#the whole game is about “accepting your true self” then it totally undermines that by suggesting that queerness should be suppressed

[eros-cestlavie]

oh my good god is persona 4 transphobic/homophobic its so bad

[lilflowerpot]

Important topic: Galra rebels besides the Blade. I love the Blade, but it bothered me that the only choices the highly selective specialists or the empire. There had to be more discontents than that. What about partisan movements, guerillas, individual saboteurs? Or Galra who simple live in outskirts and try to have as little to do with the empire as possible. The historian in me is not satisfied with this idea of only two faction.

((cont.) after having seen my post about how ridiculously long this reply had already become) I’m so proud. Can I make suggestions? Underground Railroad style smuggling of rebels/prisoners. Conveniently mixed-up paperwork. The number game, one of the most efficient ways to free prisoners is to inflate death tolls so no one notices escapes or so your productivity quotas are lower. Giving resources: food, medicine, licensing that oppressed groups  cant access. People aren’t either monsters or enlightened they can like the empire and still think things are wrong. Love your History Nerd

-

As you say, the Blade are highly specialist and, in this fic at least, as Empress Marmora’s Li Naacht the whole premise of their order is one of blood - one does not simply join the Blade: you’re either born to it, or you’re not. That’s part of the reason why, upon first meeting Keith, they were all so convinced that he must have stolen his own knife, and that’s why they promised him answers only if he could awaken it… Either he was one of them, or he wasn’t. Either he was entitled to the Truth by right of his ancestry, or he was an imposter. There’s no uncertainty in Marmora’s inner circle, no question of loyalty, no grey area… things simply are.

And obviously this begs the question: what of the Galra who aren’t born the the Blade, and yet also disagree with Zarkon’s methodology?

I think at this point it’s important that I impress upon you the Galra people’s cultural predisposition for loyalty. In the grand scheme of things, humans are ultimately a little self-serving - willing to smile, and lie, and undermine others to achieve their own ends - and universally speaking we would be seen as one of the more individualistic planets, culturally, wherein any given person is likely to prioristise their own desires. The Galra are quite the opposite. They’ve been able to operate as one of the most successful invading races in the universe for several millennia (a fair portion of which was before Zarkon was even born) because their culture promotes collectivist tendencies; united under one ruling monarch who is accepted and respected for their physical and mental prowess in battle, the Galra people function within a hive-like hierarchy of one Imperial identity. One mind. That’s not to say that individuals don’t have their own wants / needs, only that the collective (a family of sorts, spanning billions of Galra across the universe) is priority number one. Broadly speaking, if a member of any given Galra bloodline is a traitor to the crown then they have also betrayed the collective, and it’s entirely possible (and entirely likely) that their siblings / parents / children would stand aside and let lawful justice be served.

Bearing all that in mind, undermining the acting Emperor / Empress isn’t at all commonplace - not in the same way that it is throughout human history.

However, as I’ve previously mentioned the Empire is massively multicultural with planets (often whole galaxies) that have loyally served the Imperial throne for centuries being granted status as vassal states rather than slave colonies. This means that regular Galra citizens - not soldiers or druids or nobles, just normal working people - will mingle with the non-Galra citizens throughout their day-to-day lives. Again, as I’ve said before, non-Galra citizens of the Empire arenot truly equal under Zarkon’s rule and there is some segregation (with the Imperial military being a prime example) but for every Galra that freely roams Imperial territories, there are at least three non-Galra citizens doing the same… if this majority was perpetually treated as one made up of lesser beings, the Empire would never have retained its status as the greatest ruling power in the universe (and then, yes, partisan movements would perhaps have occurred more often, though likely not been any more successful, and you can guarantee that every failed attempt was made an example of by the total annihilation of its planet of origin). Instead, Imperial citizens of non-Galra descent live in Galra-occupied cities, work jobs alongside the Galra-people, their children learn and laugh and play with their Galra peers on nursery colonies which offer only the highest level of education taught by some of the greatest minds in the Empire.

And yes there’s room for improvement; yes the Imperial education afforded to their children demands that they first pass an entry exam which no Galra child seems required to take, yes promotions in the workplace seem to fall more easily into the laps of Galra-people, yes the finest housing on any given Imperial colony can be difficult to obtain when there is a Galra family vying for the same place… but when your home-planet now thrives with a booming economy, your people benefit from the wealthiest trade routes in your galaxy, and your family are protected by the greatest military power in the universe? When your great-grandparent’s generation remember what it was to live a childhood without Imperial favour, and the transition between poverty and prosperity that was only allowed by the grace of Emperor Zarkon? When all you have to do in return for this share in the Empire’s affluence is pay your taxes and continue on your way as a loyal citizen?

…It’s ultimately seen as a symbiotic relationship, and a good one at that.

((especially when the alternative is genocide))

From a Galra perspective, non-Galra Imperial citizens have grown up alongside them as their neighbors, classmates, friends. It would be inappropriate to engage in more intimate relations with them, let alone breed, but… that doesn’t mean they’re bad people. That doesn’t mean they’re “less”. So maybe the odd one or two start to ask themselves why: why they themselves can join the Imperial military but their non-Galra friend cannot, despite being just as strong, just as fierce, just as loyal to the throne. Why their older relatives scoff at the mention of their friend’s culture, as bizarre and foreign as it is beautiful and fascinating. Why, when a group of them are out playing somewhere they perhaps shouldn’t, the guardsmen who catch them seemed ready to use brute force against their whole group until they realise a true-born Galra child is among the mix.

Maybe they start to see the inconsistencies in the narrative where the stories don’t quite match up, or the hiccups in the system where the rules just don’t work. The problems. The flaws. Maybe, just maybe, the younger generations learn of Emperors and Empresses of times past and realise not all of them were immortals - or rather, none of them were - and more than that, that some were corrupt and flawed and wrong.

Maybe they realise that Emperor Zarkon could be wrong too.

A little research teaches them that the Blade of Marmora defied an Empress, once, and now they’re gone (and one cannot simply join the Blade besides) but they think there must be others - others who had seen the wrongness of it all, and others who want better - and there are. They’re small, they’re quiet, and they work in the shadows, but there are those who seek to depose the Emperor (and isn’t that a blasphemous thought?) not for revenge or glory or a chance at the throne themselves - though there are plenty of those too - but just because there’s something Not Quite Right about the current state of the universe and they want a chance to change it for the better.

…Individual rogues and lone saboteurs aside, the most notable organised movements are:

The Pacifistic Faction - the largest group, having half-exiled themselves to the backwaters of the Empire, where the colonies are peaceful and quiet and serve primarily as farmland - necessary, but uneventful - and there they stay, not actively contributing to the war but still feeding its soldiers.

The Blade of Marmora - the most famed, but also famously dead at the hands of Empress Zetian after openly defying her in light of the atrocities she committed, declaring her actions as ones of injustice and senseless violence without honour - a declaration for which she demanded their heads, and they hers in return, resulting in what is recorded as a gruesome murder-suicide, though whether the instigator of their final confrontation was her or them is, to this day, unclear.

The Zeraii (from the root, Zera) - a small extremist group that first formed as a reaction to Emperor Zaghit’s ascension, pushing the agenda of Expanse and blaming Zaghit’s Dox heritage for his “weakness of will,” with claims that the Monarch should always be of either Aalk or Byal descent as the only branches of the Galra people strong enough to lead them to true greatness. They believe that their purpose is to “cleanse” the Empire of what is deemed unworthy, with hybrid-galra being considered polluted abominations of noble Galra blood.

The Kyl tron Kitah - a zealotic subset of the Druidic Faith, the members of which (despite the vast majority not being of Druidic blood themselves, but rather regular people of extreme piety) believe that the Galra should be led by the Church rather than the Crown, with the Archivist at their head as opposed to an Emperor / Empress.

Underground Railroads - those on record were swiftly dealt with, so if there are any ongoing successful attempts then they remain anonymous for a reason, but Galra doctors (particularly those stationed at any of the Empire’s notorious Arenas) have been known to take pity on grievously wounded gladiators and incorrectly report their deaths, when the truth of the matter is that they have been smuggled out of the medical bay to relative freedom where they might live out their days working manual labour jobs on a backwater colony. No one looks for the dead, after all. This practice (or, at least, accounts of foiled railroads) became less common after Haggar developed an interest in live specimens and began to have her druids “observe and assist” at many of the Arenas.

Smuggling Resources - Imperial citizens (people of Galra and non-Galra descent alike) of all walks of life have been known to siphon off supplies from their respective careers if they think they might be of use to the less fortunate. The punishment received if caught is dependent upon the scale of the operation, the frequency of the offence, and the value of the goods being smuggled; hydration-packs might see the individual responsible suffer light corporal punishment followed by a few movements in solitary confinement and then a few more in a re-education programme, whereas the theft of quintessence (pure or processed) risks being thrown into the Arena to serve as a gladiator if they are allowed the opportunity of redemption, and if not, then simply execution.

[peridot-gladioli]

41 for the Drabble Challenge! :)

41. “Sorry isn’tgoing to help when I kick your ass”

Another future scene from this. 2927 words.

When Matt gets home, he can smell beef casserole cooking inthe oven and hear-feel-smell-sense Foggy and Evan sitting side-by-side on the couch playingsome computer game. He just stands there in the entry-way, out of sight—if notout of Evan’s sense range—and soaks in the feelings of home and family andhappy and blessed. His heart does something weird, biologically andanatomically improbable in his chest at the sheer domesticity. It’s everythinghe ever dreamed about when he was younger and never thought he’d have. Andalthough in an ideal world Elektra would be here too, he knows that even withher something would be missing without Foggy.

Also, Foggy and Evan both have the same approach togame-play: talking to their characters and moving the controllers and even theirwhole bodies as though playing on a Wii instead of Foggy’s ancient Nintendoconsole; leaning forward and sideways into moves so Matt fancies he can almostimagine what’s happening on-screen, as though anything they do other than button-mashingwill have an effect.

(Foggy takes the same approach to bowling, waving his armaround as though he can redirect the ball after he’s released it. Which remindsMatt they have to take Evan—and maybe a friend from school—bowling some timesoon. They’ve never done it: which means Evan’s never been, since—activity afteractivity—the Chaste apparently never took him out of the complex. And that’sjust criminal. Matt wants to prosecute. Or put Stick through a wall. Eitherwould do, but neither will happen.)

He sighs and goes in to the apartment proper, dropping hisbriefcase by the wall and stripping himself of suit-jacket and tie.

“Hey Dad!” Evan calls without moving his head from its fixturetowards the screen.

And there goes Matt’s heart again. He still isn’t sureexactly how acute Evans senses are because he never wants to test him the waysStick tested him, but he wonders ifEvan actually knows what it does to him every single time he hears thatappellation applied to him. “Hi guys. How were your days?

A grunt and a murmur answer him and Foggy mutters at Evan, “Ohno you don’t, you young scamp!”

“Is all your homework done, Ev?”

No answer.

“Evander?”

“Jeez Dad! Not now! Can’t you tell I’m busy? Yes! Busy beating Uncle Foggy!”

“Uh. No! No, no!” Keys mash and the game beeps wildly. “Ah-HA!There we go! Take THAT! Yes, Matt, all Evan’s homework is done, checked, and Itested him on his spellings and one of us can do it again when he goes to bed.How was your day?”

“Long.” Matt rubs at the tension at the back of his neck. “CanI go over some stuff with you after dinner?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sure. The Cheng restaurant case?”

“That and Jessica brought me photos for the bodega fire they’retrying to say was an insurance scam.”

“Jones brought you photographicevidence?”

“I think she thinks she’s being ironic.”

“Instead of just ableist.”

“YES!” Evan fist-pumps and the computer plays a tinnyvictory tune.

“Oh! Not fair! Your dad was distracting me.”

“Sor-ry!” Evan sing-songs, voice dripping insincerity. “Yousnooze you lose!”

“Sorry isn’t going to help when I kick your ass, you cheating-cheater-McCheaterson,”Foggy says, dropping his controller on the coffee table with a clatter andlunging at Evan, who does not try very hard to dodge. Matt senses the man grabthe boy and—if Evan’s shriek of laughter is anything to go by—flexes hisfingers in the twin ticklish spots just above Evans waist. The ones he shareswith Matt.

Even as he tries to hide his own laughter, Matt’s heart doesthe improbable thing again, as he remembers when Evan first moved in—God, wasit really just a couple of months ago?—and hadn’t known what a tickle-fight was,let alone the play-wrestling and rough-housing that were even familiar andautomatic to Matt from his dad, nomatter how normal had been recalibrated by the nuns and kids unsure how tointeract with the blind boy. Matt represses a shudder at the memory of histen-year-old self kinda sorta wanting Stick to adopt him. Apparently with theChaste every fight—even a child sparring—had been deadly serious. Almostliterally deadly, given Evans actual scars and the long list of stitches,broken bones and concussions recorded in the secret medical file Elektra hadkept.

“Dad! Help me! I’m being attacked!” The plea is underminedby Evan laughing almost too hard to talk.

Matt hides his own grin and says, as calmly as he can, “I’llgo and put the potatoes on, then, shall I?”

“Oh, yes please,” Foggy sounds pretty out-of-breath from hiscontinuing tussles with the squirming nine-year-old, “And maybe give somethought to broccoli, beans, or peas and do the veggies?”

“Will do.”

“Not broccoli!” Evan calls from somewhere under Foggy.

“Broccoli? Okay.”

“NOT broccoli! Please, Dad! Uncle Foggy, stop?”

Foggy immediately ceases and desists. Being who he is, there’sa safeword for play-fights. And being who he is, it’s uncle, to quote Foggy, “Like in West Side Story when best-buddiesRiff and Tony play-wrestle and “When he’s hollered, ‘Uncle,’ we’ll tear up thetown!” in the Jets song.” God, Matt lovesthis man.

Evan sits up, panting and rubbing his face, which is ahot-spot to Matt’s senses. Matt just wishes he could see his son’s red face and no-doubt impressively messy hair. (Thickfloofy hair which is a constant struggle to tame is another thing Evan seems tohave inherited from Matt.) Odd things that he just wants to see once so he canremember them—the sky, Elektra, Karen, Foggy—aside, Matt thought he hadlong-since accepted his blindness, but every day there are ten things aboutEvan he wishes he could see. If there’s one thing he wants from Heaven—doubtfulas it is he’ll ever get there—he hopes that somehow in the place where theblind will see he’ll be able to know all the faces and expressions and ages ofhis boy.

“Dad, please not broccoli.”

“It’s good for you.”

“It’s gross.”

Matt snorts. His dad had persuaded him to eat—and like—broccoli bysaying it was miniature trees and he could pretend to be a giant eating big ones.But tricks that worked on a pre-schooler cut no ice with a nine-year-old withsuper-senses. “Beans AND peas, then. Deal?” Given that there are tomatoes, mushrooms,onions, celery and carrots cooked in the casserole with the beef, side-vegetablesaren’t a big deal, but it’s the principle of Evan eating something green.

“Deal. IF Uncle Foggy does the mashed potatoes. Yes?”

Which means half-and-half and pretty much a whole stick ofbutter. Matt grimaces.

“No butter on the greens and I’ll keep some potatoes justplain boiled for you, Mr Murdock. Acceptable compromise all round?” Foggy holdshis hand out, palm down.

Matt laughs and slaps his hand on top. “Acceptable, Mr Nelson.Mr Matthews do you concur?”

Evan piles his hand on. “Deal.”

“Good.” Matt takes his hand back and heads towards thekitchen. “Wine, Foggy?”

“Mid-week?”

“Like I said, it’s been a long day.” He knows Foggy willread in both that Matt wants a drink and that he doesn’t plan on going outlater. Given the crime-spike at weekends—all those easily-targetable people onthe streets from theatres, restaurants and bars—in some ways it’s easier forMatt to have a drink and put his feet up on a weeknight.

“Can I have some?”

He turns back towards the living room.

One thing Matt finds himself missing about sight that henever thought about Before is the ability for two co-parents to communicatesilently. Foggy can see Matt’s pursed lips and raised eyebrows, but Foggy’sfacial expressions are a blank—senses or no—unless he narrates them. Or Matt istouching his face.

“We could let him have a sip from one of ours.”

Matt thinks about his dad allowing him—encouraging him—to takea swig of scotch to steady his nerves and hands. He thinks about trying to takea gulp from the Communion chalice. “We could.”

He worries. Is normalising alcohol detrimental for Evan; or,if he sees that it’s okay at home and not a Big Deal, will it not be thisforbidden temptation in a couple of years when the peer pressure starts? Matt’shad middle-schoolers whose voices had not even broken try to persuade the blindman they forgot their ID so could he take their crumpled dollar bills and coinsand get them a six-pack of beer, please. “A couple of sips.”

“Cool”

“Don’t tell Ms Milla or Ms Walters. You’ll get us introuble,” Foggy half-jokes.

“More trouble or less than if I told them Dad’s Daredevil?”Evan’s totally joking.

But it still makes Matt’s belly go cold with fear. Evan’snot his, not yet, not legally andirrevocably. His social worker, guardian ad litem and Family Court still standbetween them and permanency, thanks to Matt not knowing about Evan until afterElektra’s death, thanks to the Chaste putting forward people to dispute hisguardianship and custody claim. Matt himself has complicated matters by goingfor full parental and custodial rights instead of the mere guardianship inElektra’s will. He was revelling in his family a moment ago, but he can stillfuck this up. He can lose Evan a hell of a lot easier than if he were alreadyMatt’s legal child. Hell, even Foggy isn’t really his. Not to keep. To have andto hold. He knows Foggy would never just abandon Evan, but he might still meetsomeone with whom he wants permanency and marriage and his own kids.

“Hey now. Joking! Don’t go getting all broody on us Matty,or I’ll have to kick your ass.”

“I’d like to see you try.” His voice comes out all wrong.

“One—you can’t see jack-shit. Two,” Foggy holds up his handsand dramatically wiggles his fingers in the air, “I know Daredevil’s one trueweakness!”

“Dad!” Evan suddenly throws himself at Matt and wraps hisarms around Matt’s waist.

Matt hugs back; holds him tight.

“Dad I would never. I wouldn’t. I’m not going to jeopardise,”he says the word carefully, “things with the case. I want to stay here, withyou and Uncle Foggy, and I don’t want to go back there or end up in an orphanage. I’m not gonna be stupid and ruineverything.”

Shit. He’s made Evan anxious. Matt knows Stick’s most recentvisit—all threats and vague prophecies of doom—is still vivid in both, all,their minds. And the trouble with living with someone else with senses like hisis Evan is hypersensitive to mood and emotions. He soaks up other people’sfeelings from the chemicals their sweat releases in the air. Stupid of him tostress—panic—when Evan is around. “Sorry. I know. I know you wouldn’t. And wewouldn’t let it happen, kiddo.”

“Ms Walters says it’s her job to represent me and myinterests—and that means she tells people what I want. And I’ve told her. WhatI want is to live with you and Uncle Foggy and become a Murdock as soon as you’remy dad on paper as well as really. You know you’ll be allowed to change my namethen, right?”

“What?” That… that was new. “A Murdock? You want to changeyour name to Murdock?”

“Of course! Everyone I know has one of their parent’s last-namesor both. Mine’s random. I know it’s your first name and my mom did it becauseshe wasn’t really a Natchios and she had enemies and stuff. But it’s not afamily name. A belonging name. So… so I thought…” Evan is starting to lose the enthusiasmwith which he started and sounding increasingly unsure. “There was only you andyour dad and it’s not Uncle Foggy with the thousands of Nelsons. So I thoughtit would be… cool, I guess. Become a Murdock. Like you. Show I belong. Youknow? Is that… would that be okay?”

He… Evan, his kid, his son,actually sounds worried. Like there’s a chance Matt might say it isn’t okay.Which is bad. Worse, Matt can’t say anything.His throat has closed up and his eyes are pricking and burning with tears andhe has to take one hand off Evan and bring it up to hide his wobbling mouth andtrembling chin.

“Dad?”

Foggy comes over to them, puts one hand on Evan’s shoulderand the other on Matt’s and shakes Matt a little. “It’s okay buddy. It’s morethan okay that you want to be a Murdock. You’ve just made your dad happy-cry, that’show okay it is. You know what a great big softie he is.”

“But not a pussy. ‘Cause being soft doesn’t stop you beingtough. Right?”

“You said it kid.” The reassuring hand on his shouldershakes Matt again. “Now, I thought we were in the process of getting dinner ontrack so we can eat before Ev’s bedtime?”

Matt sniffs hard and manages to swallow. “Sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to cut it when I kick your ass, Dad. I’m starving and you’re not feeding me.Pretty sure that’s a dad-crime.”

Matt sneezes-laughs-coughs against the tears tickling theback of his nose and the emotion-choked throat, and takes off his glasses towipe away the tears. Then he pokes Evan in one of his ticklish spots. “I’mpretty sure you’re spending too much time with your Uncle Foggy. You’re indanger of turning into a brat. I thought we were having a moment.”

“We were but it’s over and I’m hungry.”

Matt crouches down until his head is level with his son’sand does his best to “look” him in the face. “Seriously, Evander Matthews,”(heignores the groan at the full-name-usage) “I love you and would be honoured tomake you a Murdock. The very second it’s legal, if that’s what you want. Butyour last-name doesn’t matter, Ev. Nothing can make you any more my son thanyou already are. Not even the court and the judge and the paperwork. You knowthat, right?”

“Well, duh. Though if we’re talking about it… I know EvanderHolyfield isn’t the boxer you would’ve named me after. Don’t know why Mom didit. If you’d named me? I’d be Jack, right? Like your dad? So I was thinking… Idon’t have a middle name.”

(Matt hears Foggy quietly slip past them to the kitchen.Just as well. They’ll never get dinner if Evan just keeps killing Matt likethis.) “God. Kid. I… Every time I think I love you as I much as I possibly can,you go and do something which doubles it.”

“That’s ‘cause love’s infinite.”

“Evan. God. You’re pretty damn amazing, you know that?”

“You’re not so bad yourself.” (He’s nine. He has to have gotthat expression from Foggy. It sure as hell wasn’t from Stick.) “And Dad? I love you too. I know I don’t… Like Uncle Foggysays love stuff all the time and I like it, but when I try to say it, itsounds stupid in my head and I can hearStick making fun of me. And I get embarrassed. But I do. Love you. Lots. Tons.Infinity.”

God. This kid, hiskid. He’s gonna kill him. Here lies Matthew Michael Murdock, died when hisheart exploded because his son is just that wonderful. Matt hugs Evan tohim, holds him as tight as he can, so tightly he’s worried he’ll hurt him, buthe can’t. He can’t let go. Thank you,God. Thank you that in spite of my sins, You have allowed me to have this. Ibeg you, don’t let me screw this up. Holy Mary, Mother of God, help me to beone half the parent this boy deserves. Mary, how did You feel when You foundout Who Your Son was? How did You have the grace to cope, because this humanboy makes me feel so unworthy. Help me.

“Okay, you two. I think that’s quite enough emotional crisesfor one evening.” Foggy is beside them and puts his arm around Matt’sshoulders. Matt stands, leaning into his friend, abruptly afraid that he’sgoing to end up on his butt.

“Uncle Foggy, I love you, too, you know.”

“And I love you.” He squeezes Matt’s shoulders and kisses the top of Evan’s head.

“I know. You’re always saying. Infinity, right?”

“Infinity and beyond”

Matt muffles his wet chuckle in Foggy’s shoulder. More thanever he needs that glass of wine.

Evan holds out one hand, thumb and pointer finger touchingto make a circle, like an okay-sign or zero. Foggy laughs and links his ownfinger-loop with it. It takes Matt a moment, but paired with the words, interconnecting circles, or loops. Matt knows that one. The infinity symbol.

Half-shy, afraid it might be just an Evan-and-Foggy thing, Matt holdsout his own finger loop. Both Foggyand Evan try to loop theirs with it. And Matt is swallowing tears. Again.

Foggy presses a kiss to Matt’s temple. “Love you too,Murdock. Though I’m gonna have to stop calling you that if there’s two of you.Could get confusing.”

“You can call us Murdock and Murdock Junior.” Evan pullsaway, leaving Matt and Foggy holding hands, and heads for the unit that holdsall their DVDs and Blu-Ray disks. “And now I wanna watch Toy Story again. Okay?”

[cait-el]

Keith Analysis - Season 3

Pre S1E1 + Introduction / Season One / Season Two / Season Three / Season Four / Season Five

I highly recommend reading the rest of the posts in this series to get the most out of this! But here’s my take on Keith’s role in VLD Season three!

Season Three

Boy oh boy, does S3e1 have a lot to unpack. Let’s start at the very end of S2/ the beginning of S3 where we see Keith up in arms about the fact that Shiro is gone. By this point, I’ve already established that Shiro is as close to an actual family that Keith’s got, so of course he’s upset. Also, this upset of normal is just another nail in the coffin that is Keith’s sense of safety. He was finally feeling like he had a place on Voltron, then the whole half-Galra thing happened, and that was sort of solved in Allura’s apology, but with losing Shiro, Keith is losing his own sense of validity. Season 3 will be about re-establishing that in his own way, without Shiro there to back him. It’s a huge opportunity for character growth.

Brief Lance Note

Another really good scene in S3e1 is during the fight on Planet Puig with Lance, Hunk, and the Blade of Marmora. Firstly, we have Lance starting to feel the pressure of being the face of a team that’s falling apart at the seams. He’s supposed to be the glue of Voltron or the light-spirited one that keeps things happy. Now that Voltron can’t really form, he’s starting to feel that pressure now more than ever.

We also have discrimination against the Blade for being Galra, which is understandable, but demonstrative of systematic racism/oppression. No wonder Keith feels so lost; he’s literally at the center of all of that!

Back to Keith

This is the instance that I referenced at the very beginning of this whole thing where Keith says that he won’t give up on Shiro because Shiro was one of the only people that never gave up on him. I think that startles the other paladins a little bit because they’re finally realizing that Keith isn’t just some “lone wolf” who’s full of shit. Yes, he can be volatile, but he’s really hurting now, which is demonstrated when he blows up at the diplomacy dinner.

The most important part about Keith’s outburst is what happens afterwards – this will draw on a little bit of Lance’s development as well, so bear with me. At the very end of the episode, we have Keith staring at the black lion, with the other paladins standing awkwardly in the background. They all look to Lance, who is the first to step forward and tell Keith it’s alright to be hurting.

Pidge, Hunk, Allura, and Coran jump in with their own anecdotes about how they feel about suggesting to replace someone who seems irreplaceable, but it’s Lance tying everything together that makes Keith take a deep breath and decide that he’s being irrational. This is the first in a long arc in season three that establishes Lance and Keith’s relationship in a way that goes beyond just a romantic ship. I’m going to return to what I talked about in season one with Keith having a borderline crush on Lance, which I still stand by. In season one, it was all fun and games. In season two, Keith had a lot of his own stuff to worry about with the Blade, but he had Shiro to talk to about it, both the Galra stuff and the Lance stuff, so it didn’t seem as overwhelming.

Now that Shiro’s gone, Keith is looking for something to fill the rapidly growing void that’s sucking away his sense of validation and trust, and he’ll find it in Lance, but most importantly, in himself, and I’ll prove that with my analysis of the rest of S3.

And just for fun, here are my two cents on Lotor’s introduction

Lotor is one of my favorite characters for a few different reasons that are established in this episode. Firstly, he’s crafty. He had Ezor watch Throk, and then used that to call him out in front of the whole crowd. He’s the embodiment of the honest and martyr-like villain (which will play into his romance line with Allura later, but that’s not for a while) in that he preaches that what he does will be good for the universe because it fosters loyalty rather than fear. Secondly, he’s charismatic as all fuck. He’s the villain that says “okay, I’m going to write down everything I’m about to do on a piece of paper and give it to you. You’ll know my entire plan. Will that stop me from completing it? You can bet the fuck not.” And he’s right. Even I believed him! When I first watched it, I was like “yeah, okay, this guy could actually be a good king.”

And then, the kicker, he gives all this confidence to Throk, and then demotes him to the farthest reaches of the empire under the impression that he just got this huge promotion. That’s savage. Lotor is so good at what he does. I’m thrilled to see what he does next for the sheer cleverness of it.

Back to Keith/Lance – I’m just going to start referring to them jointly for now because here’s where they start to become super intertwined

Man, S3 literally has so much in the way of character development that I’m only on the second episode and I already have so much to say. Let’s start with the discussion of who should pilot the black lion while in the lounge of the Castle. Pidge points out that everyone has their “thing,” and she calls Lance the goofball, which he doesn’t take well to (remember S2e10). He calls himself a ninja sharpshooter, to which Keith responds with “is that a joke?” Honestly he probably shouldn’t have poked the dragon, but I do believe he meant it in a good way. His eyes were nice and he was smiling. Lance was just feeling particularly insecure at that moment. Payback for S1e6 when Lance totally invalidated Keith’s tiny advance. Ugh, boys.

Anyways, Lance says that he would never follow Keith as a leader in retaliation, which sparks an argument and triggers Keith to say “that’s just what Shiro wanted.” This puts Keith in kind of a tough spot; it’s not that he’s against piloting the black lion, he just doesn’t want to 1) undermine Shiro, who is his idol, and 2) he’s afraid he can’t be what everyone needs him to be – he can hardly be what he needs for himself. This is reflected in the moment where he actually enters the black lion. While everyone else was thinking of themselves (except Lance, but I’ll get to that in a second), what caused the lion to awaken for Keith was Keith saying (about Shiro) “I can’t lead them like you.” This is the beginning of Keith learning to respect himself outside of what others project on to him.

However, he still doesn’t want to accept it. This is where Lance comes in. Lance literally tried so hard to be the one to take up responsibility of the black lion, but not for himself. This becomes apparent when he yields to Keith. Everyone is appalled at Keith’s objection to the lion even though it chose him, except Lance. Lance steps up, puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and tells Keith he can do it. And Keith actually listens. This shows that Keith responds well to respect; he just doesn’t have a lot of it for himself yet.

When Keith actually goes to fly the lion for the first time, he does so by saying “this one’s for you, Shiro.” This hearkens back to the idea of Keith being a self-imposed martyr – he justifies doing things for himself through the lens of doing things for others. This will be the season that subverts that, though, which I will discuss once I get to the end of the episode.

Now back to Lance for a moment. Blue shuts him out (quick interlude for some cute headcanon: Lance has referred to his lion as male in the past, but in order to get Blue to open up, he hits on the lion like he would presumably hit on a girl, as he is so famous for. Does this provide evidence that Lance is bi? Maybe if you squint and tilt your head to one side. It’s something to think about anyways). Then, which lion calls to him? Red, of course! Lance being Keith’s right hand is really elevating their relationship – it plays perfectly into all of their other interactions. They’re a messy team, but a team all the same, and they each need the other to properly function.

Also, something that starts in this episode and will continue through S5 is Lance’s reflection of Alfor and Altean values. Keith is a reflection of Galran values; this has already been made abundantly clear. We’re just setting up another parallel between the two and further entwining their paths in some way. Also, more of Lance’s insecurities show when he’s actually considering that he may not even have a contribution to the team as he originally thought, that he might just be “the goofball.” This starts to show a self confidence issue that is far from being resolved. He’ll definitely need a little help with that one. Luckily, he’s just starting to form a relationship with a little emo boy who is legitimately built out of insecurities and MCR. It’s beautiful. One last thing about Lance in S3E2 is that he says at the end “sometimes what you want is not necessarily what you get,” and I think this is starting to reference his shift in viewing Allura as an object for romance to a friend and true teammate, which is something we’ll see more of in S4 and 5.

And finally, Keith grows a lot during that battle, especially towards the end when he makes that terrible decision and rockets off to track Lotor without consulting the team. But here’s the thing about that scene: Keith made that decision of his own accord and not because he was trying to emulate Shiro. His whole arc in S3 is learning how to accept himself as a valid leader, and this is just the beginning of that. While I want to whack him over the head with a stick for putting everyone else in danger, at least he’s trying.

And now, a word on Lotor in S3E2

Lotor, you mother fucker. First, he says “mercy has never been the way of the galra…until now.” Again with the craftiness! And his whole role in S3E2 was just to gather intel on Voltron by using their need to protect to draw them out and force them to work as a team. What he doesn’t realize, though, is in forcing the paladins to make up for their shortcomings, he’s acting as a foil to the whole team. Without being pressed by Lotor, Allura and Lance would have never figured out that they needed to pilot different lions. This is the beginning to a long storyline of Lotor and Voltron working together that doesn’t actually get played out until S5.

Back to Keith/Lance

S3E3 takes us to the first real instance of the new team of paladins working under Keith’s leadership, and it’s pretty much a mess from the beginning. What I appreciate about this episode is that it further develops the bond between Lance and Keith as a team and as people, starting with Lance’s immediate opposition to entering Thaeserix (the gas planet that fucks up everyone’s sensors.) We have Keith barreling through and getting everyone lost until Allura finally can’t keep up and gets separated. Everyone’s freaking out, and Lance is the one to tell Keith they need to go back, and he finally does. As demonstrated before, Keith listens to Lance before he listens to the others. This shows that Keith has some measure of respect for Lance.

They rescue Allura, but Keith is still all hot for battle and continues forward, getting the team separated even further until it’s just him and Lance. This is the first time where Keith actually admits that he messed up, and he hits a low point for a second. He voices his concern to Lance, who responds perfectly, saying “yeah, you fucked up. But hey, we’ll fix it together.” This is what inspires Keith to keep going, and the team can eventually form Voltron because Keith is actually starting to think like a leader, and not just because of the leader Shiro was. He’s starting to become his own leader. He couldn’t have done it without Lance.

My favorite part is the cute line at the end where everyone is ragging on Lance for being dumb (not true btw, Lance is very intelligent and kind, he just has some self confidence issues, so shame on the other paladins for taking advantage of that), and Keith says “I’m glad we’re all making fun of Lance, but we have a job to do,” or something along those lines. It’s the look in Keith’s eyes that gets me; he’s teasing Lance, but not in the same way as the others. He’s really grateful to have the blue paladin there for support. It’s a different type of support than he’s received in the past; from Shiro it was support of an upper, someone he idolizes and thus tries to emulate. From Lance, it’s support from an equal, so it’s an even stronger sense of self-validation, which is something that Keith really needs at this point.

A quick note: in the episode where they enter the alternate reality and find Sven and Slav, Keith all of the sudden has the black bayard and Lance has the red bayard. When did that happen? That seemed to come out of nowhere, but I think it’s an important thing to note, especially when we get to some of the symbolism in terms of the past paladins at the end of this season. This episode also has good evidence of Keith stepping into the leadership role, which he will continue to develop over the next few episodes. I’m also glad that Keith was able to find Shiro, but as I’ll discuss in the next few paragraphs, I think he senses that something is not quite right.

The Symbolism of 6

I’m about to discuss S3E6, but begore I get into that, I’d like to talk a little bit about the symbolism of the number six as it relates to Keith and Lance’s relationship. Coran says pretty early on that he’s ordered the paladins by height, most notably calling Pidge “number five.” He doesn’t ever refer to the other paladins by these number names, but that implies that they all have a number (and they all have pretty distinguishing heights). Shiro is the tallest and the leader; he’s number one. Lance is the next tallest; he’s number two. Then comes Hunk, then Keith. Keith is number four. What’s four plus two? Six.

I already talked at length about the importance of S1E6 to Keith and Lance, with this being the first instance where Keith realizes he may have feelings for Lance (the “I cradled you in my arms!” moment). In season two, the distinction isn’t quite as obvious, but we see Lance questioning Keith running off with Allura. Granted, this is probably canonically related to Lance’s “crush” on Allura (which I’ll discuss a little more come season four and five), but the fact that he’s asking if the two of them are together and he’s so bent up about Keith doing anything with Allura could be in reference to his conflicted rivalry feelings towards Keith in the first place. He probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s just as annoyed at the idea of Keith being with someone as he is at the idea of Allura being with someone (hint: he’s bi /like meeeee!/).

Anyways, now we have S3E6, which has, in my opinion, one of the most important Klance scenes so far (save maybe the pool scene, but that was just too too cute so does it really count?).

Season Three, Episode Six

We open from Lance’s POV as he’s acting sniper for the rest of the team. He’s about to take someone out when Keith rushes in with some sword badassery (“Hey, Keith! I had that guy!”). He keeps the scope on Keith for a little while, then watches Allura do some crazy stunts with her whip, to be met with “Well, that was awesome!” Similar to what I was talking about back in S2E6, this is a neat parallel drawn between Lance’s feelings for both the red paladin and the pink paladin. This, in conjunction with the sheer symbolism of colors (red/blue/pink), practically seeps with Lance being bisexual.

Anyways, now that we have Shiro back, this episode throws a wrench into the leadership dynamic that Keith has built for himself. Throwback to season two where everything was going fine until he found out about his Galra blood, this is another instance of regression for Keith. He spent all that time building up his confidence and leadership skills, only to now butt heads with Shiro. Actually, he doesn’t even really butt heads; he yields. He completely yields the black lion to Shiro. Coincidentally, Shiro can’t use the black lion right away, and I think that might have something to do with the whole Clone Shiro arc (which I honestly still don’t understand completely, so I’m going to keep my theorizing about that to a minimum). It’s a complete back swing to his seeing himself as an invalid leader (“they need you, you know” – Keith is once again isolating himself from the other paladins in favor of doing what he thinks is right for the team and placing himself at a disadvantage).

This is interesting when we get to the major Klance scene, and I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this: Lance voicing his concern to Keith. Initiall, Keith is surprised at Lance’s advance, but he’s very accepting of it. It’s an interesting side to keith’s character that we haven’t necessarily seen yet. He’s soft and kind of flustered at the whole thing, which is sO cute.

Lance, on the other hand, is being so brave by voicing these concerns in the first place. We’ve seen multiple occasions of him wanting to be on team Voltron (for glory, for recognition, for the universe, etc – we saw this when he tried to pilot the black lion), but he’s willing to give all of it up if it’s what’s best for the team. Remind you of anyone? Yes, Keith!

Keith is appalled by this and instantly shuts it down, telling Lance not to worry about who pilots what. I think he’s surprised that Lance trusts him so much, but that trust gives Keith confidence. As we’ve seen, Keith responds to trust very well, even enough to make a joke (leave the math to Pidge + a bonus Klance smile). I also believe that he’s telling Lance these things just as much to comfort him as it is to comfort himself; he cares about Lance, and he doesn’t want him to leave. We see that in Keith’s initially reaction (“What are you talking about?!”). Another important line in this scene is Lance’s “this isn’t a participation game. This is war and you want you best soldiers on the front line.” Judging from Keith’s reaction, Keith honestly believes that Lance is one of their best warriors; he values Lance’s place on the team and wouldn’t think of jeopardizing that for a second. Overall, this scene was great. It had Lance’s vulnerability, and it’s the first time another member of the team has recognized that and actively comforted him for it. This will be important to remember once Keith leaves and Lance doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it anymore.

Also, when the Paladins are fighting Lotor’s generals, Keith is blindsided by Acxa, but then he is saved by a good shot from Lance and a reassuring “I’ve got you, buddy!” They really have bonded trust-wise. If romance does come out of this, it will definitely be a slow burn, built on a strong bond of vulnerability and trust. And the smile Keith gives Lance after that interaction! I headcanon that at this point he’s over his initial crush and is instead seeing Lance as a real person and teammate that he cares for deeply. Lance’s faith in him is a beacon of strength and light in a particularly dark time. And Keith switching hands with the bayard? That’s some cool shit. He just keeps getting better and better.

Side note for Keith and Acxa: I’ve seen the theories where they are siblings, but I don’t know if I buy it. We know virtually nothing about Acxa’s past except that she somehow got trapped in the stomach of a weblum for who knows how long until Keith rescued her. It’s just not enough for me to see them as related. If ANYTHING, they could be half siblings since we don’t know anything about Krolia yet either except that she’s a deep cover agent for the Blade. This versus the literal ten pages I’ve written on Klance thus far.

Okay, now back to Keith’s leadership conflict. It’s especially apparent when he starts arguing with Shiro about taking out Lotor on the recon mission. He shows off some of his old colors by wanting to run off on his own, but then listens when the team tells him to stick together. What’s important, though, is that Keith doesn’t completely give in to Shiro. In choosing between taking out Lotor’s ship and taking out the cargo ship, Keith makes a snap choice, against Shiro’s wishes, that targets both. He’s a good leader, and he’s making good decisions. The rest of the team just invalidates that, bringing back the doubt that has brought him so much trouble in the past, which we see in Keith and Shiro’s exchange at the end of the episode.

Final note on season three: past parallels

In the last episode of the season, we get some back story on Alfor and Zarkon’s relationship as well as some of the other past paladins. There’s the potential to see Alfor and Zarkon as a parallel to Shiro and Keith, but there’s also the potential to see it as a note on Lance and Keith, seeing as Lance is showing Altean traits vs Keith’s Galran traits. I’m about to try to debunk that with my own theory: there was also a scene in that episode where Alfor, in the red lion, saved Blades, the pilot of the blue lion. The connections between red and blue just keep being dredged up. There are red and blue stars in the astral plane. Red and blue are everywhere. Keith and Lance are literally written in the stars.

[caemec]

MCL — Who’s most likely to... (part 3) | Welcome to the university edition

Hello sunshines ! How are you ?

So, September is here, and with it, the back to school moment for many students. But what if it was the first day at the university for our boys ? How would they deal with it ? Time to see it with a “Who’s most likely to” special University. 

Will some of you go back to school soon ? 

Who’s most likely to get lost on the campus ?

Lysander — Obviously. Have you already seen how big and spaced some campus are ? A normal student would be lost in a few minutes, so if it’s Lysander... Leigh or Castiel could maybe come with him the first day, to search on the map and guide him to the good local. But honestly, we all know that Lysander’s punctuality will be challenged during a few months. 

Kentin — So let’s think, apparently there is a building “A”, at the left of the “C”, but the exact same building has multiple (unobtainable) entries, also named with letters, and then you have to check the first number for the floor, then for the local... Wait, it wasn't on this campus, but on the other one, on the other side of town, who also belongs to the same university ? 

Castiel — He arrives on the campus, totally unprepared and, for once, will regret he didn't take it more seriously. You could make enter the whole city in those buildings... He will quickly think to check the map, and after a few minutes trying to find a way, will finally be able to arrive without incident in front of the local. Smart boy.

Armin — That boy has an arrogant luck in every situation, you hate him for that. He has absolutely no idea where he has to go, but will meet the good people or arrive in the good building without even having the time to be stressed (and we all know that even with fifty minutes of delay, he still wouldn't mind). 

Nathaniel — How could Nathaniel be even lost ? (easy, let him find his way in a forest with too much self-confidence) He checked during days on the website, could even have called the secretary’s office, asked on the Facebook page. He did way too much, obviously, but it will work, so, that’s the main thing, right ?

Who’s most likely to be completely terrorized by the teachers’ speed and can’t take note ?

Kentin — Terrorized is a little word. His hands are shaking, he has those puppy eyes during the whole class, looks at least ten times to the other students, can’t breathe normally, already thinks to directly study for the makeup tests. Poor boy, his self-esteem is suddenly undermined and he will really need his friends’ help to accept the idea he is able to do it.

Castiel — He was not prepared for that at all. Why nobody told him he just arrived in hell ? He wanted to seem serious at the university (at least during the first month) but it is apparently compromised. Still, as he finally studies something interesting in his opinion, he will try, and if he still can’t take good notes, will invest in a computer special student, even if it means being conned.

Lysander — The first days, he was impressed, and understood he would have to make efforts to take a good start. But with time, it isn't such a problem anymore. The fact he handwrites his songs and has to quickly note his ideas to don’t lose it, actually helps him to adapt himself to the speed. At the end of the quarter, he will have quite good notes, well done enough to study with conscientiousness.

Nathaniel — I see Nath as someone who writes really fast by nature, still with a nice handwriting and without spelling mistakes. He will quickly find his abbreviations and symbols. It’s not such a challenge for him, he will not totally understand people like Kentin who have so many difficulties. But as the unofficial teacher he is, he will try to help them to find a way to adjust themselves to the professors.

Armin — He has absolutely not that kind of problems in his mind, because he mostly has an auditive memory. He can sit during three hours in front of his teacher, arms crossed, and still will be able to quickly resume the lesson. He also counts on friendly and (really too) kind people from the first row to have notes when he didn't pay attention (or wasn't there at all). 

Who’s most likely to search in advance for the perfect place at the library ? 

Nathaniel — It was one of those clichés he had in his mind when he thought to the university. He needed to discover the place, and as he knows that you have to study by yourself without any delay from the teachers, he will start from the beginning. People see him so frequently that they unconsciously assimilated him to his favourite place, and don’t take it. He is totally the kind to have study breaks with people as assiduous as him, even if they are in completely different faculties and never spoke before.

Kentin — He is actually not made for studying at the library, but he absolutely wanted to try. He’s more impressed by the place, the seriousness of other students, the freakish quantity of books. He will search for a peaceful place, but with months, will understand that more you are close from the exam period, more people decide to invest the library, and you can say bye to all the good seats. 

Lysander — You will see Lysander at the library when there is nobody else, because it’s not the studying period. He likes when it’s calm, peaceful, and all those shelves and books have that effect on him. No stressed and disturbing students. He will probably need a seat near from a window, so he doesn't see other people (it can distract him). He could also join Castiel for a study group on the grass, when he can afford it. 

Castiel — He goes when he wants. It is as simple as that. He could have a favourite spot, but honestly knows in advance that all seats will already be taken, it’s not like if he was there at the opening, so... When the weather is good, he will stay outside, far away from the civilization, with his music in his ears and a quite relative interest for his syllabus.

Armin — He hates the library. He can’t even understand what people find attractive in this place. There are too many persons, you can’t lay your notes as you want without having a bitter remark from your sit beside, the ambiance is heavy, studious and not funny at all, you can’t do nothing without all those pairs of eyes on you. 

Who’s most likely to integrate a students club ? 

Castiel — Well, okay, there are so many student clubs in a university, that you could absolutely find everything. But clearly, if there is a place made for the party, Castiel will be there. He could be really appreciated by the others, will make some of his best memories with them. 

Armin — A club about a specific passion, or movie, game, ... or just to chill out (instead of going to class) with some nice people. He would probably try to insert Alexy and Kentin too, will insist on the fact that you’re not a true student if you don’t join a sorority. Yes, he can be boring in those moments.

Kentin — If people look nice, friendly and open-minded, he could envisage to join them. He wouldn't be the most participative, will select the events where he wants to go, will be quite shy the first time. He would be more optimistic if he can go with a friend or someone from his classes.

Nathaniel — He doesn't need to join a group to go to parties or to have a drink with cool people. He is more a guy to join a politic, literature group, probably encouraged by his teachers. Yet, he has no problem trying a night with a club, if one of his friends is there, like Armin. 

Lysander — What’s the purpose ? Okay, in fact, he understands why some people are interested in the concept, but he also claims it isn't for everyone, and that there is absolutely no shame to not want to join a club. Again, if he learned about some literature or philosophy’s club’s existence, he could look closer, but maybe more for their lectures. 

Global summary | Part 1 — MCL | Part 1 — Eldarya | Part 2 (summer edition) — MCL | Part 4 (Halloween edition) - MCL

[sammiedetroit]

Words, words, words.

Faggot, slut, sissy, nigger, tranny, whore, pansy, wimp, dyke, greaser, fairy, queen, tramp...

There...have I got your attention?

Words like these are designed to hurt. Words like these are designed to wound. Words like these are designed for more than that, though.

These words are meant to establish power.

They establish power by defining the target as “less than” and, by extension, to be the subject of derision and scorn. And by further extension they establish the attacker as superior.

At least, that's the idea...and, too often, that is the result.

They establish power by encouraging people to go to great lengths to avoid being on the receiving end of their use. Sometimes they encourage people to go to illegal and dangerous lengths.

We live in a world designed and built from the ground up by and for men and for the continuance of their dominance. This world defines “others”, and by that I mean women, gays, lesbians, trans, people of color and anyone not white, male and hetero normative, as “lesser than”.... through language. And in that definition is the power to control.

Many men reject this and claim they “treat everyone equally”, as do many women who have bought into the same paternalistic world view. But their protestations to the contrary, that privilege exists and manifests itself in a million subtle and not so subtle ways every day. Ask the woman making less money for doing the same job as well or better than her higher paid male counterpart. Ask her if her opinion is given the same weight in meetings as the less able man sitting next to her. Ask the African American whose car is pulled over for a “DWB”. Ask the suicidal homeless transwoman turned out onto the street by her family. Ask any of the “others”. It is often hard to appreciate or recognize the privilege you enjoy... until the day you lose it. Ask any late transitioning transwoman about that.

All prejudice works this way. It allows the practitioner to feel superior for no logical reason. But prejudice is not logical. It is a gut level emotional response. And those who succumb to it often will curl themselves into twisted balls of folly trying hard to rationally justify what cannot be justified with reason.

It has to stop. It is killing us. Even when the death is not a physical reality, it kills us emotionally. It stifles growth and happiness. It divides us rather than uniting us. And it is wrong. It is just wrong.

But the history of these abuses is long and entrenched. And all of it goes back to tribal and prehistoric, reptilian cortex crap. It all goes back to a time when physical strength was all that controlled survival, and when that strength established a paternalistic, male dominated culture.  It goes back to the birth of religions. It goes back to tribal warfare. It goes back beyond reason to a time of brutish survival.

Christianity, with its hierarchy of God above king, and king above nobleman, and nobleman above father, and father above everyone else did us no favors. Religion in general, with it's focus on sex for procreation only also did us no favors. A persecuted minority religion becomes a safe and powerful majority through out procreating the opposition. Homosexuals do not procreate. Hence the emphasis on hetero normative as the only acceptable standard.  Pansy. Fairy. Faggot. Dyke.

Colonialism did us no favors. How to rationalize to a supposedly “civilized” world the subjugation of another race or people and all the atrocities that go with that subjugation.... unless you successfully establish your subjects as somehow less than human?  Nigger. Greaser. Spic. Wop. Monkey.

Sexuality did us no favors, either. Men realized  very early that to control women they had to divide them against themselves. Hence the rise of the Madonna/whore paradigm. One “respectable” woman to make your babies and to keep your respectable home but another to act with sensuality...another to fuck and forget. And of course, no “respectable” woman would want to be mistaken for the other kind, would they? And so, with the hypocritical encouragement of men, women willfully turned on each other and one class looked down mercilessly on the other. So, women were taught to believe that to enjoy their bodies was a sin and shameful. They were taught to dress sensibly or that if they did not they would become the “other”. Slut. Whore. Tramp.

And trans? Well, heck.... that undermines the whole thing, doesn't it?  It begs the question of whether gender really exists as a binary at all, thereby destroying any notion of male superiority. .Of course these particular “others” had to be demonized, demeaned, and kept “in their place”.  Perverts. Queens. Trannies. Drag Queens.

All...not like us.

All...less than.

But those attitudes have to change. They outgrew any legitimate usefulness long ago, if they ever had any at all. They now impede the progress of humanity. Humanity advances through innovation and through team work. Empathy allows for understanding of individuals not as “labeled” commodities in little boxes but as the humans they are. Each of us is so much more than a label. We are the sum of our life experiences, imagination, triumphs and failures, loves and losses. We are each unique and worthy of being seen as such. Labels, especially derogatory labels, serve to diminish us and impoverish us. They serve to falsely elevate those who are responsible for labeling us. In the process, the one labeling receives undeserved self esteem while the one labeled feels worthless. This is not a zero sum game. Potentially valuable contributions to our world are thrown away because “others” lack the self esteem to achieve their potential. Meanwhile, “labelers” receive undue boosts of self esteem propelling them into undeserved positions of power. Society loses both ways.

And labels hurt another way. Members of one group or another turn against each other, weakening the collective power to advance. The desire to avoid labels is so entrenched that fear of such will instill a self loathing. Witness the profusion of males so intent on avoiding the “gay” label that they will deny natural instincts in themselves and adopt hateful behavior toward others. This internalized self loathing is unnatural and counter productive as well as dangerous and painful. But the artificial standards of a judgmental society are so entrenched that men willingly subject themselves to this pain.

Witness the transwoman so afraid of being identified as trans that her internalized trans phobia cause her to reject other transwomen and support an artificial gender binary she knows in their own heart to be false.

But here lies the rub. Sigh.

To deny all labels and thus accept a world of individuals? In doing so one denies commonality with similar people and thus  loses the power of acting collectively to affect progressive movement toward true equality.

Or to accept labels and look for that very commonality and, by extension, the power to affect change?

It is a dilemma, isn't it?

I am not a label. Labels defy understanding.

I am a label. I work with others of the same label to promote greater social fairness.

Hmmmm

The difference, I suppose,  is in how labels are used.

Some labeling is necessary. Without some shorthand communication is drastically impeded. But the derogatory nature of some labels is undeniably evil.

It is the attitudes behind such labels that must change.

The work “dyke” was once a damningly derogatory label. It is now being reclaimed and worn with pride by women who love women. The word “queer” was once another damning pejorative. It is also being reclaimed with pride by the entire gamut of the LGBT world. So, too, the word “slut”. Slut once a word that allowed for women and men to shame other women, those who embraced their natural sexuality. By shaming these women society preserved the paternalistic, Madonna/whore framework. “Slut” is now also being reclaimed.

By refusing to accept the derogatory nature of a word, we strip the word of it's power. By refusing to allow it to hurt but, rather, by redefining it andthen  wearing that label with pride, we render the “weapon” useless and the attacker harmless.

By accepting the label, not as a definition of self in totality but rather as a descriptive, identifying certain mutual areas of commonality, we grow larger and more powerful.

Most importantly, by accepting the label we face the internalized self loathing born of fear of that label. And by doing so, we reject that self loathing and stand taller as a result.

Each small fear faced, and proven to be nothing, instills greater confidence to face the next, larger fear.

Fear is really the great enemy here, both for those who face hateful labels AND for those who hurl them. Fear is our enemy...not each other.

Courage is not the opposite of fear, but rather the ability to ignore fear.

It is often in precious supply.

In the world we now face, rife with divisiveness, polarity and animosity, a little courage is what we all need. Maybe a lot of courage...but a little is a good start, right?

When women reject the power of the “slut” label, men will lose power. When transwomen reject the power of the “tranny” label, transphobes will lose power. When gay men reject the power of the “faggot “ label, homophobes will lose power.

When all these hateful words are stripped of their power, we will all move forward.

May your day be filled with courage.

Chances are you will need it. And we all need each other to find it.

Find the commonality...find the courage...find the power...find the love.

Find the love. 

Start with yourself, right?

[nojotoblog-blog]

Gentleman In You

Male Patriarchy against the men-

I started thinking about emotional vulnerability differences on the gender basis this afternoon after seeing a meme on my Facebook feed that listed the things that need to be normalized by society, among them being “emotional vulnerability against the gender bias”. I couldn’t agree more. As it stands, men, on the whole, have a deep and dangerous emotion expression problem. Why exactly?? Isn’t it the norms set up by the society itself that sets standards for the men about the Do’s and Don'ts, as per which a boy is raised from childhood. These are the exact notions fixed by the societal banters, who sardonically fail to fulfill the demands on a personal level. Typecasting a man according to these social standards and pushing down your child against them is the biggest harm you can cause to your toddlers. The expression and suppression of human emotion are closely tied to gender roles. We always see a man as an ironman - aren’t there any other shades of him. There are so many variables to his emotions. Try to understand this through this quote I found on a Shayari App called NOJOTO, where we can totally relate to a man’s feeling in against what society believes of him - “A broke man is not a man without a nickel, but a man without a dream.”  Aren’t the dreams a subject of concern for a person. Aren’t family, relationships, love a man’s concern? Not just the responsibilities towards these emotions, but the emotions itself!! When I was surfing through this Shayari App, I found there are so many unsaid unexpressed expressions from a man’s perspective, which get unnoticed even when said or expressed. There is another gradient to this - you scroll through a Shayari App or any other such platforms, you will be surprised to find out that there’s a vast number that is inclined to this.

Emotional Vulnerability -

The first time I saw my father cry was also the last. As if often the case with men of his generation it took the death of his mother to grant a license, however momentary, to weep openly. For the first time, my dad had become mortal as he abandoned his frayed mask of manhood. That afternoon, I realized it was secretly something I’d been hoping he’d do my entire life. Though I’ve always had a rather delicate relationship with the world. Vulnerability is courage, not weakness. For too long, poor conditioning has led to many men’s deepest selves to be muted, relationships to be confined, failures linked to self-worth, and a skewed perception of behavior that is acceptable, and more importantly, what is not.  

Societal expectations have “taught” men not to display any emotions. This becomes a huge problem in relationships because men suppress their feelings since they tend not to have socially acceptable emotional outlets. They do not want to seem “emasculated” for caring about someone or something on a deeper level. Due to the way young boys are socialized in education and in society, their ability to deal with emotions has been systematically undermined from a young age. Men are taught that certain aspects of their personality are not acceptable, they are taught not to cry or express in words, how they are feeling. In school, they’re shown there are certain games they should play, activities they should take part in, and rarely are they encouraged to engage in their feelings. A man's emotions are oftentimes confusing and sometimes contradictory. Do not fret if you cannot understand your man’s emotions, chances are he cannot either. People have the preconceived notion that men simply do not have feelings. This is far from the case. The problem is in the fact that women believe men should feel things the way they do. The truth is that men have a much harder time processing these feelings. Men are taught from an early age that they need to be strong, confident and stoic. They begin to equate emotions with weakness. These perceptions of masculinity can lead to a deep sense of shame permeating throughout the male culture. The perceived definition of what it means to be a man is not only outdated and ridiculous but harmful, not only for the men of today but those of the future, who see this as the only way of being. The idea that men are to remain strong, silent and capable is a total myth and belongs more in 1917 than in 2019.

Cracking the code to Men’s Emotions -

Society tells men that it is ‘weak’ to express feelings because we men are supposed to be strong and not allowed to have feelings. This is, of course, a toxic and wrong sense of masculinity and here it is where the paradox comes in. It is actually masculine to have the bravery and courage to let your guard down and be vulnerable because a true man, a real ‘alpha male’ doesn’t care what others think of him and he follows his own way no matter what. Not expressing your feelings out of fear of being judged and ridiculed by society as a consequence is what’s actually weak and pathetic because that means you allow others to judge you, to hold you back and define who you are when it should only be you who defines who you are. Modern men believe there are dozens of different ways to define the phrase “man up”. And none of them need to be used to demean men or make them feel as if they are falling short of some masculine ideal. Let’s call up for a mission to reclaim and redefine what the phrase “man up” means so that boys and young men coming of age now can be spared from its wrath.�� There is a critical mass of men already helping to challenge the outdated model of masculinity. but it’s time for all of us to finally come together and embrace this urgent movement to redefine what it means to be a man. By doing so, we are not only advocating for our own well-being but also promoting a better, healthier, safer, happier world for all.

Men do cry. Men do feel deep emotions. However, men's emotions are triggered through different stimuli than that of women. Men simply don’t get much value out of emotional accessibility.  

[citizentruth-blog]

Is James Comey Just the Guy Who Helped Donald Trump Get Elected? - YOUR NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/is-james-comey-just-the-guy-who-helped-donald-trump-get-elected/

Is James Comey Just the Guy Who Helped Donald Trump Get Elected?

I was not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton the presidential candidate, and throughout her apparent postmortem attempts to deflect blame about losing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to someone she arguably should’ve handily beaten in Donald Trump—I know she won the popular vote, but this is beside the point, not to mention largely inconsequential given that a straight popular vote does not decide presidential elections (though it probably should)—my reaction has been one of irritated refusal to indulge Clinton in her finger-pointing after the fact. Not that she likely needed it, but Hill-Dawg had a pronounced head start in the form of pledged superdelegates, as well as the unspoken but totally believable and real backing of the DNC in her bid to secure the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Regardless, and ultimately, I feel the onus is on the candidate to own the lion’s share of the blame when losing or graciously accept and show thanks when winning.

James Comey has a new book out. For all its juicy tidbits of information, though, what is Comey’s legacy and how credible are his views on leadership after the Clinton E-mail fiasco?

This aside, even I recognize that a complete story of the 2016 election can’t be told unless we talk about former FBI director James Comey and his decision to inform Congress of the Bureau’s reopening of an investigation into Clinton’s use of a private E-mail server.

Comey is currently at the forefront of the 24-hour news cycle because he wrote a book and he was interviewed by ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos. His book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, released earlier this week, is less a memoir and more a treatise comprising his views on what constitutes ethical leadership and what makes a good leader, utilizing anecdotal experiences from his career.

As for the interview (you can read the transcript of the exhaustive full interview here), Comey’s insights, even if they aren’t wholly original or surprising, are nonetheless notable for their candor. He thinks Gen. David Petraeus should have been prosecuted more vigorously for lying to the FBI. He views Rod Rosenstein’s pretext for his (Comey’s) firing related to his handling of the Clinton E-mail scandal as untrue and “dishonorable.” He considers—or at least considered at the time of meeting him—Jeff Sessions to be “overmatched” for the role of Attorney General. He disagrees with how Barack Obama insinuated his opinions on Clinton and her E-mails into the investigative mix. He claims to have told John Kelly, then-Homeland Security chief and current White House Chief of Staff, not to resign when called over the phone by Kelly, but offers that he would support a decision to do so now.

Most notably from a headline-grabbing standpoint, his characterization of Donald Trump as someone who is mentally fit to be President, but “morally unfit” for the position, is not the kind of depiction #45 and his cronies want to hear. Comey essentially refers to Trump as a mob boss without all the leg-breaking, and it’s no wonder Trump has responded in quick fashion by labeling Comey an “untruthful slimeball” (Pot, meet Kettle), and the White House has trotted out Sarah Sanders to refer to Comey as a “disgraced partisan hack.”

The lingering question then, is how much we value James Comey’s insights on Trump, particularly his reflections on Trump’s efforts to get him to let investigation into Michael Flynn’s role in the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia go, in light of his questionable decision-making regarding sensitive information involving both the Clinton and Trump presidential campaigns.

For a study in comparisons and contrasts, let’s take a peek at three recent editorials/opinions from USA Today on the subject. USA Today’s editorial board, for one, regards Comey favorably overall, though this largely seems predicated on Comey being rated as more credible than Trump, a distinction that is akin to being labeled as less sleazy than Harvey Weinstein; the former FBI director kind of wins by default on that one. Otherwise, the esteem for the Comey-Trump “blood feud” is like that of a rubbernecker watching a burning car wreck. Just because we can’t look away doesn’t necessarily mean we should be watching.

Imaginably, not everyone writing for USA Today agrees. With the obligatory pro-Trump rebuttal—why do major news outlets feel they need to cater to his base?—Chris Buskirk, editor and publisher of a journal called American Greatness, which very humbly bills itself as “the leading voice of the next generation of American Conservatism,” assailed Comey for penning a book “full of smarmy, self-serving, mendacious claptrap,” and suggested Comey has a vicious anti-Trump agenda and seeks only to “undermine or destroy the duly elected president of the United States.” Much like some Hillary Clinton supporters will never be able to abandon the narrative that she had the presidency taken from her, Donald Trump’s most fervent backers will continue to see him as the most persecuted POTUS in history. Never mind that he’s enjoyed more advantages in life than you or I are likely to, but this is apparently the age of hyperbole and superlatives aided by ignorance of even recent history.

For the sake of a less conservative critique, meanwhile, we have the thoughts of Jill Lawrence, USA Today commentary editor, who gives James Comey no credit for his scathing criticisms of the President, insisting that his decision to make news of the reopening of the Clinton E-mail investigation was not good leadership, thus rendering his views on leadership in her eyes and many others’ suspect, and opining that Comey is once again inserting himself into another presidential race, only with more time in advance of the election. Lawrence’s reservations echo those of other Comey detractors across the political aisle. That Comey’s revelations are ego-driven and made with a flair for the dramatic. That his ends-justify-the-means propensity for public disclosure ignores his culpability in bypassing DOJ policy and the rule of law. That his soon-to-be bestseller could not only galvanize report for GOP candidates, but hinder Robert Mueller’s investigation that has long been—fairly or unfairly—accused of anti-Trump bias.

As far as Lawrence is concerned, all she really cares to hear from James Comey is an apology—not just to Hillary Clinton and those who stumped for votes for her, but to America as a whole—that he helped elect Donald Trump. I’m sure she’s not alone in this yearning. Whether or not this is the ego in Comey talking, a self-confidence he himself copped to at different points during the ABC News interview, though, this seems unlikely anytime soon. When prompted by George Stephanopoulos, Comey said that he would do what he did again without regard to thought of whether someone as potentially dangerous to American politics as Trump might win, and likening #45 to a “forest fire” that’s “going to do tremendous damage,” but will give “healthy things a chance to grow that had no chance before that fire.” Presumably, Comey is talking about the growth of political engagement by the American people, especially young people, but it’s one thing to appreciate a wildfire for its restorative properties and quite another to be the one holding the matchbook.

One wonders by the time we are done dissecting the 2016 presidential election whether we’ll be at or even past the 2020 election. Speaking of Hillary Clinton, recall that she had her own promotional book tour relating to an insider account published but a few months ago. What Happened has had its fair share of praise and scorn since its release from those across the political spectrum. Among the Breitbart crowd, well, you wouldn’t really expect many to review it favorably. An oddly pleasurable consequence of Clinton’s continued prominence is that on FOX News and elsewhere, the mere mention of her name causes commentators to all but froth at the mouth—even though she lost. David Weigel of the Washington Post referred to this effect as her “shadow presidency,” and this seems all too accurate. Heck, if you wanted to, you could probably make a drinking game out of it. Go to the FOX News website. Wait for something about Hillary or Bill to pop up. Drink. Chances are you could get hammered in a short period of time.

Among liberals and even moderates, though, critique has been abundant. Certainly, Bernie Sanders supporters did not take kindly to her characterization and blame of the senator from Vermont that accused him of not being a “true” Democrat and of engaging in character assassination rather than a substantive debate about the issues. From their standpoint, this slight was fairly disingenuous considering Sanders a) campaigned for her after suspending his presidential bid (much to the chagrin of the Bernie or Bust crowd, to stress), and b) that she enjoyed such a strong backing from the Democratic Party establishment. Otherwise, observers found fault with Clinton’s apparent defense in her memoir of running as a product of a moneyed political system that voters rejected—narrowly, yes, and in favor of a fake populist in Donald Trump, but even so. For a subset of the American electorate that already saw Hillary Clinton as out of touch, What Happened hasn’t really done much to change this perspective.

Owing to Clinton’s recent polarizing account, one is left to consider what will become of James Comey and his legacy. The level of discourse between Donald Trump and the former FBI director has been characterized by various sources as being remarkably catty given the stature of these two men, and whether this is a product of their egos, a social media-fueled culture of tit-for-tat personal attacks, or both, for those of us among the American public growing weary of pettiness between political figures without substance—will we never tire of hearing about the size of Trump and his hands?—this whole business gives us a reason to tune out.

Certainly, Comey is detested by people on the left and the right, with Republicans attacking him as a liar and leaker of information, and Democrats and other members of the anti-Trump crowd deriding his actions as indefensible. Their effect on the 2016 election notwithstanding, those familiar with DOJ policy were highly critical of the decisions to both disclose that the Bureau doesn’t recommend prosecuting Clinton for her “extremely sloppy” handling of her E-mails while as Secretary of State and to make it known that the investigation was being reopened. For all of Comey’s waxing philosophical on the desire for governmental transparency, in these instances, perhaps such disclosure was unwarranted. After all, the Federal Bureau of Investigation often requires confidentiality as a product of the type of work it does, and if Comey was concerned about a potential backlash from conservative circles if he failed to be more forthcoming about matters involving the Democrats’ presidential hopeful, this fear may likewise have been misplaced or overstated.

Evidently, James Comey sees A Higher Loyalty and his criticisms of the President as necessary given the present political climate, much as Hillary Clinton feels compelled to explain What Happened and to be a leading voice against Trump despite her stated desire not to run again for public office. Just the same, with the likes of Claire McCaskill and others cautioning Clinton about unabashed attacks on #45 and his loyal “deplorables” when midterm elections are fast approaching, it is worth asking how valuable Comey’s dissection of ethical leadership is when his own leadership skills are being brought into question. Comey served this country within the Department of Justice for nearly 25 years. Maybe he would best serve it now by showing more restraint.

The “Ugly American” and the DACA Debate

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Should publishing neonazi material be tolerated among anarchists? To almost every anarchist the answer is and has always been no. This is not a matter of censoring or hiding from ideas, it’s a matter of not giving shitty people with shitty values and goals the legitimacy of a platform and connection with us. Social association matters, it maps networks of trust and collaboration, it declares degrees of affinity, and provides points of entry. When you hang with nazis, when you allow them into your spaces, or when you promote their propaganda you’re quite reasonably gonna get treated like a nazi collaborator. The world is not a formless and consequenceless forum for the airing and interplay of ideas. It’s particularly sad that — in the drama surrounding Little Black Cart publishing the defacto English-language mouthpeice of a terrorist group targeting anarchists — anyone should have to point out to self-proclaimed “post-anarchists” the limits of the “marketplace of ideas” notion and the dangerousness of privileging the pretense of civil dialog. Ideas rise to prominence for lots of reasons, their evolutionary fitness in a given context is not solely or often even chiefly determined by their epistemic value. When more rational or accurate ideas win out they often do so only very slowly, laboriously tearing down vast edifices of bullshit that can be raised quickly. Nationalism is fucking stupid, but nationalist propaganda is particularly effective — it’s simplistic resonance persuades faster than critique can keep pace. It hooks into our shallow monkey brain instincts, feeding off our worst desires for status, power, belonging, and community, and providing an excuse to shrink the circle of our concern for others and avoid all the fatiguing intellectual responsibility such empathy brings. While we waste time critiquing its lies and misdirection nationalism happily continues building an army and preparing to crush us. This doesn’t mean that we should expunge nationalist appeals from the historical record or make them totally inaccessible — epistemic closure is dangerous and it’s important to understand our enemies — but we shouldn’t make their dissemination easy, and we shouldn’t help in giving them slick packaging, prominence, and legitimacy. Since nationalism primarily recruits not through reason but through displays of social positioning and brute force — displays that promise power and demonstrate how much can be gotten away with — dialog is often a trap. Almost everyone gets this. An esoteric text dump online is different than something gilded in book form. The role of a publisher — even more so in the era of the internet — is to give social prominence to certain things. To leverage social and financial capital to disseminate something and lend legitimacy to it. Anarchists don’t publish flat earth nuts or climate change deniers because those perspectives have simply nothing in common with anarchism; they are not relevant or coherent with or even arguably reconcilable with anarchy. And while there is immense space for complexity, novelty, exploration, and contention within anarchism it is not yet so undermined as a concept as to be infinitely expansive. There are boundaries and a core locus of concern with the liberation of all. We certainly don’t publish neonazis or tankies. It doesn’t matter that Mao was once an anarchist or that Mussolini ran in anarchist circles — they were clearly at fundamental odds with the anarchist project. But even those genocidal ideologies pale before the mass murderous ideology of ITS, who have even more stridently sought to embrace the opposite of anarchism. Rejecting the defining anarchist goal of liberation for all, ITS derides this as “humanist” and “moralist” — valorizing instead the murder of strangers for sport. Instead of freedom and the abolition of domination, they’ve devolved into worshiping a silly macho “wildness” that’s just decentralized domination with some residual environmentalist affectations and a laughable cloak of subalternity. Once upon a time it was possible to quibble that their ideology shouldn’t be taken seriously as a declaration of intent. That the entire philosophy was self-evidently empty posturing by edgelords. And that when some brats declare that they want to kill all humans or that they’re “worse than Hitler” the extremity of such statements revealed their insincerity. But ITS’ attacks on anarchists, children’s hospitals, students, hikers, etc. long ago made such continued deflection impossible. The Journal Atassa’s website is filled with translations of ITS communiques and interviews — Atassa has effectively operated as ITS’ press office in the anglosphere. That Little Black Cart would seek to publish Atassa as a journal and insert it in anarchist spaces follows the same trajectory of assisted entryism that has led to ITS communiques being repeatedly published on AnarchistNews.org, hosted on TheAnarchistLibrary.org, read aloud enthusiastically on Free Radical Radio, laughed about approvingly on The Brilliant, etc. All from the influence of roughly the same circle of self declared nihilists. Let’s be clear that Little Black Cart’s defense of their publication of Atassa in terms of whether “calls to action” are present in the print version of Atassa is as absolutely and transparently ridiculous a defense as could be imagined. Whether a while nationalist journal makes “calls to action” is completely irrelevant. A neonazi text that speaks in airy abstract terms and avoids making a direct call to exterminate is in no real sense different than a neonazi text that lets slip such calls. This distinction is purely a legal artifice and one that should be largely irrelevant to anarchists. We all know this game intimately because we’ve played it continually over the last few decades when struggling with the liberal legal regime. The ELF had cells and the press office, legally distinct entities, but functioning as a single whole. Such positioning may save someone from prison but no anarchist actually buys that they’re ultimately distinct, they are but different organs within the same movement or project. What’s intolerable about white nationalism isn’t merely its specific acts of violence, it’s the fucking white nationalism itself. Similarly what is intolerable about ITS isn’t merely their violent acts but their fucking values and goals. The violent acts are merely proof that they are actually serious about their vile ideology — even if they have not as of yet figured out how to for example sabotage nuclear plants and kill at a larger scale. LBC contextualizes their publication of Atassa with, “The ideas we wish to publish are visionary, world-wrecking, ideas about a passionate, critical, fiery anarchy unleashed upon the world.” And similar statements have repeatedly been made across AnarchistNews.org and associated media projects — framing ITS as anarchist. But there is no sliver of anarchy to be found in ITS unless we are now — after years of attempted twisting and corruption — to accept a notion of anarchy as merely ANY fiery world-wrecking. ITS does not seek to end domination and expand freedom, the wildness they worship might as well be called fractured fascism. Broadly contiguous with and reflective of the sort of “national anarchists” that have cropped up among modern fascists with a decentralization fetish. The same almost sociopathic myopia and localism of nationalism, except to an even greater extent. That some of the folks slinging ITS have now hey now, I have a few disagreements with Hitler and the historical Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.” It’s true that now at long last a couple folks in this circle have voiced a critique of ITS. Yet in his essay in Black Seed inveighing against anyone loudly opposed to ITS, Bellamy’s “critique” of ITS functioned mostly as an attempt to distance them from anticiv nihilism, “Despite their many references to egoist and nihilist [sic] strands of anarchism, including quite recent ones concurrent with the above this is quite plainly a holy war, not a deconstruction of civilization through individual liberation. I see no room for a praxis of individual or small, intimate group liberation in conjunction with such an ascetic, semi-suicidal religious imperative“. Notice how askew this analysis is. Bellamy casts the problem with ITS as that they’re not focusing myopically enough! In this picture what’s wrong with ITS is the intensity and scope of their values. God fucking forbid someone feel strongly committed to action or some large goal. Surely that’s what’s actually intolerable about ITS. And never mind the values of “individual or small intimate group liberation” that Bellamy casts as somehow both nihilist and desirable instead. The problem with ITS is apparently that they care about shit beyond their friend circle. Such critiques of “moralism” are hard not to read in vein of the “the problem with all these cucks is they get triggered about shit” nihilism at the bedrock of the alt-right. Myself, being a “feverish” moralizing cuck, I diagnosed ITS as being too myopically focused in the immediate. The simple macho and subrational rush of brutal domination involved in murder, mixed with the visceral instinct of trees good concrete bad, both instincts fetishized by a all too nihilist failure to intellectually probe deeper or wider. Just as Richard Spencer admits that race or ethnicity is an arbitrary and contradictory construct, so too do they essentially admit that “the wild” is not ultimately an intellectually defensible category or concept, just as they’ve admitted they don’t get the science they castigate. They’re gonna go with the arbitrary value that psychologically resonates with them given their personal history, and fuck any sort of intellectual reflection that might undermine such or reorient them towards different values. Unlike certain fascists ITS is obviously not trying to convert large numbers of people to their cause, but they’re just as obviously leveraging the same sort of irrational psychological resonances that underpin fascism. A fetishization of violence and a return to mythologized lost tradition, a shrinking of one’s empathic circle to a closer relationships and othering of the rest, a ridicule for reason, truth, and intellectual diligence. It’s this latter trick that allows them to value their self-aware nonsensical construct of “the wild”. Note how these few nihilists only now “critiquing” ITS can’t bring themselves to actually make an argument for some values and not others. They never address how murder for sport is wrong or why the lives of strangers should matter to us. They don’t want to get drawn into such an explicit metaethical conversation because it would bare just how arbitrary their values of “self” interest and privileging a few immediate relationships over others are. They want to duck such with trivializing moves like “of course we’re against bad things” when said bad things are overwhelming socially recognized (and only when those bad things are overwhelmingly socially recognized), but the entire project of anticiv nihilism has increasingly seemed to be about expanding the overton window of what’s socially allowable. If they’re trying to distinguish themselves from ITS it’s obviously incumbent upon them to explain the walls holding their myopic focus on immediacy from devolving into the even more extreme reductio of that demonstrated by ITS. After a decade of attempting to erode anarchism’s capacity to say anything, to uproot its ethical foundations, they’re now left grasping at the air trying to assert that there’s no slippery slope between them and ITS. Despite a number of individuals in the anticiv nihilist milieu long praising or expressing delight at ITS (see Free Radical Radio for some of the more public individuals). When former anarchists reject not just the strawmen they set up with “moralism” but all ethics, declare that the abolition of oppression is impossible and undesirable, say “might makes right” and misanthropically fetishize mass die-off in a civilizational collapse, but then protest “sure, I don’t support killing random people” how honestly should we read such a deflection? And does it really matter if they do happen to arbitrarily draw such a line? Richard Spencer can say he wants “peaceful” ethnic cleansing, but we all know the inevitable conclusion of his values. And what else could he really get away with saying in public? To many of us ITS has laid bare the inevitable and boring conclusion of most of this most recent misbegotten “nihilist” project in North America. A notion of anarchy increasingly stripped of all ethical content and rendered into a shallow aesthetic of revolt and attack. By now we should all realize that such an aesthetic is entirely swallowable by and deeply reconcilable with reactionary forces. Let me clarify where I am personally coming from here, because I am certainly not suggesting that we banish everything remotely problematic or deviant. I am quite loudly reviled in a few of circles for taking iconoclastic stances in anarchism, as well as encouraging and facilitating critical dialog with ideas or circles deemed verboten. I have consistently been about challenging orthodoxies and expanding overton windows. I have built up and published writers that I have sharp and public disagreements with. While I have been vitriolic in my critiques of them I’ve nevertheless tabled and spoken at libertarian conventions, debated reactionary non-anarchist transhumanists, and even helped a bit in negotiating the original St Paul Principles — an influential treaty with maoists and liberals. I was once staunchly primitivist and have continued to engage at length with various branches of those ideas, even undertaking lengthy dialogs with some of today’s “eco-extremists” like John Jacobi (even despite Atassa’s inclusion of his writing). For a decade and a half since I worked up the backbone to stand up to the anarchist and leftist orthodoxy I’ve dealt with plenty of suspicious would-be scene police hoping to make a name for themselves by running me out of things for crimethink. Last year the LA Anarchist Bookfair side-eyed my application to table because they thought mutualism smelled like “propertarianism” — I would be certainly excluded by any ban on “individualists.” I’ve even hilariously been accused on Anews of trying to build a “red brown alliance” because a think tank I’m involved with engages in dialog with libertarians and the notoriously thirdpositiony Counterpunch has republished a few of our public domain essays (never mind that we’ve been the most consistent and outspoken critics of the fascist creep in libertarian circles, have converted thousands of libertarians, and are frequently targeted by actual fascists for our work). Syndicalists, Platformists, and “anarchists” in spitting distance of Maoism have said far worse about me, happily making up shit or conflating (“ancap” etc). I am well aware of how opportunistically “fascist” can be thrown by some and how hungry certain beurocratic dinosaurs in the red branches of anarchism are for inane ideological purges and unfair litmus tests. Anarchy is complex and varied in its application and we must embrace the often weird and unruly ideological mess that people make of it. We must continue to make sure there’s room for varying kinds of people with varying takes. But there are nonetheless still some boundaries to the anarchist project. There have to be or else anarchism would be absolutely indistinct from anything else and also immediately overrun. We don’t let fascists in our spaces. We don’t let a very large array of fucked up shit in our spaces. We don’t think that our goals justify literally any means, nor do we believe that a number of means can feasibly lead to the ends we desire — or else we would have no problem with state communists and claim that mass slaughter and imprisonment are capable of building a world we could ever be interested in. Many of the exact same people now wailing about someone ripping up a copy of Atassa at the Seattle Bookfair I remember once laughing in approval at state communists getting water dumped on their books when they tried to table anarchist bookfairs. There are and have always been things rightfully considered utterly beyond the pale in anarchism. It is not remotely acceptable to distro fascist propaganda, and certainly not at an anarchist bookfair — even if the writers originally came from the anarchist movement (as again in the case of some “national anarchists”). I know that my repeat comparison to nazis will be dismissed out of hand by a few — and shrieked about from the residual anews peanut gallery — as rank hyperbole, but when pressed no defender of ITS and Atassa has so far coughed up any attempt at meaningful distinction in why we should treat them differently. What’s so infuriating is that many of these people clearly perceive ITS as just some “misbehaving” comrades who are only a little bit lost. They know that they can’t just openly say that ITS’ values and analysis are close to their own because they know that anarchists at large would then revolt and kick them from the milieu like the “national anarchists” were once. Since Scott Campbell raised the profile of ITS’ targeting of anarchists and anarchist spaces, some folks involved with LBC have felt pressured into backpeddling a little. But these same cheerleaders knew damn well that ITS had tried to kill an anarchist years back and didn’t raise a peep then. It behooves us to ask what other random idiotic monsters these “ITS isn’t that bad” folks would thus invite into our spaces and discourse. Are they going to start publishing shit like Keith Preston’s “national anarchist” propaganda? This isn’t rhetoric — Aragorn has already done this. In the late oughts Aragorn facilitated “national anarchist” entryism on anarchistnews.org, on antipolitics.net, and in the Berkeley study group. Defending the inclusion of BANA members and publishing national anarchist writing. It’s great that he stopped, but it’s concerning as hell that such retractions only happened after a loss of social capital. (Honest props to those nihilists who called him out and cut ties with him over it.) What’s also flabbergasting is the audacity with which ITS apologists have instead tried to reframe the conflict around a motte and bailey of “indiscriminacy” in violence. As if the only thing objectionable is that some perfectly valid anarchist comrades are getting a little too sloppy when it comes to collateral damage in their actions. It’s insulting and disturbing that they think this reframing will work. ITS declares they want to kill everyone and proceed to target randos and anarchists — and their apologists try to turn the discussion into a re-litigation of the late 90s nonviolence debate. No anarchist project nor any manner by which anyone might move through our world, occurs without some form of violence — even the violence of nonviolence. But we can still recognize varying degrees of violence, and of domination, and subjugation. We can engage mindful of the context of our actions and the various feedback loops attendant to certain tactics or strategies. We can also — and this is the critical bit — seek to fucking minimize domination in the world, to expand things like agency and consent. The pretense that ITS’s murderfest and wish for mass death poses any serious or interesting questions for anarchists would be laughable if so many in LBC’s orbit haven’t somehow claimed such. Of course Atassa — as ITS’ English language press office — doesn’t even bother with such deflections. The only pretense of defense it conjures is feigned outrage at gringos talking shit about something in a (not so) distant country. What a laughable pastiche of anticolonialism and white liberal insecurities! Are anarchists not to condemn the North Korean government or the Assad Regime? Must we refrain from critique of the Muslim Brotherhood or Daesh when communists laud them? Where does this “can’t critique distant things” nonsense end? Can’t develop an opinion on someone widely called out for rape in a slightly distant city? Someone in our scene snitches and we get to say “well I’m not super close with all the relevant individuals“? I mean I know that a number in these circles actually would like us to be so de-fanged, but I wish they would explicitly step to with that argument so it can be roundly rejected. I mean is the level of bullshit used to equivocate and condemn condemnations of ITS really to be our future? Halfassed concern trolling and “whaddaboutism” where any restatement of what should be ethically obvious but somehow isn’t is in turn silenced as “virtue signaling?” When the same folks who condemned those speaking out against the bombing of an anarchist infoshop then whined about civility, free speech and the disrespect of LBC’s property in Seattle, the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair organizers proclaimed that they wouldn’t exclude vendors based on their content. Immediately alt-right, anti-feminist, MRA, and pro-Israel material cropped up. Because. This. Is. What. Fucking. Happens. There are so many more reactionaries than anarchists in this world that they could sneeze and flood us out of our spaces or drown out our voice. Some bare community norms or expectations are inherent and necessary. I’ve pushed for tolerance and ecumenicalism for years, but it’s hard to imagine what could even remain if we accept publishing the de facto press office of a group that opposes freedom and is out to kill all humans. The alt-right literature was promptly removed from the Bay Area Bookfair by spontaneously organizing attendees, but however horrible the alt-right is let’s remember they at least don’t champion the extermination of literally everyone. Look, again, I get that there are dangers here. LA’s condemnation of “individualism” wholesale is obviously absolute trash. But just because something as central to anarchist practice as No Platform can be abused doesn’t mean anarchists can afford to suddenly discard it. Anarchism at core is an ethical stance against all domination, seeking the liberation of all — there should be room for vibrant intellectual diversity in discussing how this is applied, differences in strategy, prediction, and preferred implementation — but we cannot afford to erode the beautiful idea itself, to lend space and legitimacy to its avowed enemies. And we certainly shouldn’t be helping those actively trying to kill anarchists. LBC’s decision to publish Atassa, Anews’ publication of ITS manifestos, their continued hosting on AnarchistLibrary.org and as audio recordings on Free Radical Radio are obviously beyond the pale in the same way that nazi or tankie texts would be. Not because anarchism cannot survive forbidden readings — although it is shameful we’ve done such a poor job enunciating and defending our values that somehow a small number found ITS’ inane perspective to have resonance — but because such publication legitimizes a profound watering down of anarchist values and basic norms. http://clubof.info/