#purging the left

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"ACTIVE AT C.C.F. CONVENTION," Toronto Star. April 16, 1934. Page 3. --- The threatened casting out of Communists was completed Saturday evening with the adoption of a new constitution and the election of officers at the Ontario C.C.F. convention at the King Edward. Three leaders from near and far are here depicted by Eric Gibbs, Star caricaturist, as they repulsed verbal onslaught of the radical elements. Thomas Cruden (LEFT), leading Toronto C.C.F. member, who supported E. J. Garland. Bow River, M.P. (CENTRE), in beating back the insurgents. Angus McInnis, Vancouver M.P. (RIGHT), was chairman.

"BIRD, FACING FIRE THREAT, WON'T LEAVE EGGS," Toronto Star. April 16, 1934. Page 3. --- Mother love in the heart of a canary proved stronger than fear caused by the din and turmoil of a fire at 703 Yonge St. early yesterday. With firemen tearing around, fighting the flames, the little mother-to-be remained on her eggs in the nest. Even when a fireman carried her cage downstairs through dense smoke she refused to budge. The lower picture shows the feathered heroine still at the post of duty after the fire. Above are seen, at the left, Walter Abel of Hamilton, who was visiting Harvey Adams at the time of the blaze. Both men escaped down ladders erected by firemen. Mrs. the O. M. Kennedy. CENTRE, owner of the canaries, gave after she had been awakened by smoke alarm on the second floor.

[pissvortex]

does joe biden have any good reason at all to not be suppressing political opponents right now? i am not joking. the supreme court is upending whatever rules and norms he thinks he is upholding. purges now, grandpa!

[caccry]

screw you *star warses ur metal gear*

(individuals under cut)

[unnatural-twenty]

I met a fellow faggot on Friday and we've been hanging out a lot since then and honestly he's such a slut and it's so endearing. Maybe even bf material?

[justaz]

merlin au where merlin keeps excalibur and returns to camelot to serve under gwen as court sorcerer after she repeals the ban. merlin remains for years, unaging, even as gwen dons wrinkle after wrinkle and spouts grey hair after grey hair. eventually, gwen passes without an heir and since merlin holds arthur’s sigil, he ascends the throne and leads camelot for years. eventually invaders come and slaughter the people and burn the fields etc etc and merlin goes out to fight. he fights like a demon, which is what they call him with his unnatural abilities and golden eyes, and merlin chases them from his kingdom - only, they slaughtered everyone within the citadel. there is no camelot, not anymore, not without her people. merlin should’ve seen this coming as her one true ruler has been and will always be arthur. he waves a hand and puts out the fires and restores the buildings to their once gleaming glory then takes excalibur into the center and drives it into the stone. with the force and power behind it, merlin raises the earth around the kingdom and buries it away from further invasions.

he leaves the kingdom hidden beneath the earth and travels up to the surface to explore just how far the continent spreads. then theres new continents across the ocean and he explores those as well. he watches as the world expands and grows and learns and advances but humans go too far and begin to destroy the world and create weapons of mass destruction and threaten each other with war. merlin assumes arthur will come back considering the destruction of practically everything but he doesn’t. tensions rise and snap and in the blink of an eye, humanity is chased back to their caves. with the loss of technology and modern ideas, humans revert back to their roots and connect with the elements which means they reconnect with magic. it takes another few thousand years for these humans to achieve the level of civilization merlin grew up in his first few decades of life.

different tribes are settled across the land but, thats the thing, over the course of the last few millennia (lets pretend land moves super quick plsplsplsplspls) the separate continents have collided with one another and practically the entire mass could be considered albion. he’s not even sure where the original land resides now. sooo he’s not even sure where camelot resides now. he really should’ve set up some beacon so he could remember but its been thousands upon thousands of years. sue him for his memory being a little foggy. he wanders from tribe to tribe and learns from their new magic while acting as a physician which a lot of them consider him some sort of miracle healer considering his advanced medical knowledge. it’s a win-win tho, he learns new magic and they don’t die. everyone is happy.

then during one such visits to a tribe, he finds a man of twenty summers with a head of golden hair like a crown and sunkissed skin from working outside all day and bright blue eyes that look like the very sky was captured in his gaze. merlin stands for a while and watches him dig around in the dirt, sweat gleaming on his brow, and his muscles rippling as he works. merlin can feel the countless years falling from his shoulders, he feels lighter on his feet, and pure happiness bubbles in him. a grin wide enough to split his face pulls at his lips.

he can’t help himself from stumbling over toward his long lost best friend, his body awkward and gangly with excitement and when he calls out to arthur his voice seems younger than it has in millennia and he vaguely notices that his appearance of wizened old healer melted away to his twenty year old body. arthur looks up with a polite yet confused smile and greets him followed by a question and merlin is faced with the realization that arthur doesn’t know him, doesn’t remember him. merlin manages to keep a thin smile on his face as he reaches out with magic and finds an injury in his knee from years ago that must’ve been bothering him and excuses his use of arthur’s name as someone sending him to find him and help heal the injury.

anyways merlin and arthur become friends and set off on an adventure of gathering the knights of the round table from various tribes/villages and they eventually stumble upon gleaming white stone that merlin belatedly realizes camelot was built with. the knights all take turns tugging at the sword but it doesn’t budge, not until arthur reaches out and tugs as if expecting it to be y’know stuck in stone only it slides out like butter and he knocks the hilt on his forehead and knocks himself out it out. with the sword tugged from the earth, it rumbles and cracks and splits and a hidden kingdom arises from the dirt, gleaming white and shining in the sun. they stare in amazement and awe for a moment before they grow confused and distracted. then arthur turns to merlin and says his name in an all too familiar way and merlin starts sobbing bc arthur is finally back

[alderaani]

something something 'work song' being the most tatooine husbands song of all time. cody freshly de-chipped feeling like he's crawled out of the grave, grappling with the crushing guilt of what the empire made him do, and finding obi-wan alive is the oasis he never looked for or thought he could deserve again. each of them being the other's safe place to land, both of them fragments of what they used to be

[taidotonheiluja]

what if we combined our single brain cell under the rainbow lights

[scootkiddo]

corporate wants you to find the difference between this picture and this picture

[fumifooms]

I think some inherent comfort of the party’s relationship, of why they’re so tightly knit and wholesome, is that it’s kinda the embodiment of "people that care for each other unconditionally, so much so that you could be the biggest freak on Earth and they would still not turn their back to you". Like, Laios’ whole character arc is that he was scared of others and their judgement, that he should hide a big part of himself and his interests to be tolerated if not accepted… But showing himself to others was the road through which the party bonded and got closer, and by the end of the story Laios literally turns into his monster because it was his biggest wish and everyone sees it and also he eats his human body a lot. After that he runs to the woods and is so scared of everyone not wanting to see him again, but y’know what. It’s fine his party still loves him, and aghhhh ouch my heart

I think also, Izutsumi was central to the party having a found family feel. The party was mostly made of work colleagues acquaintances, but adopting a stray/teenager that has no one on the way in your grand adventure really makes the whole family vibe skyrocket.

[eeblouissant]

your honour, she might be a cat

[distance-does-not-matter]

girl who is so sleepytired

[lickmycoffeecup]

I have nothing to contribute to the spooky gays fandom

Except I really want to write jmart and how they want to [censored] nasty

[beth-bunkus]

good morning lovely people, time to rise hissing and spitting once again

[deadbilly]

Looks like Matt is getting in touch with his inner boomer.

archive

[toeatagod]

Destroying the Corrupted Gaze: An Analysis of Momose Amane’s Second Trial

In case you don't know, MILGRAM is a Japanese interactive music project by DECO*27 and Takuya Yamanaka, established in April 2020, where 10 prisoners are put into three rounds of trial to gradually express their guilt and sins into a song. The viewers, representing an ungendered guard named Es, vote if the prisoner should be “innocent” (forgivable) or “guilty” (unforgivable). Each prisoner has a different experience and style of music and visuals, but have a single thing in common: they all have committed murder.

This will focus on one of the 10 prisoners, a 12-year-old girl named Momose Amane who has known to have been brainwashed into a cult’s practices, and will analyze four aspects of her music video: the visuals, lyrics, song title, and the convention defied (hopefully, once I submit this to my professor, I too will also be forgiven for the length of this analysis since I am very fond of this series; I apologize in advance).

Visual and Lyric Analysis

The music video starts with an army of countless Amane’s, all poise and flawlessly in position. Each row waves four flags of different colors, representing the cult’s “commandments”. The following are the official English translations of the lyrics, with the original Japanese beside it:

Thou shall follow thine destiny. / 人は運命を生きよ

Thou shall discard vulgarity. / 人は卑しきを捨てよ

Thou shall deliver unto those thou believest in. / 信じたものに納めよ

Thou shall stay thine course, then perish. / 道を外れずに果てよ

The way these were written were imperative, and were enumerated with the word “ひとつ” (hitotsu, which means firstly or one) before it. This shows that there is no order to their commandments—all of them were of utter priority. Additionally, these lyrics were made to look like actual commandments, but the following are the actual meanings of the lyrics:

People must live out their fate.

People must abandon the lowly.

People must submit to their beliefs.

People must meet their end without straying [from their path].

Moving on, one of the Amane’s is holding a blue flag, which represents the second commandment, fails to deliver the correct pattern in the march. The leading Amane catches her mistake, summoning clouds that caused rain to sink her down the “snow” as a punishment. After an uncomfortable sequence of her struggling, she is then pulled back to reality, where she is soaked and kneeling on her bathroom floor, gasping for breath. A hand is in front of her, holding a showerhead, showing that she had been waterboarded by her own mother. Another detail to notice as she was sinking is that she still reaches out to the flag. It is common one to turn to their beliefs in desperate times, and since Amane was still at such a young age and didn’t have much to rely on, she relies on the same beliefs that hurt her. As she sinks, the “snow” covers her drowning body, a sign that no one saw (or ignored) abuse she was going through.

At the next scene, Amane is seen administering first aid to a wounded cat, and is spotted by two figures, no doubt members of the cult. They then tell this to Amane’s mother, and the poor girl gets tased as soon as she arrives at home. This was a punishment because she interfered with fate, thus violating the first commandment. It is possible that Amane receives different punishments depending on the commandment violated. The balloon that moves away from Amane’s apartment has a symbol with all four colors, encapsulating the commandments.

Amane returns to the spot where she took care of the cat, and only a torn collar and her bloodied handkerchief is found. She eventually realizes that her disobeying these commandments, intentional or not, will only bring her misfortune. Her face is covered in bruises, as she looks up and smiles. The army of Amane’s runs with the same eerie smile, with the flag and mascots symbolizing the four commandments in hand, showing that the brainwashing has been effective. She does the usual pattern with her baton, but in the third sequence, it is stained with blood.

In the scene of the crime, Amane stands over her mother’s dead body, wearing her same outfit from the march. This symbolizes that it was the beliefs taught to her that pushed her to that extent. Additionally, her voice as the song prolongs becomes more aggressive, compared to when she started the song, where she was more soft-spoken.

The lyrics of the song is Amane implying the things taught to her and the punishments she endured for violating them. On the second verse, she can be heard constantly muttering the commandments over and over again in the background, and the following lyrics are one of the phrases that are sung over and over again: “After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless ‘I’m sorry’!” That sentence of apology can often be heard from children who promise they won’t act up ever again.

Title Analysis

The Purge March’s title is written as 粛清マーチ in Japanese and pronounced as Shukusei Māchi. It can be broken down into two parts: the Chinese characters “粛清” and “マーチ”. 

Shukusei is usually written where, when the characters are combined, it would literally mean solemn justice. But in this case, it is written differently (although pronounced the same). The first character stays the same as solemn but the second character “清” means pure, cleanse, or even exorcise. This implies that the beliefs brought upon Amane can be viewed as unjust to some.

Conventions and Conclusion

Songs with an upbeat tempo are often associated or assumed to have wholesome lyrics. Not only does this case defy that stereotype, but The Purge March also mixes in a haunting sense of reality in both the lyrics and the song in the fictional case of Momose Amane. She sings with threats that attack both believers and non-believers alike, because she only knows about the incoming punishment if she doesn’t obey. 

To think that there really are people out there—children, specifically—who experience this lingering fear with their beliefs is incredibly concerning, and even more so with the possibilities that might happen once they are pushed to their limits. I speak from pure experience, and I have chosen this piece of media not only because it is dear to my heart, but because it also reminds us of the reality we are in. It is better to be educated and afraid than to be blissfully ignorant.

[EDIT] Additionally, Amane mentioned in her voice drama that those who run away from trials are the worst kind of people, and in the last scene depicting her murder, droplets of water are trailing outside of the bathroom, showing attempts of escape. The trail ends in the living room, where Amane hovers over the dead body. She really is just trying to live the way she was taught.

[hjbender]

I appreciate Tumblr's honesty here and hope that maybe this is going to foster a new era of user-led improvements to this place.