#there is no nuance. it's a genocide. we are witnessing genocide

[v-arbellanaris]

you can & should be deeply suspicious of anyone trying to sell you the narrative that making posts or spreading information abt palestine and gaza is not doing anything or is not important, especially when it comes with the tagline that you're incredibly "misinformed" and don't understand the "history" of the subject. spreading information counteracts propaganda and misinformation campaigns.

the court of public opinion is not some abstract nonsense concept; public opinion in egypt being overwhelmingly pro-palestinian is giving its leaders pause when considering selling out to american promises of greater economic relationships in return for opening routes to permanently displace palestinians from their homeland (thus enabling and abetting genocide of palestinians). (btw american attempts to "secure" a safe route of exit for palestinians to egypt is not out of interest for palestinian safety, because israel refuses palestinians the right of return. this is america agreeing with israel - stay, and be killed, or give up your ancestral lands and home. IT IS COLONIALISM.)

so talk. keep talking. KEEP TALKING. bc you SHOULD be outraged that gazan children are being shelled to extinction, and have been for the past seventy five years. you should talk about the nakba. you should talk about how this is not about religion - christian Palestinians and jewish palestinians are being killed in droves. israel went so far as to shell areas where their own hostages are being kept - this is not about safeguarding israel. it is about land. it is about TAKING LAND from indigenous people. we are seeing, in real time, the violence of colonialism, and we should talk about it. we should RAGE. it is not acceptable, we cannot stay quiet. where colonialism happened before in silence, in isolation, the whole world is watching, and out unequivocal stance should be THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. THIS IS A WAR CRIME, THIS IS GENOCIDE, AND WE CONDEMN THOSE TAKING PART AND THOSE COMPLICIT. talk about it on social media, show up to protests, give money, talk, talk, talk. sitting in silence while people are being genocided is not some sign of intellectualism or superior understanding of a "nuanced" stance on the subject - it is COMPLICITY.

to clarify - idc what you do on tumblr dot com. this is not really a platform for activism or whatever but im specifically talking abt people on socmed who tell you staying silent is better than doing something “uninformed”. like express support for palestine without 'understanding the nuance'. there is no nuance. it's a genocide. we are witnessing genocide. people telling you that talking abt a 'complex issue' does nothing are LYING TO YOU. it is NOT complex. and talking and expressing your opinion as a member of the public DOES do something. that's why the first thing oppressive states take away is your right to protest and congregrate. DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE LIES.

[fading-event-608]

Hello! I see people here are talking about Gaza again. 

I’m not one to vaguepost, nor do I usually spend time arguing with zionists and liberals online, but the amount of “pro-Palestine” liberals I’ve seen in the last day saying that Gazans “deserve genocide” because Trump won…

I’m not surprised to hear that democrats are mad at third-party voters. It’s true that even if all swing third-party votes went to Kamala she’d still have lost, but reality isn’t important to these people. Democrats want a monopoly - of course they’re upset at everyone who isn’t voting for their party. Of course they’re more upset with communists and anarchists than they are with nazis.

None of this is new. But even though we’ve seen these patterns before, I am absolutely sick to witness these people blaming Palestinians for this. I’m sick hearing them almost gleefully wishing for Gaza to be turned into a parking lot. I’m sick coming across individualistic little diatribes about how they’re “done” boycotting, “done” helping others.

Is it Palestinians’ fault that Kamala’s campaign was so poorly run?

Is it Palestinians’ fault that the US is now so full of nazis that the Democrats lost the popular vote for the first time since 2004, by 5 million votes?

Is it Palestinians’ fault that the US supplies and supports Israel in their annihilation of Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories, as well as neighbouring countries?

Is it Palestinians’ fault that the government assisting Israel’s genocidal project was, for the past four years, Biden’s administration? A Democrat’s administration? 

The crime that Palestinians have committed in the eyes of these liberals is the crime of existing where said liberals can see them - namely, on social media. The unofficial charges: not being silent, resisting, asking for help from the people best equipped to give money for their survival. So again, I’ll ask - is it the fault of Palestinians that the people best equipped to help them are those in the imperial core? That the people Palestinians must go to for help are people benefitting from both this genocide and the genocides the empires that house them are built on?

Of course the gravest offence is interrupting the liberal supply of white noise. Comfort is, after all, the biggest priority in liberalism - silence and denial is self care. Murder by proxy is the most popular of hobbies, and is best enjoyed with the sound off. But Palestinians are not quiet. You can see their faces now - and the identification of them as something other than faceless, or rather someone, begins to burrow through the insulation built up around you. 

You have the barest sense of how fragile your world is. You can either turn away from this, or continue your journey towards the truth. These liberals are examples of those violently turning away and taking up the slaughter again, desperate to dispel any reminders that they are not the only people on earth worthy of life.

You can literally buy an indulgence now by donating to a Palestinian fundraiser. Yes, even if you’re not a Democrat, or you’re from Europe (chances are your government supplies Israel too, or is at least complacent), or there’s any other facet of your identity that supplies nuance. This is up to all of us, no matter who we are. 

I’ve been spotlighting Falastin’s campaign to save her family in Gaza for more than two months now. I will continue to do so until they’re safe; but their safety will likely be a long time coming. This is in part because Falastin’s campaign must support 24 people, and in part because donations are slowing down - not only for Falastin, but for a lot of other fundraisers I keep an eye on. To be afraid for so many people while watching liberals angrily abandoning this cause is distressing and disheartening.

This is life or death. I don’t care who you are, and I care even less to hear if you’ve voted or who you voted for. All I ask is that you boost this post and, if you can, donate to Falastin. The Gofundme is in SEK and the rates are:

10$ = 107 SEK

25$ = 269 SEK

50$ = 538 SEK

100$ = 1,076 SEK

You can also donate via PayPal in USD: [LINK]

We also host a raffle for hand-made Palestinian thob [info HERE], and the first winner will be chosen in a bit less than 2 days. 

P. S. Yes, Falastin’s campaign has been vetted, several times across multiple platforms:

#282 in El-Shab-Hussein and Nabulsi's spreadsheet [HERE], 

#957 in the Butterfly Project spreadsheet [HERE]

Falastin's account: [LINK]

[headspace-hotel]

@ USAmerican followers, here is another thing to point in the direction of friends and family who will be more convinced by mainstream media sources.

The death tolls since Oct. 7. 139 israeli soldiers killed vs. well over 20,000 palestinians killed. What kind of "war" is so unevenly matched? That sounds more like a massacre to me.

If someone says "The october 7 attack was evil and horrible, civilians were killed" you can say "I agree, this is why I am against the Israeli government, they have killed almost 20 times the amount of people, and they are nowhere near stopping! If I find the October 7 attack horrifying, shouldn't I be far more horrified at the Israeli government doing a much worse magnitude of violence against innocents?"

It is so straightforward that a genocide is occurring, and if you are tempted to think that "it couldn't possibly be so controversial if it was this straightforward!...I must be missing something...!"

...just think about all the historical events that make you think "How could everyone have witnessed this nightmare and not KNOWN what was happening and SEEN that it was wrong?"

Just like this. All of those one-sidedly horrific events didn't look any clearer back then, than the Palestinian genocide looks now. It's easy to think to yourself, "I totally would have fought against slavery/the Nazis/genocide of Native Americans etc..." but would you? Don't you see that those horrors were also twisted into something "complicated" and "nuanced" at the time they were happening?

You are living through history, it is up to us to decide how we are part of it!

[fairuzfan]

As a survivor of the Bosnian Genocide, I am acutely attuned to the haunting echoes of that dark chapter in human history, a chapter that refuses to be closed. Today, as I witness the unfolding tragedy in Gaza, the spectre of genocide resurfaces with a poignant familiarity.

The Palestinian landscape, scarred by 75 years of Israeli military occupation, mirrors the hardships faced during the Bosnian War and Genocide - displacement, economic hardship, and restricted access to basic resources.

The ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza exacerbates an already dire humanitarian situation. This is more than a geopolitical conflict; this is a contemporary genocide.

In 111 days, more than 25,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel, including at least 10,000 children. More than 8,000 are missing, trapped under the rubble, and presumed dead. Another 63,000 are injured, and more than 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.

Videos of Israeli leaders calling for the destruction of Gaza and the forcible displacement of Palestinians echo the sentiments expressed by those responsible for the Bosnian Genocide.

In the case of the Bosnian Genocide, while both the Bosnian Serbs and the Serbian political leadership knew they were committing genocide in their expansionist plans to create a “Greater Serbia,” publicly they attempted to conceal their crimes to avoid accountability.

Their genocidal intent was not as open or as loud as some of the sentiments expressed by Israeli political leadership.

Nevertheless, comparing the Bosnian Genocide with the current situation in Gaza necessitates a nuanced examination. While historical contexts differ, the core elements of mass displacement, targeted violence against civilians, and the overarching goal of extermination of a specific group are the same.

To comprehend the concept of genocide, it is crucial to understand its legal definition and sociological framework. Coined by Raphael Lemkin after the Holocaust, genocide encapsulates acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Genocide goes beyond the mere act of killing; it encompasses a deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate a specific group based on its identity.

Genocide is a process. In Bosnia, it did not simply occur one day in July of 1995, nor did it suddenly rear its head in October of 2023 in Gaza. It is a process that starts with dehumanisation, discrimination, and persecution.

[qqueenofhades]

maybe i'm misunderstanding the concept, but it lately it's felt like Online Leftists™️ have been using homonationalism as a cudgel against lgbt people wanting to go abroad and feel comfortable doing so instead of as idk a way to critique american exceptionalism or whatever

The thing about Online Leftists and American exceptionalism in any capacity is that literally all their ideas and concepts of it are a) gibberish and b) completely contradictory and hypocritical. This is because it is all based on a reactionary Vibes ideology that has to constantly change itself to oppose whatever the Democrats/the US/the West in general is doing and therefore has no actual logical guidelines or consistent internal principles. To wit:

America is the most powerful country in the world, and that influence is always and forever totally evil because (insert terrible shit America has done here, which is then generalized and applied to all time periods and places without context or nuance). Indeed, America is so powerful that no other country or government in the world has actual agency or makes real choices for which they are morally and legally responsible; they're just helpless and manipulated pawns reacting to American/Western imperialism (which is the only kind of imperialism that exists, somehow). As such, nothing they ever do is actually "bad" or worthy of condemnation, because they're just totally victimized by America and everything they do is justified as long as it is anti-America. Hence, Russia genociding the Ukrainians is actually fine and good, the Ukrainians must have deserved it somehow (witness how many of the people currently screaming about Gaza were yelling that Ukraine was totally fine to attack actually!) and America is evil for trying to intervene. Russian propaganda calls America bad, we think America is bad, and therefore Russian propaganda must be correct, we love Russian propaganda a whole lot and have no interest in examining that fact any further. Russia is actually good because it used to be the USSR! Did you know that?

However, Israel genociding Gaza is utterly unforgivable and terrible and anyone who tries to offer any kind of realistic critique or appraisal of what can or can't be done to stop it is a genocide apologist. America should in fact be intervening to the point of invading Israel and/or dismantling the Israeli state, because maximalist American military intervention is Good when we say it is (but the rest of the time it's the most awful evil thing in the world WHY DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THE GLOBAL SOUTH). America is still the most powerful country in the world and it should be intervening at all times, but actually it shouldn't do that at all because we're totally not the right-wing America First isolationists sent through the rabbit hole. If America does not choose to exercise its almighty godlike power to stop all the evil in the world (but remember, American military intervention of any kind is obviously bad and Ukraine should definitely still be genocided), it is just proving how evil it actually is. Remember, nobody else makes real choices. They're just reacting to America. America is all-powerful and also evil but still should use this evil power for good because it's good if we decide it is.

Voting is meaningless because the parties are the same, but it's powerful enough to produce a president god-king who could just decide to snap his fingers and end all bad things in the world but just doesn't do that (at least if he's a Democrat; we don't really care what a Republican president does). We think this is a good idea, but don't worry, America is still the source of all evil in the world. America should intervene everywhere and nowhere all at once. America should do nothing because everything it does is evil and past redemption and the only solution is The Revolution which destroys society. America is evil because it was founded on the violent oppression and exploitation of minorities, and therefore the solution is to let fascists be elected to punish those minorities even more because they get in the way of our purist thought experiments and their actual lived experiences don't matter when they contradict our Ideology. BUT ACTUALLY IT STILL SHOULD MILITARILY INTERVENE EVERYWHERE WE SAY SO BUT ACTUALLY IT SHOULDN'T EVER GLOBAL SOUTH. (We don't know what the Global South is or any of its issues, politics, problems, identities, languages, postcolonial developments or so forth, but we know that the Cold War happened and it was all America's fault. Have you heard this piece of Russian propaganda about how Joe Biden is the antichrist? SILENCE IS VIOLENCE SO YOU BETTER SHARE IT.)

Likewise, we support LGBTQ rights in theory but we don't think they're ever worth actually voting to protect (remember, voting is meaningless!) if that also contradicts our aim of The Revolution. We love virulently anti-gay groups like the Houthis if they theoretically support our Anti Genocide stance (don't look at Ukraine, that doesn't count) and also hate Jews. Israel is the only country in the world that has LGBTQ rights and also does stupid or awful military things, and therefore it alone is the problem because it's just pretending to be a democracy or have LGBTQ rights (in comparison to the rest of the Middle East) because it's just cynically covering for all its sins, but those sins are actually America, because Israel is just a white settler colonialist outpost of America, so America not stopping what Israel is doing (by being Israel) is bad. Remember, America is the source of all evil in the world and all other countries are its puppets, so it is also Israel, but it should stop being Israel, because it's the only country that ever makes any choices or has agency. We are very smart.

...basically, if your head hurt trying to read that or follow the logic, that's the point. It has to change constantly and contort itself around in order to both oppose those Weak Mainstream Liberals and act like it has the perfect moral high ground in doing so, regardless of what principles it has to change or what hypocrisies it has to embrace. As such, it has been stripped of any authentic critique or ability to say anything about anything, and I suggest we generally stop letting it pretend that it does. That is the only way to rescue western leftism and make it actually 2% of use at opposing fascism, because right now? Nah. Not in the least. It's actively and gleefully enabling fascism, and after so long hearing how us normie Democratic-voting losers were going to be the ones collaborating with fascists, it makes me just a little bit crazy. Good thing we can erase that too.

[six-paths-of-jeanmarco]

Thank you for killing me slowly by a thousand mental cuts the ask, anon! First of all, lemme apologize for taking so long to answer, but in my defence, you asked me quite the question here.

I want to say first that I used to be a big snk fan. And then the final chapter was released. It was so bad that it made me look at the whole series with a very critical eye, which made me realize that snk has never been that great to begin with. What really made this story good was the anime produced by WIT, and what really carried the story was its big mystery box. The moment we opened it, everything went downhill bc this was no longer a fantasy world, but a lazy parody of ww2 Germany & Japan.

But more importantly, and referring to the final arc, I started to notice all the rot hidden in plain sight: its fascist and antisemitic undertones, the awful writing, the lackluster worldbuilding, the braindead politics and the inconsistent treatment of characters.

Despite my newfound interest for the cautionary symbolism of Reiner and his character arc, I still think it was handled poorly. I have the same problem with characters like Gabi, Annie, Magath, and Pieck. Their individual arcs ended with them facing no real consequences for their crimes. Magath, despite being a literal representation of the nazi, was rewarded by the plot with a heroic death (a baffling choice when you think about who he is and what he did, and just how brutal and meaningless all of the Scouts deaths were pre timeskip). Reiner, Annie, Pieck, and Gabi were all rewarded with the promise of a new, happier life ahead of them, despite being responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths directly or indirectly.

Gabi herself is proof of just how bad the writing is: RBA lived inside the walls for around 3 years, and yet they still went on with their mission. They still killed Marco. Annie still massacred those Scouts. It took Reiner 7 years to fully acknowledge that what he did was wrong and to finally make amends ... by joining an alliance that had the same goal as that of the warriors for the whole goddamn arc: take down Eren. However, Gabi realized she was wrong in like what, just a few months at best? Their development is dictated by however the plot needs them to be or act. But there's more:

Marco, the Levi Squad, Sasha, and -- as victims of similar circumstances -- Pixis, and Hange, the embodiment of pacifism, were all condemned for being good people, and some of them for believing that there is good in everybody, even in their enemies; and punished for believing that conflicts could be solved in peaceful ways. Does the cautionary symbolism of their brutal deaths still holds up when the story rewards violence and crushes pacifism?

I don't think it does.

Showing that even the worst of the worst are capable of change and doing the right thing in the end is an important message, but. The idea that everyone is just a victim of their uprising or their circumstances is simply wrong. Ideologies don't exist without people, cowardice does not justify orders carried out that lead to attrocities. This idea fails to acknowledge that evil exists. Not just nuanced evil, but pure evil as well. It also goes the other way around. This idea also fails to acknowledge that good can exist.

And also to sympathize with Pieck, who was still loyal to marley despite what they're doing to her own people. And Magath, who in his final moments, revealed that he actually cared about the kids he was indoctrinating and instructing to commit genocide all along. I can't ignore the similarity with the way neonazi like to bring up hitler's friendship with Bernile Nienau, a girl of Jewish origins, as an attempt to humanize him. Heck, even Zeke's final moments painted him as more sympathetic than he was. Such is the case with Floch, and the way Jean reacted to his death. All those characters were redeemed in the audience's eyes without facing any substantial accountability.

I also have a huge issue with the false equivalences that were supposed to show us how morally grey everyone and everything is.

-> The link to the post in the screenshot

Jean and Connie and the Scouts that attacked Liberio aren't just wrongfully presented as something they're not, they're also used as tools to rationalize what Reiner and co have done to them throughout most of the series. Jean briefly does that with what Reiner did to Marco before he punches him to a pulp. Then again with the "we're the same" bs. Then again with implying Reiner is one of them as a Scout. There's also no real tension between the warriors and the Paradis side of the alliance. What the warriors did to Paradis is truly horrific, so their only way for redemption is through their victims.

The mistake that most people do when they interpret their relationship or the characters themselves is to only look at the characters' in-story intent. But there's also this thing called the author's intent that overrides everything. Sometimes, you cannot separate an author from their work. Especially when it comes to the final 12 chapters, where the quality of the writing is in the sewer.

But there's actually another way through which these characters were redeemed: the introduction of a much greater evil and a much horrific event that makes everything else pale in comparison. The main conflict of the story was revealed to have always been Eldians vs Eldians. But that wasn't always the case. Not until isayama retconned Eren, and then treated him the same way he treated the warriors. Eren's friends refused to condemn his actions, and instead repeatedly rationalized, then absolved and thanked him for what he did. It doesn't matter that they still did what was right in the end, that Mikasa killed him, or that Armin admitted they're both going to hell for the atrocities they've individually committed. In the anime. Which came out almost 3 years after the release of chapter 139+the extras and the massive backlash that followed. Let's not forget how that conversation went in the manga:

None of that matters because there's a dissonance between their actions & words and their attitude. isayama couldn't condemn any of his genocidal characters in a way that matters, in a way that would leave no room for moral ambiguity. But perhaps the greatest injustice isayama has committed to his own characters, story and messages was to retcon Eren, the character that was at the center of a message as powerful as the idea that we're all special because we're simply born in this world, into a genocidal maniac that cared about no one and nothing (if he actually cared about his friends, he wouldn't have put them through living hell, not when he actually had the power to prevent it, and if he actually cared about his mother, he wouldn't have killed her) through one of the worst executions of the time travel trope I've ever seen.

Snk is not a story that condemns fascism, let a lone a "masterpiece" when it comes to social or political themes, because it's centralized on justifying the oppression of the Eldians and making it an integral part of the plot. Not only are the Eldians an obvious metaphor for Jews, which is antisemitic on its own given how it's executed, but isayama ends up making them truly horrific because he takes real world antisemitic conspiracies and turns them into factual realities in his own story, all while seemingly acknowledging that Jews have been oppressed and the victims of the worst genocide in history. Moreover, the Eldians also seem to be ideologically inspired by imperial Japan, Paradis in particular. As @ shangyang points out in their essay, we shouldn't forget the fact that this is a manga authored by a Japanese man, nor that Japan has its own history with fascism. (Plesse don't skip any of the posts linked here)

All that being said, isayama's true intent is more than clear: violence is praised because his characters were written so to see violence as their only option, and the fascist mentality of eternal warfare as the status quo. Pacifism is not presented as an option. There's no nuance, only extremism. Even the cycle of hatred at the very end only serves as proof that the intent of the story is to present an extremely narrow worldview in which the human species is only capable of perpetual warmongering, hatred, destruction, and death. Which is wrong and is the very opposite of what I'd call "nuance", imo. And the reason this bothers me so much is because snk and other "morally grey" works alike aren't portraying evil people as just that, people, and evil as something that exists in all of us - no, what they're doing is making the unlikeable likeable, the unjustifiable justifiable, and they're making people sympathetic towards things they shouldn't be sympathizing. Such narratives are banalizing evil (if I had a nickel for how many posts I've seen justifying what Magath did or outright saying they love the guy, well I'd have a lot of nickels) and depreciating good (lots of nickels for all the posts I've seen bashing the Scouts). Such narratives serve as propaganda for the things they claim to condemn.

The result is that such stories beget ignorance, and ignorance is a fertile ground, whether is the case of people who are only interested in shipping and blorbofication, or the people who are not properly educated to know what they're dealing with.

And there's a reason actual fascists and neonazi are circling the series like flies, identifying with the yeagerists, and saying that "Eren was right". They're not taking control of the narrative, they're seeing it for what it really is. The progression of Eren's character arc, his motivations, the retcons, the conclusion of the story, Ymir's motivation, the undeserved redemptions, the characters not behaving in ways they should based on their history, none of those things make sense because they don't have to make sense. They're only pretexts meant to mask the actual intent of the story. The cycle of hatred didn't end because the rumbling truly failed. Because "the enemy" (the people outside Paradis, all of them, as Eren made it very clear) wasn't completely obliterated. Because as long as there's "the enemy", there can't be peace. Fascists have a complex relationship with war. They don’t like it, but "the enemy" is always forcing their hand. The rumbling was meant to succeed.

This is not a cautionary tale for anti-fascists.

Snk is a cautionary tale for fascists.

Now recontextualize all of that in present-day fascist politics, and see where it takes you. But ofc, this is only my interpretation, based exclusively on the story itself.

[epickiya722]

I am seeing a lot of people in the jjk fandom idolize sukuna and empathize with him and say that his backstory is more compelling and interesting than geto's and that geto's radicalization journey was not interesting and relatable.

And while I understand that sometimes it can be hard to understand a character that wants to commit genocide I feel like that take is so shallow?

Part of me thinks its just a product of the ship wars but also its deeply fascinating that they would put geto's crimes and sukuna's crimes next to each other and say sukuna is better out of the two of them.

I feel like it has been a deliberate choice by gege to give a drawn out backstory only to geto while not giving Heian era flashback to sukuna as many wanted because the story wants you do understand geto (not agree but understand) while sukuna is presented as a villain even though there are crumbs of his backstory in there but not as nuanced and detailed like geto's.

I don't know I'm rambling but I feel very sad when I see people dismiss geto and his radicalization journey and in the same breath say that sukuna is more relatable.

But fandom is gonna fandom of course.

Before I say anything, I am a fan of both mentioned characters. Sukuna is actually one of my top favorites (of course, after Yuji). So with that said, I don't care for anyone to act an ass and be like "fake fan" or "how dare you bash---". No, no, no. Chill out.

◇

You said something that I feel like some people tend to not do when it comes to villains in stories.

"Understand", that part right there.

Sometimes, I do think the writer can have the intention of readers to sympathize and/or empathize with the villain. However, it depends on the kind of villain. But, at best, when writers give backstories to these villains, it's to understand why the villain do what they do and how they became that villain.

You can understand a villain and still not sympathize or empathize with their actions.

In the case of Geto and Sukuna, I do find it odd that some will say Sukuna is more relatable than Geto. Especially, as you pointed out, Sukuna doesn't have as much backstory present in the canon story as Geto has. We'll get back to that.

Now, do I think people can't relate to Sukuna? No. I think if you relate to him, you can and I'm not stopping you. However, that doesn't mean Geto can't be relatable, too.

In story, both are presented as villains.

We don't know much about why Sukuna turned out the way he did, but we do for Geto.

I know that the arc is also called "Gojo's Past Arc", but it is also Geto's, too. It shows why he changed, too.

It boils down to the fact he was a teenager that was just as much as a victim like his friends were to a fucked up system ran by a conservative group of traditional folks who would rather exploit the people under them than get their hands dirty.

Geto, as many jujutsu sorcerers, witnessed deaths of people he came to care about and if it wasn't death, stress caught up to everyone and him as well as a growing distance played a part.

Now, while usually a teenager isn't going to resort to killing a bunch of people, teenagers (anyone really) have been put in positions that will make them feel helpless. That was Geto.

Bringing back the backstory thing...

What backstory? (Not directed to you, Anon.) As much as people were up in arms about "we didn't get the Heian Era backstory", it's just doesn't make sense to then turn around and Sukuna's backstory is more interesting than Geto's.

I ask again... what backstory?

I said it before, but none of these characters actually had a full backstory. Not just Sukuna.

No one had a backstory that showed everything. In fact, some bits and pieces are found out through fanbooks and interviews.

That may be on purpose. I know it felt like Gege may not have touched on a lot with the characters, but for some parts of the story, what if that is the point? Maybe we're not meant to focus on the past but on the present and future. (Reflecting how some characters are working to make the future better and being more adaptive to the present unlike other characters who are more traditional and stuck in the old ways.)

Yes, some parts of the past are meant to be known but that's meant to understand the present. That doesn't mean everything must be known.

With Sukuna, I feel like some did miss the mark with him. I'm not saying I'm right, but my guess is we're supposed to feel detached from him. We're meant to understand him, but not idolize him.

We don't know much about him because we're supposed to not see him as someone redeemable, someone not humane. Just as Sukuna portrays himself to be. Sukuna does nothing in the story worth going "Ah, he's just a hurt guy 🥺". Sukuna admits that everything he does is out of his own pleasure and selfish gains. He is aware of emotions, he knows what love is. He just chooses to not allow himself to feel those emotions. He doesn't allow himself that humanity.

Rereading the story, you can see how dismissive he can be even about himself. When he talks about eating his twin? He says it like it was just another day for him. When he tells Hajime about being an unwanted child? Again, he's dismissive. He states it with even a small smile on his face.

He has the title "King of Curses", but what are curses born from? Negative human emotions. Taking a guess here, but what if that title is meant to be fitting (other than visually) for Sukuna being metaphorically that how he sees himself? A curse born from the nasty nature of being human and he happens to be the strongest one of all?

For both characters, I do find them interesting in their own right. And I agree with you, I do think some of the fandom have their views on their characters because of shipping. I don't think shipping is the whole reason, but part.

(I think I know the ships, but I could be wrong. Both involve a certain white haired guy? I have no problem with either ship though.)

When it comes to Sukuna and Geto, I feel like some can mischaracterize both and stick to that fanon version of them just to make their ship more interesting.

With Sukuna, some tend to write him as only being attached to a certain person because "he gets him, he knows how to challenge me, I'm in love, he taught me love". When, just me probably, it's not that Sukuna doesn't understand love. I don't think he wants it, no matter the form of it. (Let's remember there are different kinds of love, folks.)

With Geto, it's like he can't stand as his own character because everything he does was only for one person and/or he's a lot worse than what he is.

When you compare who's worse and than say "it's Geto", that's wild. They both may came from a place of hurt, but let's not act like Sukuna is a Saint. He has done more heinous shit just for even the hell of it. Geto isn't the only villain here.

I know people will say "he's a genocidal maniac" but so is Sukuna??? Hello??

Let's be real, Geto's biggest kill counts definitely came from the village and maybe the Night Parade event and I say maybe because by then sorcerers may have already gotten civilians out and some people died at the hands of his followers.

But I doubt he actually was killing endlessly for ten years. I think he killed, but not as many as some of the fandom says. If he was that big of a problem, then why was he able to do whatever for TEN YEARS?! There is no excuse! They knew where he was at. If regular people knew, I know for a fact, the Higher-Ups knew. They could send a group or whatever? No, because Geto was collecting curses and as we see, he doesn't have to kill people to collect curses. He killed those that was no use to him, money wise. And maybe the occasional jackass.

I apologize, I rambled there.

Point is! Both characters are in the wrong for their actions. Both characters can be interesting, however you choose to feel. Find Geto boring, but Sukuna interesting? Alright. The vice versa? That's fine, too.

But regardless of backstory, or lack thereof, to idolize Sukuna and not Geto is rather absurd because "Sukuna is better". No, no. No. He's just as bad. He is evil. He literally had beef with his own nephew and sought to kill him. People in the Heian Era worshipped him out of fear. He wasn't some hero. Saying this as a Sukuna fan.

Both characters may be different, overall, but why excuse one character for the sake of "I think he's cooler"? That does nothing for the story at all! In fact, that's quite an injustice. Don't get the story, that's fine and all, I'm still understanding some things myself. I'm not an analyst expert on JJK at all.

I get having preferences, do you, folks. But let's not mix up fanon with canon and argue with people because of preferences. Do you truly like that character if you only seem to like a fanon version? Do you really hate a character if you try to worsen how they really are in the canon?

Sorry, this got longer than I intended! As you can see, I ramble!

[eretzyisrael]

by Lionel Shriver

Although some say we’ve passed peak woke, the modern left’s authoritarian impulse to push other people around is alive and well. It’s just that a memo must have gone out to the faithful that the agenda has switched, and now instead of black lives mattering or the climate changing, they’re all to lose their wits over Israel and stick it to the Jews. These are very obedient disciples.

Last week, some 400 writers, including Sally Rooney and Arundhati Roy, signed a letter calling for a mass boycott of the Israeli publishing industry, excepting those who have denounced the “genocide” in Gaza. Now, Rooney, Roy, and their colleagues are certainly well within their rights to get exercised about the gravel pit that used to be Gaza. Because these are writers, you’d think their best route to making their feelings known would be, um, to write. After all, the impulse to form a mob is surely antithetical to the impulse to record your thoughts in text in private and to have your unique voice broadly heard. Me, I’ve never been a joiner, and I used to think my literary brethren weren’t joiners either, much less bullies. But even for writers, this is an age of aggressive groupsterism.

In addition to boycotting Israeli book festivals, literary agents, and publishers, Rooney et al. also refuse to allow their own work to be translated into Hebrew and published in Israel. Ironically, like most Western literary subcultures these days, Israel’s is predominantly left wing, so the Rooney brigade is seeking to punish its natural political allies.

But the intention is not only aimed at punishing Israel’s tiny cultural institutions. The boycott seeks to go well beyond the signatories and intimidate all authors into withdrawing their work for consideration at Israeli publishing houses and refusing to participate in Israeli festivals. That includes writers who disagree with the organizers and do not believe that the IDF’s effort to root out Hamas qualifies as genocide as well as a range of Jewish writers in and outside of Israel whose views on this war may be tortured or finely nuanced. Because we must all speak as one. As ever, a single perspective is permissible. Writers used to enjoy conflict, complexity, contradiction—duking it out on paper or raucously talking over each other on a festival panel. Now we chant in a unified chorus.

I’m not so vain as to imagine that my refusal to have my novels translated into Hebrew would be crushing for the Israeli publishing industry or cripplingly disappointing for the country’s reading public. I’m delighted to learn whenever I’ve secured a translation deal, so in case any Israeli editors are reading this, allow me to go on the record: The Hebrew translation rights to my last novel are still available. And in case you might be reading this, Sally, whether I sell Hebrew translation rights is none of your business. Besides, to the degree that my fiction is the best expression of my own larger political outlook, disseminating my novels as far and widely as possible constitutes the optimal method of promoting that outlook. Publishing in translation sure beats prissily refusing to allow my precious sentences to be corrupted by the language of Jews.

[altocat]

Please also consider the fact that Sephiroth is mixed... race? Species?

There's no need to deny that he's not 100% human. And he gave his 110% in his attempts to be a good human. But he realised that ultimately, being a good human meant killing in the name of ShinRa. He was considered good, obedient, an example, a hero, only when he obeyed his violent masters.

So. Was he indeed evil for trying a different approach? If in his situation (not talking about different AUs or other people, where it's possible to live peacefully selling flowers) killing for ShinRa was his only option to be good. Other SOLDIERs have tried to escape ShinRa. None survived.

They would never have allowed him to live. They would have sent Zack, Roche and all the others to fight him. The Turks. The army. His only option of being good was to continue killing. Rhadorans. Wutainians. Genesis.

And one day he decided a different approach. Injure the Planet, consume the Lifestream, escape humans, build a bright future for himself.

Was it an amazing plan? Not really. But I don't think it was an evil plan. Not any more evil than killing people that ShinRa made him kill.

Would he be deemed less evil if he killed Angeal and Genesis like a good boy he always was? And if he refused, would he be less evil if he killed everyone who was sent to kill him for deserting?

I still think Sephiroth is pretty evil. There's a lot of nuance in his portrayal when he was killing for Shinra that has a different contextual lens than his goals after merging with Jenova. One involved a child soldier killing on behalf of the company that raised him. The other involves Sephiroth wishing to exterminate the entire human race regardless of individual moral expression. His goals involve genocide on a mass extinction level, followed by delusions of godhood in what is functionally now an empty and ravaged universe. You could use the non-human argument with Aerith too. But Aerith's goal is ultimately more selfless, recognizing the value in humanity and wishing to preserve it, regardless of the atrocities she's witnessed.

Sure, Sephiroth himself might view his actions as justified if he associates himself as being of the same race as Jenova. But just as he's not fully human, he's also not fully ALIEN either. He was conceived by two human parents long before Jenova was added into the mix. He might not be FULLY human, but the vast majority of what he is IS human. And that means that regardless, he's working to eliminate his own species. Thus, he can be held accountable on a human level.

Sephiroth is incredibly sympathetic. But he is still evil. We see the seeds of WHY and HOW he became evil. We empathize with him. What happened to him was horrible. But he's still evil.

[metamorphesque]

barev,

you remind me of a dear Armenian friend and how beautiful your language, history and culture are. It's been 3-4 yrs since I've heard her read out an Armenian poem to me, sadly the title I can no longer recall—but having the videos you share appear on my feed opened quite the lovely memory gate.

We would talk for hours during the 2020 conflict to get her to find some sort of peace back then—my heart is with you and the Armenian people. May the world no longer turn their back at what happened to your ancestors and may everyone acknowledge the genocide back then and for you and your people to receive the closure and peace.

Thank you for sharing more of Armenia and it's beautiful history and literature. I remember her teaching me —sirun. such a beautiful language indeed.

Barev, my sirun friend!

Your compassionate words truly touch my heart. Thank you for standing with me and the Armenian people during these difficult times. It's through shared understanding and support that we can strive for recognition and closure. Your kindness means the world to me 🌻 In all honesty, I find myself longing for the ability to temporarily unlearn Armenian, just for a fleeting moment, so that I may experience its intricate nuances through the ears of a foreigner. It's an intriguing thought - to witness my native language from a fresh perspective, to appreciate its beauty afresh, as if hearing it for the first time.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful memories with us. Take care!

Շնորհակալություն 🌻

[arthurmargon]

israel has started bombing the south of gaza, where 1.1 million palestinians from the north are fleeing because of israeli orders. the only two roads out of gaza lead to israel and to egypt, the latter being consistently bombed and blocked by israel. israel and the united states are trying to force egypt and the emirates to let in palestinians, but the countries and palestinians are refusing. palestinians would rather die on their land than leave and this very well may be what happens in the span of days.

we are witnessing a genocide in real time, funded by the united states and most if not all western countries. as someone of palestinian descent, i am begging you to protest loudly and hound your government officials, especially if you live in america and canada. please.

i’ve been crying all day long, i’m terrified for my family in gaza and in lebanon, which israel has also been bombing with chemical weapons. this is not a “complex conflict with nuances,” this is a deeply violent and racist apartheid military force funded by the united states carrying out a genocide it began 75 years ago.

[toaarcan]

I shouldn't be surprised, given that this is the Voter Suppression Website, but it's also the Punch Nazis Website and I really did expect people to have made peace with the fact that World War II happened and was ultimately necessary.

Like, I am by no means a warhawk. War is bad, the military is bad (though there's a lot of nuance there, because not having one is generally a really bad idea unless you can somehow convince everyone in the world to not have one, which you can't. Yes, the military can be a tool of imperialism. It can also be a defence against it, see Ukraine for a very current example), pacificism is great. But pacifism did not, and would not, stop the Axis.

I am also well aware that the Allies' hands were far from clean. We bombed civilians. America turned away refugees from Germany that weren't 'useful.' At the highest levels, Britain and France went to war with Germany over fears of expansionism, not because they were inherently opposed to the vile ideologies espoused by the Nazis. Everyone just kinda let imperial Japan do whatever the fuck they wanted in east Asia until they made the mistake of touching America's boats.

But in the end, the war was still a necessity. How else were the Allies supposed to stop them?

The Nazis killed six million Jewish people between 1933 and 1945. Hitler blamed the Jewish people for Germany's defeat in WWI, which makes no fucking sense, but when has bigotry ever made sense? He drew upon centuries upon centuries of antisemitism to make mass genocide a political platform that he ran on, and he won. And almost as soon as he came to power, and secured his position, he began a systematic genocide.

He and his followers were so dedicated to killing and abusing Jews that they made strategic fuckups in the war, just to continue the holocaust. When the US and British forces landed in Normandy, and the USSR began pushing in from the east, the Nazi response was to accelerate the genocide, because killing Jews mattered more to them than winning the war.

More people died building the V2 rocket at Mittelwerk than were killed in all of the V2 strikes against Britain and France. As is often said of today's fascists, cruelty was the point.

In addition to the Jewish victims of the camps, the Nazis also killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, 1.8 million Polish people that were not Jewish, 250000-500000 Romani and other travellers, 310000 Serbian civilians, 250000-300000 people with disabilities (including at least 10000 children), 'tens of thousands' of German civilians who were politically opposed to the Nazis, 35000 criminals, 1700 Jehovah's Witnesses, an unknown number of LGBTQ+ people, and an unknown number of black people.

We don't know the full numbers, because the other thing they did when they realised they were losing is burn the records. They dug up mass graves and burned the bodies. We know as much as we do because they killed so many people that it was physically impossible for them to destroy all the evidence.

They created industrialised genocide. And this is just the holocaust, not the sum total of Nazi crimes, let alone those perpetrated by fascist Italy and imperial Japan.

So yeah, in light of all of that, I cannot, and will not entertain any drop of "Well actually the Allies were bad too" because the magnitude of the horror that the Axis were indulging renders it moot. They did bad shit too? Yeah, well, they were at war with the fucking Nazis.

One of the most important parts of the first few years of the war was the Battle of Britain. At that point, the French had been defeated, and the USSR still had a very tense alignment with Germany and Italy. America had yet to formally join the war, but were selling weapons to Britain, who were seemingly the last nation left in the fight. A few American pilots had also made the trip to Britain to join the fight.

In order to launch a land invasion of the British Isles, the Nazis had to achieve air superiority over them, and so began a series of raids against the RAF, and at first, they were doing pretty well. Targeting airbases and radar installations was the correct strategic move.

And then something happened that turned the tide: The RAF bombed Berlin.

This has been claimed to be an accident, the bombers were simply lost in the night, and thought they were targeting an air base, and they weren't. That probably wasn't true. But however it happened, it pissed Hitler off massively, and he ordered the Luftwaffe to switch focus to bombing British cities.

This was a tactical blunder like no other. Taking focus away from the actual military targets allowed the RAF to regroup and actually put the defensive plan for the islands into motion. Scores of British, Polish, French, and American pilots fought to defend Britain, guided by the now-unmolested radar stations.

And it worked. In fact, it worked really well. By the end of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had lost so many planes and so many pilots that it severely affected their tactical use for the rest of the war.

More than that, losing the Battle of Britain meant that A) the Nazis had lost their perceived invincibility, as someone had now taken them on and won, and B) it meant that Hitler's plan to avoid a two-front war, to knock France and Britain out entirely before rounding on the USSR, had failed, and being a deranged, genocidal nutbar, who viewed the existence of Communism as an existential threat, threw away the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and declared war on the Soviets.

The Nazi reaction to the defeat of the Battle of Britain, something arguably caused by the bombing of Berlin, was the first step toward their total defeat.

So yeah, I wholeheartedly believe that fighting WWII was ultimately the best thing the Allies could've done, and the people that made the decision to fight against the Nazis did the right thing, even if they did it for the wrong reasons, or used bad methods to do so. Of all the wars throughout human history, this is the one I can argue needed to happen above all else.

[pumpacti0n]

COMMON TACTICS, PATTERNS, AND TENDENCIES TO WATCH OUT FOR

Here are some red flags to watch out for. You’ll probably also see some of these in non-profits, advocacy groups, or other top-down organizations that operate like a business. However, it’s the ideological motivation that sets the vanguard apart and leads to some of their worst harms. We use “vanguard” to mean a person or group who deems themselves the necessary leader of the masses toward “revolution.” If you’re noticing these red flags, it’s best to stay away and ask others about their experiences with the group.

Heavy Emphasis on Recruitment

Vanguardist groups constantly need new members: to pay dues, volunteer their labor, recruit for the group, and replace burnt-out members. Lots of effort goes into social media and marketing, and actions are heavily influenced by how they can serve as a recruitment tool: the flashier the better. Waves of new people and energy help make the group feel active and relevant, and mask the steady trickle of people leaving.

Ambulance-Chasing and Coopting

Seeking energy and recruits, these groups will suddenly appear around “crisis of the moment” events. As we write this zine, their current target is Palestine solidarity efforts that have increased in response to Israel’s recent escalation of genocide in Gaza in 2023-2024. Watch for groups who appear at events uninvited and focus on distributing newspapers and collecting e-mail list signups. They’ll often bring things like mass-printed signs with their group’s name and website or a large banner advertising the group they can prominently display in photos of events to advertise. They may even hijack open mics and chants.

Front Groups and Front Coalitions:

Creating a front group or coalition is another way vanguards try tapping into movement energy to redirect to their own ends. The front is dominated by members of the vanguard without clear connection to the vanguard group, to better allow the vanguard to hide their politics and intentions. Its purpose is to find recruits for the vanguard, and to be a vehicle for the vanguard’s activities that appears to be separate from them.

Entryism

Taking over groups or coalitions that are independent of the vanguard. This is most easily done to groups that are new, that haven’t settled on goals and values, or who haven’t witnessed these tactics before. Frequently, this is done by abusing and manipulating internal decision-making processes, like seizing positions of authority or having vanguard members join in large numbers. Instead of creating a brand new front group, an existing group is hijacked.

Deceptive and Dishonest Practices

The authoritarian politics of vanguards generally aren’t liked, so they’ll be kept below the surface. Vanguards publicly claim values that can attract people—like police abolition, supporting labor rights, and horizontal power—while hypocritically supporting police attacking workers in authoritarian nation-states they support, like Cuba, Iran, or China. How can you value someone’s consent and autonomy if you lie to them?

Shutting Down Dissent

Member obedience is necessary if a vanguard’s orders are to be obeyed. This sometimes appears as “Democratic Centralism,” often with some kind of central or executive committee making decisions for the group. This can also appear in group social dynamics, where members self-censor or modify behavior when they dissent from the group’s “party line.” Historically, this has led to a cascade of purges within notable Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, and Maoist organizations.

Party Lines in General

Vanguardist ideas of discipline and a “scientific” revolution that must be followed to a ‘T‘ require conformity, obedience, and strict binary thinking. The world is more nuanced than that, but this nuance isn’t allowed in vanguardist politics.

Centralization

A vanguard needs a power structure they can exert control from. If it doesn’t exist, they may try creating it to place themselves or their close associates at the center.

Redirecting Autonomous Efforts into Spaces They Control

Autonomous efforts and independent projects can be enticed into spaces a vanguard controls, often with promises of resources, a plea to not “duplicate efforts,” or “left unity.” The intent is to gain influence over the project. Like a mixture of Entryism and Cooptation.

Hyper-Focus on Bureaucracy

Getting the group stuck in loops of committee forming, decision-making, writing points of unity, establishing cadre leadership, etc. Most likely during power struggles and Entryist takeovers. Often causes non-vanguard members to leave in frustration.

Never-Ending Tasks

Revolutionary change will require lots of effort, but within vanguardist organizations the pressure to fulfill duties and demonstrate commitment and discipline often lead to members committing most of their time to the vanguard group. This can lead to relationships outside the group weakening from neglect, becoming socially dependent on the group, and eventually burning out without a support network to help them leave the group.

Charismatic Leader

Vanguard groups often center around a charismatic leader or founder who is elevated to a level of importance. This can be a leader/founder of the group itself, or an ideological figurehead.

Sheltering Abusers

Patriarchal violence is a serious recurring problem basically everywhere. But vanguardist groups often treat attempts at accountability as an attack on the group and their ideology, or a distraction from “the cause.” They become defensive, and in practice shield abusers while dismissing survivors of abuse.

Taking Credit for Others’ Work and Action

Vanguards may take credit for events, actions, and work organized by other groups. This is particularly true for things that are flashy or popular, but other things may be claimed by the vanguard group if it seems like it will be useful for recruiting.

Lack of Care for Members and Vulnerable People

The thirst for attention-grabbing actions can lead to vulnerable people and the group’s members being used as means to an end, resources to be exploited. Many “flashy” actions, such as an occupation, require extensive preparation, consideration, and care to manage various risks of harm (to the extent that we can). Nothing can be made perfectly safe, but a vanguard’s sloppy approach to actions can put people through unnecessary harm for what is ultimately a PR stunt.

Coercive “Self-Criticism”

Space for intentional reflection and evaluation is necessary for anyone trying to have an impact on the world. However “self-criticism,” (sometimes called “crit and self-crit” or “struggle sessions”) can be deployed to coerce group members to dedicate more time and resources to the group, shut down dissent, and re-mold members into more obedient followers. Puritanical efforts to root out “bourgeois” sentiments/mentality/social influences are a serious indicator of manipulation.

Defending and Glorifying Authoritarian Leaders and Governments

For ideological reasons, vanguards in the “Western world” (our experience is from the “US”) often uncritically support authoritarian governments and leaders in the name of “anti-imperialism.” In extreme cases, this ends up being a sort of conservative patriotism. The actual practices and values of the nation-states they defend don’t matter, only their geopolitical relation with the US. This comes from the history of authoritarianism in leftwing politics, and specifically the influence of a tendency called “Marcyist” or “Campist,” which encourages uncritically supporting governments the “US” opposes. The result can be ugly. During uprisings, they’ll callously attack dissidents under a regime the vanguard supports, calling them CIA spooks and calling their autonomous revolts “Color Revolutions”—if those same dissidents were in the US, ironically, the vanguard group would try to recruit them.

Expecting Queer People and People of Color to Assimilate

Vanguards may try to make themselves more acceptable to “the masses” by sidelining the concerns of marginalized people, or pushing those people to be less visibly “different.” This can sometimes go as far as the vanguard adopting conservative stances like transphobia. This can also be ideologically driven, with vanguards claiming problems like racism and sexism are actually just created by capitalism, and fighting them is a distraction from the more important “class struggle.”

Use of “Left Unity” Rhetoric to Demand Inclusion in Spaces

Some imagine “Left Unity” as creating a friendly and powerful movement, but in practice it suppresses diverse opinions and approaches in favor of a false “unity,” frequently giving authoritarians power within movements they otherwise wouldn’t have. You don’t have to sacrifice all your values and autonomy to work with others on tangible, shared goals. Local Organizers

Controlled by a Central Committee

For example, a vanguard’s central committee may order organizers to get involved in a particular struggle like Palestine solidarity work. At worst this launches a destructive wave of front groups and entryist takeovers. At best these organizers honestly aid in an effort, only to vanish when the organization’s whims change to a different hot new movement.

[source]

[durnesque-esque]

This is mostly a repost from my IG, but I wanted to make sure it got said on all my platforms.

I worry about saying the wrong thing, but I can’t say nothing. Let’s establish a few things right off the bat: the state of Israel is NOT representative of all Jewish people and criticism of a NATION STATE does not and should not equate to religious discrimination. Criticism of Israel and a defense of the millions of innocent citizens does not and NEVER WILL equate to tacit approval of Hamas. If you cannot understand these concepts, then read no further. 

What the nation of Israel is doing to the citizens of Palestine… it’s not hyperbole to call it apartheid and genocide: to corral millions of people into a section of land smaller than Kansas City - known as the “world’s largest open air prison,” half of whom are UNDER 18 - CHILDREN, to call them “human animals,” to blockade and starve this population that has been systematically oppressed in their own homeland for decades, to demand they evacuate then bomb the evacuation routes and the hospitals. These are war crimes.

The U.S. government is complicit in the purposeful destruction of innocent Palestinians. The massacre of children does nothing to stop terrorists.  

One of my foci in college and my graduate studies was the Holocaust/Shoah. The greatest fuel for those atrocities was the silence of bystanders. We cannot be silent. I have contacted my representatives and you should too.

There are so many doing difficult educational work on this topic and so many directly posting from within Gaza. I know I am still listening and learning and bearing witness. Here are just a couple of accounts to get you started: @sbeih.jpg@gazangirl@ifnotnow This is a link to a post: “a lot of things are true” that I find more complete in its coverage of the nuances of what’s going on. I’m doing a lot more reblogs on my tiktok which I encourage you to watch - especially those messages from the people of Palestine. So many are sending out what may be/ have become their last messages to the world. The least we can do is to hear them. 

I will not be debating anyone in the comments or DMs. This is not an invitation to try. The block & delete are my friends.

It truly distresses me that I can be sitting at my desk trying to manage film billing, or scrolling tiktoks while grocery shopping, or for fuck's sake telling scary stories to drunk people while elsewhere in the world a genocide is happening, paid for and supported by my government. I know many forms of violence and oppression are happening throughout the world always, but this... this is so much. We cannot look away. We cannot be quiet. Even when we continue to go through the motions of our lives.

I reiterate and wish to make clear that I denounce anyone using this situation to fuel either their anti-Semitism or Islamophobia. This is a matter of humanity.

Image is from @chnge

[salty-socialist]

A Leftist's Opinion on Community Response to Hurricane Helene, Chappell Roan, and the 2024 Election

Context and request: I'm a white, queer leftist. I understand that I am coming from a place of privilege. This is written after I have looked into responses from BIPOC and communitiesI'm less involved with.

If you have a problem with something I said or something to contribute, feel free to open a (CIVIL) discussion with me.

I grew up in Alaska for the first 16 years of my life. I was lucky enough to be in almost a political bubble. Most of my family are democrats, and the ones who weren't still cared for me even though I was visibly queer. I have godparents who saved me from abuse, but also voted for Trump twice. My home is a red state filled with Libertarians. But it's also the home of my queer friends, of my indigenous friends, of some of the most leftist people I've had the honor to work with.

I moved to Seattle at 16. Again, I was privileged enough to live in an upper class neighborhood and my school was mostly white. I was living in Seattle during the height of the George Floyd protests and encampments.

I was liberal in Alaska, and it was that upbringing which paved the way for me to become fully leftist in Seattle. Because Alaska may be in support of Trump overwhelmingly, but Seattle showed me the pageantry of white liberals in blue states.

In Alaska I was on the marksmanship Rifle Team for my high school. The whole team went to the gun control protest in Sophomore year. We all staunchly believed in gun control (and for my part, I still do).

In 2020 I was living in Seattle and watched as registered democrats I knew said that BLM didn't make sense because All Lives Matter. I saw the white fear from liberals as protests became more aggravated.

All of this to say, watching some white democrats respond to Hurricane Helene and the devastation of south/midwest towns and lives has been absolutely horrific. To say that you care less about the devastation of peoples' lives because they live in a red state? How does it feel to take on the same stance of human life that Ronald Reagan perpetuated during the AIDs crisis? There is nothing to justify that level of destruction of human lives. It also shows a lack of understanding for the systematic oppression people in these areas face. They're gerrymandered and suppressed to hell, all while democrats often fully write off southern states so most active campaigning they're getting is republican.

For Chappell Roan I'll be more brief. Yes, her phrasing lacked the nuance it should have been delivered with. She needs PR help and you can tell that she became famous slightly too fast. But it is absolutely valid to refuse to endorse Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I will be voting for Harris and Walz in the coming election, but I would never endorse them. We are witnessing a genocide as our government sanctions and funds the militaristic bombing of thousands of innocent lives. Chappell Roan has not been silent on her support of Palestine and for her to actively endorse Kamala would go against the beliefs she has perpetuated to the world.

I will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the coming election. We're not in a position at present to vote in a third party candidate. While there's policies and actions of the Biden, now Harris platform, that I will continue to speak out and fight against, I do believe that there is a clear difference in danger to US communities between the policies of the democrat and republican parties. Additionally, I will be voting with the knowledge that if Trump is elected he will likely be able to stack SCOTUS even more republican than he already has. His appointments to SCOTUS during his tenure as president are a huge reason why Roe V Wade was struck down.

Please remember to check your voting registration as well as deadlines, or please register here.

If you have $5 or more to spare, please consider donating to one of the GFM in this linktree to help a Palestinian family escape Genocide. There are also some who have escaped but are now without the resources to start their life. If you don't have the money please consider boosting the families. Each family listed is one I have personally donated to. Please also check out Operation Olive Branch and the good work they are doing.

[wifegideonnav]

saw a post about the fandoms use of the word chussy and how violating and disrespectful it is and it really got me thinking. not going to name the op because I am absolutely not trying to argue with their take which is clearly fueled by very real anger and hurt, and I fully respect their opinion. so please understand that im not trying to start #discourse and anyone who does so on this post will be blocked (eta: please feel free to disagree with this post and let me know that you do/argue your point. by discourse I mean the annoying and pointless brand of internet arguing that we all know and hate). all that being said, here’s my take on the issue:

1. the post raised some excellent points about the desecration of the body and the implications of sexual assault that the nonconsensual alteration of gideons body carries. so first off: this is absolutely an important point and it’s something that needs to be taken into consideration. additionally, the oversexualization of butches is a huge problem and the use of the word chussy undoubtedly plays into this. all of these things must be acknowledged and respected.

2. my analysis of the joking nature the fandom has taken towards gideons chest wound is that this attitude is fueled by grief and discomfort/despair. muir tends to take her characters past their breaking points and explore how that impacts them, and that is a really hard thing to witness as a reader, especially when it’s a character as beloved as gideon, especially when the change from the first book to the third is so stark. imo, people simply don’t know how to handle these feelings, and funnel them into black humor. inappropriate? yeah, probably. but I think what’s crucial here is that this is a coping mechanism for very real feelings that are stirred up by these books. people aren’t being irreverent purely for the sake of it (though there’s definitely some of that too), they’re processing uncomfortable emotions stirred up by this - crucially - fictional character

3. arguably, this reaction was also brought on by muir herself. violence and sex are inextricably tied in this universe. harrow and ianthe have multiple sexually charged scenes that are explicitly violent - the scene where ianthe knifes harrows hand and obviously the bone arm scene. the dios apate scenes are laden with hatred, deception, and a desire to literally murder one of the participants. joli thinks nona and cam are being prostituted. palamedes’s love interest turns out to be murdered, and he tries to kill her killer in return. pyrrha has sex with a corpse. while the sexual aspect of it is never discussed, harrows conception is marked by genocide. even the excerpt of alecto that muir shared earlier this year combines a description of personal struggle and torment with explicit yonic imagery. this is all to say, the concept of gideons wound being partially sexual within the text is not far fetched at all. i would honestly be surprised if alecto doesn’t address this in some way, either in a joking way or a serious way (knowing muir, probably both). for all muir’s faux outrage over the term in the q&a earlier today (technically yesterday), she always knows exactly what she’s doing and dare I say more or less exactly how the fandom is going to react to things. im certain she anticipated that people would draw a connection between the wound and sexuality. now, muir intentionally planting this subtext does not negate any problematic aspects of said implication. but I think it’s important to note that it’s not purely a “fandom joking about serious topics” thing - it also falls on the writer

overall, I think it’s a very nuanced topic, as with pretty much everything pertaining to muirs work. bodily autonomy is a huge theme in tlt and there is a certain flavor of ignoring or defying muirs message in making a joke out of the bodily violation that gideon has suffered. however, again, i a) think the jokes stem from a place of understanding muirs intent and the discomfort that arises due to this and b) maintain that this is not a case of the fandom disrespecting a creators message but rather the fandom running with the context and tone of the source material. and finally, I want to emphasize that this is a fictional character, and while attitudes toward fiction 100% affect reality, I doubt that the people making these jokes would do so if they were aimed at a real person.

i fully invite conversation on this post and I would love to hear what you guys think, particularly butches (I am a lesbian who considers myself gnc but not masc/butch and i would never presume to speak for/over butches, especially on a topic so important). i don’t mean to be a killjoy, but after reading that post and reflecting I do think it’s important to explore the ramifications of these jokes before continuing to make them.