without power (Satanists) live only to physically abuse their ugly, fat, prejudiced, stupid children. Despite the statistically most likely people to abuse them being them themselves, and there being plenty of evidence that many of these hypocrites have done that in the past (numerically many - one thing I believe Qanon followers on is that the majority are gullible Maud Flanders types, so statistically it won't be that many).

Donald Trump supports them over the "violent" Antifa (Antifa haven't killed anyone since 1993 (and that was a suicide), aren't actually an organisation, and are against facism, which Trump also claims to be against), despite Qanon followers carrying and firing weapons regularly, having shot up a pizza place in a terrorist act, refusing to wear masks, and other acts of violence designed to terrorise people.

PART 2 WHO DO THEY HATE?

Um... like, 98% of people.

Qanon is primarily an Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult. They believe in what they call SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) which happens at such a low frequency as to make it as serious a problem as being invaded by pookas. You might find anecdotal evidence here and there, but the majority of cases are hearsay spread by people who weren't there who were a part of or raised by people who were a part of the Satanic Panic. If you hear about it, it's likely bullshit. Just look at the West Memphis 3: accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse, they were sent to prison for wearing black clothes and being teenagers without any evidence. Now, whoever killed those boys is still loose, because Qanon, like all right-wing groups, is about being obeyed, not about justice.

So, with Satanic Ritual Abuse being fucking vapour, they can accuse ANYONE. And if there is no evidence, they cry COVER UP. There is no way, at all, to prove this mindset is wrong as it always self corrects, because being religious in origin, it is driven by BELIEF, not evidence.

So, whoever they believe is evil, is, as far as their reality tunnel goes.

Muslims? Evil child abusers. "But there is no evidence of that. In fact, the Muslim community is actually very protective of their children and other children. They're amongst the kindest people you can meet, even if their political leaders in their own countries are jerks." Well, says Qanon, that's because their community covers up the abuse. There wouldn't be any evidence. But my cousin went to school with a girl who was groomed by a Muslim. It's clear it is something all Muslims do. "But that's stupid. That's like saying that because Ted Bundy, a heterosexual white Republican, murdered loads of women, all heterosexual white Republicans want to murder women!" Now, says Qanon, you are just being silly. Besides, I believe Muslims are bad and Republicans aren't. You can't question my beliefs.

But we can, and we should.

Qanon followers use this vague structure to create complex webs that link up various conspiracy theories, but they aren't a complex web. They're just a list of petty grievances they have from living in their own personal echo chamber.

They hate women, they hate girls, they hate boys who don't conform to their expectations, they hate men who vote left-wing, they hate gay people, bi people, really anyone who isn't heterosexual, they definitely hate trans people (see: trans people want to use bathrooms to abuse children as merely an extension of the Satanic Ritual Abuse claims), they hate people with coloured hair, bright clothes, they hate Jewish people, they hate Muslims, they hate anyone from a fringe religion that doesn't look right, they hate foreigners, black and brown people... anyone they define as different. And to back this up, they claim to be "the majority" being dictated to be a "minority" - they aren't. They're a minority of gobby cunts, a Karen of Nazis (Karen being the best collective noun to describe these childish crybabies who were so desperate to remain in a state of childlike innocence they embraced both religion and then keep insisting their imaginary friend, Jesus, is following them everywhere, like a psychotic stalker ghost).

PART 3 WHERE DOES THEIR BULLSHIT COME FROM?

This is probably the most important part. Not what they believe, but where these ideas come from, and why they aren't new.

Qanon is a mixture of young-and-edgy YouTube/8chan influencer, white supremacist religious manipulation, pro-Capitalist Protestant religious "life is shit, embrace misery" ideology, pedophile hysteria, and "we hate the idea people have rights because we're power mad, but we're going to frame this as a backlash, normal people making their voices heard, a culture war, or whatever else we can rebrand PREJUDICE because even we don't want to admit we are bigots".

So, first of all, the angry white online teenagers: have always existed, will always exist. Their parents don't give a shit about them unless they cause trouble. So, they learn quickly that the best way to get attention is to cause trouble, which leads to kinship with other troubkemakers, forming an echo chamber of escalating troublemaking. But they're also angry, and often poor (in their eyes, or in actuality), so they're drawn to outrage, and like causing it. They're attracted to movements like this because they believe it's a chance to get some attention, someone to notice them.

And who notices them? White supremacists are always on the lookout for recruits. They feed their need for outrage and attention by misrepresenting everything. They take puff-piece news articles and shoddy journalism and further twist them into movements around positions that have no basis in reality. Vaccines? Designed to hurt you. "Uhhh, no," you say. "That's literally the opposite of what a vaccine does." I don't believe that, they say, and you can't question my beliefs. BLM? Terrorism. "No, they just want to not be shot." No they don't, they want to take over and put the Jews in power, and you can't question my beliefs! "You have no evidence!" COVER UP! they scream.

So it goes, so it goes.

Meanwhile, the Protestan work ethic of, "If you didn't suffer, you don't deserve it," goes on and on. They believe that shit things just happen, you can't stop them. Capitalism is founded on this very, very relugious principle: work should be pain for it to have value. This justifies promoting assholes, and making things difficult. But it also promotes the idea that you can't do anything to combat inequality, as that is natural, and you can't do anything to stop bad things happening, they always will, so why try? This lends Qanon a specific pattern: complain, do nothing, complain nothing is being done, still do nothing, repeat. It's wrong to intervene, you see. This allows them to say racism is bad, but God wants us to suffer so we deserve phony-heaven, a paradise they think is built on bricks of human misery... does that sound glorious to you? And if you have something, clearly you did suffer to get it, and so you are worthy, which is why Trump is a hero to them and they believe his every utterance of verbal diarrhea about him being persecuted (to be fair, he is, but he deserves it because he's lazy and incompetent).

Pedophile hysteria is also generally religiously motivated. Children should be protected, but they are not innocent angels. I've worked with children. Some are nice, some are sneaky, some are violent bullies, and so on. The one thing that unites all children is that they are ignorant. That's why we send them to school. And there are people who want to prey on children. The world we usually use to describe those who most often hurt, abuse and damage children is, "family". Promoting the idea of gangs of rampaging pedophiles snatching children into vans and harming them in shadowy rooms, or murdering them in some Satanic ritual, is laughable compared to the epidemic of children being harmed by those parents terrified the pedophiles are out there. Such fear motivates them to do untold harm to children, restricting their freedoms and their growth, teaching them that all sex is bad so they never enjoy it, forcing them to be things they aren't, and turning a blind eye to obvious abuse because those doing it are not the model of abuse being put out by the press and Internet communities. In that last way, Qanon is a driver of child abuse: it actively encourages Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult members to nit even ask the obvious question: if Epstein was abusing kids, and Epstein was hanging out with Trump, was Trump maybe involved in some way?

And then there is just the prejudiced crowd, most notably the American-exceptionalism delusional whack jobs. Let me be clear, all forms of exceptionalism are prejudiced, as they suggest that those who are exceptional are better and mire deserving than others, and the real world does not contain such hierarchies, just stuff that happens until it stops happening. A monkey may be the alpha, but one day they won't be. It's not a hierarchy, it's just a thing that happens that we project a power structure onto. Who knows what monkey culture is like? Maybe to them deference is more honourable and respected than being in charge. No-one has asked monkeys for their views of ideology or power structures.

This often manifests itself in ideas of, "We shouldn't be ashamed!" and that movements they don't like are, "Against us!" Well, if you're setting out to hurt people because you believe you are better than them, you should be ashamed. That queer Pakistani girl you keep out of college could have been the one to cure cancer! She might have had the unique perspective to make that breakthrough. And, yes, some of us are against Qanon, because Qanon is hurting people. That is the point of the movement: to harm its enemies, by denial if freedom all the way up to outright murder. It isn't a Pride parade or BLM demanding equality and an end to deaths, its a hate movement driven by a desire to punch down, and ultimately perpetuate the very system that isn't even working for those who follow its own ideology.

It's based on fear of the new, even if that new place is better than the old one, change can be scary. They think equality will hurt them, the way collective bargaining would hurt them. But we don't live in a system where resources are so finite you have to do without, we live in a system where resources are finite but we throw away an excess because capitalism couldn't make rich people richer by giving it to those who need it, so they dispose of it and introduce scarcity to drive up the cost. Working together would force them to stop doing that, which is why movements like this exist: to perpetuate a form of exceptionalism more like a cult, where only the leaders reap the rewards.

PART 4 WHAT IS THE END GOAL OF QANON?

It doesn't have one.

Qanon is a right-wing movement. Right-wing movements are about winning arguments now, and then feeling smug, even when the damage is undone later. It's about a sense of self-satisfaction, and not anything else.

Plus, Qanon has so many stake-holders who hate each other that the movement will eventually descend into cannibalism as all these things do.

Finally, being primarily religious in its design, it won't take long for many religious types to realise Q is kind if a God-like figure, a false idol, and when that happens, plenty if their leaders will become worried that their followers are so focused on Q they might "stray from the path" of donating all their money to their church.

Unless it turns out that Q is Q from Star Trek, in which case their end goal is to test Jean-Luc Picard.

PART 5 SHOULD WE FEAR QANON?

Nah. It's a group of fringe lunatics whose time in the spotlight will be fleeting. As I've already said, even their ideas aren't original - this is the Apocalyptic Christian Far Right Death Cult version of Fortnite stealing dances: everyone goes crazy about it for a bit, but it's so insubstantial in its original form, nevermind the cover band version, that almost all people with a lick of common sense will dismiss it. Plus, it doesn't serve any agenda: Trump could easily find himself on the receiving end of it, that one Qanon politician just elected will likely be marginalised the moment Trump vanishes, and having a single person won't sway any votes in such divisive times, which means they'll be proclaimed ineffectual soon enough, and with Epstein it is already showing that it isn't something which helps the powerful, meaning a lot of people who do have secrets will want it gone sooner rather than later lest it bite their own hands. Plus, they are actually harming people - and say what you like about the Republicans, they don't tend to respond well to the PR disaster of groups they side with directly attacking or killing people unless they are their own ACAB stormtroopers.

Plus, it's a bunch of saddos on the Internet. Chances are if you see someone screaming about Qanon and waving around a gun, they'd have done the same and screamed about lizards had it never got started.

PART 6 WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Stop giving them attention. This is one of the most BORING conspiracy theories ever created. Seriously, since 9/11, conspiracy theories have really gone downhill. They used to be about aliens and subterranean kingdoms, and now they're just attempts to misdirect pedophile hunters from the right-wing types who have covered up child abuse, and tie it to phony "think of the children" and "Satan is out to get us" religious hysteria.

With covid-19, the press is having a very slow news cycle, so they're desperately grabbing at anything that can drive search engine algorithm clicks to their sites, so they're covering Qanon because they've seen it trending. I doubt most people involved with it really believe in it, but it is so directionless that it wouldn't matter if they did. Qanon Con would descend into bloodshed fairly quickly because everyone would be angry and arguing that the tater tots are secret SRA code for cannibalising children or that it reveals that Hilary Clinton buries children beneath fields of potatoes. It's stupid, the people involved with it are stupid, and the bigger question is what they believe that led them to this:

Disenfranchisement. Having to respect the beliefs of others. Prejudice. Anger.

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. If these shitbags actually want to stop harm to children, maybe stop supporting gun rights so kids aren't being gunned down in schools, and black kids don't keep getting gunned down everywhere. Until you do that, Qanon, you're the child abusers.

[strengthrequireskindness]

OC shitpost

So, I notice a lot of u on here are into PJO/HOO/anything Rick Riordan writes.

@storm-broken-wings

@blackjacktheboss

@cindersart

@ananbeth

And that’s who I can think of off the top of my head. If you don’t read him you should, but I’m warning you that the second series (HOO) is slightly iffy.

While the man and his writing has some flaws, I’ll admit he made a damn good storyboard to work with. I have made several Riordanverse OCs, and would like to share them with you all.

First up, my anxious fire boy, Cal Kowalski! Note: I tried to do my research on Judaism and autism, but if I have offended anyone with this character, please let me know and I will change it!

Name: Caleb David “Cal” Kowalski

Hair: brown

Eyes: brown

Age-17

Height: six foot one, someone stop this boy from growing

Mother: Deborah Kowalski, fire chief for the Cleveland fire department. A force to be reckoned with and extremely inventive-once used a nearby lake to fuel the fire hose when there were no hydrants nearby

Godly Parent-Vulcan. A lot of people forget he’s also the god of fire, so when he saw Deborah risking her life to fight it, he was smitten. Completely fell for her when he admitted that he watched her work as a fire chief. Her response? “You’re a god, right? Stop watching people and buildings burn and start fucking helping.”

Sexuality: bi. Let’s be real, he’s admired Ichor and Jason more than once. Is completely devoted to his also bisexual girlfriend. More on her later.

Camp: Jupiter, Fifth Cohort. Has considered moving to Half-Blood, but dropped it after Octavian...oh right, there are people who haven’t read the books. Let’s leave it at that.

Nationality: Polish.

Religion: proudly (though not supremely devoutly) Jewish. Will make all the jokes about his religion. Was very confused when his mother told him his father was a god

Weapon: Roman infantry axe, or dolabra. Has heard all the woodcutter or lumberjack jokes. Has come up with a few of them

Personality: actual golden retriever, loyal, kind, hardworking, patient, and generous. Won’t fight unless it’s in self-defense, for training, or against monsters. Even then, does so reluctantly. Shy, clumsy, awkward introvert. Not great with public speaking, social interaction, or crowds, though he tries. Ride-or-die friend once you get to know him. Happiest when working at the forges or with his close friends. Autistic. Stims by lacing his fingers together or through card tricks, often says inappropriate things at the wrong time, tends to compartmentalize negative emotions, can talk about forging, metalworking, and firefighters for hours on end, needs systems and routines to function, thinks in very black and white terms. Goes nonverbal when angry, sad, or frustrated.

Powers/Abilities-

Geothermokinesis-can manipulate molten earth, phase change earth into lava and vice versa, cause magma to rise from deep within the earth, forming miniature volcanoes, turn nearby rock molten, and telekinetically project blasts of lava, magma, or molten earth at targets

Weaknesses-socially awkward, gullible, black and white thinking, tends to think badly of himself, survivors guilt, lava he creates can spread and cause more damage if left unattended, can be harmed by his own powers, powers are linked to emotional state so he has to keep his temper or things start to melt

History

-Fire chief mom with large extended family

-mom met Vulcan one night while firefighting, it was rocky at first but after some talking things through and some kissing they made it work

-cal was born that August

-when Cal was three, tragedy struck

-his mother was diagnosed with mesothelioma

-they suspected it was from a fire in a chemical factory shed fought

-the firefighters she was chief of helped raise Cal while his mother underwent treatment,as did his extended family

-He grew up shy and quiet, the opposite of his mother but very much like his father, had difficulty reading, and could never pay attention that well if he didn’t like something

-It took a few years, several theories (some well meaning, some extremely inappropriate, some both) and an official diagnosis at the age of seven before the people taking care of him realized he was autistic, dyslexic, and had ADHD, and that they had to respect that instead of treating him like a normal kid

-some of his extended family thought that meant he wasn’t normal

-he doesn’t talk to them anymore

-the firemen and ninety percent of his family were totally fine with it, even when other things started to happen

-they found him in the courtyard at age ten, a miniature volcano spouting lava into the air and him frantically trying to turn it off

-the Mist shielded them from seeing the entire thing, but they still sat him down and had a Talk about playing with fire

-but Cal knew what happened

-At age twelve, his mother took a sudden turn for the worse. When he went to see her with Hector and Brandon, two firefighters, he was turned away by a doctor that did not look at all like a doctor to him

-The Doctor insults him, only to be challenged by Hector, who can see through the Mist

-He tells Cal to run and see his mom before punching the doctor square in the face

-Cal makes it to his moms room, only to find her struggling and squirming as a monster in a lab coat shoves a pillow onto her face

-Terrified but furious, he scares off the monster with a blast of lava from the ground, which also sets the room on fire

-Making it out of the room, he turns to his mom, only for her to tell him that he’s the son of a god

-He predictably freaks the fuck out, running with her to where he last saw the firefighters

-Only to find that Darnell is dead and Hector is losing the fight against something that looks way too much like the estrie he’s read about once in the Sefer Hasidim

-Seeing Cal, Hector grins with bloody teeth before driving a fire extinguisher into the things head

-it collapses, but before it can get up again the building groans as the fire spreads

-They flee the hospital, forced to leave Darnell behind as the alukah pursues them

-When they get back to the house, everyone is in an uproar. Why is Deborah back, why is Hector’s mouth bleeding, where the hell is Darnell

-While everyone is arguing and taking care of Deborah, Hector and Cal’s aunt Aviva take him into Cal’s room

-He and Aviva confirm what Cal’s mom said, also telling him about the existence of Camp Jupiter. It turns out he is a former legionnaire, having come to Cleveland two years before Cal was born to look after him at Deborah’s request. Aviva can just see through the mist, though Deborah confided in her in case she died before she could do so herself.

-They don’t have much time. After what Cal did at the hospital, his aura is going to attract every monster from here to Columbus.

-He gives him a weird-looking axe, explaining that this dolabra was once his when he was a legionary but now he wants Cal to have it

-They all share a hug, with Hector telling him that everyone in the house has his back

-There’s a knock on the door, revealing the monster from earlier, now disguised as a human social worker via the Mist

-Uses a bunch of ableist language to explain why they should give Cal to him

-No one in the house buys his bullshit, even when he appears human

-The firefighters don’t like the government in general because they offered no workers comp for the cancer their chief got from the factory, and they’ve watched her fight against something that the government was supposed to help her with, the government draining her money all the while. But now this jackass is insulting their kid.

-The extended family are unwilling to give him up, and especially not to a man who insults and belittles him

-monster gets fed up, says that if cal stays here he’ll keep coming for him until he gets what he wants

-cue the entire family telling him to get bent

-Aviva tells Hector to take Cal and go, that she’ll explain to them why and that they all love him

-Roadtrip to California with monsters on their tail

-the estrie catches up to them in Oakland, flanked by its monster buddy, which Cal now knows is a telekhine

-it’s pissed at cal because he’s a demigod and because his father took over their forges

-they fight, and Cal uses the dolabra and kills the telekhine, burnt from his earlier encounter with it

-he’s extremely grossed out by this

-Hector intercepts the estrie before it can get to Cal and fights the estrie, but he’s out of practice and is fatally injured

-Cal watches him die and is furious, pleading to know why the estrie did it

-the estrie just wants to kill a Jewish human, it doesn’t particularly care that he’s a demigod. Hector was in the way.

-Using his powers intentionally for the first time, Cal opens up a volcanic fissure under the estrie and sends her down into the magma

-He then takes Hector to the camp tunnel before passing out

-He’s found there by Gwen, who stands for him

-Some time after, she pulls him aside and tells him that she read in the local paper (all praetors and centurions read the outside paper to get the news for the camp, fight me) that there was a suspected terrorist attack in Ohio around the time Cal came in

-He breaks down and tells her it’s his house, there are no confirmed survivors except for three firemen and his mother

-Alex comes along a month later, and they dance around each other for a while before making it official

Trivia

-he writes letters to his mother whenever he can

-Darnell taught him how to play cards and do card tricks, both for fun and as a stim if needed, he burns a card every year on the day he died

-he definitely had a thing for Jason before he started dating Alex. It never went anywhere though.

-he makes the menorah for the camp-wide Hanukkah celebration (cmon you’re telling me everyone at CJ is Christian or atheist or agnostic? Cmon man)

-he imagines his dolabra is a fire axe when he’s fighting monsters

-his aunt taught him to cook Polish cuisine, among other things, and his kotlet schabowy is to die for, but he’s recently branched out into Chinese food due to his girlfriend’s complaints about how the restaurant chains near them only serve shitty Chinese food

-can jump rope like a boss due to many hours with his younger cousins

-terrified of heights

-that’s all I’ve got so far! If you guys have any other questions about him, send me an ask!