#no one cultural group was vilified

[fangsandfeels]

Playing Veilguard and making it everyone's problem

I am going to rant, and I will rant a lot, and there will be spoilers, so if you're not afraid of them and the game criticism, buckle up.

Elves and their gods

I am absolutely fucking livid about how Veilguard handles the Dalish and elves in general. The events of Trespasser made it clear that the elves started flocking over to Solas, including the elves working for the Inquisition:

After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned.

Solas had multiple spies working for him during Trespasser, and If I remember correctly, there was even a note, left by one of the elves - they were anticipating the great change and the return of the elven glory. Anyways, the established fact is that: elves learned that the stories about their gods were true and one of them now was going to restore the world as it used to be. At least, this is how they interpreted it (maybe, this is the version Solas didn't debunk) and so they started following him.

You might think, the Inquisitor and their allies are going to have a huge problem with breaking it to elves that their chosen leader isn't going to make things better and that their gods don't love them. Especially, if the Inquisitor is a human or anyone who isn't an elf. You'd imagine any attempts will end in failure because of course elves aren't going to listen to outsiders trying to explain their own culture and gods to them. You'd imagine that their trauma caused by centuries of oppression and discrimination will make it impossible for the Inquisitor and anyone else to make them see the truth.

You'd assume anyone who tries to find and stop Solas will be sabotaged every step of the way, feeling themselves horrible for having to clash with people desperate for a chance of a life without injustice - even if it means burning the rest of the world down.

You'd imagine that they will only change their mind if/when they see the harm done by Solas' actions and get to witness their gods true intentions by themselves - which would lead to a massive crisis of faith and schisms happening between elven tribes and groups.

You'd imagine will get all this incredible drama in the Veilguard, with elves initially resisting the group's attempts to stop Solas, then trying to pull themselves together after the revelation. You'd assume there will be zealous groups doubting Solas (because the Dreadwolf is a liar and a deceiver) and intending to use him to actually free the elven gods. You'd think this is how actually some of them get out.

But, NOPE. Not only Solas ends up working alone, with none of his followers throwing themselves at Rook and the party to buy him time, but also all elves now hate Solas because...Varric said so?

You meet a group of Veil Jumpers (elves devoted to exploring their ancient culture and history, learning more about their gods and reclaiming their heritage) and their leader instantly calls Solas an asshole. Based on WHAT?

I get it, Varric had met them before and told them that Solas was Fen'Harel...

(needless to say if you expect players to find and read other media in order to make sense of the events in the game, you are doing something wrong)

...but why were they so fucking calm about it, instantly eating up the "yep, he's bad" version? Even if the Dread Wolf is vilified in the Dalish mythology, wouldn't they be curious about what that means? Wouldn't they have gotten tempted or excited by the implication that other gods exist too? They weren't told the full story - why the fuck did they instantly accept the "Solas is an asshole" narrative? Especially when Solas comes with a promise of a world for the elves like it was meant to be?

WHY?

The Veilguard has no response for that. I guess, Dalish never cared about their history and traditions, and city elves were dandy about Alienages and oppression, so they easily believed some randos over a literal god promising a new, better world.

I don't even play Dalish, but I love their plotline and arcs - and I was bracing myself for some downright painful choices and conflicts during the next Dragon Age. But it felt like the writers couldn't be bothered with developing such a nuanced narrative, so they just waved it all down with "Nah, elves are chill now and they never really cared about their gods in the first place".

[beardedmrbean]

Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award.

The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats.

That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.

All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.

It did not matter that positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many.

Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses.

Others argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.

The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court

Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.

Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, the media further ostracized dissenting critics.

Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.

I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.

They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.

Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.

So what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists?

Universities shred their ethics to aid Biden’s social-media censorship

Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked  Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”

Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” 

Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.”

None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed.

There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him.

The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.

[bingsoo-jung]

TTRPGs and Violence

Not everything is radical, let’s stop pretending like it is.

A lot of people in the TTRPG space don’t like me. About a year ago I more or less set fire to the handful of bridges I had built in this space in order to make a statement about the genocide of Gaza. In the past year as I protested my way across my college campus, graduated, and joined up with a mutual aid group, I have never once regretted this.

However, I do regret not being more clear with what I meant when I did it. So, let’s begin with a bold statement, people in the TTRPG space often discuss colonialism and resisting colonial narratives, but draw the line at actually resisting colonialism. The TTRPG community has decided that ‘revolutionary’ narratives are non-violent ones because many people subscribe to the idea that violence is inherently colonial and not simply a tool of colonizers. But no liberation has ever been achieved without violence, and the decision in the TTRPG space to say that anti-colonial and revolutionary stories should be non-violent ones exemplifies why TTRPGs often struggle to hold its own against other storytelling mediums. Not because of the inherent nature of TTRPGs, but because of the culture that has formed around them.

Stories, at their best, are vehicles of discussion about the world around us. They are ways to comment on the complicated nature of reality. But simply deciding the best path of resistance is a path of consummate niceness and pacifism — not one of violence and care — ignores those complex realities. It’s been decided that there is an acceptable amount of fury that can be depicted, but that fury ought to be toothless. Thus to reinforce that narrative, stories about war are always set after the war, they’re about healing from trauma in a better world. They’re about how we become better when all the fighting is done.

But the fundamental fact of reality is that those things aren’t done. Colonialism hasn’t ended, it’s just shifted forms, wars still occur, and there is an active ongoing genocide even now. I live in a country which has elected a wannabe-Hitler, and a South African billionaire who made his money from slave labor did a nazi salute at his inauguration. We live in an actively hostile and cruel world for POC, queer people, disabled people, and so many others. But we are pretending as if we don’t.

Thus not only are we engaging in pretend when we’re acting, we’re engaging in pretend in the metanarratives surrounding which stories do and don’t get told. We’re acting as if these stories which talk about healing from trauma are responses to the reality we live in, where the trauma-causing events have passed. But they haven’t. The traumatic history hasn’t ended, we’ve just grown blind to it.

To this day I can name one Actual Play off the top of my head which depicted violent resistance, yet I can name a number of movies, books, and TV shows which have, despite them being under far greater censorship. APs have chosen to self-censor not because the TTRPGs don’t exist, but in the hopes of being palatable, yet still wish to be viewed as radical by their community. This is done by choosing to not depict the PCs as engaging in violent resistance, and not portraying that violent resistance in a positive light. Instead most ‘anti-colonial’ stories are post-colonial ones about how ‘leftover anger’ from traumatic histories can make you cruel.

This is not to say that stories sent after colonization cannot be radical, but for them to be radical the violence used to achieve liberation cannot be ostracized and made into something that characters need to ‘heal from.’ That killing the colonizer who massacred thousands or even millions actually is on the road to hell and is something that can mar the soul. In doing so we vilify the justified anger of the colonized. We tell each other ‘don’t be angry at the injustice that happened to you.’ But Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or Cassian Andor from Andor don’t need to heal from the violence they caused, your TTRPG characters don’t need to either.

Furthermore, we treat actions that are not liberatory actions as being liberatory. No, you getting better opportunities is not liberation. No, former soldiers healing from trauma isn’t liberation. No, voting isn’t liberation. Liberation is liberation. Anything else isn’t, and shouldn’t be considered that. That isn’t to say those things important, but they aren’t equal to it. As Ismatu Gwendolyn would say, we’ve made a spectacle of liberation, we’ve made it something you can eat and consume and say ‘I engaged in liberation, my instagram feed says so! Look at this liberation meal I had!’ But in doing so we’ve failed to actually produce any stories which could meaningfully contribute to discussions of what resistance should look like and how it could be achieved. We’ve hampered our imaginations to foster a palatable leftism in favor of a useful one.

But what use is calmness, when the anger is correct? When things are wrong and fucked up? Why not tell a story about your anger? The want for violence isn’t always bad, what matters is when and where it’s used. Yes, indiscriminately murdering orcs is weird and speaks to the tendencies towards bioessentialism in D&D, but demanding we always negotiate with fascists because ‘they’re people too’ is just tolerating fascists. There is nuance and context to violence that matters, and by stripping those things from how we portray it, our stories become the worse for it. We do not trust in the viewer to come to conclusions for themselves, or to know where the line in the sand is, nor do we trust in the performer-creatives to be a rational person.

Perhaps most irresponsibly, instead of building infrastructure that would allow us to tell these kinds of stories we’ve instead cast it to the performer-creatives to take the emotional burden upon themselves. Why don’t we bring on intimacy coordinators to set boundaries and create safe environments to tell these stories? Why are things like decompressing and session zeroes optional and not obligatory? And why have we not innovated more robust and professional safety tools as this space becomes more and more of an industry? In doing so we’ve inherently made TTRPGs a less safe place that would allow us to tell more serious stories. The limitations are not solely of what stories we’ve deemed acceptable to tell, but the lack of systems that would allow us to tell them. This is not to say that if you don’t have access to these systems you shouldn’t be telling stories, but the lack of them nevertheless speaks to a greater issue in the TTRPG space, a fundamental unseriousness that impacts our very ability to be more radical in our imagination.

I don’t really know if I want to see more narratives around violent resistance in the TTRPG space. I’m not sure if the same people who have rejected such stories and the importance of them really have the capability to tell them, or if they will simply just make it work. But I hope to see new people use stories to galvanize people, and to innovate new futures. I not only want to see stories that say something, that give us new possibilities, but also new systems put in place that support creatives in telling these stories. Things like bleed should not be solely up to the performers to handle, but something that resources are budgeted for just the same as streaming assets, hardware, and so much else. If we want to create a space where people are emboldened to tell all kinds of narratives then we need to actually facilitate those spaces, not just say ‘I would like to see more kinds of stories told.’

TTRPGs are not producing stories in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, or even Deep Space Nine because we’re so focused on being better than our anger, but also trying to recreate the success of stories in other mediums. We reach towards a moderate middle ground based on the past because it’s healthy and reliable. But that ignores that oftentimes a good story not only makes the viewer feel something, but challenges them. The inherent nature of nostalgia is a conservative one which idolizes a forgone idealized past that never could have existed, and in constantly trying to recreate or pay homage to other stories, we continue to hamper our innovation.

There is such great potential to in TTRPGs as a medium, from their collaborative nature, to their real-time storytelling that provides a space for people to experience emotions and possibilities in real time, to, frankly, the lack of censorship that other mediums of art experience. They can push us to imagine and act quicker than if we were simply writing a novel or screenplay. But if the TTRPG space is to grow we must move beyond our unimaginative and anti-radical tendencies which idolize a non-violent nostalgic past, in favor of dreaming a sometimes violent radical future.

With all my love,

Theta S. Chun.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #7510:

I forgot which submission number it was that talked about how Puritanism and Puritanism culture were terms being watered down unless I’m remembering a completely different blog, feel free to correct me on that, but I am aware what Puritan culture is outside of fandoms are those toxic extremely religious group of people that think that punishing people who participate in pre-marital sex. I am also aware that ironically, puritans have groomed young women, which sounds similar to how Antis are ironically always the one to be caught being a predator. But when we say things like Puritans in Fandoms or when we call most antis Puritans, we’re not watering down any terms nor are we misusing it.

Antis have attacked people who shipped ships that were basically not the sterilized vanilla ships. Shipped two characters with an age gap that isn’t too sus? Antis will label your ship as “pedophilic” because the age gap makes them uncomfortable. Shipped characters that are in NO WAY related but most people view the relationship between the characters as siblings? Antis will label your ship as “incest” even though again, the characters are in no way, shape, or form related and they will force their “sibling dynamic” headcanon down people’s throats because god forbid you ship a straight ship nowadays.

Also, this is a heavily “depends on the fandom” situation where if it’s between a WLW or MLM pairing, it’s fine, but if it’s a straight ship, then suddenly it’s sinful. Sometimes it’s vice versa, but either way, you delve into a taboo kink in fiction that you don’t want to indulge into in real life because for example in real life, a teacher dating a student (college professor or high school reacher) it’s illegal and unethical as hell, but in fiction, no real student is being taken advantage of, so it’s okay and the author does not encourage that type of behavior. Another is public sex. Obviously, another one that is very illegal because it can get you put on a list, but writing/reading about it in a fanfic is fine because you’ll be indulging in a scenario in fiction that won’t get you arrested.

But even with the creator saying that they do not in anyway condone specific sexual behaviors like the ones I mentioned above, the antis and puritans will pop up and say how gross, disgusting, repulsive, and whatever other colorful term they want to call writers or artists in other cases.

If a ship that we like isn’t the sterilized vanilla type of ship, the boring fluffy fanfiction with no sex to be seen or mentioned, or the cutesy pure wholesome artwork of the popular LGBT ship of the month, that creator will sometimes be attacked.

And I don’t think I even need to mention fandom double standards when it comes to male characters and female characters being sexualized and the minute a female character is being sexualized, some of the loud toxic voices in the fandom are quick to call people who don’t like seeing female characters be desexualized for the sake of “empowerment” when the fictional men are being sexualized one hundred times more, “misogynistic.” Then I guess LGBT women and women in general have internalized misogyny for also wanting to see hot women in fiction. Plus, there are worse things that happen to established female characters in fanfiction when they get vilified for no reason for the sake of an MLM ship or a reader insert fic, which I personally think is worse as it slanders the female character’s personality and twists them into a character that they are not.

Unfortunately, just like most things outside of fandoms such as sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, ableism and ageism, Puritanism has crawled its way into fandom culture as the years went on.

I am a bisexual woman who doesn’t want to see boring vanilla takes of WLW ships and that drawing of a female character? No real women are being harmed and surprise, surprise, there are many women out there who have made R34 of female characters, there are women who made or helped make Hentai, etc. Besides, the amount of energy antis put into defending fictional female characters from being sexualized could’ve been used and should’ve been used to help real women who are going through or went through far worse situations.

So the long story short, I have no idea what submission number this was, if that type of submission was made on this blog that is, Puritanism isn’t being watered down for fandom. Puritanism culture really has bled into fandom culture alongside many other toxic aspects that ideally shouldn’t even be in fandoms, but unfortunately, those problems still persist. If I got anything wrong, correct me, because my memory sucks.

[neurodivergent-loverboy]

It seems like this needs to be said, so I'm going to say it:

Having an eating disorder is not a moral failing. Nope, not even if it includes an aversion to eating foods from unfamiliar cuisines. Sensory differences and anxiety about trying new things are morally neutral traits, and they are certainly not indicative of bigotry.

This does not mean that people with ARFID (or people who avoid certain foods for any other reason) are incapable of expressing their aversion in harmful ways. Take a look at these hypothetical statements:

"Guacamole is disgusting. I don't understand how people can eat that stuff without gagging!"

"I would never eat curry, it looks like vomit."

"People who actually like sushi must have something wrong with their taste buds."

"I don't like 'ethnic' food, it's all gross."

These statements are judgemental generalizations about foods from non-white cultures. They are disrespectful, close-minded, othering statements. Speaking like this about any cuisine, especially those that have been historically vilified by groups in power, is unacceptable. That is true regardless of a person's mental health or disability status.

Now take a look at these statements, and note the difference in tone:

"I can't eat seafood. It triggers my gag reflex."

"I wouldn't be able to eat that. I'm really sensitive to texture when it comes to food, especially greasy or mushy textures."

"A lot of the flavors used in Thai cooking are overwhelming for me, and I can't handle anything spicy."

"I mostly eat food that I already know I like, because that's what's comfortable for me."

These statements, like the previous ones, are expressing an aversion to certain foods. But unlike the previous statements, these ones center the personal limits of the speaker rather than placing judgement on the food they're talking about or the people who eat that food.

There is no good reason to conflate these mindsets. Shaming people with ARFID simply for having ARFID is not effective antiracist action - it's lateral aggression. Call out bigotry when you see it, criticize harmful and disrespectful rhetoric, and hold neurodivergent people to the same standards of equitable behavior as your neurotypical peers. All of that is possible to do without implying that a disabling mental health condition is really just a moral failing.

[bonewaryreblogs]

The Justice Society of America vs. the Justice League

This is the first half of the massive post I've been working on, which I've decided to cut in half; part two will be more focused on what the Justice League looks like when the story actually starts in 2004, like membership and different teams within the Justice League, like the Justice Foundation and Justice League Dark.

But for now, enjoy the backstory!

During World War II, Adolf Hitler was interested in supernatural artifacts, ultimately finding the Spear of Destiny around 1940. President Roosevelt called on several superheroes to help defend the USA, as most local superheroes of the time tried to stay out of international conflicts to focus on their own territories. After this initial mission is complete, the group of heroes decide to remain as a team, funded and directed by the United States government, called the Justice Society of America. Founding members were Flash (Jay Garrick), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Doctor Fate (Kent Nelson), Atom (Al Pratt), Hawkman (Carter Hall), Hourman (Rex Tyler), and Spectre (Jim Corrigan). Several heroes joined shortly after, including Hawkman’s girlfriend/wife Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman (Shiera Sanders/Shiera Hall), Johnny Thunderbolt (John Thunder) with Yz the Thunderbolt, Doctor Mid-Nite (Charles McNider), Starman (Ted Knight), among others. I’m also adding several “older” versions of heroes who might not have originally been associated with the JSA but have more “modern” variants that will be part of the eventual Justice League.

People with superhuman abilities have always existed, one of the earliest being Vandal Savage, but they mostly did one of three things; 1] they swore fealty to a local ruler and worked within an existing system (Alucard, though against his will); 2] they became a local ruler and created their own system (King Arthur); or 3] they worked outside existing systems as a vigilante, usually guided by their own internal moral compass (Robin Hood). These super powered individuals would often be drawn to each other, as allies or enemies, but most would remain local to a specific territory; or if they didn’t have a particular area, they would travel and help whoever happened to be around them at a given time. During the Renaissance, power and authority was more centralized, formalized, and structured, forcing super powered individuals to either fall in line with these systems or sink further into the shadows, becoming “mystery men” as a way to protect themselves and their loved ones. These mystery men were often vilified for not bowing to the government’s will, which led to more secrecy, which led to mistrust from the public, which led to more secrecy, in an ever darkening spiral.

The Justice Society of America is significant because it marked a change in the perception the general public had for these “superheroes” as the JSA preferred to call them. They were no longer mysterious boogey-men to scare kids straight; they were just people, who lived and loved and bought groceries just like anyone else, and who wanted to help others in any way they could. As the globalization of human culture increased through the rest of the 1900s, so too did the influence of superheroes; some thrived on the attention and political power their celebrity status granted them, while others shied away from the spotlight they’d been thrust into, not prepared for the nightmare that is Public Relations.

Over the next few decades, as the idea of superheroes became more mainstream, more local heroes began popping up, as well as some established local heroes releasing their stranglehold on some of their secrets; not all, but enough to humanize themselves to the general public. The idea of public adoration appealed to many, like moths to a flame, which unfortunately tended to draw the wrong crowd for the wrong reasons, saturating the “superhero market” with selfish so-called heroes who only cared about themselves rather than helping people if no one was around to praise them for it. Thankfully, these heroes didn’t last long and folded when faced with an actual threat, which often ended in public humiliation; people were finally starting to catch on to this trend by the 1970s, leading to newer heroes thinking twice before donning a cape and mask.

Three tiers of membership developed within the JSA; full members, part-time members or associates, and non-members that have been endorsed by the JSA who might become members in the future. Of course a more nuanced hierarchy developed over time, as is common among groups of humans, which was loosely based around these tiers but there were always outliers who had more or less respect than their membership status would otherwise grant them. While some were drawn to the JSA for the fame, just an endorsement could make or break a local hero; legitimizing their status as a hero in the publics’ eyes, access to better equipment and training, and, most importantly, access to medical treatment that the government would pay for and an implicit understanding about secret identities from all hospital staff. There were pros and cons for each tier; higher membership meant more responsibility but also more compensation, while lower membership offered more freedom but less access to resources. For example, members were paid based on their time, effort, and how much danger they were put in, but they had no choice but to answer the call to action. Those with just an endorsement weren’t paid at all and had limited access to other resources, but they were allowed to keep their identities a secret from the JSA, which even part-time members had to reveal, though not to the public if they didn’t want to.

Superman was inducted into the JSA fairly quickly after his debut, joining in 1978. The JSA had been around for almost 4 decades by then and its flaws and shortcomings were becoming more and more apparent; while most up-and-coming heroes had grown up with the idea of superheroes being necessary for public safety, the JSA had become increasingly political, rife with in-fighting, and interconnected with the US military. They’d become the USA’s attack dogs internationally and tended to attract those who craved the spotlight via membership more than those who actually wanted to help people, who often stayed at endorsement level. They were getting desperate for new members that could revitalize their image, which inevitably either corrupted the young heroes or disgusted them into leaving.

Trained as a reporter for his day job, Superman quickly uncovered the truth but recognized that the JSA had good bones and structure, despite its corruption. He initially tried to change things from within but realized the corruption and codependence ran too deep. Instead, he began studying the structure of the JSA, figuring out what it did well and how to avoid what it did wrong, all while making plans for his own superhero team, independent of government meddling, and international in scope; if nothing else, it could help superhero teams coordinate with each other as a neutral third party mediator.

Superman wasn’t quiet about the JSA’s shortcomings, but kept his plans for the Justice League mostly to himself; he didn’t want to be kicked out for potentially poaching talent as a competitor, not while he still needed the JSA’s resources to help people. In 1986, Superman approached newly minted CEO Bruce Wayne with his idea; he knew Batman had been approached to join the JSA but had declined and hoped that, despite their rough introduction a few years prior, Wayne Enterprise would agree to be the Justice League’s financial backer, affording them greater independence from any government interference. Bruce had a lot going on at the time and said he’d think about it.

Somewhere around 1990, Wonder Woman debuted and hesitantly joined the JSA, recognizing the corruption (not to mention misogyny) but also its usefulness to her, and was quickly approached by Superman with his new team idea. She was much more comfortable with his plan and eagerly jumped on board, agreeing to be its main leader, but until they could make it happen, she worked on establishing herself as someone the public could trust.

By 1993, Dick Greyson had graduated from sidekick Robin to independent hero Nightwing, Barbra Gordan had well established herself as Batgirl, and Jason Todd was doing well as the second Robin. Feeling more stable, Bruce asked if Clark was still serious about his idea, which he’d now had 7 more years to refine and recruit for. The Justice League finally debuted the next year, lead mostly by Wonder Woman and backed by Superman and Batman as joint seconds-in-command; they purposely never established which of the two had a higher rank and delegated the responsibilities evenly between them based on their strengths. Superman took more of front-facing role with Wonder Woman, as both were generally good with Public Relations, while Batman took on more of a supporting role, doing a lot of the background planning and coordinating to maximize efficiency. Some would compare them to the three arms of the US government, with Wonder Woman as the executive, Superman as the judicial, and Batman as the legislative. While not intentional, it helped people understand their roles and division of power so they didn’t do anything to confirm or deny the parallels.

Their initial lineup consisted of Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman, along with Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman (Orin/Arthur Curry), and Martian Manhunter (J’onn J’onzz). After the League proved to be stable and not likely to disband, like most independent superhero teams did, they quickly gained members, especially younger heroes that wanted to change the world without being shackled to a specific government and hamstrung by their politics. Many members also joined as a representative of local superhero teams/government agencies around the world.

[angrybell]

He’s so appalled he’s done…. Absolutely nothing.

Jews get harassed and attacked at rallies. Biden does nothing.

Jews get harassed and attacked on campus. Biden does nothing.

Jews get harassed and attacked at their synagogue. Biden sends a tweet.

Why is the majority of my community supporting this man and this party? He’s never been a real friend. He hates Jews when they defend themselves. He likes us as victim, but not enough to do anything tangible.

Has Garland been ordered to prosecute s1985 cases, treating these pro “Palestinian” thugs like the KKK as they should be? No.

He wants to import more of them.

He wants to reward their terror by supporting an independent “Palestine”. The only people who will profit from this are the terrorists who want formal recognition because it affords them more protections for when they launch their next 10/7 style attack.

So why are we supporting this man? He’s not good for us.

Oh that’s right.. Trump. Did Trump permit pogroms? Did Trump undercut Israel trying to destroy a terrorist organization?

No. He did worse. He said mean things.

Don’t tell me that Biden did things better than Trump. Most of Biden’s successes are continuations to Trump’s policies. Most of the failures are Biden’s personal or party initiatives.

Do you not see the absolute insanity?

I get that many in the community are unable to override three or more generations of indoctrination that American Jewish protection can only come from the Democrats. It makes absolutely no sense historically when you consider that the Democrats were the ones who

Was the party of the KKK.

Strictly enforced the immigration quotas against the Jews before and during

Did not criticize Hitler for his treatment of the Jews and other minorities by the Nazis

Obama embraced and provided funds to nations, most notably Iran, who had committed or orchestrated acts of terror against Jews in Israel and around the world. He then tried to make it possible for them to construct nuclear weapons through a deal that perversely was sold as a deal to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons.

Have continually elected openly antisemitic members to Congress for the past decade.

Biden has tried to prevent Israel from rescuing American and Israeli Jews held by Hamas by establishing a “red line” when it comes to Rafah.

Our allegiance to the Democrats is a poisonous inheritance of our ancestors. Back in Eastern Europe, the socialists were the only ones not likely to participate in the pogroms while the Russian and Austrian-Hungarian Empires existed. And because of that, Jews were attracted to that. Yes, there are some aspects of their program that agrees with Jewish culture, but many of those same areas can also be found with conservative movements as well.

What worked, badly, for the Jewish community at the start of the 29th century does not work for us anymore. Remaining wed to the Democrats is like an abused spouse saying “they really will change this time.”

They’re not. They’ve promised to get worse.

So, are we going to vote for our own destruction? Or are we going to use our power and votes to support someone, or just as importantly to support someone?

I get that if you’ve gotten this far you’ve at least thought of something along these lines but then you get to the other option: Trump. He’s been more vilified than any politician in American politics in the last half century. He’s got a lot of faults. So maybe you’re not ready to vote for him.

Fine. At least don’t vote for Biden. And, if you live in one of the districts, don’t vote for members of the “The Squad”. Don’t donate to the Democrats or groups that are simply going to give it to Biden.

Otherwise, you’re saying you’re fine with where this heading. Another 4 years of Democrat rule is not going to fix the problems we’re experiencing. It’s going to make them worse.

[barryogg]

The story goes like this

Earth is captured by a technocapital singularity as renaissance rationalitization and oceanic whoops sorry, wrong script

The story goes like this: during the Cold War, the USSR pumped vast amounts of resources to recruit sympathetic people as agents to attack and subvert the US government. Didn't hurt that FDR was largely sympathetic to Stalin. The early wave resulted in the Soviets getting important military plans, e.g. for the nuclear bomb.

This infiltration was an actual thing that happened. This is worth reiterating, because people often claim that McCarthy was fighting against nonexistent enemies. Because people in Hollywood were often captivated by the ideas of communism, as artistic types often do, in retaliation they vilified him forever in popular culture. (Although it's worth noting that he probably was an abrasive person, so that didn't help).

By the 70s, there were multiple active leftist terrorist organizations in the US. And we're not talking about some 21st century "riot around, semi-accidentally set fire to some buildings, is you kill a guy it makes national news" weaksauce. No, it was

The 1970s underground wasn’t small. It was hundreds of people becoming urban guerrillas. Bombing buildings: the Pentagon, the Capitol, courthouses, restaurants, corporations. Robbing banks. Assassinating police. People really thought that revolution was imminent, and thought violence would bring it about. [...] Most ’70s of the bombings were done as protest actions. Unlike today’s jihadists, ’70s underground didn’t try to max body count. And ’70s papers didn’t really give a shit. A Puerto Rican group bombed 2 theaters in the Bronx, injuring eleven, in 1970. NYT gave it 6 paragraphs.

(Source. I really should finally read that book.)

The endeavors at this scale can't be backed by revolutionary fervor alone. You need logistics, you need financing, you need friendly lawyers. Weather Underground (originally Weatherman, but that -man suffix was deemed sexist. Plus ça change) sprung out from a socialist student organization.

By the time the USSR fell, the radical organizations have metastasized into vast patronage networks. Many became academics, lawyers. In some cases it was almost dynastic - remember Chesa Boudin, a New York DA? His father was a Weatherman, in jail for felony murder. He was pardoned by Cuomo in 2021.

There were more pardons. Some made by Bill Clinton. Some made by Obama. Remember back 10 years ago, when Hamilton was the Apex of lib culture. Lin-Manual Miranda took care to reserve seats for FALN bombers.

The last link goes to David Hines' twitter. There's another drum he's been banging repeatedly: righties don't know how to organize and cargo-cult it. They see all the successful actions of the left and assume that they just happen, ignoring the fact that, again - those require logistics, money, and backing of a sympathetic press and lawyers. Instead of building a network and then utilizing it, they start from shouting their intent publicly then beclown themselves.

But what if that was the case because the left had a multi-decade headstart in networking, due to support from a now-dead rival empire? What if the patronage networks built over multiple generations were suddenly broken? What if they were growing unopposed by the neocons, who happily let them be as long as the Republicans got to bomb some brown people while in power during the 90s and 00s?

If this was true, then the current upheaval would mean that the current victory of the radical MAGA wing was a fluke, but that it also was a victory made in an insanely uphill battle. It would mean that if the existing patronages are broken, going forward you'd need much less activation energy to win. That hundreds of little things that tipped the scales in one direction would just... cease.

It's hard to be surprised that some people are getting downright giddy these days. Sure, the networks are embedded so deeply that it takes a lot of collateral damage to rip them, but can you imagine, for the first time in your life, an actual victory?

-------------------------------------

Well, that's a story. I mean, the in-between points are real: the Rosenbergs are real, all the bombings in the 70s are real, the pardons of those are real. But weaving the common thread through them, that's a story one may tell. Every political faction has a story that they like to tell about themselves. This one's may not even be the story that most MAGAs tell themselves, many are probably perfectly content with torching the commons to own the libs.

But I think that this is approximately the story many people would tell about the past two weeks. ESR, Travis Corcoran, the aforementioned Hradzka. Eigen.

And I think that it's important to understand the stories people tell about themselves and their beliefs, even if you don't believe them.

[keshetchai]

I think a huge problem in internet Judaism (also sometimes irl!) discussions is often that we're so focused on fighting or pushing back on misconceptions, Christian normativity, and distorted Christian ideas about our theology — that sometimes in the pursuit of this, we forget to approach a more complicated internal reality, or we overlook parts of our own religion while trying to not assimilate.

Things like the Talmud talking about Yom Kippur being a happy day. A lot of folks were surprised and didn't know there's a huge tradition that YK is supposed to be a positive holiday and many Jews observe with joy. Then some folks went on to elaborate that if someone wished them a happy Yom Kippur and they were Jewish it was fine, but if they were gentiles who simply didn't know anything and didn't bother to learn, then they were annoyed by the lack of care re: cultural nuance or whatever.

But like...of all the annoying christian-normative bullshit that exists — someone trying to wish me a happy holiday on a holiday that is noted to be solemn AND positive, but not really knowing anything about my religion — that doesn't really make a list of things I have time to be mad about! Or even irked by!

There's a lot of ways in which people are shitty and careless or make it obvious they consider our non-christian holidays an annoying quirk they have to acknowledge, but "happy yom kippur!" Is not one of them. Sometimes I just have to remind myself that I want other people to assume the best of me, even when I am the one who is socially awkward or ignorant, or stumbling around just trying to be an okay person. And sometimes I am the clueless one who has only a shallow understanding of someone's interior life/culture and I said/did nothing actually offensive but treated the situation the same way I treat similar ones in my own life because everyone has cultural blinders somewhere.

So sometimes, I have to look at other people doing The Thing and ask myself if it's at all malicious or harmful, and if it ISN'T, shouldn't I assume the best of another human bumbling around like I do all the time? "Hey thanks. Yeah I had a meaningful holiday."

Likewise, YES, we do have a history of wrestling with G-d and pushing back and asking questions and so on, but no, stiff-necked isn't wholly complimentary, it's...frequently the opposite of that. And the knee-jerk reaction is often to push back against Christianity and Islam vilifying Jews and their stubbornness/failures/wrongs in the Bible. Which is totally reasonable, there's a huge history of a theology of antisemitism and blaming there that impacts us today.

HOWEVER, we can push back against the antisemitic theologies and interpretations of these stories without necessarily having to recharacterize everything beyond recognition?

Yes, Abraham yelled at G-d that one time, and it was great. It may have even been a test of Abraham. Yes, Israel wrestles with G-d. Yes, the Jews in the desert complain to Moses they are dying of thirst and ask what was the point of leaving Egypt if they should only die while wandering instead?

Great. Love that. BUT ALSO: yes stiff-necked is not always a compliment. Yes, the Israelites struggled and made mistakes, and are utterly and painfully human just like people are today. Flawed. We are not so stiff-necked as to say we have not sinned!

Is anything as scary as a group that admits no flaws? No errors of judgment? Never questions themselves or learns from past mistakes? Idk to me, it's all very "with great responsibility comes great accountability, and power isn't the point here." Yes? If we take pride in the moments of arguing and the pushing back, then by that same token, we have to own the failings just as much to learn from. The relationship between G-d and Jews is a two way street.

It's not a failing to be an imperfect human, but it would be a failing to screw something up and then never admit it or keep doing it when you can change.

Idk I just...there's got to be ways we can dig into meaty and interesting stuff without having to constantly be like "just because some ancestors screwed up and G-d was angry at them doesn't mean you can say Jews lost the love of God and the covenant and were replaced you absolute weirdos."

[fallout-lou-begas]

On the one hand, it is absolutely a sign of the complexion of the dev team and of the times that FNV has little to no presence of real life Indigenous people. Not "tribals." Real Indigenous nations that live in that general area like the Mojave, Paiute, Apache etc. On the other hand, I think using groups like the great khans, the unnamed "tribal" from Hanlons stories, the zion tribes, as props to hammer in on US settler colonialism in general and of the actual US state of California in particular, is pretty clever. That is, these things can be shown to the player without using the pain of Indigenous peoples, their lives and their blood, as a way to carry that message. If the massacre at bitter springs had been of Apache it would be less effective and in very poor taste, in my opinion. I think overall the criticisms are still valid, but I think theres some interesting alternative interpretations. But on the other hand, the allegory falls apart because the khans AREN'T the victims of colonialism. In the first game and onward they are chattel slave owning rapists. They are more of a criminal gang than a distinct culture. And in FNV theres the suggestion that the khans are defending themselves and are victimized in the mold of Indigenous tribes which fought the US and attacked settlers. But in reality, they are objectively in the wrong when attacking the NCR (don't deserve to get massacred, but still), and the genre fiction of the whole thing breaks the metaphor. Like applying anti colonial rhetoric to the hells angels. Like how the allegory of ghouls as a marginalized group breaks down entirely with the introduction of feral ghouls in fallout 3. While some ghouls in prior entries might attack on sight, this was only if the player got close, and they weren't really a danger. So people having this hard on about hating ghouls in fallout 1 and 2 was meant as entirely illegitimate. That allegory doesn't work after f3 since we are meant to think that at any moment, for no known reason, they can turn into a cannibal corpse. The genre fiction of it all spoils the thing. anyway, read cadillac desert.

this is exactly what i mean by the "baggage" of fallout's depiction of "tribals" and even just the word "tribal" to describe its various disparate post-apocalyptic nomadic groups, because while they can be used as you say to brush up against indigenous identities allegorically, there is a very deafening silence coming from the lack of actual indigenous people as well. it can't help but imply that these fictional groups are 1:1 substitutes for the thing they're depicting allegorically, with a mixed degree of intention and success, because there's no counterbalance or counterexample to either contrast these allegories against reality or even further ground them in it.

you run up against this a lot in genre fiction. the X-Men, for example, have served as a clumsy allegory for marginalized identities and civil rights struggles for decades, with several mixed attempts to try to reconcile its fictional symbolism with acknowledgement of what's real and literal. my own personal bugbear is that while I absolutely love Jadzia Dax in Deep Space 9, I would have loved it even more if Jadzia was a real actual trans woman that Dax had implanted itself into, or even if Jadzia Dax at least had a regular mundane non-alien trans woman bestie to queen out and compare notes with.

and yeah, the whole thing about feral ghouls being completely hostile sight with zero alternative interaction potential (and the same goes for powder gangers as cartoonishly evil victims of an empire's carceral justice system, and fiends as cartoonishly evil drug addicts, and...) is that videos games are constantly trying to stage endless combat encounters for gameplay reasons while also not making the player feel bad about slaughtering endless combat participants for narrative reasons. (and the powder gangers are only shoot on sight if you get vilified by them, but the first non-tutorial quest in the game is either helping them kill everybody in the town that just saved your life because they're harboring the guy they tried to mug, or...stopping them from doing that by killing them instead).

[visceralcoma]

Because OP blocked me. I decided to make my own post to debunk every single one of their points. source in case you wanted to see their foolishness directly.

Transcript:

"buh buh buh Dreadwolf not Baldur's Gate 3" You're right, Dreadwolf won't be Baldur's Gate 3. Dreadwolf won't be a game where the creators were so uninvested in a non-white woman's story that they refused to actually finish her storyline and then declared that her being condemned to slavery was the ending she "deserved". Dreadwolf won't be a game that's obsessed with victimizing and slaughtering members of an oppressed minority, all while portraying them as leeches and criminals preying on the people providing them with refuge. Dreadwolf won't be a game where an entire foreign culture is portrayed as irredeemably savage and evil, and where a character of that culture's "good" ending is to abandon her culture for that of western-/white-coded society. Dreadwolf won't be a game that constantly romanticizes emotionally manipulative and abusive white men, placing them at the forefront of stories while constantly portraying women in positions of power as evil and stupid bitches. Dreadwolf won't be a game that vilifies a matriarchal society, especially one of dark-skinned women, while at the same time treating them as sex objects even in the context of them abusing prisoners. Dreadwolf won't be a game where the amount of story content and dialogue a character receives is dictated entirely by their skin colour. Dreadwolf won't be a game where an evil character is heavily queer-coded, with a backstory filled to the brim with allusions to homophobic stereotypes about gay men being manipulative and predatory. Dreadwolf won't be a game that uses a female character to paint a male character as being totally awesome and totally smart, then writes that female character as not only a total bitch but short-sighted and stupid as well. Dreadwolf won't be a game where the roles of recurring characters and whether they return as playable characters or reduced to shallow villains isn't dictated by whether or not they're white. So yeah, Dreadwolf won't be like Baldur's Gate 3, because it is not made by and for shitty people.

Lets go down the line of their "points"

Isabella, when she was given to the Qunari in DA2.

City Elves, insanely victimized and deemed criminals by in world humans. And they (and Dalish) are often slaughtered in the narrative by humans.

Qunari, Tevinter, you can't go five minutes without someone calling Tevinter evil or deeming any Qunari as a savage. And Iron Bull's entire arc is about him leaving the Qun as the "good" ending.

Cullen, Samson, Anders, Solas - their stories are pushed forward, despite the fact their narrative counterparts get the shit end of the stick. Vivienne, Calpurnia, Wynne, and Merrill

Rivain. and Isabella nuff said. In the comics she throws slaves overboard.

The black main character (Vivienne) in DAI has much less content in comparison to any of the white faves.

Samson is an evil character with a tranquil as his partner. As a templar he was part of the oppressor group and could be seen as grooming the mage turned tranquil. Especially when you remember that Templars often abused tranquil, and then what happens in DAI to tranquil.

Merrill vs Solas in terms of the Eluvians. Or, Morrigan vs Solas. Take your pick.

I present to you, Varric, Leliana, Cullen, Samson, as recurring again over multiple games. All white, or at the very least light complected. Then the ambiguously brown characters who only got cameos: Alistair and Zevran. And then the sole brown/black character cameo got shunted to multiplayer only, Isabella.

This person clearly never played dragon age and are pretending to in order to make this post for clout.

[shizucheese]

So you know how there are some people who like to attack/ vilify those who don't like Lae'zel and they try to paint it as a sexism thing or claim it's "because she's not conventionally attractive" or w/e and then bring up Astarion and Shadowheart "because they're racist too" in the same breath? I think I had a bit of an epiphany on this that needs to be shared. Putting content warnings here as well as in the tags just to make sure we're thoroughly covered: references to trama, physical and verbal abuse, SA, toxic family dynamics, religious trauma, and religious zealotry ahead. Also note that this doesn't just apply to people whose favorite character is Astarion and/ or Shadowheart, I'm just focusing on them since they're the ones people complaining about people not liking Lae'zel always bring up.

Okay, now with all that out of the way... I think the people who complain about people not liking Lae'zel but liking Astarion and Shadowheart and fixating on the whole "but they're racist too" argument miss some pretty major points regarding why a lot of people like Astarion and Shadowheart and how the way Lae'zel treats you in Act 1 is a major factor. A lot of people like Astarion and Shadowheart because on some level, they relate to them. Maybe they came from a household where one or more adult was abusive (physically or verbally), narcissistic, overbearing and/ or controlling. Or maybe it was a friend or romantic partner, or more than one, who used them and abused them and treated them like dirt. Or maybe they're an SA survivor. Or maybe they have religious trauma, and maybe that religious trauma is exacerbated by the fact that they have people in their lives who refuse to change their views, or even double down on them, even when shown evidence that contradicts their beliefs. Or maybe it's some combination of these.

Even the reasons why Astarion doesn't like the Gur and Shadowheart doesn't like Githyanki is steeped in trauma: it was a group of Gur beating Astarion nearly to death that lead to him being tricked by Cazador into becoming his spawn (and if he hadn't been turned into a vampire, he would have died), and Shadowheart makes multiple references to the fact that she saw githaynki cut down her comrades during her mission with some serious brutality.

A lot of these people who identify with Astarion and Shadowheart because of their own past traumas have promised themselves that they're never going to let anyone teat them that way, speak to them that way, try to control them, act like they own them, etc. etc. ever again. I know that's what happened to me. Now let's look at how Lae'zel treats you in Act 1, shall we? She's verbally abusive. When you try to talk to her, she simply replies to you with "Speak" as if you're some kind of dog. When she first propositions you for sex, she's still at her most abusive towards you, but because you fight good, she wants to lick your skin, taste your sweat, and "take what's hers." Even once the entire party knows--because we literally all see it in action with our own eyeballs--that the only thing preventing us from becoming either brain washed slaves to the Absolute or just straight up becoming mind flayers is the Astral Prism, she still keeps trying to take it and return it to the githyanki, even going so far as to try and kill Shadowheart for it. Even when her loyalty to her culture nearly gets her killed in the Zaithisk, and you tell her the true nature of it, she refuses to accept the reality and tries to blame the doctor, who she accuses of being a traitor, rather than accept that no, actually, it was working exactly as intended. It takes Voss showing up at our camp after everything else that had happened, and telling her the truth about Orpheus--something we had already been told about and found books covering before that point--to get her to even consider the fact that um actually maybe Vlaakith is evil (something that coming face to face with her and her nearly killing us didn't even convince her of).

All of these things I've described about Lae'zel in Act 1 are things that can be incredibly triggering to someone who has experienced any of the traumatic experiences I described above that has resulted in people identifying with and latching onto Astarion and Shadowheart. And like....does Lae'zel get better in Acts 2 and 3? Sure. But by that point, the damage has been done. And like in real life, Lae'zel isn't owed anything just because by Act 2 she's clearing the bear minimum of not being straight up abusive to your character. People aren't required to stop ranking her as their least favorite character, or straight up not liking her, after the way she treats you for the first third of the game. Especially not when that "first third" can easily be the part of the game you spend the most time in, with you spending dozens of hours in that part of the game, which also means they're spending the most time with Lae'zel before her character improves at all. Like I'm not saying that the ven diagram between "people who relate to Astarion and Shadowheart because of trauma" and "people who don't like Lae'zel" is a perfect circle, but the overlap is probably a way rounder oval shape than people who are too busy insisting that if she were a handsome man she would totally be popular appreciate. Before I wrap this up, I want to touch on that last part because I think it's important to address. I've seen people make that claim, but would Lae'zel really be more popular if she were a guy? I haven't seen a single person who makes this claim say they would like Lae'zel more if she were a guy. What I have seen is multiple people say in response that they would actually like her less if she had been a guy, which is honestly also how I feel.

Maybe this is something worth exploring in a separate post someday, but I would actually argue that the only reason Lae'zel works as a party member at all is because she's a woman. Flip her gender and she becomes an abusive man who treats you like you're beneath him and who says he wants to taste your skin and your sweat and claim ownership of your body as the first "nice" thing he ever says to you. As a woman who already has to deal with the general sexism of our society (including lawmakers trying to take ownership of our bodies and make medical decisions for us instead of leaving it between us and our doctors), especially a woman with multiple male-dominated hobbies, that's something I would find incredibly triggering--(even more so than I already found Lae'zel's sex proposition, which already made me super uncomfortable and had me thinking "wow imagine if a guy said this"). That's not "edgy and mysterious;" a man who treats you poorly but still thinks he's entitled to you/ your body, would be the poster boy for toxic masculinity, and I can promise you that more people would have taken issue with a character like that than they do with Lae'zel as she is.

Especially people with trauma like what I described at the beginning of this..

[southeastasianists]

Cambodia has a long history of performing arts that share commonalities with what is grouped under the "circus" banner nowadays. And like many of the country's ancient artforms, these traditions of acrobatics found themselves oppressed and vilified by the Khmer Rouge regime of dictator Pol Pot during the late 1970s. Inspired and supported by Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge intended to replace the country's old culture with a completely new one based on communist ideals. As such, traditional craftsmen and artists were routinely executed along with any dissidents, their relatives and even acquaintances. Cultural persecution thus became a part of one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.

Decades after this genocide, Cambodia still grapples with its consequences, not just in psychological terms but also the economic ripples of missing almost entire generations. As such, cities like Battambang, which was close to the border with Thailand and teeming with refugees, found themselves with high rates of poverty and children living on the streets. It was in this context that Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS) was born in 1994.

A team of now adults, who had spent their childhood in refugee camps in Thailand, found themselves inspired by an art therapy program. This made them see their PPS initiative as a way to give other generations of disadvantaged children and young people the tools necessary to change their lives. While PPS's headquarters continue to be based in Battambang, their international flagship is Phare, the Cambodian Circus.

Most Phare performers may have originally lived in Battambang, but they now perform several shows per week in Siem Reap, the country's main tourist city. Their circus style takes some queues from the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil, highlighting human acrobatics and an artistic approach to their shows. Phare does not shy from references to the country's troubled history along with universal themes of strife. Phare has several shows that rotate on their performances. "Khmer Metal," for example, starts in a tourist pub the morning after a wild night, and features imagery like beer towers and drunk brawls, while "Influence" shows an authoritarian antagonist in a Mao-collared shirt.

Phare's aesthetic is a bit more DIY than Cirque du Soleil's current shows, but it is all part of their social enterprise aspects. Funds from their performances support PPS's other initiatives, which not only train future performers but also assist schools, art programs, and current performers' families. Following the massive negative impact of COVID-19 in tourism-focused Siem Reap, PPS needed an extreme act to raise additional funds for its reestablishment. It was this that led to their March 2021 performance. Including members of their Battambang and Phare crews, the show lasted just over 24 hours, earning them the still-standing (as of mid-2024) Guinness World Record for longest circus performance.

[inspofromancientworld]

Tattoos of the Near East and Europe

Knowing the full history of tattooing is practically impossible as skin doesn't usually leave a record of itself except in very special circumstances. Despite this, we do know that tattooing goes back quite a long time in human history and span almost every culture in the world. Joann Fletcher, a research fellow at the University of York in the United Kingdom, works with ancient Egyptian mummies, who were once thought to be the first group of people to tattoo because they mummified their dead. However, with the discovery of Ötzi the Iceman, that date was pushed back even farther because he was mummified by the cold, preserving his skin for 5300 years, about 1300 years before the earliest known Egyptian mummy to have one.

Tattoos on the body of Ötzi, the Tyrolean Iceman South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology / EURAC / Samadelli / Staschitz

Ötzi's tattoos lead us to believe that they were for health reasons, to alleviate the pain of strained or degenerating joints. His tattoos were not placed in such a way that would allow for easy display of status, given they were placed over his lower spine and right knee and ankle.

This blue bowl (circa 1300 B.C.E.), housed in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Amsterdam, features a musician tattooed with an image of the household deity Bes on her thigh. Joann Fletcher

Ancient Egyptians had figurines with tattoos as early as 4000 BCE and began representing them in tomb paintings around 1200 BCE and tools dated to around 1450 BCE were found near Gurob in northern Egypt. The vast majority of the people that were tattooed in these figurines and paintings, as well as mummies, were female and the tattoo was placed on their thighs, breasts, and abdomens. Because of the gender of the tattooed person and the archaeologists (largely male), for a long time, they were dismissed as 'dancing girls'. That the mummies were found in Deir el-Bahari, where the upper crust were berried, only managed to move the description to 'probably a royal concubine' (basically 'fancy' sex workers). However, Fletcher is of the opinion that these tattoos may have been a permanent amulet, probably tot aid in pregnancy and birth and possibly against sexually transmitted diseases. She also thinks that it was older women who would tattoo the younger women, perhaps as a way of passing down their own strength and fortitude to them.

This is in contrast to other cultures that used tattoos for decoration, though there is some evidence that there were therapeutic ones within the ones we've found preserved. Ancient Libyans were depicted by the Egyptians around 1300 BCE with male leaders wearing geometrical tattoos on their arms and legs.

Tattoo on the arm of a Pazyryk tribal chief, Altai Mountains, 5th century B.C.E. The Hermitage Museum

The Scythian Pazyryk of the Altai Mountain region of Siberia also used ornate tattoos all over their bodies, including mythical creatures on both a male and female ice people. These mummies date to about 400 BCE. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about the Scythians and Thracians that their 'tattoos were a mark of nobility, and to not have them was testimony of low birth'. This stood out to him because the Greeks and Romans only really used tattoos to show that someone 'belonged' to either a religious sect or a person, or had been a criminal.

Greek vase (circa 450-440 B.CE.) depicting the death of Orpheus by a tattooed Thracian ArchaiOptix, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Despite these leanings, Ptolemy IV of Egypt (reigning from 221-205 BCE) was tattooed with ivy leaves to symbolize his devotion to Dionysus, who was the patron god of royalty as well as wine at the time. This led to Roman soldiers also getting tattoos, at least until Christianity spread; then they were found again to be disfiguring and banned by Emperor Constantine.

The trend of Christianity spreading at the end of a sword or gun caused a lot of native cultures tattooing practices to be vilified.

(TBC)

[therealieblog]

Fatphobia is so deeply ingrained in our culture, that the average person considers it a public duty to engage in fatphobic behavior. 

You see, if you label a body type as “unhealthy”, and if you additionally believe that one can change that body type irrevocably with enough time and effort, then the obvious next step is to hold every person with that “unhealthy” body type to a standard of behavior that will eventually make their body change to the “healthy” variety. 

If the fat individual in question cannot successfully change their body to a thin one though the use of starvation and intense exercise, over a short enough period of time, they have failed. They are summarily labelled “lazy”, “unmotivated”, “weak willed”, and of course, “unhealthy”. In more polite and sympathetic fatphobic circles, they’re labeled as “struggling with their weight.” 

Fat people are told that they’ll die sooner because of their body type. They’re told that they are being a bad influence on their impressionable young children by having this “unhealthy” body type. They’re told that no one finds them attractive, and furthermore, on the non-medical side of things, that they are repulsive, repugnant, “unsightly”, and generally disgusting to look at. 

The average fat person looks around them every day and sees endless references to fatness as something unwanted, feared, reviled and mocked in all forms of media. Casual mentions by coworkers about “I better not eat that brownie. You know what they say... a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!”, or “I’m being so BAD for having this bagel. I’ll be GOOD tomorrow and get back on my diet.” The diet talk is endless, as is the assumption that no one wants to look like you, are relieved that they don’t look like you, and would rather literally die than look like you. 

This is everywhere in our culture. It happens every single day, multiple times a day in the lives of fat people everywhere. It is a pandemic of bigotry, cruelty, misinformation, prejudice and abuse that ruins and ends lives. It, like all systems of thought that vilify a group based on a thing they cannot change, needs to be ended. 

[chanstopher]

dreamy can you please explain this whole "scandal" to me? i didn't want chan's room this week because finals and i only trust you to catch me up.

why exactly are people trying to vilify him?

what artist did he "upset"? i read the apology but none of it makes sense to me. 😩😩

basically he, like MANY other idols commented on the fact that some newer idols don’t show respect to older idols by greeting them at music shows and events (this is literally korean culture showing respect to seniors) and he was like idk maybe i’m being a boomer but i don’t like it and now a bunch of fucking asshats have bitched and moaned because their idols are shitheads and they know it (because chris didn’t name and groups these stans just know their idols are the assholes who can’t be respectful) he had to apologize for saying something about it. he is a million percent right because they are at WORK and you are supposed to in every culture show respect to seniors at work and these dipshits think they don’t have to. a bunch of other groups have commented on this and no one bullied them to the point where they had to apologize for being right. sorry this is coming off mean i’m just so mad. the hat chris gets for breathing is so fucking insane some ppl should just learn to shut the fuck up and accept when your idols are being criticized for something they did wrong. no one has more respect for idols or people in general than chris, so if he’s saying something it has to be worth saying.