#which are very a different thing to chattel slavery

[jewishvitya]

CW - talking about antisemitic depictions and about the house elves and the depiction of slavery in the books.

I'm having a frustrating day with a lot of physical pain, so I'm not the best at judging currently if I should be posting all of these thoughts. It's a response to multiple arguments by rude anons that I blocked (not for being rude, for being transphobic), but the arguments themselves stay on my mind and I just. Need this out. Ignore this, it will be all over the place, I'm basically venting. Hoping it'll be the last bit of HP criticism I post.

I'll tag it for you to block, as usual.

I've been asked what I expect of Rowling, since my criticism of the goblins included the books. She already wrote the books, they're printed and they're out there. She can't just change them, criticism does nothing because she has no path to correct her mistake.

First of all, with her transphobia - as far as I'm concerned she has blood on her hands at this point. The way she emboldens transphobia endangers lives and erodes queer rights. Anyone who contributes to the current push against trans people is complicit in trans genocide - and she made herself a symbol of that movement. Even if she did a 180 on her issues with Jewish stereotypes, she wouldn't redeem herself.

But she isn't the only one who wrote a story and then realized that her story has deep issues. What does it look like, if an author doesn't want to perpetuate those?

From what I know of Tolkien (and I know nothing LOTR or anything, just heard this from other Jewish creators who discussed this issue, treat this paragraph like I'm repeating a rumor) - Tolkien did stumble on an antisemitic depiction while writing his dwarves. Then he course-corrected by creating a more complex and nuanced picture of the society in his future works. Basically, he leaned into the idea of his dwarves as a Jewish allegory and made it a better and more respectful allegory. They have wonderful cultural details, like having foreign-language names used outside of their community - and names in their own native language that they call each other. Half of my family comes from France, and my mom was born there. She had a Hebrew name and a legal French name. That's extremely common among Jews in some areas of the world.

This response is what I would have expected if an author cares about being respectful of Jewish people. Acknowledge the issue, and try to do better.

But what if the issue was brought to your attention after you completely finished your story? In that case: "Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was writing an antisemitic narrative with my depiction of this fantasy race." Support the voices criticizing your work, and apologize. Let it be an example of tropes to avoid, and encourage others to be careful of the same pitfalls.

What you don't do, is act horrified and say "Oh, how could you, I never intended to make the goblins an antisemitic allegory! Surely if I don't mean it, it can't be hurtful!"

Also, if you truly care, you don't then abuse the memory of the holocaust when you write spin-offs of your original story, including its imagery to support a bigoted villain's argument.

Marginalized people understand that not everyone knows what we do. The stereotypes and the harmful ideas that weaved themselves into popular culture are about us. We know that it's invisible to people who aren't the target, and as a result aren't forced to learn these things. To many people, it's just a trope they're used to seeing. Like villains have hooked noses - it's practically a shorthand for an evil character.

All the stories we tell are based in some measure on stories we heard. Narratives and tropes feed off each other between different pieces of media. It's easy to pull together a harmful narrative without realizing, when the tropes that make it up usually go together, and are so common they're everywhere. So we know a person who means no harm can create something really hurtful, without knowing it.

That's why we criticize media: we want you to see and be aware.

In addition to this, I've been accused multiple times of ignoring the fact that these books discuss bigotry and condemn it. I'm not ignoring it, I know they do - or they try to. But Rowling wrote a story against racism without understanding it and without interrogating it in herself. She only knew to condemn it when it's rude and violent and outright hateful. Not the foundations of it.

So, sure, say she didn't mean to write something harmful. What does she do when she learns she did? Nothing. And not just about the issue of the goblins - about everything. I detailed the problems with her depiction of lycanthropy, but she did the same thing with the house elves.

There's lore about creatures called brownies. They'll perform chores for you, but they'd rather not be seen while they do. If you try to pay them, they'll get offended. If you give them clothes, they'll leave. This is a very partial description, but you can see the inspiration here.

And then she turned them into a slave race. They're bound to their enslavers, possessing powerful magic but using it in their service, forced to punish themselves for disobedience and endure extreme abuse. Kreacher actively wishes to have his head put on display when he's too old and weak to be of use.

To show the reader the horrors of freedom for an elf, JKR turned poor Winky into a depressed drunk with no purpose in her life. Winky's story is horrifying.

Only Dobby takes care of Winky for that whole year. She never recovers during it. Then she's made to witness the interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr., which upsets her and causes her distress. As a result, she hears about Crouch's death through a toneless forced confession - and the interrogation continues around her. That same day, she watches the last member of the household she loved have his soul taken by a dementor, and then she's left alone with the body while Dumbledore argues with Fudge. Only after, he sends Madam Pomfrey to do what she can for Winky, and take her to the kitchens where Dobby will take care of her again.

And Rowling wrote all of this. Did she think this is an example that even compliant house elves suffer and get neglected, even by the sympathetic wizards? Was this a lesson that even those who don't seek freedom suffer and lack agency in this system?

No. Rowling turned it into a cautionary tale against freeing slaves. Unless they're "weird" like Dobby.

Maybe she didn't try to be racist, but this fits disturbingly well with the arguments against ending slavery in reality. That enslaved people will turn into aimless drunks. That they need to be enslaved to have purpose. That those who want freedom have something wrong with them.

And I know this was criticized. What was the response to the criticism? Nothing direct as far as I know, but after all of this - there was an article published on Pottermore to argue that Winky's story is a warning against freeing the elves. It was taken down fortunately, but after this article the arguments against freedom are no longer the opinion of characters within the world - it's a message given to us by real people.

She doubles down. Every time. People keep yelling that she had nothing to do with Hogwarts Legacy, she's not responsible for the way it builds on her original canon. Well, she seems to approve of it. It continues painting the same line with the same brush - just bolder.

She doesn't care about the racism, she doesn't care about antisemitism - she just wanted to use the nazis as her easy villains. She doesn't have the imagination for any other kind.

[renamami]

Facts About Romani People Because That One Person Asked For it On My Post About Azusa

A while back I made a post about how I wished people in the Diabolik Lovers fandom focused more on how Azusa is a Romani man and how cool that was for an otome game. Somebody reblogged and asked for somebody to make a post about Romani people so we'd have more reference on how to incorporate Azusa's heritage into more content of him so here it is!

I wanna preface this post by saying that I am not Romani or of Romani descent! I simply like learning about other cultures and groups of people and want people to learn more information about a race that has been villainized and oppressed for centuries. While I'll be discussing basic history, myths and stereotypes, and basics in culture, please make sure you go find Romani creators and people to get more information from! I love Florian on TikTok and YouTube so I recommend checking him out first!

As somebody who is not Romani, there might be some things that aren't completely correct since I'm relying on what is available. Always listen to Romani voices when looking for information. I'm just providing basics and am definitely NOT and expert!

Basic Terminology & History

First off, you might know Romani people often being referred to as the G-word. It's a racial slur that came from people believing they originated in Egypt and has been used for centuries to degrade and demean Romani people. NEVER USE THIS WORD.

The Romani people have a very closed culture and language which has helped them preserve it throughout the years. Translations and translators are hard to find and I don't recommend trying to find any out of respect for the community. What is known, though, is that there are masculine and feminine ways to refer to Romani people.

Romani: The race and communities as a whole

Roma: I'm slightly unclear on this one but it's another way to refer to the race and community itself. Take this with a grain of salt and do your own research

Rom: Way to refer to men as masc Romani people

Romni: Way to refer to women and fem Romani people

Romanipen: The Romani philosophy, rules, laws, and culture (note that there are a bunch of different communities since Romani is a race. There is Christian and Muslim Romani groups and people who's rules differ from others. Like all races, every community is different.)

Gadjo/Gadji: Someone who has no Romanipen, typically someone who is not ethnically Romani but can also mean a Romani person who does not live in Romani culture

Contrary to myth, the Romani people originate from South Asia, more specifically India. It's not clear when in India they came from but it's speculated that they came from the North-West region about 1,000 years ago. From there, they migrated to Europe and other continents. There are Romani populations all over Europe, commonly known mostly in Romania and Spain. Even now, the Romani language still has Indian and South Asian influences as well as Persian and Arabic influences.

From the very beginning, Romani people were discriminated against. They were labeled as wizards, thieves, baby-snatchers, etc. They were enslaved and coerced into chattel slavery in the Middle Ages by the Danubian Principalities where they were divided into groups by their owners. In the 16th-18th centuries, anti-Romani sentiment grew around Europe which led to many Romani people being murdered without any justice being served. They continued to be persecuted and blamed for a range of thing for centuries even up to this day.

In WWII, Romani people, along with Jews and black people, were at the very bottom of Hitler's totem pole and were targeted for ethnic cleansing in the Holocaust. While it's estimated that the death toll came in 150,000 people, others estimate it to be around 1.5 million victims of the Romani Holocaust. Unfortunately, the Romani victims are still very overlooked when the Holocaust and WWII is covered.

Right now, Romani people are still being persecuted and stigmatized. In Romania, they live in squatter communities with high unemployment. While some live a "nomadic" lifestyle, most migration is forced because a ton of communities don't accept Romani settlements. Discrimination is still rampant and all the violence and propaganda that racism entails is still alive and well when it comes to the Romani people, especially in Europe.

Please note that this is a VERY vague history and absolutely does not cover nearly a fraction of Romani history. This is just the cliff notes and I've only scratched the very surface and left out a lot of details.

Myths & Stereotypes

You ever see this shit before?

What you're looking at right here are racist racial caricatures and oversexualized fantasies of Romani women, specifically "fortune tellers".

Let's quickly get into myths.

Fortune Tellers: Romani people who were impoverished and desperate and down on their luck turned to earning money where they could. It was already a prevalent stereotype that Romani people were witches and mind readers, so many women turned to fortune telling and giving tarot readings because that was what was available to them and were thus painted as occult-loving scam artists. No, they are not supernatural being or seers. In the same way that somebody can practice spirituality, that's what they did. Nothing more, nothing less. Extra tidbit: tarot is not a closed practice specific to the Roma. Saying that it is is like saying banking is a closed practice for Jews. It's racist to push that narrative and if anyone tries to just know they're a dumbass.

The Exotic Wanderer: Romani people very rarely travel out of desire. They travel and migrate because everywhere pushes them out and denies them permanent residence. They aren't free-spirited nomads and portraying them as such further harms them. Speaking of exotic;

The Mysterious and Sexy Romani Woman: Notice how all the women in the picture above are super sexualized or have this air of mystery to them? That's because art, theater, and propaganda has painted Romani women as sexually available and provocative, gaudy, and "exotic". Women of color, you know what I'm talking about because we all deal with it. One of the biggest examples in recent history and the most popular in modern culture is Esmeralda from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame adaptation. She's portrayed as this mysterious and enchanting dark-skin Romni woman who all the guys are after in, again, stereotypical and oversexualized traditional Romani clothing. I mean, they had her essentially pole dance within the first hour of the movie. This portrayal of Romani women in media actively contributes to sexual violence against them. DO NOT ENTERTAIN THAT SHIT.

Thieves, Criminals, and Baby Snatchers: This one has been around for centuries. It's rather self-explanatory so I won't heavily explain the first two. Romani people have been painted as violent outsiders for as long as they've been in Europe and other places. Blaming disease, crime, and things going missing on them was (and often still is) a European's favorite pastime. The baby-snatcher narrative is common in media, again like in Hunchback where Esmeralda was originally a white French girl in the book who was stolen and replaced Quasimodo by Romani people. Obviously this is fucking gross and a vile narrative to push. When I talk more about Azusa, I'll get into adoption more.

There are obviously more myths and stereotypes but these are the biggest ones. Now, to cleanse your eyes, have what real Romani clothing and women look like.

See the difference? Modesty is a huge aspect of Romani culture.

Culture & Society

Again, much of Romani culture is closed and has been kept alive through remaining closed. This is just what they (or scholars) have chosen to tell and what I have personally learned. It is important to remain respectful of what Romani people do and do not want to share. That said, not much is left of Indian influence in Romani culture save for the people who still celebrate Hindu holidays. However, what has survived is the concept of universal balance. Many believe that everything, or almost everything, fits into a natural place. For example, birds are supposed to fly right? It's chill to eat those if your faith allows it. But a penguin? That bitch doesn't fly, it's a freak of nature, so don't eat it. A penguin is out of balance and, therefore, bad luck. That's why Romani people traditionally don't eat hen eggs because girlie can't fly. Of course, other faiths like Muslim Roma, who have special recipes, eat hen eggs.

Like every race, every community and individual has a different faith. Most popular is Christianity and Catholicism and it has become the primary faith among Romani people. Other religions like Islam and Hinduism are also practiced. These faiths have their own set of rules that they follow alongside Romanipen, which is not written and passed down orally. Romani people even have their own patron saints: Ceferino Giménez Malla, The Virgin of Hope of Macarena who is specific to the Spanish Calé, and Kali Sara who is an Indian deity and protector of the Roma. For Christians and Catholics, they also worship the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.

Cleanliness is another big facet of Romani culture. Your genital area is considered impure and unclean. Because of this many Roma do not have pet cats or dogs because they lick their genitals. These rules are so strict that food must be entirely discarded should a strand of hair from these animals get into it as the whole meal is then contaminated. Additionally, tops and bottom are typically washed separately as to not mix pure and impure fabrics. This is especially true for AFAB menstruation, which is also seen as impure, as is childbirth. This is because of Romani code which is the most important part of Romanipen: pillars both honor and shame.

Like many societies, importance is placed on the men and subscribe to expected gender norms. In typical Romani home consists of a married couple, their unmarried children, at least one married son and his wife, and their children. Extended family and family in general are an integral part to Romani society so they will play active roles in a Romani child's life. It is possible to be expelled from your community, however, should you go against your community's rules or, for example, marry a gadjo. This is because, depending on the community, it would bring dishonor.

Every since the 16t century, Romani people have either made their livings or enjoyed their time through music and dance. Both still have Indian influences but have also added other elements depending of the region. For example, belly dancing is big among the Turkish Romani. Have you heard of flamenco music from Spain? Did you know that it came directly from the Romani Calé? Romani music has had a huge influence outside of the community, as it has inspired genres like bolero and jazz music.

Before I go onto how I want to see Romani culture integrated with Azusa content in the future, I want to touch up on adoption and interracial marriage. While interracial marriage is frowned upon in some communities, if a gadjo learns Romanipen and lives their life as if they are Romani, they are accepted as fully Romani. This also goes for adopted children. If they live by the rules and codes, dedicate themselves to the culture and society, then they are fully Romani.

Azusa Mukami, His Romani Identity, and What I Want To See More Of

While Diabolik Lovers does have it's problematic moments when referring to Azusa's past such as calling his community but the g-slur, it's super important to recognize how freaking awesome it is to have a Romani character who is largely not a racial caricature and not portrayed as less than simply for being Rom. He is a fully fleshed out and romancable character which is so cool.

It isn't explicitly stated whether Azusa was adopted by his community or is Rom by blood, but given the time period around the 1960's to 1980's (I recommend looking at @i-write-hurt-not-comfort's blog for more information on the Mukami's timeline) I would recommend steering FAR away from the idea of him being picked up since the baby-snatcher stereotype was and is still big. Plus, it's just so much more fun having a non-white Rom love interest. Let him be brown, y'all. Also, he's Romanian Romani, let me see him be Romanian Romani.

Speaking of which, know he's super pale but I want to see him be South Asian and anemic! It's so rare that Romani people are white and Azusa would look cute with tan or dark skin. I'd love to see more art where he has melanin. Brown and black people can be pale too due to things like anemia. Don't be afraid to make him look like a vampire that has not seen the sun in days who happens to be brown!

This man canonically loves spicy food! You know what race's food is super rich in spices and flavor? Romani food! I'd love fics where we get even a throw away line talking about him eating spicy stew or chile mole. Make him hold Ruki at knifepoint in the kitchen having him make some stuffed peppers.

Even small things like him not eating eggs or separating his tops and bottoms because that's what he learned to do as a child would be so damn nice to see. Tiny things that connect him to his race and heritage would be so cool to see in more content of him.

Final Thoughts

Romani people, each community and each individual, have such rich culture and history. They are incredibly interesting to learn about and have had so much influence over things we might not even thing about. They're not only in Europe. They're every where. South America, the US, Asia, every where. It's about time people started recognizing them outside of what governments and white supremacy teaches us and admire the resilience and beauty of the Romani people. Please do your own research and look for real Romani people to get more information from on TikTok, YouTube, hell even the damn bird app. I hope this helped whoever wanted to know more about the Romani people. Thank you sm for reading too, this was a long one.

[transgenderer]

itd be interesting to read a history of the development of the conception of judaism as a "race" rather than like a "people" or maybe a "practice". does this make sense? its kind of a weird distinction but i think its important. from what ive read about greece and rome, people could totally like "convert" to being roman or greek. and i think this is common, cross culturally. the people on the other side of a fuzzy border arent a different racial stock to you (i mean, they might have a different made-up ancestral progenitor, but this isnt like, the main reason you dont like them. sometimes you even make up a story where you have the same ancestral progenitor!), but they have foreign practices, and thats why you dont like them. and then jewish people were people like that, people who practiced different ways. and so people hated them like people have had xenophobia for millenia. but then by the race science of the 19th century you see the idea as the default that different peoples are different stocks, and this includes jewish people in europe, and eventually this develops to the point of violence against people whose last practicing jewish ancestor was like 100 years ago. which is very different, very alien!

i feel like you could tell a story where this whole thing develops out of the need for a justifying ideology of chattel slavery, and then grows from there, but idk! you would need to make a strongly sourced claim for this, actually track the ideology as it develops and see if it shares origins with "racial" antisemitism

[austin-friars]

Are you currently a pratcing catholic?

im gonna assume that this is because of my nun post?

short answer, no not really. and most catholics wouldn't consider me one at all.

long answer: i don't consider myself a practicing catholic. i mean, i pray some old catholic prayers, i believe in god, but i also believe in pagan religions to, and actually do rituals, etc., that sometimes involve other deities.

i also, practice religions specific to my culture - the common name for that practice is hoodoo or root work, or conjure. hoodoo is a closed practiced - meaning only those from a certain community can practice it. hoodoo is also a practice unique to black americans who are descendants of chattel slavery, in the south. there are different parts of hoodoo, and different ways it's practice. some people use religion, i don't. due to some of my own religious trauma, i rather would not combine my root work with catholicism, though that is very common. a lot of people think hoodoo is a religion, but it's not. that is voodoo - which while that's an african traditional religion...i'm not even going to try speaking on it.

outside of that, i consider myself pagan, like very much so. I'm not actively practicing pagan religions and traditions, but like i said earlier, i do believe in and sometimes leave offerings to pagan deities - deities that are apart of open cultures, and I love reading up on other forms of paganism, etc.

this is just a general overview of what I do.

I was born catholic, like baptized when i was like 3 days old. and i went to catholic school until college....

but i've had a lot of issues with the church, religion in itself is triggering to me in some instances, and like i said, there are some things i can't get behind. the only reason i was catholic was because my family was catholic, and the only reason they were catholic way down the line, was due to chattel slavery.

unless you are like, a catholic native american, no one else really has to ever deal with that type of conundrum where you are only a religion because your ancestors were killed/raped to be it.

THAT SAID, i do write poems about catholicism, like my martyrdom poem, a lot of my short stories deal with religion/religious people but that's mostly due to the era their end. and i discuss religious/problematic themes.

[djuvlipen]

the thing with the word "gypsy" is that I didn't really used to care either; I'm not from an english-speaking country so "gypsy" had no connotation to me and I used to think "better to leave this to the Roma living in English-speaking countries, they know better." But you can't really be left alone on the internet and sooner or later you WILL interact with non-Roma who speak English and in these interacts whenever I was called "gypsy" they always meant it in a pejorative way. Once on here I was told "Roma are hard-working and can be good, yes, they want to work, I like them. They are different from Gypsies. Gypsies are thieves and will steal anything." Like, the distinction being made here is quite clear. Once I was at the club and I made the mistake of telling this white Canadian guy I was half Romani, he then proceded to make degrading comments at me, telling me "dance for me like a Gypsy", other stuff I won't go into details with, but you can see the sexual connotation that "dance for me like a Romni" doesn't carry.

People get the impression that Gypsy is called a slur because (1) it's an inacurrate term, it comes from "Egyptian" and Roma aren't Egyptians, (2) it's sometimes used in a negative way, but it can also be used in a neutral. A lot of people therefore think that it's really far-fetched to say Gypsy is a slur, and that it's just political correctness gone too far. And sure, I'd agree if "Gypsy" was indeed just a neutral-to-pejorative misnomer, but it's not just that. The "gypsy is a slur" line originates from the American Romani community; the vast majority of American Roma came to the USA after the abolition of slavery in Romania. And as they very rightfully point out, "Gypsy" in English is a rough translation of the word "Cigan", "Tsigan", etc. As scholar Ian Hancock pointed out in his book on Romani slavery in Romania, The Pariah Syndrom, "Cigan" wasn't just the name given to Roma in Eastern Europe, it was a legal term used in judicial texts. "Cigan" meant "Slave". "Cigan" was "slave". In the eyes of the law and for 500 centuries, the definition of "Cigan" was "slave". And those slaves were Roma. In Eastern Europe, Roma were called Cigan so that being Romani meant being born a slave, living as a slave, and dying as a slave.

Another word "Gypsy" roughly translates is "Zigeuner". "Zigeuner" is the German translation of "Cigan". Even though it wasn't associated with chattel slavery, it was still a legal term used in judicial texts. "Zigeuner" was a notion used by Nazis to refer to Romani people and people of Romani descent; being a Zigeuner meant being an "asocial" which meant being a criminal corrupting the German blood.

And when Eastern Europeans or Germans use "Gypsy" when speaking English, it's "Cigan"/"Zigeuner" they are translating, not "Roma", because if they meant to say "Roma" (a word that exists in Slavic languages and in German), they would say "Roma", not "Gypsy".

Some people will point out to some Romani communities or individuals who use "Gypsy" to refer to themselves and will use these people as an argument to say that "Gypsy" is not a slur and that saying otherwise is political correctness gone too far, but that's beyond the point, the thing is that a good chunk of the Romani diaspora is rightfully uncomfortable with the word and that pointing at a few Roma who call themselves Gypsy doesn't erase the fact that "Gypsy" carries a pejorative connotation reminiscing of genocide and slavery and is especially degrading when talking about Romani women. I do agree that focusing on "is Gypsy a slur or not?" is very annoying and kind of useless because there are so many other things we could talk about but at this point, the question is, "why do Gadje keep coming back to this particular discourse when they could just move on, accept that Gypsy is pejorative, and then try and do more meaningful things?"

[ultravioart]

@harryharson

Ramattra lore/character discussions, and response to tags below:

Race (as in, the social castes invented to enforce chattel slavery, Black, White) is a social construct, only a vague box used by higher authorities to oppress and dehumanize real human beings. To be racist is to enforce that system.

Ramattra is not racist, because omnics and humans are fundamentally different species, not socially constructed differences within one species. Ramattra is speciest you could argue, sure, but not racist. Omnics are fundamentally NOT human.

And that's another thing: his goal is not to punish humans. His main goal is to stop omnic extinction, no matter the cost. His trauma induced desperation and anger and fear is what is driving him into doing more harm, and there is a meaningful story in that, I agree. He doesn't aim for human extinction(atleast, not yet in canon), he wants to prevent omnic extinction. He is fighting against the collective oppressive powers of humanity, not the human individuals. But if freeing omnics means killing individual humans, he will do that. And at this point in his story, he is probably under the view of: if humans go extinct, then so be it. But human extinction/subjugation is not his goal, preventing omnic extinction/subjugation is.

"Excusing one of the good ones" isn't what I meant at all ah :( nor is human racism applicable to the omnic and human tensions because

one: omnics attacked first and can be hacked and forced to murder at any time which is an undeniable and legitimate threat. Humans have every right to fear omnics suddenly becoming violent out of the blue. Omnics are not humans, and cannot be compared to a human racial group without very troubling implications that a race is inherently violent/mindless labor/could attack at any time hivemind, so I personally avoid it as much as possible.

and two: Ramattra sees inaction to prevent omnic extinction as compliance with omnic genocide. It has less to do with him having 'exceptions' and more with him hating any threat to omnics (human or omnic--yes Ramattra has targeted innocent omnics he perceived as threats to omnic existence. The attacks on Paris, Busan, etc. That definitely killed Iris sentient omnics or at minimum traumatized them by destroying homes/killing loved ones).

Omnics and humans work on fundamentally different intelligences. Humans are singular minded, unable to connect brains together. Omnics are individual but also a kind of hivemind (can communicate/connect via the Iris or internet, and can be mass controlled as seen with Anubis)-- similar to ant colonies in a way, they can cooperate in massive numbers all at once. An individual ant intelligence is different from the antcolony super organism intelligence.

Ramattra doesn't hate human individuals, his story explains he hates how humanity(collective) takes no action to stop injustices, and he is wary of strangers who are humans because of his past where humans tried to kill him/killed his kin (this is where you can argue speciest, bc even tho its trauma based, he does have a distrust based on species alone. To me it reads more like someone who is wary of dogs after a traumatic dog attack, rather than an inherent hatred of all dogs. I say this because he is absurdly polite with most humans in voice lines, and we know he can be mean if he wanted to.)

He also hates omnic individuals that encourage "waiting it out" (Shambali pacifism) when that plan is doomed to lead to extinction. He hates the groups that are not helping to stop omnic extinction.

The metaphor here is that Ram doesn't hate the ants(individual humans), he hates the super organism antcolony (aka humanity as a whole, the larger structures that cause/enable omnic extinction). It's equivalent to hating an oppressive government, but not hating the citizens. Citizens could be supporting/enabling oppression which is bad, or citizens could be actively trying to stop oppression which is good. That's how Ramattra would see it.

The issue here is that humans aren't like omnics, they can't 'hivemind' like omnics. That's why people may think Ram is being anti-human but really it's his trauma burning out his patience to the point his focus is on "prevent omnic extinction" over "saving individuals" now. Meaning he will kill omnic individuals(hacking to force control them to fight and die) AND humans individuals alike in the name of preventing omnic extinction. Which YEAH that's badbad. But the point here is that it's not the same as "die all humans."

His "suffer as I have" and other lines are him expressing the traumas he has faced, not that he actually wants an exact eye for an eye. It's more of a "no, i will not turn the other cheek like the Shambali do, I will speak to you in a language you understand: violence. If you punch me, I will punch you viciously so you will either understand the pain I have gone through and finally stop hurting me, or fear me enough to never dare hurt me again." rather than an "equal exchange of loss"

It's also good to note his relishing in being feared/hated seems to be a new trait. Echo asks him how it feels to be called things like Ravager, and he said it used to bother him but then jokingly says it now gives him 'this warm little feeling inside' --he is SUPER bitter about rejection, and often shows his discomfort with being alone, or having people leave him.

His journey was this:

Mindless warmachine who sent mindless omnics into war against humanity. (After gaining sentience he probably feels guilt/trauma for this, even though he wasn't in control. Survivors guilt.)

Wake up due to the Iris, survive the traumatizing targeted slaughter R-7000s faced from both humans and omnics, end up as one of the last remaining R-7000s. Traumatic: loss, isolation, blamed for something he couldn't control, labeled a violent threat.

Learn of Aurora and try to find her to understand his purpose, end up traveling to Shambali monestary, become a monk, try to comprehend existence and coexistence with humanity. Meet Zenyatta, discuss humanity's shortcomings, make meaningful connection, finally finding a dear brother, someone who understands unlike Mondatta. Then one day Zenyatta almost dies at human hands due to something Ramattra did. Ramattra is traumatized, fearing loss.

Realize the Shambali's pacifism is not working and this path is doomed to lead to omnic extinction. In anger, fear, desperation, drive, Leave the Shambali and his found family, and take violent action to free kidnapped omnics from anti-omnic human captors around the world.

Realize most omnics are waiting to be saved by the Shambali, instead of saving themselves. The Shambali are giving omnics false hope, and dampening resistance efforts. Create Null sector with new dear friend Nameless, to inspire omnics to stand up and fight for liberation instead of sitting and waiting to be killed.

With trauma fueling the desperation to save as many as possible, become too hasty, too fast acting, he was warned by team mates but went ahead anyways, because if they took London, one of the worst places for omnics as a stronghold, it would show the world omnics are capable and inspire omnics globally to rise up and resist-- and the attempt of violently liberating omnics failed in London. The dear omnic Lanet that warned him it was too hasty died in the attack, the Shambali are calling null sector illogical terrorists and discrediting thier efforts, and overall omnics are condemning null sector. This was the opposite of what was meant to happen. More loss, more rejection, more being labeled a violent threat, more trauma. The Shambali have the upper hand, and Ramattra believes the Shambali are dooming his people.

Ramattra then made the point of no return: he states he is willing to force omnics to fight and die against thier will if it means it prevents omnic extinction. He is willing to do what Anubis did. Nameless and Zera leave him, they will not deny omnics free will. Again, he lost those dear to him. Again, he is alone. Again, he is seen as a violent threat. And his people are dwindling by the hour, so he radicalized his views once again.

Ramattra, isolated, desperate, traumatized into defaulting into base R-7000 coding (lead omnics into war against humanity), agrees to join up with Talon if it means omnics will not go extinct.

[visenyaism]

Hello 👋

Forgive me if these are VERY stupid questions, but I wanted to ask if you had any idea on what sort of government should replace the one that westeros has? Obviously feudalism sucks but how could they even achieve democracy and is democracy even a good idea (forgive me for just picking democracy i have very little knowledge on politics)??? Like it is easily corruptible as the rest.

And the problem with their deeply sexist and misogynistic society. And well the question of if that is even a solvable issue (clearly in our world it hasn't been 'solved'), how could they possibly improve it??? Obviously putting Dany on the throne won't do that.

I know these are extremely dumb questions, and that you obviously don't have the answers to everything like a wise old man, but I am really curious of your thoughts on this

Please disregard these questions if they are very stupid. Deep apologies i just want to learn (also if grrm put these problems in his story wouldn't their put on point/answer on how to get started fixing them?)

I mean i don’t know how to fix society, but these are all good political theory questions and i can talk about that. All systems of government can be corrupted but feudalism is pretty bad. In real life, what happened in europe was that the economic structure of feudalism got replaced by capitalism and pretty immediately colonialism. Monarchy lingered a little longer but when those revolutions happened, and most European countries became liberal democracies they were still propped up by chattel slavery and colonial extraction. So the end of feudalism wasn’t really a huge triumph but a repackaging into a different system with its own core set of evils.

To my knowledge (which is very limited all of my research in uni on political theory was re: USA in the 1890s) no countries have ever jumped from straight-up medieval feudalism to liberal democracy. Don’t think that’s likely to happen in asoiaf either, but there’s changes that could be made to improve their society that are tenable i think. You mitigate some of the patriarchal violence if you dissolve the system that made women (and their ability to have sons) political commodities with no control over their lives. Eliminating the monarchy and the noble class would definitely help with that. Things like giving the smallfolk sovereignty over their land and taking the wall down would also be really cool, but I’m not sure how much radical system change we’re going to see by the end of the series other than the elimination of the iron throne as the characters know it?

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like since The Little Mermaid live action is very different from the original and kind of its own thing, we could say that in this specific version, Ariel’s race does have a special place even though it doesn’t affect the plot at all? I mean, I’m pretty sure that the change from a European setting to a more Southern American one (where there’s plenty of Black and Brown people) was heavily influenced by the casting of Halle Bailey (which is absolutely not a bad thing)! And it fits perfectly with this specific version of Ariel!

Because I don’t think it would have happened if they had cast a white actress? And I feel like either they had planned the change of setting way before casting and already wanted a Black or Brown girl before auditions even started (and I remember seeing an article that said they were looking for a woman of color) or when they picked Halle they had the idea to change the setting to make something new and make it stand apart from the original?

I’m not sure wether I’m being clear or not but what I mean to say is that this specific of version of Ariel was made specifically for Black and Brown children and if they make, like, a stage adaptation of it, a white woman as the lead wouldn’t really fit? Same way that if they had decided to set it in South Asia, having a white actress playing her wouldn’t really fit, you know what I mean??

Ok so I totally agree with you but I only disagree on one point: I don't think that we can legitimately say that Prince Eric's mother the queen was queen of a south american country. Like geographically yes I know what you mean about it being tropical and surrounded by coral which only grows in a certain temperature. HOWEVER, I find it hard to believe that the live action little mermaid was based on any country in our history with the engrained chattel slavery.

Like let me see if I can give an example. So black panther is set in a similar earth to ours but the way they isolated themselves with technological advances means they weren't victim to slavery. but that history of slavery globally still impacts them and the fandom was very adamant about not shipping white women with T'Challa a Black king of an African country.

Whereas Prince Eric was the adopted son of a Black queen who I suspect didn't feel the need to only adopt a black son. The Queen didn't even seem to mind that the previously hostile mermaids were changing. Like King Triton overcame his prejudice for humans and made a solid show of mending their relationship. So I don't think its a similar setting wrt race relations to our history.

But I'm not black so I defer to other Black bloggers. Like Ariel's race matters to us because we see her in our context but that racial barrier is removed from the Queen's viewpoint because she herself is Black. So yeah if they ever cast a white Ariel taking it from the movie it would be whitewashing.

mod ali

[alatismeni-theitsa]

wrt the nationalism i experienced at my old Greek School, which was part of the larger North London Greek Community even if it was technically just outside London, I remember there were big get-togethers of the various schools for the likes of 25th March. Normal stuff really. I remember we were asked to do some art, and as I was a teenager literally called Peace and with a conscientious objector for a dad, I was pretty opposite in values to the general militarism etc around it, so i slightly... took the piss by drawing Bouboulina anime-fied in a way that was Well Drawn but also Not Reverent.

Anyway, the thing that actually shocked me amongst all this (as opposed to just a bit of discomfort and eyerolling). As a fluent speaker, the teachers liked to show me off by writing speeches for me to give at some events. My tutor had written, very carefully, a big speech for me, and usually I begrudgingly went along with them, but i refused to read this one bit, in which I was expected to declare (cw: self harm, implied suicide, blood): <...κι αν χρειαστεί, δεν θα διστάσω να ανοίξω τις φλέβες μου σαν βρύσες για να ποτίσω το δέντρο της ελευθερίας, ζήτω η Ελλάδα, ζήτω η Κύπρος, ζήτω η ελευθερία>. When I refused point-blank, he looked at me with confusion and said - bearing in mind that i was 16 at this time - so wait, you Wouldn't die for your homeland???? Also bearing in mind this was 13 years ago or so and its still pretty embedded in my memory.

Idk how representative this particular anecdote is but as this was intended for a large event i imagine it wasn't expected to be controversial. He was a little extra I think, probably in part to being a Cypriot refugee himself and therefore having a v different emotional relationship w nationality. Despite module options for A levels (final exams/qualifications for subjects for 18yrolds in the UK) that included Greek Lit and Greek Poetry, he'd only teach Cypriot History and Cypriot Geography, which to me, as an Athenian who generally sucks at any kind of History or Geography, didnt really appeal. I only found out there were other modules when I got to the exam and saw them available. Seeing as they were available, I assume he was something of an outlier, as most kids doing Modern Greek exams would probably have been 3rd-gen Cypriots.

Γειααα! Given the Greek history and how we preserve remembrance, I don't think the sentence you mentioned is controversial, either. But as always, there's more nuance to it, so please bear with me! (quick historical recap for people not familiar with recent Greek history + the psychology of Greeks and Greek immigrants)

Under the boot of the Turks, the Bulgarians, the Italians, the English (and who knows who else) Greeks (and other Balkan nations) quickly realized that advocating for people with the same ethnicity was the only way not to be assimilated at best and eradicated at worst. For centuries Greeks weren't heard by their masters (who also called them "chattel" - "ραγιάδες") at times so after 400 and 600 years they said "if you don't advocate for us, if you treat us like this, fuck you, we are going to become independent". Since 1821 they became an example of revolt for all slaves in Europe and the Americas (without claiming they were the only inspiration) and warmly greeted and aided by Haiti, the first nation to abolish slavery.

I don't need to write much about the Balkan wars, ww1, and the Macedonian struggle, where being ethnically Greek automatically made you an enemy. (without saying Greeks were always on the right side of things or never committed any atrocities), or mention the Greco-Turkish War which ended with the peak of the Greek (Armenian and Assyrian, too) genocide.

Additionally, most of us have heard how the Greeks were treated in ww2 under the Bulgarians and under the Italians and Germans when the country was occupied. Or about the Greek programs in USSR (1937) and Turkey (1955 and 1960) to erase the Greek identity that in many ways still goes on to this day. (Pushing for the Turkish and Russian language and customs only, calling the Greek history of oppression "propaganda", erasing names of Greek villages, etc)

Again, being Greek was pretty much a ticket to punishment and oppression.

Cyprus is included in many of these cases as it suffered long from the Turks until 1878 and then it fell to English hands who filled the citizens with hallow promises (and good ol' colonialism) and let them eat each other alive - resulting in the Turkish occupation of half the island. Although all citizens suffered from the turmoil and the Greek side wasn't a saint, it was mostly random average Greeks who were kicked out of their homes when the invasion happened (1974).

War after war created a generational trauma that cannot be shaken away and that can affect someone when they've lived around people who remember their family getting executed by Turks, or Bulgarians. In that climate, fighting for your ethnos to the point of bleeding became something natural, like bleeding for freedom of speech, worker's rights, for lgbt+ rights, refugee rights, and more.

So, yes, your tutor definitely came from this background so I am not surprised he was that way after living through the tensions and being forced to leave his home because he wasn't the "right" ethnicity. His love for his ethnicity differs from the love a native UK or US person has, in the sense that it comes from the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor. (On top of that, he could also be a weird person as a character, since you mentioned he didn't want to teach anything that wasn't related to Cyprus)

There's no coddling up for how much blood was shed, no χρυσό χάπι for what a country does to you when it occupies you. I want to stress a lot how I hate the idea of war and the idealization of war. However, one doesn't exactly speak politely to the new oppressor, who wants to assimilate others and spread their own influence. I haven't seen a nation talk its way out of occupation and the inevitable repression, so to speak. And when the n-th invasion happens for Greece (for our specific hypothetical example) I don't think there will be any change in how things will be resolved. In a way, the school events remind you that, and also that history is a cycle.

With Turkey as a neighbor, things are still politically tense, and many Greeks still fear another invasion. (At the moment I don't think Turkey will attack for many reasons and bc we are NATO allies but I am telling how the situation is) Let's not forget our state has been allied with Russia for a long time and we betrayed that bond with whatever sanctions might come from Russia to us. When Russia invaded Ukraine, most Greek men around me were fearing the draft. From where we stand on the map, we don't exactly feel safe. War is a possibility and many Greeks feel fight-ready psychologically, or jumpy when they hear the news. (I belong to the chill group and still get anxious from time to time) That might color the patriotic statements with an intensity that doesn't feel natural in other nations which may not feel that close to getting a war on their soil.

As for the militarization in the events, the first thing I'll say is that war and the army can be totally rotten and there's a ton of propaganda we must resist, and I'll admit that even the Greek army when doing the defense has crossed the line at times. Buuuut realistically, it's difficult to resist an invasion from - say - the nazis without an armed force. That's why the army has a place in Greek remembrance events.

Thousands of Greeks fought in the frozen Pindus mountains against the Axis force because they all knew what would happen if the enemy got to Greece. And lo and behold, once the fascists took control of my city, thousands were sent to concentration camps where they were incinerated (700 recorded children among them). In just three years, 1/3 of Greece died under occupation. Fighting to prevent that - even if they failed eventually - is objectively valiant. Not to mention, the resisting armies of various countries achieved weakening the Axis forces to the point they finally got beaten.

Of course, there is no need for panic in the present. No objective need or extreme speeches where teens shout "I will shed my blood". I am fully aware of how expressions of the desire to protect what was - again with blood - given can be weird and reach extremes. Such yearly school events are the norm in Greece.

It's worth mentioning that such texts were written (or based on texts written) at the time of the oppression so they are emotionally charged and often carry the bloodshed of war which was very real for the country back then. That's the reason they are not considered controversial. (add to the mix the constant fear of imminent invasion we still live in 2023)

Another reason they may not be considered controversial is that we are used to them but also don't exactly follow them. Such events may be a yearly reality here (multiple times per year) but a kind of mundane one and people go about their lives without so much gravity given to the event statements.

Sure, it's atmospheric and it's good to remember the dead, but it's the usual grind, ya know... We get reminded of the war for a few days in very sentimental ceremonies and then we move on. The majority of Greeks in Greece are unlike your tutor, in spite of taking part in these school festivities and in the school parade. And the teachers are usually chill about it.

It can have negative effects, though. For starters, I believe the student parade accompanying the military was established during the 70's junta where nationalism was often regarded as the solution. So we are not on a good base here 👀

Most Greeks shun extreme militarism (we know what disgusting people lead in our army and what bigoted ideas they hold) and the belief that we are better than other nations. I can totally understand how a 16-year-old could feel uncomfortable when made to read the phrase you were made to read. In Greece, I think most (not all) 16-year-olds would roll their eyes and go along (because we know it's mainly fanfare for the drama 😂) and they wouldn't be phased by it.

For example, my teen self would perhaps read the "κι αν χρειαστεί, δεν θα διστάσω να ανοίξω τις φλέβες μου σαν βρύσες για να ποτίσω το δέντρο της ελευθερίας, ζήτω η Ελλάδα, ζήτω η Κύπρος, ζήτω η ελευθερία" and see some poetry in it BUT I wouldn't actually want to do it 😅 Nobody does and nobody cares, except the few rare radical people, who exist in all countries in equal measure. And we know that the rest of the students just wanted to stay out of class and didn't give two shits about how serious this is supposed to be 😂 We were aware we were preaching to the choir - who already knows this stuff and just wanted to go home. We are kinda desensitized, I think.

But teens also have their own political sentiments, which may clash with how the school festivities are organized, so we should take them into account. The students (and all people) should be free to not partake in events opposite to their ideals. And many teachers, too, are uncomfortable with how these events are conducted and wish to tone them down. There are some teachers here who are more into it so they add more passion and grand statements.

Different areas and families experienced oppression and genocide in various ways, so I don't have a concrete statement fit to dictate how much passion and poetic symbolism they'll use in their remembrance events and how they promise that the same harm will never come to their families again - as long as one doesn't fall into bigoted traps and militarization. Meaning that if the issue makes them sentimental and they want to mention blood and blades against slavery, that's their own thing.

But it also means that you are (obviously) allowed to remember the fallen and celebrate the existence of the nation without bold statements if you don't feel like it. (Or perhaps one doesn't want nations to exist at all so we go to another level altogether, and maybe you don't want a remembering at all, which is another discussion)

Thank you very much for reading all this! I wrote so many things to demonstrate Greek history is quite heavy and complex, which in turn creates complex situations for the people who are left to do the remembering.

Other people who took part in such Greek events, write your opinions down if you like!

[uboat53]

I haven't commented much or directly on the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. There are reasons for that, but they're fairly complicated, so I think it's best to do so in the form of one of my LONG RANTS (TM).

WHY I HATE TALKING ABOUT THIS

Honestly, it's depressing. This has happened before, it'll happen again. Israel and Hamas will fight each other, most of the dead will be civilians, a disturbing amount of them will be children, and then things will get quiet again for a time until the next blow up during which only single-digits' worth of civilians will be killed each day instead of triple. No one thinks any of this will change and, in the meantime, it will dominate news coverage that could instead be going toward something where public information might actually make a difference.

I should note that I'm not trying to minimize the consequences of this conflict, but isn't everyone else also tired of watching death and destruction that accomplishes nothing? It's like watching an abusive couple that never seems to split up. Everyone is just waiting for the current violence to end, but no one seems to have any interest in making sure it's the last outbreak of violence.

So, as much as I hate talking about it, let's talk about it.

THE CURRENT OUTBREAK OF VIOLENCE

The current outbreak of violence began when Hamas staged a particularly devastating attack across the border from Gaza into Israel proper. Numbers are still coming in, but it appears that well over a thousand Israelis were killed and a few hundred captured and taken back to Gaza. The amount of death is bad, but it also represents a particular failure of Israeli intelligence and their military which failed to see the attack coming or do anything significant to stop it.

Since that time, Israel has been shelling Gaza. Numbers are still coming in with regards to that action as well, but it appears that over 5,000 Gazans have died so far continuing the usual pattern of far more Palestinian deaths than Israeli in any given conflict. There are rumors of a possible Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, but it remains to be seen if Israel can pull that out without massive civilian casualties, massive casualties of their own soldiers, or both.

Whatever happens, the most likely outcome is that both sides declare some form of victory, the shooting stops for the moment, and we go back to a situation which will inevitably result in the next outbreak of violence. Exactly what's happened in every previous outbreak of violence.

THE CAUSE OF VIOLENCE

No one who studies the situation is at all confused about what is causing the violence. Every nation has an original sin, Israel's original sin is the mass expulsion of Palestinians in the conflict that followed the creation of Israel and Palestine in 1948. Yes, it's far more complicated than just "Jews kicked non-Jews out" and, yes, that simplification actually is good enough to get a basic understanding of the issue.

(Lest people think I'm picking on Israel here, I live in a country that's "lucky" enough to have two original sins. We Americans managed to both enslave millions of Africans in a horrifying form of chattel slavery AND commit physical and cultural genocide against our indigenous population. Go USA?)

Since that time, Israel has also captured three territories from neighboring nations (the reason you don't hear much about the Golan Heights is that it barely has a population and is mainly just a strategic high ground between Israel and Syria), annexed them, and begun to settle them with hundreds of thousands of Jews, displacing the existing population in violation of international law.

At this moment, there are about 7 million Jews and 7 million non-Jews living in territories controlled by Israel. Most of the non-Jews have very few, if any, rights under Israeli control and this creates a breeding ground for violent opposition.

PEACE

Actual peace would require that Israelis and Palestinians both live under a situation that provides them with basic rights and liberties. Given this, it's pretty much always been clear that there are only two ways that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can end peacefully. Either Israel and Palestine will become two separate states or all people currently living in Israeli controlled territory will become Israelis under a truly representative government.

The reason that neither of these has happened yet is fairly simple, the Israeli right-wing and particularly the settler movement, will not tolerate either one. They demand that all the territory attributed to the 12 tribes of Israel must be under Jewish control. (Note that this desire will eventually require war with Jordan as the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh controlled the territory on the East Bank of the Jordan River, but that's for another time.) Separating Israel and Palestine would require giving up at least some of that territory and combining all peoples would result in a state that was basically no longer majority Jewish.

The problem is that the only other options are war crimes or crimes against humanity. The status-quo is increasingly (and accurately, in my opinion) being called Apartheid under the United Nations definition and, as far as I can tell, the only options other than separation or unification are mass expulsion or mass extermination.

PALESTINIANS

You'll note I haven't talked a lot about Palestinians in general or Hamas in particular here. That's because, from a high-level view of the conflict, they don't really matter.

Even Hamas' latest attack, brutal though it was, hasn't changed the situation in the slightest. Even if Israel had completely refrained from any sort of counterstrike, it would still control virtually every aspect of the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Likewise, even if every single Palestinian laid down every weapon today and committed to never pursuing violence again, it would not fundamentally change the main facts at issue.

At this point, Israel is overwhelmingly powerful compared to Palestine. It controls every legal, political, and military aspect of the interaction between the two sides and any changes in the current situation will rely almost entirely on what Israel chooses to do.

THE JEWISH ANGLE

I also haven't spoken much about religion in all of this. As many of you may know, I am Jewish (hello to those who don't) myself. More and more, I think the notion of Israel as a state representative of Judaism is no longer accurate. Instead, I think it largely seems to represent two other groups these days.

To explain the first group, I need to get a little "inside Judaism". I'm sure it will shock no one to know that Jews talk quite a bit about the Holocaust. In the last decade or so, I've noticed more and more, though, that there are really two different groups when we talk about it. The first group of Jews are the ones you've probably seen before, the "Never Again" crowd (I count myself in this one). This group of Jews believes that the Holocaust was wrong because genocide is wrong and we work to ensure that genocide becomes a thing of the past that will never happen to any group of people again.

The other group, though, believes that the Holocaust was wrong because it happened to the Jews. If you think for a moment about the difference between those two statements, you'll see that these are two very different groups with two very different sets of ideas in terms of their applications to the world. This is a bit anecdotal, but matches with conversations I've had with and comments I've seen from numerous other Jews in that time. It seems very much that Israel under Netanyahu, who has been Prime Minister for 13 of the last 14 years, has been representing the latter group under increasingly extreme governments.

The second group is not Jewish at all, it's American Evangelical Christians. This group believes that the Jewish people need to control the entirety of historical Israel in order to bring about the end times and have put extraordinary amounts of time, energy, and, most importantly, money behind that project. This has bought them enormous influence in Israel, perhaps even more than many Jewish groups, and they're a huge part of Prime Minister Netanyahu's political operation. Needless to say, they don't necessarily have the good of the Jewish people in mind when doing this, if you're familiar with the prophecies of Revelations you'll know that it does not end well for us.

So, is Israel really the Jewish state? To me it seems less and less true as time goes on. To me it looks more and more like it only represents a specific faction of Jews who are backed up by an increasingly domineering non-Jewish behemoth.

CONCLUSION

So yeah, this seems more and more depressing to me the more I look at it. Civilians are being killed in huge numbers by both sides in a war that no one seems to have any desire to actually end and a country that claims to represent a moral system that I identify with has come under the sway of one of its most extreme factions and their non-Jewish backers.

If you've got anything that could brighten my mood on the issue, I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, here's a clear statement of my position: Both sides are committing abhorrent violence and I do not support either of them. I support the civilians who are being attacked recklessly by both sides and encourage you to support organizations that focus on protecting and healing them throughout what is likely to continue to be a bloody conflict.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i think one of the biggest reasons i refuse to take anything LL presents to me in good faith morality-wise is that just, everything about the vatborn--completely leaving aside the trueborn or mogadorians as a whole--is a hundred percent on par with what happened to lorien for sheer scale and depth of tragedy and horror. in very different ways, yes--apples to oranges, i'm not going to say one is worse--but on par.

and not only do neither the heroes or the narrative ever acknowledge this. they act like it's a good thing.

[cw: genocide, war crimes, racism, fascism, slavery, torture, child abuse, dehumanization, apologia for all of it after the cut. basically, the usual lmao]

or at least, a totally neutral and casual one (although they will still never call it what it is by name). the vatborn, who are universally abused, beaten, tortured, brainwashed child soldiers and actual fucking chattel slaves, aren't people. they are subhuman. their suffering doesn't matter. they can't be rehabilitated for any kind of peaceful life. they are barely more than mindless animals. they are vermin to be disposed of without a thought, while their actual slavers get far more mercy, compassion, and humanization than they do (which holy shit is saying something).

the only, ONLY person in the entire series who thinks it matters that they're people; that it's fucked up to have been taught that killing them in front of him as a small child was unremarkable; who feels uncomfortable with ordering them around and is worried about getting one of them in trouble; who questions the ideology he grew up in that said otherwise; is a deluded, naive, easily-manipulated, selfish race traitor who is treated with rabid murderous hatred for it for the rest of his life.

they and their culture--yes, culture, we see that they have developed some of their own under the trueborns' noses--are eradicated from existence because they 'didn't know any better,' and no one bats an eyelash before or after. it's fine because without their extinction they'd eradicate everyone else. and the method of their creation, both knowledge and resources, is lost.

there will never be another living vatborn again.

all of this is true, say the writers. all of this is fine. and to that i say: does any of that rhetoric sound familiar?

like. honestly, there are some REALLY strong foils and parallels to be made between the loric and the vatborn, right down to the scars versus the tattoos:

(which, of course, no one has jack shit to say about. in the slightest. then or ever. ���)

what they should have done--and i don't mean 'here's a way they might have handled it,' i mean the only thing they could have done, period--to make any of the protagonists actually decent people would have been to make them have a massive group-wide crisis the INSTANT they found out what the vatborn are. that should have been one of THE central conflicts in the series from that point forward. 'we are having to slaughter child soldier slaves, who have no choice in the matter, en masse in self-defense. we have no idea how to make it stop without letting ourselves be overrun. we have been doing this for a long time and we never even knew. fuck. jesus fuck' should absolutely fucking haunt a good majority of your protagonists, even if it takes until after the war when survival mode disengages for it to hit, or else you have a cast full of just plain evil cunts and i am not going to root for them no matter how many planets they save. fuck that.

like. for all the writers and characters hammer on about how ~we're not like them uwu,~ they ARE. the perspective we're meant to sympathize with IS the mogadorians, just reskinned with craft-beer-and-brick-pizza-ovens-appreciate-nature-uwu neoliberal fascism instead of ham-handed right-wing stereotypes.

(which, the 'respect for the planet and nature' thing? bullshit. the entity colonizes and terraforms the ENTIRE EARTH. it does this without asking a single ass human if they're okay with it; marina even points this out, which is immediately dismissed lol. the entity destroys pretty much the entire fossil record of the earth, all the way down. the writers don't give a fuck about respecting or preserving nature. it's just a cover for the sky-high platter of genocidal ecofascism they're trying to push through.)

one of the central themes of lorien legacies is supposed to be 'mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living.' and one of, again, the central conflicts of the series from RoS onward should have been the moral dilemma of realizing that the vatborn are some of the living to fight like hell for, and having no fucking idea how to do that without giving everything else up for lost. instead the moral becomes 'fight like hell for the living, as long as they look enough like me and aren't Icky and i don't have any personal baggage about them, and also as long as they came out of a vagina.'

and like. the really insidious thing about how they frame the mogs versus everyone else--how they try to excuse and distract you from the evil shit the protagonists and their buddies say and do--is that they go 'well i mean sure, they're racist and ableist and genocidal and [laundry list of awful], and have less than no basic fucking decency or compassion toward the Acceptable Group of People, but also they're kind and caring and heroic and nice to other people!' whereas the mogs read as the authors having looked up a Traits of Fascist Societies checklist to hammer into their story without actually understanding how fascism works.

actual fascist societies aren't cartoonishly hateful, joyless, loveless, and sadistically rubbing their hands together over their Evil Plotting on every level of society, every day, with everyone around them. like. it doesn't fucking happen. i don't care how cultish it is, i don't care how rabidly hateful you can whip a movement up to be, you can fuck a society and its norms up horrifically but you CANNOT do that with 99% total success rate on that scale. you know what happens with actual fascism? with hate groups, with colonialism, with genocide?

most of them are, in some aspects of their lives, 'good people.' they pet puppies, they're loving spouses and parents, they're kind and respected members of their community. i'm nice, they think. i'm a Good Person. i care.

and they are completely caught off guard when they are held accountable for the other things they did with their lives, because it doesn't fucking matter how many puppies you pet when you make yourself complicit in genocide. you extend basic human decency to your family and people you happen to find likeable and acceptable, and none of whom you have emotional baggage toward as a group? cool motive, still a war criminal, still blood on your hands.

which, by the way, is another vile thing they try to push through here. 'i'm racist because muh war trauma so i get a blank check to commit atrocities, cut me some slack' is, y'know. famously not a justification used for any horrific mass war crimes in countries invaded by, say, the U.S. in the last few decades alone. vietnam? iraq? are those some kind of chopped liver?

and the fact that they try to hide this shit behind 'well they're genocide survivors and teenagers, you can't expect them to be mature about their war trauma 🥺' is just contrived bullshit to get away with this rhetoric, which is even more obvious when every now and then they try to act like the characters are in their mid-20s or something instead of, you know. 15-18. teenagers are not the ones making these calls irl, pal. they're not the ones devising war tactics or taking out tons of people by themselves in one go. they're not the ones making legislation about what to do with the enemies after the war. are there garde who have to wear a bikini for their photosynthesis legacy too, by any chance

(this is an ESPECIALLY bad look in the context of the vietnam war in particular, considering how frighteningly, violently, genocidally racist these books are toward every fucking east asian country in their line of sight lmao. like holy shit dude it's BAD and this is just another shit in the bucket)

(ETA: HOLY SHIT WOW THE VIETNAM PARALLEL MAKES THE THING WITH JOHN CATCHING A LARGE CONCENTRATION OF MOGS OFF GUARD TO INCINERATE THEM ALL WITH HIS FLAMETHROWER POWERS--BECAUSE 'NOW THEY KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE CAUGHT BY SURPRISE,' NO LESS--SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE EL EM AY OH)

anyway yeah, despite supposedly being a critique of fascism these books are fascist as shit, and it is impossible for me to look at the protagonists being Caring and Compassionate, and Fighting for Peace and Justice and Preservation of All Things Good in the World, without just seeing this:

as usual i have many, many more thoughts about this, and as usual they are for other posts because this one is hella long already, but tl;dr the vatborn deserved better and are pretty much the perfect distillation of why my approach to this series' authors and what they are trying to communicate with their story is 'stay back slut' lmao

[wolgraugorimilir]

Context: I got into an argument with some friends about the history of racism. I thought I would share this write up I sent to the chat. I hope if any historians or other interested parties will correct any mistakes! Here is what I said:

I sat on it and I can better express why it’s important split hairs about using the word ‘racism’ to describe ancient conflicts

I think it’s basically about being hopeful about the future

It's also that ~I’ve been reading about the 1800s lately and I’m gonna Infodump™ about whatever history I’ve been fucking with~

My thesis:

“Racism is not an accurate way to describe ancient conflicts, including conflicts that were motivated by ethnic differences”

This is because racism is a specific word to describe a specific ideology which did not exist before the development of racial sciences in the 1600s (that is, the categorization of humans into ‘races’ like ‘sub-species’). (In fact, the etymology of the word 'race' being used in this way dates back to 1774, and the first use of the word meaning "people of common descent" is found in the 1560s.)

Then, racism is unequal ~systemic~ treatment based on the perceived superiority and inferiority of racial groups, which did not exist before they were constructed in the 1600s, and which we know does not have a basis in reality. It’s a ~social construct~

So is this just a matter of semantics?

Well, sure. But if we can divorce the construct of racism from ancient ethnic conflicts, we can much better understand the motivation behind these conflicts.

For example, Egyptians raided Nubian villages, then captured and enslaved Nubians and shipped them across the sea to work in their (Egypt's) colonies in Canaan

Is this the same as chattel slavery?

It seems like it, but the major difference is that Egyptians recognized that Nubians were ~people~. Further, there was no widespread systemic oppression of Nubians in Egypt due to physical differences.

So were Egyptians racist toward Nubians? I don’t think so. The oppression of Nubians was conducted through the mechanic of ~violent imperialism~. This is also widespread today, and is closely tied to the mechanic of racism today, but it is not the same thing.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so much of a comfort to an enslaved ancient Nubian, but I think it is a significant difference

Now, why do I care about this? Aside from generally being very interested in history?

Because: if this particular facet of post-enlightenment western culture present around the world today (i.e. racism) ~really is~ universal, than there really isn’t a good future for us. We will make the same mistakes forever and most people in the world will always suffer unequal treatment.

But if it really is just a strange cultural idiosyncrasy that’s been around for just 400 years (which seems to be the case based on a lot of history I’ve been reading) then it’s just a fucked up phase we can grow out of, and now there’s a hazy and somewhat better future on the horizon.

I don’t believe there is such a thing as Inherent Human Nature, except that we all want to eat good food. Historically, cultures and ideas have been RADICALLY different (I can’t stress enough how different), and they always change.

Octavia Butler says God is change. It’s a metaphor, or something, but I really like that.

[brothermoth]

Hey this is a fucking ridiculous thing to say????

First of all you are absolutely correct in bringing up sexual abuse of enslaved people which was prolific and perpetrated by both men and women within American society (I'm not well versed enough to comment on slavery elsewhere but I do know that the dynamic and lack of consent is universal).

But this is literally Kellogg "masturbation is evil" christofascist shit. This is not an appropriate or correct way to interpret the systemic abuse of enslaved people, not to mention it's very dehumanizing of the victims. The issue was that they were enslaved and could not consent to sexual acts with free people. They were victims of an abusive system and abusive people, not human sexuality.

Comparing people who turned to sex work to support themselves to people who had zero option to consent is absolutely fucking abhorrent. Inappropriate. You should be ashamed to have typed that. Sex workers gave consent. They should not have been in that situation in the first place mind you, but in taking payment and willingly engaging with a client they are consenting to a sexual act. An enslaved person being sexually abused was unable to give any form of consent. To say otherwise trivializes the assault of sex workers.

A sex worker who is not able to give consent and is forced into a sexual act has been a victim of sexual assault and/or rape.

Sexual freedom was not mentioned literally anywhere when slavery was abolished (abolished where? You don't say but I'm American so I will assume America like a douchebag). Mfer you think they were passing legislation on sexual liberation in the fucking 1860s????? Be so fr.

It was taboo for slavers to have any form of sex with their slaves during literally the entirety of the transatlantic slave trade (we're talking chattel slavery. In places like ancient Greece it was different, but so was the process of slavery). Thomas Jefferson was a rapist, we know this. He denied ever touching Sally Hemmings to the point where literally very few people ever even spoke about it. The sexual abuse happened mostly behind closed doors. A good portion of victims were men and boys, and their abuse was at the hands of the "lady of the house" whose job was management of the enslaved people within the household.

Don't spout this goddamn nonsense again. It's disgraceful to lie about very real and very horrific historical events just because you think sexuality is evil. The end of slavery gave those people the ability to fucking consent.

"I don't think people should have a right to sexual expression" neither did slavers you red hot throbbing cunt.

Do some goddamn reading. Assault has ALWAYS been about power. Prisoners of war, enslaved people....they were assaulted because it made their oppressors powerful. It was a degrading act that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the very natural expression of human sexuality.

"porn brain" is a far right conspiracy theory, misogyny in porn is a result of structural societal misogyny and not the cause of it, the way to help sex workers is decriminalization and worker's rights, banning sexual expression is fascist. i will not be taking questions at the time.

[unbakehisbeans]

The whole thing with Yuval and Madiswan on TikTok bugs me so much in so many ways because there's, on either end of the public response, a misunderstanding of what even happened, and people are extrapolating this to air their own grievances rather than having a more productive conversation about the very interesting thing that actually happened or the actually very good point that Maddiswan made about how we narrate history.

What seems to have happened, and my perspective here is informed by Yuval's apology and explanation, is that he was triggered and as a result misunderstood what Maddie was saying entirely. And I think this is, in part, because she did mess up by opening the video by saying that the reason why we think of the Holocaust as the worst atrocity ever is because "Israel paid for it." I do think that this is antisemitic language and it's also not accurate, and she does clarify and apologize later. But I don't think I'd say that she is an antisemite anymore than I'd say Yuval is racist even though his initial response was absolutely racist, it's racist to say that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity because it happened in a "civilized" place, it's racist to say that chattel slavery wasn't as bad.

I think its understandable that he was triggered, but his response was racist and also doesn't engage with what Madiswan was actually saying. Because she never says that the Holocaust wasn't 'that bad,' she never says that another atrocity was worse, she's actually very good here about not saying that any one atrocity was worse than another. And she's not talking about how bad the actual events of the Holocaust were or were not, she's talking about the historical narrative of atrocities, she's talking about how we tell the story afterward, what that story is and how we construct it from the records we have.

Yuval misunderstands her entirely and makes the entire issue about how bad the Holocaust was, and in so doing he kind of proves her point. He implies that the transatlantic slave trade wasn't as bad because it occurred over a much longer period of time and because it could be justified by the demands of the economy whereas the Holocaust was concentrated into only 4 years of extreme and unjustifiable brutality. But that's not true on either account because it wasn't just 4 years and they very much did justify it at the time. It came off the heels of so much colonial expansion which was justified by the economic benefit (to the colonizers), it was justified by eugenics and scientific racism. And by reducing those justifications to "just" hatred is wrong and reductive, and the implication of what he's saying is that if you can justify an atrocity with a "better" reason than "just" hatred, then that makes the atrocity less bad.

I think this does an extreme disservice to both the memory and understanding of the Holocaust and to the transatlantic slave trade and every other atrocity as well. Because we're treating the Holocaust as an extreme 4 year anomaly as though it's a single event that happened out of nowhere, which isn't true, and that's part of Madiswan's point, her point was that we miss the ability to even see what led up to the Holocaust and therefore we also miss the lead up to any other atrocity. She's not comparing how bad one thing was to how bad another was, she’s comparing how we've narrativized different atrocities differently and recommending that we learn about things thematically instead of as individualized events with distinct start and end points and the distinct body counts associated with that specific time span. And this makes perfect sense to me even with the Holocaust because I find it very strange and inaccurate to say that it started in 1941 and lasted only 4 years, because the genocide had already begun several years earlier, well before 1941.

Like, part of what marks the difference in how we talk about chattel slavery versus how we talk about the Holocaust is that we ignore the mundane violence that leads up to and allows for the spectacular (as in literal spectacle) violence of something like the Holocaust, and the history of chattel slavery is centuries of mundane violence. We don't think of the Holocaust as beginning in 1933 because the violence and bigotry between 1933 and 1938 was mundane and legislative, its stuff we see all the time and its normal to us. The surrounding violence is built into our lives so much that it seems normal amd unremarkable. And it's the same reason why the ordinary violence of the occupation went so unnoticed by so many of you until it erupted into the current spectacular violence we see against Palestinians right now.

But the mundane ordinary violence that we've made invisible and normal by building it into our lives, physically building it into the environments that we live in is also violence and also genocidal. It makes more sense to say that the Holocaust was a four year period in a larger genocide that began in 1933 at the latest.

Like, it's really telling that we think of the Holocaust as only lasting in the 4 years between 1941 and 1945 and that we think of the 6 million jews killed during that 4 year span, when the actual scale of violence was much larger both in terms of time and deaths. More than 12 million people were killed, and why do we not consider 1938 or even 1933 as the starting point? Or even earlier, right? It's not like violence and persecution against jews popped out of nowhere in 1933, 1938, or 1941. And I also think there's a lot of value in not starting with 1933 but actually conceptualizing the preceding era of colonialism as the start of the genocide, with 1933-1945 and beyond as all part of the same genocidal project not limited to Germany at all.

I think of it as being somewhat analogous to how much easier it is to prove a single act of violence in the courtroom than it is to prove an entire relationship's worth of abuse. You have more concrete evidence, a specific and discreet victim and a specific and discreet perpetrator, and a definite start and end. Whereas, if you're trying to litigate an abusive relationship you typically don't have these concrete details. When did the abuse start? You might be able to point to the earliest violent indicident you can remember, but is that the start? You probably can't name a specific date or incident that marked the beginning of the abuser isolating you from your friends and family, and you won't have concrete evidence for the vast majority of the abuse.

And the analogy of domestic violence I'm using serves a dual purpose here for me because part of the issue at hand is how we litigate any and all violence, and this juridical approach we take, even talking about these things casually or in learning about history, is itself part of the problem because it renders so much violence acceptable or invisible. Like, if you don't consider the years between 1933 and 1940 to be part of the genocide, then where is the line, at what point do things become "bad enough" in your eyes?

And if you're taking and accepting this juridal approach where you can only say that the genocide was that 4 year span that is the Holocaust, you can only do that after the fact. You can only litigate after the crime has occurred.

But Yuval's response and later apology are also really interesting because he was initially triggered and very hung up on the idea of comparison, and he talks in the apology about how this was absolutely white fragility on his part because he was so blinded by his own discomfort. When people say that you shouldn't compare the Holocaust to another atrocity, it always sounds like what they're saying is that you shouldn't rank atrocities by how "bad" they are because this is reductive and offensive and just impossible--which is true. But that's often not what they really mean. In this case, Yuval says that you shouldn't compare chattel slavery to the Holocaust because the Holocaust is the worst thing to ever happen and it's offensive to compare it to chattel slavery, and his reasoning IS THE EXACT HISTORICAL NARRATIVE MADDIE WAS TALKING ABOUT, it's because it annihilated 6 million people in 4 years and those people were civilized Europeans in civilized Europe. Often the reason why people say you shouldn't compare is really because they think that the victims are incomparable. And again, she did not make that comparison--he did. She wasn't talking about the historical events, she was talking about how we tell those stories.

And I haven't even gotten to the important missing piece here which was sort of the crux of what Maddiswan was saying which is the difference in how these different atrocities were recorded, the actual documentation. And part of this is obviously a technological issue because we didn't have cameras and the printing press had just been invented (or not yet invented depending on when you set the start date) at the start of the slave trade. But she makes the point that this genocide was so thorough and systematic that the vast majority of our records of slavery come from the enslavers, and the dehumanization of Black people is so thorough that we can only get very rough estimates of the number of casualties through ledgers of transactions. And this isn't to say that one thing is worse than another, the point of talking about the records and documentation we have is to point out how the narratives come to be so different. It's very different to see a bill of sale of a person, it looks and reads like it could just as easily be for any commodity. That's very different from reading firsthand accounts from victims of the Holocaust or seeing photographs.

But this isn't just a difference of available technology because photos and journals and ledgers of transactions don't just preserve themselves, we have to make that decision to preserve them. And the point is that which records we choose to either preserve or neglect and destroy implies a value judgment which then makes up the way we view and tell the story after the fact.

So it's important that we only get the WPA slave narrative archival project starting in 1936, which is 75 years after the Civil War. So all of the interviewees were very young children when they were enslaved, very old at the time they were interviewed, and millions amd millions of people had already died with no records of their lived experience. And this tells us, crucially, that the US government which perpetrated the atrocity of slavery, did not value or want records of that atrocity from enslaved people until 1936, again that is 75 years later. And in that intervening time, Black people were kept systematically impoverished and uneducated and therefore their means of preserving their own records would be limited. So it's not just that it just so happens that there aren't preserved records and that explains the gaps in our historical narrative, it's that certain records were systematically destroyed and preservation was selective and systematically suppressed.

And this is true of the Holocaust too, Nazis also destroyed records, selectively preserved others, and prevented some records from being preserved. But immediately following the Holocaust much more effort was made to collect and preserve the record of it, and this implies that it's valuable and that the lived experience of the victims is valuable. But not all of it, because like I mentioned before we think of the six million deaths between 1941 and 1945 specifically, which means that we do not value the preceeding violence from 1933 to 1940 and we do not value the other six million+ lives, or at least not enough to include them in the story.

[possumcollege]

These things always remind me that anti-vagrancy laws almost universally arise from a ruling class being absolutely terrified of poor people having free time. Or in America's case after the Civil War, from the need to make sure very cheap prison labor could offset the loss of chattel slavery. The history of policing in the Southern US is rooted in slave patrols, which aside from hunting enslaved people who escaped, were allowed to arrest and sell free blacks into slavery if they didn't have any apparent means of employment, often on charges of vagrancy or loitering. The language of the laws usually gives away the game by boiling the offense down to, "being in public without an apparent lawful purpose." The difference between a picnic and vagrancy can be whether you look like you have the option of eating indoors.

Cops spend most of their time loitering, but they can claim to be employed to stand around looking. You can't argue with them because they're allowed to arrest you and you can't arrest them no matter how little they're actually doing. "You're on your way to work? Doesn't look like it to Officer Me, so get in the car! Is it your job to sit here, looking at birds? Then go back to a place where you either earn or spend money, ya bum!"

They can jam you up for doing nothing because doing nothing is a convenient crime to grab someonee for when you're the type of person that folks with power don't like.

There's a rich-ass tradition of social theory in which physical work is essentially the only way to prove that you're worth a damn (if you don't own land), and idleness isn't just a gateway to sin, but a sin in itself. A significant proportion of the US Abolitionist movement were adamant that newly freed slaves would succumb to laziness and vice without some kind of mandatory employment and were instrumental in shaping these vagrancy laws. It's a disturbing fact that we don't hear much about in history classes. Work farms, and chain gangs were thought of as necessary means to control a population that would be adrift and directionless without guidance from more industrious (white) hands. Between that and Jim Crow laws, free black people were essentially fucked on both fonts.

It carries on today, slightly removed from the overt eugenic elements, but the spirit is the same: people who aren't generating value aren't welcome. You're only safe if you look like you belong here. It doesn't matter what you're doing if the person controlling the space decides to enforce it, because the sign or the law is there to protect the rights of someone more powerful than you to make you go away.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Why is every time I get interested in a genre I find out it’s built on a bunch of horrible stuff ? Now I have to find something besides westerns & scrap those ideas. What about if the frontier was only formerly inhabited, any previous peoples long dead by the time the frontier gets there & have it where people are trying to figure out why they all died ? That’s probably not any better, just bad in a different way though isn’t it ? Thanks anyway for answering

Heavy Topics: History is Written in Blood

Friend, let me share a lesson that you pick up very early on if you end up studying the humanities: As long as there have been humans, everything we have accomplished has been built on a scaffolding of exploitation and atrocity, meaning that there is nothing we can conceive of that is not in some way informed by one tragedy or another.

The reason I bring up these harsh realities in the context of d&d is because I want to tell stories that highlight the very real evils of the world and show how they can be overcome, how they come to be in the first place, and how our losses in the pursuit of a better world carry some meaning in the face of what seems like an insurmountable task.

Likewise, when I write things like Heavy Topics or Monsters Reimagined. It's because I want to pinpoint what I think is a harmful idea that has slipped in under the radar of gamers and creatives alike. In my time around the table I've met one too many people who want games where they're allowed to slaughter goblins wholesale, only to later develop some pretty yikes opinions when topics like immigration, poverty, or gender came up. I'm not saying that d&d is inherently xenophobic, but that the veneer of fantasy gives people with xenophobic beliefs a space where they're able to scratch their hateful itch by contriving scenarios in which they're the good guys. People being assholes "because its what my character would do" are just assholes that have found themselves an excuse, the same way people who are misogynistic or rapey "for historical accuracy" are just creeps that think they've found a place. If you'd like an example take a look at the ongoing saga of the conservative who keeps asking me to give him an excuse to beat up antifa.

To return to the topic of Westerns: I don't blame anyone for wanting to strap on some six guns, spurred boots, and a bad accent while having themselves a good time. Westerns are fun and corny and at times poignant, and they make a useful creative springboard when building a new setting. That said, the key to being able to enjoy anything historical or historically inspired is to be very open about who the bad guys were, and not paint their abuses as justified.

You could for instance, have a setting deeply inspired by the pre-war south, provided you made sure to paint the analogs for the antebellum gentry as villains (ignorant or otherwise) for their perpetuation of the monstrous institution of slavery. What you should NOT do is create a fantasy-analog slave race that deserves to be chattel because of its own savage inferiority, and have your party as heroic slavecatchers that go around defending the white race civilization.

Plan your western, my friend. Make it as gritty and absurdly bombastic as you think your players can tolerate. Just make sure to focus the camera on the real goodguys; the poor, the desperate, the wronged, and the compassionate. Give your world the scars it deserves, the cruelties and atrocities that parallel our own tragedies, so when your players prevent the next massacre or injustice they can fight back against the hopelessness in their own lives.

That's why we tell stories about heroes after all, to imagine a world and a future where we don't make the same mistakes as our past.

Art