#like how we (society) stand by and watch as people are being genocided as we speak

[aetherive]

Anyways something about the audience’s decisions not mattering until the very end where we get to decide a person’s life and how that connects back to corporations controlling literally everything in our daily lives . (more in tags)

[team7-headquarter]

Team 7 introductions are like:

Naruto: I want to obtain POWER so I can force people to look at me like an actual human being and not a monster, haha! They won't ignore me or isolate me anymore! They're gonna BEG ME and put their lives on my hands and— Oh and ramen. All the ramen. And maybe prove to everyone that they are dumb ass fuck for not believing in me? Yeah, prove them wrong, that's cool! And and and Iruka-sensei is cool! I'm so happy when someone does the bare minimum and respects my life and acknowledges the fact that I'm just a kid and that I'm suffering (one of) the craziest discrimination acts applied by our government Hokage...

Sakura: you know how the first real goal I got like the first thing I wanted for myself after years of being bullied and being nobody and wanting to disappear was the affection of this boy? Well, all these other girls think I don't stand a chance and that they'll get the boy, so I'm gonna win the boy and laugh at their faces. Does it mean that I need validation and affection and attention and love? Not, what are you saying, I have a perfect normal life and parents that are totally involved in my life and I am happy! So happy! I wouldn't know what sadness or loneliness is like! Never! I'm normal and totally nothing to worry about!

Sasuke: you'll find that the things you like in life are meaningless when you carry the trauma of being the sole survivor of a genocide committed by the brother you loved and adored. I want him dead which shouldn't be surprising given that we live in a society ruled by violence, right? I hate a lot of things because I'm painfully aware of how miserable our reality is. Since this is my trauma, no one else has the right to do something about it. They certainly didn't seemto have the balls to go after him, even when they call him criminal, so I'm gonna kill Itachi myself. Obsessed you said? Try enjoying life when you know someone can commit genocide and no one would give a fuck and the government won't do a thing. Try caring for others knowing they can get kill any day and you'll have to look the other way. I dare you to.

Kakashi: *most emotionally neglected adult in the village, abandoned as a kid, saw his father do the right thing and get so socially pressured he ended up commiting suicide and the government didn't give a shit, forced to become a perfect weapon at young age to show off the village strength, forced to become an elite assassin as a kid, people in the village widely making fun of his trauma and acting like he's just weird / peculiar and not on the verge of losing his mind for real, a champ at dissociation and a minute more away taking roots in front of the graves of his mistakes because he spent way too much time there in self-punishment, basically the most miserable jounin in the whole village*

Kakashi: hm, I won't let you get to know me or get close to me because everything I touch dies and I don't want to get attachments because you're soldiers and you might die and it doesn't matter that I have history with two of your families and that you all remind every single minute of the boy I watched die and the girl that I killed and the boy used to be. You will never know any of that. I am a whole man with a whole life that you'll never know because I am just your superior here and you must obey me in our missions. I'm definitely not hiding the fact that the village just failed me and set me up to be the one who failed you all in case you get killed or lose your shit once and for all.

[cerealxperimentslain]

let me show you an example of liberal zionist dishonesty and intentional misinterpretation

ID: a post by @transmascpetewentz:

“>oh look a new leftist youtuber who seems cool!

>checks their blog

>sees a video about "colonialism"

>asks them if they are talking about real colonialism or are just being antisemitic

>"what's the difference?"

>pulls out a chart explaining the difference between anti colonialism and antisemitism

>"it's a good video sir"

>look inside

>it's a 2 hour long rant about how (((they))) are in so many positions of power/are well respected for being good at their jobs and how that is allegedly bad because of palestine

#wentz.txt #antisemitism #this post is about dr fatima on youtube but can apply to others”

End ID.

taken at face value, this post would seem to point out a leftist youtuber who made a video of a half baked rant of nothing but antisemitic conspiracy theories. that would be bad, if that were the case. but since he so graciously mentioned the youtuber in question, i went and looked her up. Dr. Fatima has 12 videos total, and only one of them mentions colonialism in the title or thumbnail, this one:

i highly highly recommend watching the whole video (it is captioned), but it is quite long so the tldr is: this is a video mostly about the building of telescopes on colonised Hawai���ian land, specifically the sacred mountain Mauna Kea, and how scientific pursuit is not exempt from perpetuating colonialism. Dr. Fatima also talks about the genocide in Gaza, and the colonisation of Palestine, to contextualise and draw parallels between the two situations (Hawai’i & Palestine). Here’s a quote from two hours and ten minutes into the video:

“I spent SO much time back in grad school trying to understand why so many of my colleagues, who I knew to be reasonable and intelligent, seemed so wholly unperturbed at what our field [astronomy] was doing. And in recent months I found myself asking the exact same question about Palestine.”

this person either didn’t watch the video, or he did watch the video and didn’t understand a word that was said. there’s also the possibility that he did watch the video and understood perfectly what it was about, and maliciously decided to wildly mischaracterise the video to discourage his followers from watching it, or any of Dr. Fatima’s other videos.

because there is no good faith explanation for how you get “it's a 2 hour long rant about how (((they))) are in so many positions of power/are well respected for being good at their jobs and how that is allegedly bad because of palestine” from this:

Transcript:

“So I think we have enough context now that I can just come out and say the thesis of this video: the plan to build TMT on Mauna Kea, as well as the building of the telescopes that preceded it, is inherently colonial. Hawaii is a settler society where the self-determination of the native population that was nearly genocided out of existence is secondary to the utility their land brings to the United States, primarily as a military outpost, but also whatever else it can be useful for. At one point that was plantations, today it’s generally tourism, but on Mauna Kea, it is astronomy. The land the telescopes are on make them inseparable from the colonial power that controls that land. And this dynamic is underscored by the consistency of objections to their building by Indigenous voices.

And here is the really hard a to swallow part: any benefit astronomers careers gain from the use of telescopes on that land comes at the direct cost of indigenous people's alienation from it. If you think I'm being unfair because Hawaii's colonization already happened and building one more telescope doesn't change anything, you're still paying more attention to made up things like property laws and the American government than the material conditions of people's access and relationship to land. Calling the police to arrest native elders who are just standing on their land so we can build another telescope is not dissimilar to Israel bombing the shit out of Palestinians just living on their land so it can build another settlement. And if you think I'm being dramatic by comparing genocide in Palestine to building a telescope, then you're still paying more attention to the purported intention of astronomers than the long standing, violent, exploitative and still present colonial institutions that grant them power. (e.g. the police, the military, universities, government agencies, etc) Colonization is an ongoing process and the difference between Hawaii and Palestine is that in the former, there aren't enough indigenous people left to pose an existential threat to settlers, and the latter, the indigenous population is still the slight majority. Or at least they still were as of this 2018 report. [98] Honestly, this year might tip it.

And if you think I'm exaggerating the connection between the two, please remember that the United States government is involved in both far off places for exactly the same reason: their use as military outposts, one in the Middle East and one in the Pacific. That is the joint cause of both of these conflicts today: the geopolitical interests of Western imperialism. This is why you might have seen those multi-nation calls for liberation recently: Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Haiti, Free Hawaii, and beyond— not as separate issues, but as different interconnected manifestations of the same problem.”

End transcript.

in using this video to be anti-palestinian, he is also being incredibly racist and anti-indigenous by downplaying the colonisation of Hawai’i. implying that the desecration of the sacred land of a colonised people doesn’t count as “real colonialism”, interpreting “scientists in the imperial core shouldn’t participate in exploitative and colonialist practices” fucking somehow as “being good at their jobs and that is allegedly bad”. i guess?? honestly i have no fucking idea what that last paragraph in the post is even supposed to be about.

like i keep wondering if i somehow have the wrong video, but i don’t know of any other leftist youtubers called dr. Fatima who made a video over two hours long about colonialism that brings up Palestine. the more obvious explanation is that he just made shit up

i guess this bit 37 minutes into the video probably hit too close to home

ID: a quote in front of a green background:

"Let me be clear: Antisemitism in the U.S. is a real and dangerous phenomenon, most pressingly from the alt-right white-supremacist politics that have become alarmingly mainstream since 2016. To contend against these and other antisemitic forces with clarity and purpose, we must put aside all fabricated and weaponized charges of "antisemitism" that serve to silence criticism of Israeli policy and its sponsors in the U.S."

--Bernie Steinberg

End ID.

[helluvanaro]

I once thought that humans were inherently good, that humanity could be fixed. To me words like "good" and "evil" and "cruel" have always seemed too simplistic to be used to describe the most complex beings on earth.

But how is genocide anything but evil? How is the ruling class being willfully oblivious of global warming anything but evil? How is humanity's hate for anything that's different not cruel?

I watched the Aaron Bushnell video, and I openly sobbed, because that's when it hit me. Humans ARE cruel and evil, the good ones are so few and far between.

And I don't understand how people aren't rioting, how they aren't laying in bed and never getting up, because Hind is dead, because Sidra is dead, because Aaron is dead, and people still say that this is warranted.

How can people be so horrible without being inherently cruel, inherently evil.

I have watched a genocide from behind a screen, and no matter how loudly I scream it seems like it's never loud enough, so as I go to bed in my nice bed, in my nice home, a child is going to bed and fearing that they'll never wake up.

We have all been screaming, but our begging and pleading and fighting and protesting, it falls on deaf ears, and day by day more people die.

How have we as a society condemned the genocide of the past but revered the genocide of today? We should have moved past this, we're supposed to be better than we were before. We're supposed to care, God-damnit.

We like to believe that we are better than we once were, that we aren't still barbaric and cruel; this is painfully untrue. It keeps me up at night, knowing that I whine about fucking school and a Palestinian child begs for their parents to not be dead.

I'm so privileged to live the life I'm living, yet I take it for granted so often.

We read books like "Night" By Ellie Wiesel and "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl, and we see these atrocities that were committed, we condemn those who performed them, and those who didn't speak up, but we watch genocide today and we do nothing.

It is a wonderfully heartbreaking hypocrisy that we refuse to acknowledge.

Will Palestine ever be free? Will Congo? Will all of us be forever trapped? How is this okay, how do we stand by idle as innocents are murdered. It seems like we're all slaves to our own fear, to our leaders, to our governments.

Race, and gender, and sexuality, and birthplace seem to be the only things that determine a person's worth. How is that fair? How is that okay?

I've always had hope that humans were good, that they were kind in at least some capacity, I now see how naive that is, how simplistic. Sometimes the simplest words are the answers to the most complex questions.

It hurts, you aren't supposed to realize how fucked up the world is until you're ready, and I'm not. I'm not ready, I don't want to know. I want to go back in time and believe that we can still fix this, but I can't.

How can we live in a world where the people in the right are the people who kill innocent civilians? How can the people in the right be the ones who steal dead women's lingerie to "prove that Palestinian women are slutty"? How can the people in the right be the ones who made fucking snuff of them committing their horrendous acts?

How does war equate to genocide?

If people aren't inherently good then I don't know what to do, because we have to be. We have to have something we can hold onto some sort of hope that this isn't how things will stay.

How am I supposed to have hope for the future if I know that I and so many others won't be welcome in it?

[the-lady-general]

.

I didn't watch Picard because I don't like the River Tam concept and I don't get on with Picard the character, but did Memory Alpha get that right about synthetics being dismantled? In the Federation? Where they're recognised as sentient life? And the articles of the Federation value the self-determin and dignity of all sentient life? What the fuck. What the fuck? Just as a set up? As the justification for a five minute Picard speech? So after the entire senior crew fought for Vic, Kira is just going to step up to Quark and tell him "End programme in Vic's holosuite, that's an order"? They're going to find B4 and pull him to bits? They'll take the Doctor's mobile emitter and throw it in a matter reclaimer while Janeway is just happily on her wawould Vice Admiral and just like "too bad too sad never mind"?

DS9 did genocide ONCE, as the desperate, last ditch solution to a war so big it took everyone except the Dominion several seasons to understand HOW BIG it was going to be. We had the invisible beaming mines, the war of attrition, every model of a Miranda space ship that they could find in LA hobby stores blown up, several scenes with several characters going over casualty lists, the loss of Betazed, It's Only a Paper Moon, In the Pale Moonlight, Sacrifice of Angels with all its deaths, and the club of illegal geniuses projecting hundreds and hundreds of billions of deaths. And then one fringe group of one department within one organisation of one faction goes ahead with the genocide as a top secret move that nobody in the Federation government ever got to see because even the guys responsible for it specifically said "What we're doing is evil and no Federation official should ever be confronted with that choice because even seriously considering it is monstrous". Those were the bad guys that said that.

And the Picard Federation government can just sign genocide into its constitution like on a Tuesday? Without investigations and research and risk assessment and proposals and elections, votes of no confidence, parliament walkouts, massive civil unrest and mass protest from Starfleet, who have been working with androids and holograms pretty fucking closely for a while?

I don't like it when people point to DS9, which is precious baby bear, and say it's too dark and not Star Trek enough. Because the whole point they were making the entire time was always "dire circumstances will make you want to abandon your principles, and if or when you do, it will be a tragedy". But then we get Captain Brainy with the genocide as a set up? Without a deep fucking exploration of what that means for Federation society at large? I mean, prohibiting the creation of new synthetics is bad enough, but dismantling existing ones crosses a pretty fucking significant line. Trust in any government person or organisation that did anything less than vocal protest at the knee-jerk, overnight abandonment of the Federation's most important principle should be impossible. Because that means that the people that lead Federation society were always ready to kill an entire segment of its population for reasons that are totally outside of their control. First they came for the Androids style.

And can you imagine actually being in Section 31 for that shit? Because they're evil. They fucking keep saying so themselves. Sisko's In the Pale Moonlight monologue is just business as usual for them. But even those fuckheads do what they do because they're convinced that the average citizen and government and society should never have the chance to become monsters. They're perversely convinced that they're committing evil so that the Federation at large can stand up for the self-determination and dignity of all sentient life. And then they come in to work one day and see that there's just a kill order on an entire group of Federation citizens for something that is entirely outside of their control. Imagine having sold your conscience for that. I'd go apeshit. Step Two would bombing the Federation HQ. I think that would be a measured and sane response.

When the fuck did Lower Decks become the only watchable Star Trek? (Strange New Worlds, You're On Thin Fucking Ice.) When did Star Wars become the TV show that delivers poignant, thought-provoking storylines about human nature and the extremes we can be driven to under hardship, and the importance of friends and community and sticking up for another (hi, Andor), while so much live action Star Trek is shooting for explosion creep action movie where the bad guys consistently end up being the guys who should embody the ideals?

[wasabikitcat]

If one can’t live in this current society without being complicit in genocide, how do I get out of society? The only ways I can think of would be either dying or the world ending or everybody getting brainwashed to be good perfect leftists, which I would be open to tbh. I hate my imperfect human brain capable of evil and wouldn’t mind getting rid of my individuality if it meant the betterment of the world. Either that, or I wish I could go back in time and prevent either colonization or human evolution itself if that’s not enough to eradicate all evil. We should’ve just stayed as the apes we are and been the same as all other animals…

I'm not really someone who can answer this question (I mean, I don't think anyone can, but especially not me), but for me, I think the fact that you care so much, even though these are people that most of us here have not even met, is a sign that you're the kind of person this world needs in order to achieve the dream of a future without genocide. You can't get out of society, and that's a good thing, because without people who care and feel love for other humans there wouldn't be any opposition to genocide.

Maybe "complicit" was too cynical of a word, I mainly mean that, by virtue of being a single human in this massive country which is part of an even more massive earth, we are not able to do much except use the avenues given to us to make an impact, no matter how small. I mean that humans are simultaneously individuals and part of a collective, and as a collective humanity sometimes does terrible things and it seems that we can only stand by and watch. Often we are put in situations where there are lives that we can't save even though we know we should be able to, and it's not fair that we can't, and we don't want any part in the system that lets these things happen. But the system that lets these things happen is also what can help stop them from happening if we use it correctly.

You as an individual are not directly responsible for genocide, but we do live in a system that benefits from it. I think the way to fix that isn't resigning from society completely but rather trying to change it with what little power we have, no matter how long it takes.

Historically, change is never fast; even in the extreme scenarios of complete overthrow of the government via revolution it takes years, and it takes even more years after that to instate a new government, and potentially even more years if that new government fails, etc. There isn't a quick and easy answer to change, but things have changed. Things are very different now than what they were like less than a century ago, and humans still aren't satisfied because we have an innate desire for good and justice inside of us.

My point isn't that we should just stand around and wait for change to happen eventually, I guess I just mean that you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet. Indigenous Americans experienced genocide, but their descendants remain and are slowly but surely getting more and more of their land rightfully returned as time goes on. Africans were taken from their homes and enslaved, but their descendants remain and are American citizens with equal rights as racism becomes more and more taboo with each generation. Genocides and atrocities happened, some continuing to happen, and we still feel their effects every day even generations later, but things have also gotten better.

One day Palestine will be the same. There are countless lives already lost and there will likely be many more, but Palestine will not be erased. The dead will not be forgotten, and their surviving family will see a better future. It won't be easy, and it definitely won't be as fast as we all really want it to be, but it will happen, as long as there are people like you who don't let this go unnoticed. Take care of yourself and those around you, and don't let yourself be consumed by despair. I genuinely think there is more good in this world than evil, and we gotta make the future we want to see.

[simplegenius042]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ariana Jasmine Afshar (@arianajasmine___)

Earlier today I had received a comment in regards to an Instagram Reel of the Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange and ceasefire negotiations that Netanyahu declined which you can watch above.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this comment at first but here it is and the reply I made.

It was while I was waiting for a reply that I visited our friend’s little blog.

And the absolute fucking ignorance I found has never made me feel so much fucking anger at the ISSUE AT HAND. What issue at hand? The fact the Israeli Government (not people, not the Jews, not whoever else, the fascist cowards in the Government) is pushing towards the ACTIVE GENOCIDE towards the Palestinian People. Instead, this prick focuses on what Hamas has done (WE DO NOT SUPPORT HAMAS ANTI-JEW VIOLENCE, WAR CRIMES NOR DO WE CONDONE THEM FOR THE SHIT THEY HEINOUSLY COMMITTED, AND NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL) and actively demonizes the Palestinian People as if labelling every MAN, WOMAN, CHILD, JOURNALIST, DOCTOR AND INFANT that are currently alive and have DIED in Palestine, Gaza and Rafah as apart of the entirety of Hamas and are all "terrorists" deserving of what comes to them. This cunt seems more concerned and empathetic towards the LAND of Israel than the PEOPLE DYING ON IT (SOME OF WHICH ARE ISRAELI CIVILIANS AND HOSTAGES WHICH THE GOVERNMENT CLEARLY DOEN'T GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT GETTING CAUGHT IN THE FUCKING BOMBINGS) and had reblogged multiple posts supporting their pro-genocidal Israel supremacy Anti-Palestinian bullshit views, most of their own resources coming from a blog that dedicates itself to the history THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT had built forged out of their ass. And to add to the bullshit, this cunt is also pro-Zionist given the things they've said and reblogged (and seems to think Zionism and Judaism are one in the same and that Jews of all people should support the Palestinian genocide), doesn't seem to understand nor care how mental health effects people differently and how society has stigmatized it to the point generations of men say "we're fine" when their actually not because that's what they're expected to say (same thing with women) and said "Asexuals is just a made up label and are just forcing themselves to be sexually-repressed because they are people who have experienced an unhealthy sexual and romantic relationships" like, PLEASE BITCH HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN ME WHO'S NEVER BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP AND KNOWS THEY'RE ACE???

Also I am absolutely certain that Jewish people are not in support of a fucking genocide and are standing up against it so suck on that dickhead!

Anyway, I blocked them. Because at this point... I'm not dealing with that bullshit.

Now I don't condone the anti-semantic actions of Hamas, never have never will, it's just Hamas is coincidentally putting their efforts into getting a ceasefire so they, alongside/to the benefit of the Palestinian people unrelated to their cause, can stop being slaughtered... which, FANTASTIC, THEY DID SOMETHING GOOD FOR ONCE. Doesn't change the horrific shit they absolutely have done and some of the things they may have done though. But I want the safety and an end to the suffering the Palestinian people have been put through because of this bullshit. It sucks but it's at least something beneficial that will help the civilians over in Palestine.

Also, since that blog did make mention of it, the Hamas use "from water to water, Palestine will be/is Arab" perhaps for their anti-semantic bullshit, perhaps for their want for their land back depending on what's even true with them, HOWEVER, we don't use those words. We use "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free" because we are calling out to the Israeli Government that they cannot and will not be able to hide or complete their genocide BECAUSE we know they are an illegal occupation and we will fight tooth and fucking nail to ensure the Palestinian PEOPLE are freed, and that the ISRAELI GOVERNMENT, and those who took part in the genocide, are punished for this GOD-AWFUL CRIME that has ended the lives of so many men, women, children, journalists, civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli alike, both young and elderly, not to destroy Hamas (but that's a bonus for them) but so they can build a NEW FUCKING CITY OVER THE REMAINS OF AN ENTIRE PEOPLE AND CULTURE THAT LIVED AND BREATHED THERE!!!!!!!

We are not supporting nor condoning Hamas when we say "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free", we are supporting the Palestinian People facing an unjustifiable act of terror and inexcusable loss of life.

If any of you are some dickwad who have the same views of the cunt I had mentioned above, do me a favour and block me. Actually, no even better, DO NOT INTERACT WITH MY BLOG. You will promptly be blocked, because genocide is an evil and abhorrent act and any one who supports it and ignores the facts surrounding it, I wish a very unpleasant day upon.

Remember to continue to find donations, continue to boycott, continue to spread awareness of the Israeli Government's genocide against the Palestinian People, pressure Biden's Administration in the U.S, pressure Australia here to force Labor or whoever to DO SOMETHING about it, speak loud and proud, don't give up hope, and remember: From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!

Also, fuck the Israeli Government!

Fuck, I'm tired. I don't think I will be posting for the rest of the day guys.

[qnewsau]

Standing on the shoulders of Giants

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/

Standing on the shoulders of Giants

While the Mardi Gras season is almost upon us, World AIDS Day made QNews’ youngest contributor pause to reflect on how LGBTIQA+ young people engage with the history of the HIV epidemic.

WORDS Harry Hadley

For young queer people in 2024, we learn our community’s history from those who lived it: whether they be members of our chosen families, or respected elders who have a platform through which to share their stories.

When it comes to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we are often told of the lives lost globally and the devastating social impact this virus had for the global movement for LGBTQIA+ rights.

Each queer person who lived through that time has their own unique story, which we continue to recognise and commemorate today.

Looking into this dark period for the queer community comes with little relief for a younger person.

As a young queer writer, what stood out for me from the stories I hear from our elders about this period was how an epidemic like this was allowed to fester.

Why was there a significant lack of action from the authorities until the disease was considered a danger to the “wider community”?

In researching these questions, one term struck a nerve for me.

‘Genocidal insouciance’: meaning the casual indifference and lack of action of a state/authority which leads to a significant number of deaths within a minority population.

From when the first cases of what would later be known as AIDS were reported in America in 1981, the conversation diverted from a medical crisis to a socio-political one.

Due to a lack of knowledge and research into the virus, the nature and prevention of AIDS initially remained unknown and was largely the concern of those it affected most: the queer community.

There was a remarkable lack of concern, communication, and cooperation when it came to tackling the threat of HIV by the rest of society.

Even in Australia, it was Mardi Gras that raised the funds for the AIDS Council of NSW’s first work, not the state or federal government.

Until being deemed a threat to the heterosexual population, the HIV virus rampaged through the queer community around the world, substantially neglected by governments and health authorities alike.

The early marriage of the queer community to the epidemic was made inextricable through this process and was solidified in the years of activism to come as we had to organise to fight for our lives.

When I first learnt about the HIV/AIDS epidemic growing up, one of the first things I did was ask my parents about what they remembered about that period, having not lived through it myself.

My mother said, “I just remember those Grim Reaper ads scaring the shit out of me!”

When I googled that advertisement I was lost for words.

“At first, only gays and IV drug users were being killed by AIDS…”

The Grim Reaper advertisement stands as one of the world’s most infamous state-run campaigns, portraying ‘every-day Australians’ as bowling pins being knocked down by the Grim Reaper as a representation of the virus.

For anyone unsure of whether the LGBTQI+ community were isolated during this time, all they need to do is watch this commercial.

“In three years, nearly three thousand of us will be dead!”

It was now heterosexual Australia that was being threatened, with no acknowledgement of the tragedy that had ripped through the queer community for the previous half decade.

The rhetoric surrounding HIV/AIDS in the Australian public eye and queer people had thus shifted; from an insouciance to the disease even existing, to it being the bringer of death to the Australian population. With the “gays and IV drug users” being at the centre of it.

By 1995, one-in-nine gay men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the US, and one-in-fifteen had died.

By this point, there was a significant effort being made to stop the spread of the virus.

But those statistics alone show this effort had come far too late to prevent the detrimental impact this had on the queer community.

Going into the 2000s, HIV/AIDS deaths began to come down significantly in Australia, which gave way to the collective cultural anxiety that we see today in post-AIDS discourse.

At the end of the 20th century and even into the 21st century, post-AIDS discourse was characterised by a bleak and arbitrary gloom, which significantly reduced the desire to immortalise this time period in our collective history.

In the early 2000s, historians observed that due to this collective trauma, such a crucial part of gay history seemingly disappeared from the radar screen.

That seems to be changing, and the past decade has seen a new thirst to tell those stories through the mediums of books, film and television.

But if we look at the political and social struggles the LGBTQIA+ community has fought since the 1960s, the AIDS/HIV fight for survival falls in the middle of three main periods.

In the 1960s continuing through the 1970s, we see a push for recognition in the public eye and the demand for basic civil rights.

After the height of the epidemic in the 21st century, we see a push for queer people to have the right to build a family.

So why was there such a dramatic change from radical queer rights to a push for domestic family values?

If you’d told a queer activist in the 1970s that in 40 years, they’d be able to marry their loved one, they’d say you were mad.

Not because the idea wasn’t fathomable, but because gay marriage simply wasn’t on the agenda.

They had much bigger fish to fry, namely just existing in society without being either arrested or killed.

So why has there been such a big push for the right for queer people to build a family following the turn of the century?

Some have theorised that the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS epidemic altered the aims of the LGBTIQA+ movement to pivot from radicalism to an attempt to fit into broader society.

Queer activism pivoted away from associations with HIV/AIDS to a push for acceptance in the mainstream of society, such as a focus on family values, and the fight for same-sex marriage.

In 2024, though, we young people have the luxury of perspective in viewing the HIV/AIDS crisis, and decades of removal from that trauma.

I live in a world where HIV transmissions are lower than they have ever been, living with HIV is far from a death sentence, HIV prevention is a daily pill and a cure or vaccine is closer to reality than it’s ever been.

The stories from that dark time in our community can now be shared without the immediate jump scare and looming presence of the virus.

Those who lived through the height of the epidemic can celebrate the progress they’ve made, mourn those who we have lost, and most importantly teach future generations the lessons that we will hopefully never have to experience firsthand ourselves.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[deathlygristly]

So I was thinking some more about that classism towards Southerners post and I searched for "psychology of regional bigotry" and I found this:

"In sum, racial disparities in power and privilege have been built into the societal system of the USA, resulting in wide-ranging effects on the life outcomes of residents of the USA. This system also affects the attitudes of those living within the system, leading to expectations of inequality and beliefs that inequality is justified. These beliefs and expectations then motivate the individuals that make up the system to behave in ways that maintain the system of inequality, such that individuals’ attitudes reinforce the system of inequality that produced them."

"Historical education can challenge people’s tendencies to infer that power and privilege disparities are justified and further call into question the cultural narratives that elevate white people and white culture."

This is interesting and I think very relevant - perhaps if white Americans got more accurate and wide-ranging education about our history, that would help lessen regional bigotry as well as other bigotries. Maybe if kids grew up learning about systemic inequality and how it has shaped the entire US and how it is still very much present in and shaping their own communities, they wouldn't locate it all in one region and cast their own region as the Good Noble White People standing up against the Bad Wrong White People in the other region?

Also it would help to find a way to get past that impulse of casting some people as the Good Noble People and others as Bad Wrong People. I don't know how to do that because as far as I can tell it's not an instinct I have, or if it was at one point my reading choices when I was a child got rid of it pretty quickly. Humans are all human and they are all capable of doing human things, and bigotry and violence and using power against others in horrible ways and genocide are all very human things that any group of humans is capable of. No one is getting out of culpability for human violence by nature of membership in a particular group of humans. Nor is anyone responsible for all of human violence by nature of membership in a particular group of humans.

I don't know. I've just felt since I was a kid and reading about the Holocaust and about slavery that being a human on a planet controlled by humans is the hardest thing, and as I've grown and learned and experienced more that's just become more true.

Like we finished watching Gyeongsang Creature last night, and I was reading up on the massacre of Koreans in Japan after the Kanto earthquake in 1923 while also thinking about how in the show's time the war was going to end in a few months, and that a brain drinking creature that could only be killed by fire was no match for nuclear bombs. And in the country that was going to drop the nuclear bombs, the country I live in, the people in power had rounded up Japanese people living here and put them in camps.

Humans are going to human. Probably, from what research seems to show, the best way to improve as humans is to educate ourselves and to be willing to face ourselves and our past and our present, and to choose knowledge and empathy.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Yes, You're Ignorant

So truth be told, I'm sick of the I/P debate. Fully. But what I notice from the whole thing is generally disgusting which is a side complicit with and supporting genocide and another which is not.

Ironically this changes depending on if you ask Collectively the Far Right and Far Left, or if you ask moderates. So let's look this over.

Historically Israeli Jews have lived in the land currently known as Israel, since long before their war with the Romans. Most of that land is actually pretty barren, and it was not settled by the people we call Palestinians today. SO if you are making a colonizers argument you're factually wrong. (Not to mention no one made this argument in favor of Russia did they? I didn't think so)

If you are making a genocide argument you'd need to prove that the population of Gaza is dropping and has been dropping over the years. However, it has gone from it's initial number of 200k ish to well over a million. That's not genocide. So again you are factually wrong. AND EVEN SUPPOSING they wanted to take Gaza off the map, you neglect to realize how small Gaza is. It could literally be Glassed over night. No warning. No safety. No quarter. NOTHING. It would just be gone. But that would then make them no better than the Arab nations surrounding them who purged them, both by killing thousands and chasing the rest away.

No what this has to do with is a long standing hate the the far left & right have had for years. The far left hates the Jews because they are "Rich and Landlords and are White", the far right hates them for the same reason Hitler did, "They AREN'T white, they are an 'infection' on society, and they are 'Controlling everything' in our nation".

Basically? Anti-Semitism. Certainly if you told me years ago that would be the thing that unites the Far Left and Far Right I would not have believed you. And yet here we are.

Fact is the people calling Israelis "Colonizers" are taking "history" advice from Anti-Semites. But I can prove that this is a Jewish hate thing and a "Jews are actually white" thing.

If you were to take everything the way it is now, and change only ONE THING, which is to say, make Israel into Ukraine and Russian into Gaza, we'd still be seeing "Stand with Ukraine" tags everywhere. There would be nearly NO flags for Russia. Reason being? We've been told for years that Russia is the bad guy. "Putin is the Devil" among other things I've heard. So what's different? Oh right, the difference is that Israel is MOSTLY though not totally, Jewish. And the modern Left views everything through race.

"Oh we're just anti zionist" Really? Because I've heard a lot of you talk and it seems you good well know the ONLY people you are asking to stop shooting is ONLY one side. What's more watching you all call Hamas, "Freedom Fighters" is frankly just gross. People in Gaza might not live the greatest lives but I see ZERO OF YOU calling for war with China over the Uyghur Muslims. WHO ARE being genocided, raped, castrated, sterilized, etc, etc, etc.

OH RIGHT, is fine with China does something like that though. Enjoy your new Uggs from a Uyghur woman who's been raped by 30 Han Chinese men today.

I'm sick of all of this. Just say you are an anti-semite and move along. We know you are. You just can't come to terms with the fact you agree with the ACTUAL Nazi party of Germany.

[elyelsonfree]

A letter to the political parties of Canada concerning the genocide in Gaza

I'm pasting it here just so I can link it on twitter for people who need alt text, because it's too many characters to post. I used this site to send it, and you can do the same with a pre-written email. https://www.itsagenocide.ca/ It also has a tool to find your MP's number if you'd like to call.

Social Media is something that has been vital to our society since it's inception. Many people my age will use it to unwind, to communicate with friends, to share funny memes and to organize against injustice. I use it frequently, and like many people, the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night is glance over at twitter while I counter-intuitively wait for sleep to come.

Ever since October 7th, my social media has been flooded with the death and destruction of Gaza and the West Bank.

Today I woke up to the news that it has been confirmed that when Israeli soldiers evacuated an intensive care unit, the babies the doctors were tending to, who they had been promised would be cared for, were left to die. They were found during the ceasefire decomposing in their hospital beds. This was one of the few censored videos I've seen. I have a six week old nephew, and when I saw a picture of a 17 day old baby who had been killed in an explosion today due to the end of the temporary cease fire, I decided it was time to contact you all about how disappointed I am in my government, a country that prides itself on its reputation for peace, to be one of the few who voted AGAINST a call for a cease fire weeks ago now. I wanted to send an email at the time, but to be honest, I was so angry and disgusted with everyone who represents me that I couldn't write anything that wasn't just pure vitriol.

Part of what stopped me was the absolute disillusion in the entire government. Canadians are not generally idiots, which may come as a shock to some of you. We know 90% of politician speech is just lip service to keep the status quo. I wasn't kidding myself thinking the liberal party actually cares about marginalized communities, or that they, or any other political party in this country, care about untold deaths over-seas. You must be very big-picture to continue to refuse to stand up for a community being paved over before the world's very eyes. But I'm not sure how any of you can sleep at night knowing that innocent people-- real men, women, and children-- are being slaughtered en-mass, and you have in some way enabled it by not speaking out. I'm honestly not sure, if you're either on Israel's government's side on this one, or indifferent to it, what you're doing in politics. Because it's certainly not to better anyone's lives. I assume it's money that stays any politician from speaking out against the horrors we are seeing come out of Gaza every day, with help from our weapons and our government's support, but I hope you know it isn't worth it. I cannot describe how low my opinion of every government party has sunk through this crisis. Normally I would say the NPD are exempt from my disappointment, but you called for one of your own to step down when they spoke out early against the genocide, so unfortunately it's you I'm most disappointed in of all.

I'm sorry to anyone who actually feels very strongly about what is happening in Gaza and is reading this letter, because I'm sure you're the only one who will actually take that disappointment to heart. And on top of that, you have the worst coworkers in the world. But know that if you're speaking out against this, if you are truly fighting and doing all you can to stop our government from helping to exterminate an entire people, I am not upset at you. I marvel at your ability to continue in the face of so much opposition. Truly I feel as though I'm losing my mind watching our prime minister stumble and refuse to say 'cease fire'. You were elected as a lesser evil, Justin, and you managed to flub even that. I can't imagine what our next election will look like, but for failing your promise of restructuring how our votes work, and as a party for your failure to look at the most black-and-white situation and refuse to call a genocide a genocide, know that whatever havoc is wrought if the cons win is on you as well. Canadians overwhelmingly want positive change, and instead we have a bunch of adults acting like children and hemming and hawing over whether killing and driving out an entire population from their own land is a genocide. Is bombing hospitals a war crime? Apparently none of you know. Maybe you should leave politics and go back to school.

All this is to say: call for a ceasefire. It's the RIGHT THING to do. I know politicians aren't (generally speaking) renowned for their ability to empathize, but give it a shot in this case, while there are still Palestinians left to save.

I have very little faith in all of you after this, truthfully, and I don't say that in anger or in hate. I am truly just indescribably disappointed in you, and the choices you've made as parties. Imagine all of you standing up and applauding a nazi, your country giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're all just sort've idiots, and then not speaking out to stop a genocide. Wow. I suppose we're the fools for electing you all, but when your options are clown1, clown2, clown3, and clown4, you can't really avoid getting a pie in the face.

From the river to the sea,

Elson

[starry-blue-echoes]

I JUST WOKE UP AND THIS IS THE FIRST THING I SAW AND JUST

YES

YES ON EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE LEVEL THE WORD EXISTS Y E S

HOLY SHIT MY GUY WAS AMAZING. I'M SMILING SO MUCH OVER HERE THE HAPPY STIMS ARE RAMPANT MY CROPS ARE WATERED AND MY SKIN IS CLEAR ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL JOB

Just. Holy shit this was perfect

I absolutely adore the idea of Jolyne infiltrating the SWF, but can I also raise another thing to add to it: because of the SWF being so through in watching Jotaro whrn he was growing up with her, Holly ended up having to be very aware of the rules and loopholes that the Foundation used

so what if to further protect him, Holly ended up becoming a lawyer

So while Jolyne is gathering dirt on the inside, Holly starts preparing a blackmail case...... but then eventually the rest of the Joestars and Co ;earn what they're doing and start getting involved, and I mean everyone. Joseph and Suzie pull some strings to help them stay hidden, Rohan helps with the information gathering, the Morioh Users and Stone Ocean Crew help with some of the Foundation infiltration, the Bucci Gang add to the blackmail case, it’s a group effort

and I am. FROTHING at the mouth over Jotaro being genetically linked to Holly and his star mark slowly fading that's just 🤌🤌🤌 And what if this also can lead to Jolyne being a full human. Jotaro wanted his daughter safe, wanted her to be normal, wanted the Foundation to never be able to touch her, so there's not a single bit of his non-human genetics in her. Maybe he doesn't even pass on any Stand Genetics which is why she had to get hers via the arrow

also GO OFF HOLLY GET HIS ASS!!!!!!!!!

I think just for fun that Jolyne eventually gets to take over the Foundation. Like, after they get Jotaro free, Jolyne stays "undercover" and keeps climbing the rankings until an....... accident happens with the current CEO leading to his resignation and her promotion (you'd be surprised how much you can get away with when you have a cousin who can bend reality and an uncle who can fix any damage without a trace)

Holly definitely becomes head of the SCP side of things are starts reforming as much as she can to try and bring things back to a more reasonable level. She does keep some of the rules, after all there are some genuinely dangerous things in the Foundation, but she makes sure that the sentient/sapient ones receive fair treatment and safety

also, I had an idea for why things got so corrupt

what if it's because of the Pillarmen.

What if up to that point, the Foundation had dealt with a couple dangerous things, a few stray vampires here, a couple SCPs there, but nothing that bad. But then the Pillarmen come in, kill a fuck ton of people (on top of historically committing TWO genocides) and very nearly succeed in taking over the world. They even have one in custody, and if he gets out the results are going to be DISASTROUS

So they ramp up security. They tighten the protocol when it comes to dealing with the more dangerous SCPs. They make sure that Santana would never escape and that if he did they would be able to get him back before anyone got hurt

.......but then after Speedwagon died, it started getting out of control. The line between what was dangerous and what wasn't shifted. "Dangerous" became less "this poses a threat to society and can't be reasoned with" and more "this is something we can't control." Sentient and sapient SCPs were being treated no differently than the mindless ones. Cells became outfitted with only the barest essentials for survival.

Jotaro was probably the first SCP in decades to make it back to the outside world after being "taken in" by the Foundation

also what if Jotaro ended up breaking out because his Holly compass told him she was really close. I don't doubt that the Foundation would secretly threaten him with her in order to keep him in his cell for however long, so feeling her here? His first thought isn't going to be that she came to break him out, it's that the Foundation are finally acting on their threats

What he finds instead is a very pleasant surprise though

So I just had

SUCH an angsty idea for the SCP Jotaro AU regarding Jolyne

What if Jotaro not being around wasn’t his choice. What if the SWF did some tests on Jolyne when she was born and while she seemed mostly human, they limited his contact with her because they didn’t want to risk her also becoming another SCP or for him to influence her

What if Jotaro had to fight tooth and nail to get the Foundation let him go save his daughter instead of some other agent. Heck, what if they didn’t agree and he hijacked the mission not giving a damn about the consequences

and what if….. what if when everything’s over and Pucci is killed and things become normal again because of Jotaro’s extra abilities…… Jolyne is forced to witness these consequences

she has to see her father treated as less than human, as some kind of dangerous monster who could lash out at any moment, as something incapable of thought or emotion like some kind of animal, not even being given the basic respect of calling him by his name and instead calling him by his SCP number

And she has to see her father just accept it. And its…… almost frightening, if she’s being honest. Confusing too. Barely hours prior she’d seen him spit insults and glares and beat a man nearly to death in a protective rage. He’s seemed to strong, so untouchable, nothing like the limp body she’d dragged to the submarine all those months ago and now……

Now he’s reminding her eerily of back then

He doesn’t fight as they put him in special cuffs, doesn’t so much as glare as they mistreat and insult him, if anything he goes through the motions with a practiced ease and that’s when it hits her that it’s because this is practiced he’s done this before he’s been treated like this before, treated like this enough times that he thinks it’s normal-

Maybe Jolyne tries to help him. Maybe Jotaro stops her. Maybe he explains that this is just protocol, that he’ll be put in an isolated cell on watch for a few weeks and if he’s good they’ll let him out again

She hates how much he knows about this

All I can say for certain is that in the next few days before that Jolyne is going to have a very emotional call with her grandma Holly

[ultimateinferno]

"Honor is dead, but I'll see what I can do."

Possibly one of the most iconic lines in the entire series. I think what gets me so much with this line is it means so many things at once. You have the most surface level interpretation. It's very similar to the phrase "Chivalry is dead," so there's already a fundamental understanding for the audience. The famous and chivalrous Knights Radiant of old have betrayed humanity millennia ago and now we see a society that supposedly prides itself on being civilized and honorable squabble for cheap victories and try to carry out genocide while being far too willing to throw their allies to the wolves should it be convenient.

Next is the fact that Honor is the name of their God. It's not just saying that no one is kind anymore. The literal manifestation and personification of trust is dead, and that knowledge is at this point in the narrative, only one person truly knows this, and it's the person being spoken to. It also ties into the common real world phrase of "God is dead," while famously attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, has been used before and since his original quote. Used to describe the events of the Enlightenment shedding humanity's need for a deity, which could be applied back to Stormlight as new data granted by scholars reveals how much of the standing Vorin religion was built on lies. Like... every book there's a revelation that takes what we know about the world's history and structure and throws it in the trash. Often multiple.

But then you look at it from a character perspective. Kaladin is a man who has been burned and betrayed time and again. He's stuck his neck out for so many people and tried to help those around him, with a desperate belief that some kind of justice exists in the world, and only once has he been truly repaid for it, which is to Dalinar after the Battle of the Tower.

This scene is where we jump from Adolin and Kaladin being rivals, or simply abrasive to one another, and start to become genuine friends. At this point in the story, he finds Adolin a pompous jackass who parades himself around and only puts up with him because its his literal job to essentially "babysit" him and he has a high opinion of his father. Even after their encounter with Szeth, where they develop a begrudging respect regarding the other's skills, they still have yet to become truly friendly. And yet after seeing the man get shoved between a rock and a hard place, fighting for his fucking life while everyone just stands by and watches, Kaladin's the only one who stands up for him,* and jumps in to help the man against the most dangerous weapons that currently exists, knowing very well if he's not fucking careful, he can easily die, even with his magical healing.

And there's the aftermath, the boon scene often regarded as one of the most cringeworthy moments in the series, yet still pivotal to the narrative, we see Kaladin, after doing something so fucking impressive get knocked back down, and tossed aside by society because of his class, nearly executed because of a social faux pas. And while Dalinar fumbles quite a bit, still protecting Kaladin but also greatly harming his relationship with him, we see Adolin repay him, stand up and go "this isn't right" and trudge straight to prison with Kaladin because of it.

This action is especially important because Adolin himself was betrayed by one of his so called friends, who joined the duel against him. This duel made Adolin realize just how alone he truly was, despite being a trained socialite and heir to the Kholin Princedom. This one quote is slipping me, but it's Adolin reflecting his relationships with the other lighteyes, those he might label as friends and realizing how little any of them actually cared about him as a person.

I can go on easily (like more into Dalinar and Amaram's place with the scene), and I invite others to pitch in. This line and scene is just so saturated with significance. It is still to this day one of--if not, the--most iconic scenes in the entire series. In terms of absolute scale, not that big of scope especially when compared to the other big battles in the series--a fight involving 7 people total, but in regards of individual characters, it means everything.

*and Renarin, which of course I could never forget but standing up for that kid is hardly a dilemma. The correct answer yes, do it every time.

[olderthannetfic]

My gf is Christian (united church; which is pretty liberal) and I was raised pagan/radical anti-religion pro-spirituality, so I often say things like ‘man fuck christians’ and my gf is like ‘hey now’ and I’m like ‘you know what I mean, the bad ones’ but honestly I don’t know why she would willingly identify as a member of such a historically oppressive group… but then again my great grandparents were colonizers in the Canadian prairie rush so what the fuck ground do I have to stand on. How do we disentangle personal identity from historic oppression? What does it mean to be Ukrainian-Canadian or to be Christian and to try and be a progressive person when both are steeped in oppression that continues to this day? Goddess knows I have no clue.

--

Well... Having just watched a bunch of documentaries about the Inca empire trouncing its neighbors, I think the reality is that most people's ancestors were dicks. That's not saying European genocide of native peoples was cool or that smallpox decimating societies wasn't tragic, but it's kind of infantilizing how we divide into Bad Oppressor People (who were badass even as we claim we disapprove) and Innocent Forest Children (who were bori... um... morally pure).

What matters is what you stand for now. What do you advocate putting in Canadian textbooks now? What do you do about pipelines that endanger the environment now?

Systemic oppression is hard to combat, but that's because of scale and lack of interest in doing so on many people's part. It's not like we have zero idea how it works or how to address it. Make people's lives materially better and remove institutional roadblocks so they can advocate for themselves.

I think it's fine to shoulder responsibilities your ancestors left, including cleaning up their messes, but I don't like the vibe of being tainted with their sin. Not only is guilt unhelpful, but that kind of sin and purity aren't part of my worldview.

[sometimesrosy]

Hey. It's been a long time since I had a question. Maybe the 100's demise was the reason.

Now coming to my actual query. This past year I have binged numerous shows ranging from American to korean dramas or Turkish dizis. There is certain thing that I have felt and noticed throughout i.e., the woman characters aren't given even a slight leeway by the audience. If the even make a slight mistake, the audience remembers it always to stand against that character. Whereas if there is a male villain, people gets cheerful seeing even a slight bit of humanity in him. They even wait for its redemption.

Let me take an example of a Turkish show "kara sevda(black love)". A one line synopsis can be put like- two leads who love each other endlessly but can never be together. So, the villain in that show is beyond redemption. That character has fallen so far off that there is no coming back. But still when he is playing with a baby, people's comments are like 'best moment of the show.' 'see he is such a good person'. 'the female lead should accept his love'. Am like what?

And if I tell you about the female lead. She is a good person at heart who is sacrificing love for family. And she is labelled "selfish" by audience. 'She doesn't deserve the male lead' etc. And you know I too felt like that for the majority of the show until I reached the point of self reflect.

Even Clarke from the 100 faced so much hate that there wasn't any visible backlash when in the end the makers made her a villain. The backlash was for Bellamy death and stupid end instead.

Looking through tv series, it's so easy to see why tv or films doesn't have female anti heroes. Male anti heroes are so easy to find and also widely successful like Damon from tvd or Klaus.

What is your take?

Yup!

Yes.

Definitely.

You are absolutely correct. The leeway for female characters to show human imperfection is very, very thin. Meanwhile, a guy can literally blow up a planet, kill his beloved father, have temper tantrums with kicking and screaming and torture the female main characters and fandom-- and the creators-- think that makes him a hero. And the requirements for his redemption, if there are any at all amounts to:

WOOPSIE! I'M SOWWY.

I simply do NOT understand that phenomenon.

I mean, I get the need to relate to darker characters, morally gray characters, to explore our own negative impulses...but the whole tendency is, for me anyway, given a more sinister light when you compare how the audience tends to treat these outright villainous male characters compared to even SLIGHTLY morally gray female characters. Maybe just flawed.

It also interferes with satisfying redemption arcs. Because YES watching someone face their dark past and attempt to become better and be redeemed is a great story... but if male characters only have to wear a cape and be hot to be redeemed.... then that's not a satisfying redemption arc. And if women can't do ANYTHING to be redeemed because they are considered irredeemably selfish or whatever for the same flaws someone's Hot Dark Badboy smirks about and isn't even sorry for? Then we barely even get redemption stories for women.

And that's part of the problem, isn't it? Women aren't allowed the same representation as men... even as flawed characters.

The point of good representation is not to represent only the best, most perfect, most desirable, most successful type of people. The point is to allow everyone of any sex, race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, ability, etc to take part in the full spectrum of humanity in our stories, good and bad and mediocre. A female Mary Sue is just the female version your general male hero. One is considered bad storytelling the other is taken as The Way It Should Be.

Women are not allowed to have flaws in most of our pop culture, or women are ghettoized into only women's fic or romance or YA, or women take backseat to male villains, or whatever.

I'm writing a book where the woman abandoned her child, and she sleeps around and cons people and avoids commitment. I purposely wrote her to be unlikable.... or rather, she's not unlikable, she's clever and funny and weird, but she has characteristics that women aren't supposed to have. She essentially acts like a male anti-hero, until her call to action and she is forced to face her past mistakes. But I know that these are things that audiences say are irredeemable for women. Abandon her own child?? No. Not allowed. Even though plenty of male characters go off on adventures leaving wife and child behind and it isn't even considered a character flaw, just... a male adventurer. Or honestly, just a guy. Sure one who's imperfect, but that old ball and chain was probably the worst, right? He had to move on and now he has a tragic backstory and complexity and oh the audience will probably either want to be him or want to be with him, because, that's how these things work.

Not saying that characters shouldn't be dark, do bad things, have flaws, be anti-heroes, have redemption arcs, or have a deep, multilayered villainy.

But I am saying we might want to be a little more critical about what we consider irredeemable for certain people and what war crimes and abuse we let some characters get away with in the name of bold (white) masculinity.

IS the nature of being a (white) man we look up to someone who destroys other people?

I think that toxic masculinity IS seen as sexy. Unfortunately, that's one of the reasons it's seeped into our culture. Manly (white) men who abandon kids and kill without remorse, but with muscles. Manly (white) men who murder whole regions because bad things happened to them, and smolder while doing it. Manly (white) men who commit genocide regularly, but fall for the heroine and save her once. Manly (white) men who are serial killers but with an intriguing depth.

tbh there's lots more to say on the topic, some of it very controversial. These are the stories we like to hear and the characters we love. And it might be rooted in the toxic masculinity that our society has been selling to us as propaganda for decades, if not centuries-- but we don't like to be told to examine our biases, our tastes, our preferences, or our beliefs. It's threatening to our sense of self.

However, that is how you unravel all sorts of toxic belief systems, from misogyny to racism to homophobia to bigotry of all kinds. I added the (white) to this post after I read through it, because I realized non white male characters are not allowed this leeway, either. So this phenomenon is generally (not always) limited to white men. Why?????

my theory? we're still making the colonialists the heroes of the story, friends.

[butwhatifidothis]

Except it ISN'T about the war in general. It's described as "a war drama depicting the journey and sacrifice of the emperor and her companions." Dorothea even mentions that it'll be an opera about Edelgard in their support.

It's not as deep as "Edelgard doesn't want information about the war in the form of a musical getting out". It's just her going "Yeah no I don't want a play about me with me as the main character because it's embarrassing."

As I said, Edelgard does plenty of fucked shit, but that isn't an example of one of them. There's no secondary motivation about not wanting the play outside of "I don't WANT a play about me it's embarrassing".

Theres a huge difference in "Rhea censors things and holds back technology" and "Edelgard bans her friend's musical about her because it embarrases her but ultimately relents and lets Dorothea preform the play."

One is serious, the other very much isn't. The ending doesn't even say she banned all plays about the war, just that SPECIFIC play by her friend which was ABOUT her.

I'm sure you could find evidence of Edelgard ACTUALLY censoring shit, but this just isn't it.

(assuming it’s the same anon, if it’s not then sorry!)

Alright. Let’s go with this. It’s not Edelgard hiding information about the war from the public - even though we already know there are some aspects of the war she doesn’t want anyone knowing, let alone the general public, such as Arianrhod, and even though we already know that things such as the war against TWS was explicitly hidden from the public. 

This is still censorship. You even say it’s her banning the play - that’s literally censorship. 

And you’re right - this isn’t the same as Rhea. Rhea hid knowledge from humans that they’ve already shown to use for malicious purposes, up to and including genocide and nearly ruining Fodlan, respectively. Edelgard is throwing around her power as Emperor to ban art because she’s, in your own words, “embarrassed” over it. You are describing her as someone who’s so childish she can’t stand people depicting her in a way she doesn’t like for literally no other reason than she’s embarrassed. This is abuse of power, full stop. 

Because yes, I can point to instances where Edelgard hides things/lies about things to make herself look better than she is or to otherwise benefit herself. I can point to when she takes Byleth’s credit at the Battle of Garreg Mach, to the missiles dropped on Arianrhod, to the shadow war against TWS, to her lying about “allowing” the people of Garreg Mach to escape when she attacks pre ts, so why, then, is it so unacceptable to believe that this is another instance of her doing what she’s already been shown to be capable of doing multiple times?

Or, alternatively, why does that suddenly make it not serious? It’s serious that Seteth is willing to censor anything about romance from the library, because it’s suppression of art. That is Seteth abusing his power as a high-ranking official of the Church to ban things he personally doesn’t like, not because they’re an inherent threat, but because he’s an overprotective father who’s too scared of his daughter getting with anyone and getting any ideas about romance (or is too grossed out by his sister gettin’ funky with Wilheim). He’s letting his own personal feelings get in the way of the spreading of harmless art and that is a bad thing.

If Edelgard didn’t initially allow this play that was (implicitly) written by someone close to her, what would stop her from banning any play about her she doesn’t like? If she already has multiple details about the war she doesn’t want the people knowing, what would stop her from censoring any play about the war? This one only got a pass because a friend of hers wrote it, and it still got banned and it still needed that friend to convince her to unban it - not everyone in the Empire is her friend. And also, this is only after she herself watched the play, so does every play about her need her to personally vet it (or in general vet it) for approval before being allowed to be shown to the public? Is that how art of her is going to be treated in her society? All because she’s too embarrassed?

And I’m sorry!! I don’t want to sound rude, but “I'm sure you could find evidence of Edelgard ACTUALLY censoring shit, but this just isn't it” except it... is? An example of her actually censoring shit? This is an example of her using her position as Emperor to disallow the production of art due to the contents of said art being considered unfit for public consumption as decreed by solely Edelgard? Because she personally doesn’t like what’s in it - by your explanation, not even for objective reasons that could actually disadvantage her? How is this not censorship, and why is this not serious? 

Because, again, this is not her going up to her friend and saying “Hey, I’d really appreciate if you don’t do this” like their supports, which I have literally no issues with. It’s her demanding the entire Mittelfrank Opera Company not produce this play they wanted to perform. There’s a difference between a huge political leader going to their personal friends and asking them as friends to not do a certain thing, and that same leader forbidding the general public from doing that same thing under law. 

So either Edelgard is banning this play because it’s about the war and she doesn’t want the possibility of it revealing any information she doesn’t want the public to know about and is willing to abuse her power to ban it and is only appeased once she knows a close friend of hers wrote it and even then only after she’s seen the performance for herself... or she is banning this play because she’s embarrassed about any possible haha details coming out about her and she’s willing to abuse her power to ban it and is only appeased once she knows a close friend of hers wrote it and even then only after she’s seen the performance for herself. 

Both are bad. They may not be equally bad, but they are both very bad. Censorship is so rarely good that 3H had to come with a literal impossible scenario for it to be even possible to justify (”this nearly genocided race of dragon people with magic blood needed to hide the history of their magic blood from people that wanted to kill them for it”), and it’s definitely not good for as petty a reason as “nooo, don’t talk about me like that //>~<//”