#tw discussion of genocide

[magicalqueersarah]

Aerith, the Last of the Cetra

from a Jewish POV

Aerith is a huge part of why I love Final Fantasy 7. This is partly because she and the Cetra are somewhat Jewish coded.

Spoilers below

This is pretty blatant, since they're an ethnoreligious people trying to find the promised land, just like the ancient Hebrews. This promised land is a metaphor, which is a common belief in real life. The Cetra spend their whole lives trying to find the promised land, but it's within. It's not a physical place, it's being one with the planet by taking care of it and letting it flourish, then returning to it after death. The Cetra's relationship with the Lifestream parallels the concept of tikkun olam, repairing the world. I could go on about how Kabbalah influenced FF7 but I won't do that in this post. On to Aerith.

On a surface level, Aerith is striking to me. FF7 takes place in a world largely based on Modern Earth. Aerith wears a pink dress and bow to symbolize her femininity, a biker jacket to show her toughness, and gardening boots to show her relationship with the planet.

Her hair is slightly curly, which reminds me of my own. Aerith's last name came from Serge Gainsbourg, a Jewish and French singer.

She was adopted during a war after her mother died escaping a lab. They were experimented on and persecuted by an evil Corporatocracy who tried to use them to find the Promised Land, a source of infinite mako, and thus, infinite riches. This parallels the long history of Antisemitism and modern "Philo"semitism(Evangelicals want all the Jews to colonize Palestine so that Jesus will kill all of us and the Palestinians by starting the rapture :) https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/26/biden-palestine-and-the-buttressing-of-christian-zionism). Only Aerith's mom is a Cetra, but she is 100% Cetran which is just like halakhic tradition and how all Jews are equally Jewish, regardless of what our DNA looks like. Even if all of this is unintentional, Aerith is Jewish coded.

Rebirth reveals that Aerith has been alienated all her life, her Cetran heritage and abilities being the subject of bullying. Though she kept it hidden from those who persecuted her, she was able to connect to her ancestors by cultivating the planet and growing flowers at home and in an abandoned church. Aerith admits she doesn't know how to pray properly because her mom never taught her, which really resonates with me. When she comforts Marlene because Shinra is going to destroy her home, I think Aerith is reminded of her and her mother being forcibly removed from their homes.

Even many ethnoreligious agnostic or atheist people will still practice their ancestral religion, philosophy, and culture in some way, to keep in touch with their history. But many of us have lost parts of our culture because of ethnic and cultural genocide. I've had to hide and stand up for my Jewish identity because people would make violent jokes about us, or accuse us of murdering their god.

Aerith is plucky, kind, and savvy. She lives life to the fullest, becomes more in touch with her heritage, and works to repair the world. She fights against a greedy corporation and a Messianic Jew who's trying to forcefully spread Christianity mass murdering super soldier who claims to be a Cetra and the rightful ruler of the Planet. She inspires me as a Trans Jewish woman.

So it's really devastating that Aerith, the only known Cetra, dies. Not only does an important member of the party get murdered, the world loses an entire people.

it is implied throughout the compilation of FF7 that Marlene has inherited a connection to the Cetra through Aerith. In the original game's ending she can sense Aerith before the Lifestream erupts to stop Meteor, and she is able to sense her father in Remake. Aerith says she holds the white materia when she wants to feel safe. The Ultimania reveals that Aerith let Marlene hold it to feel safe during the evacuation of Sector 7. In Advent Children, Marlene has inherited Aerith's mannerisms and insight, and has begun taking care of Midgar's flowers. I believe this means at least some of humanity will become Cetra; Inheriting their culture and taking care of the planet.

So yeah, Aerith is tied for my favorite Final Fantasy character with Tifa :P. She is a great character and I feel connected to her because of the hardships she's faced as a marginalized person, and her willingness to live life to the fullest, heal the world, and fight injustice.

[queerbauten]

seeing liberal Zionists on this site talk about ideals while my inbox is flooded with dozens of Gazans trying to raise money as they are being slaughtered in unprecedented and horrific ways… unbelievable

[wordsalt]

okay this is a question for any US history buffs/historians out there

do y'all think we can see some parallels between America's current situation and our situation pre-WWII?

granted, before WWII, we were ignoring the genocide instead of outright supporting it

but we were choosing not to stop an ongoing genocide while we had a domestic economy that was completely imploding

and we had a president who came in and significantly expanded social programs to help avoid the economic implosion

thoughts?

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

hi

you are not morally obligated to give platform to every voice that makes you feel guilty, ever

guilt does not make you a good person, that's not how anything works

thanks for reading I sincerely hope you can also comprehension

[ambulance-mom]

there banning the xl bully dog in the uk well what about the fucking innocent xl,s huh?! onces that have done nothing wrong they will be ripped from their familes for just existing

[crystaldeclear]

[scrawlingwithstyle]

I just feel like info-dumping about my D&D character. If you're interested, strap in.

Ash, a half-elf trickery cleric, had a best friend and partner-in-crime, a tiefling who took the name Serendipity (Sera for short) for the goddess of good fortune, Tymora.

They played pranks together and partnered up for Ash's sham magic trinket shop.

Some time in the future, Ash got teased for being a trickery cleric who doesn't know how to pick locks, and I just realized: she never learned because that was what Sera did. Sera was the rogue!

Anyway, they were close friends for a few years before Sera was kidnapped and killed. Another conman killed Sera as part of a greater tiefling-genocide scheme to try to gain power, but he also had a personal grudge against Ash, so Sera was more than just collateral damage.

Ash took it extra hard because she was working up the courage to tell Sera she was in love with her.

About 8 years later, Ash is still on the hunt for the conman, whose real name she doesn't know. She is also part of a party who are in training to become deities.

She meets Dave, a life cleric who values honesty so greatly that it leaves a great impression on her. She's immediately intrigued and thinks she'll just keep tabs on him from a distance--until he finds out her party is supposed to make a new creature and he can't allow them to meddle with the power to create life.... Not without supervision, anyway.

In a moment alone together, Ash reveals her past and real name to him, and he helps her figure out what kind of a deity she wants to be.

Not long after that, the party finds the bastard who killed Sera, put him on trial, and at sentencing, turn him over to the party's death cleric (who specializes in vivisection) and her necromancer boyfriend. (Dave requests to be blissfully ignorant of his fate.)

In a very brief period of time (like 2 weeks), Ash and Dave kiss, her party saves him from an evil goddess who kidnapped him, and a few other events lead to them getting married. Since Sune (goddess of love) officiated the ceremony, they were telepathically bonded (they share thoughts back and forth) and each knows exactly where the other is.

(This is relevant: Dave's dad has many wives and partners.)

It has been around 3.5 months in-game since then, and the party is still working on their creature. Their travels take them back to the Astral Plane, where Ash had been invited to seek out Sera's spirit (they had met thrice in the last year, and each time Ash figured it would be best not to share her feelings).

When Sera pulls her aside for a private conversation about everything she's missed (the wedding, Ash getting pregnant), it gets harder and harder to not tell her how she feels. In her mind, Dave encourages her to do so. She confesses, Sera cries, Ash cries, and then Dave interrupts with, "I love you. And I'm not the only one."

Ash has already made up her mind to bring her friend back from the dead, but she is confused at what he implies. "I thought... when I said I didn't want to share you, you felt the same way. Did I miss something?"

"I don't intend to share you with another man. I would not wish for you to share me with another woman. But she is not another man, and she is not for me. I have no such reservations in this case. Besides... she had you first."

Shocked and delighted, she tells Sera what Dave said, and asks if this is an arrangement she would be happy with.

Sera agrees and joins their party as a spirit.

~~~

This is where we left off, but now we have a new side quest to resurrect Ash's dead girlfriend. I also made this:

[laughyoudrecognize]

Sometimes I just feel so hopeless about the world. How do you convince people that genocide is wrong when they don’t seem to care? How do you convince people that these shootings in the US don’t have to happen? How do you convince people who don’t care about people dying and suffering to care that people are dying and suffering? My heart hurts.

[calling-the-angels]

Tldr; anon hate is nothing in the face of genocide and I refuse to let this get sanitized in history books.

~~~~~

After a decade on this website, I finally got my first anonymous hate! It was honestly devasting and really made me reconsider my stance on everything and I'd just like to thank the academy and... /jk 😂😂

It was obviously in response to my post about a CNN article on Palestinian journalists that's gaining a bit of traction here. But seriously, calling me a Nazi isn't going to stop me from posting about Palestine. Telling me to kms isn't going to stop me from posting about Palestine. You could threaten me and my entire life and it STILL wouldn't stop me from posting about Palestine.

Why?

Every GOD. DAMN. DAY. I go online and am bombarded with even more evidence of IOF war crimes and zionist hate crimes. I've seen a toddler pulled from the rubble to discover his lower half was no longer connected to his upper half. I've seen IOF soldiers gleefully recording themselves pushing Palestinian men into a ditch dug between ruined buildings, shooting them in the head, and laughing. I've seen zionist mothers training their toddler to parrot a saying about growing up and "killing all the arabs". I've seen adults grinning at a middle school aged classroom of zionist kids talking about their hate for 'the arabs'. I've seen cultural and historical landmarks DECIMATED because of the zionists complete disregard for anything celebrating Palestinian lives. I've learned about bumper stickers that say "Finish them" which are popular in Isntreal. I've watched real estate development companies market 'coastal' homes over the real ruined images of Gazan homes and shops. I've heard Isntreal political and religious LEADERS blatantly state their plans of genocide and mass displacement. This is only the bare minimum of what I have seen, freely accessible, online for the masses.

Yet zionists call me the nazi? Seems they need to read a fucking history book.

Grow the fuck up and recognize that colonial mindsets and doing terrible, HORRIFIC things with impunity is no longer the status quo. Grow up and realize that the global mindset is shifting from a me-based society to a we-based society at a scale never seen before due to social media and its reach. Grow up and realize that THE PEOPLE ARE ANGRY.

And to fellow activists and good people standing on the right side of history... through us refusing to stop talking about Palestine, we are ENSURING that the future knows exactly what happened in Gaza, in Palestine. We are making sure history can't be rewritten. I feel pretty good about that, what about you?

Flowers are blooming in Antarctica and fire is catching.

[archesa]

I'm sorry what? I'm purposely keeping this out of the notes of the post, but I think there's something worth discussing here : Once again, What?

Let's take a deep soothing breath and crack open a dictionary just once, you know, just for fun!

Genocide :

The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. (source)

The deliberate murder of a whole community or race (source)

The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular race or nation. (source)

So... once again, and I'm deliberately trying to make my point clear : BITCH WHAT?!

What in the Pale Tree's holy blossoms are we referring to here?

Infiltrating the asura lab during 'The Newly Awakened', to free the secondborn kidnapped and tortured and experimented on by said asura ?

Or perhaps are we talking about the Nightmare Court? Same Nightmare Court that regularly captures, tortures and kills sylvari from the hamlets and villages of Caledon Forest ?

Neither qualify.

She has no beef against the asura as a whole, just against those who were at the very moment using her newborn siblings as golem batteries... merely weeks after another of her siblings got vivisected by same said group...

And she harbours no ill-intent or feelings towards the Soundless, so her quarrel with the nightmare court has arguably more to do with, you know, their methods than their beliefs...

I'm once again not trying to get into a fight, and I wish the author of the above comment no harm... just a little bit of literacy.

[queerbauten]

But "both sides". 🙄

[michelangelos-twink]

i hate this

[fortheammonites]

Falling for scams does hurt people, actually

TW: Human trafficking, SA, torture, discussion of scam farms

I see a whole bunch of people arguing that they would rather risk giving to a scammer than ignore someone's gofundme. I also see people saying things like "I can't believe some sick people are profiteering off genocide" and like, me neither, but I feel like you guys really don't understand who actually runs these kinds of scams and what they are.

Scams of noticeable scale-- like scam asks being sent from hundreds of accounts to every user on Tumblr!-- are typically related to organised crime in poor countries, not Susan from Milwaukee who wants a new coat and has no scruples. People get trafficked by gangs to scam farms in Asia and Africa where they're worked to the bone and tortured trying to get idiots in wealthy countries to part with their money. Genocide profiteering is pretty much the least evil thing these people do.

Here's a UN article on it. Obvious warnings for content related to human trafficking and SA.

When you donate to a scammer, you fund these organisations and give them a reason to exist. It's possible some of the fundraisers are legit. I honestly find it unlikely given I'm not seeing any from any other countries where urgent fundraisers would seem to have great reason to exist but which haven't captured the same level of attention on Tumblr-- the number of Sudanese, Congolese, Ukrainian, Burmese or Uyghur fundraisers in my DMs is a fat 0. In any case, there are safer ways to help.

If you want to help (which is great!) you don't have to take the risk of paying for human trafficking. Donate to legitimate charities which have the resources to safely and effectively ensure the money and help is getting to the right people. Funding human trafficking rings in Myanmar is not a good risk to be taking while trying to help.

[foulfirerebel]

So...comparing him to Senator Kelly or Bolivar Trask or....Stryker is okay? Those are the three I know that were anti-mutant and openly genocidal from what I remember.

And thank you for the chart. I'll need to keep that handy to refer back to.

this shouldnt be the funniest thing in the world to me but here we are