#you're a victim of being in war media

[finiteuniverse13]

what if you gave it all

to find that it wasn't enough

what if under the gaze of all

you come short when the going gets rough?

hozier makes me feel feelings about sas:rh part 4!

hozier part 1 part 2 & part 3

noah kahan part 1 & part 2

[eenochian]

it’s very funny how this fandom suddenly cares so much about sensitivity, meanwhile no one was up in arms about folks calling valeria shit like “cartel mommy” and simping for her. and, if you point this out, you get told that it’s “less important” or incomparable. way to tell victims of cartel violence that they don’t matter. y’all can’t preach about sensitivity and mindfulness while doing the exact opposite of that.

sensitivity is something that needed to be brought up a long time ago. people need to be mindful about the content they’re engaging with and producing. COD and its characters are based on very real issues and very real situations, mindfulness is needed for every single character.

seeing this only be brought up in the context of makarov and graves is honestly so, so frustrating. they’re not the only problematic characters that you need to consider when making content. western militaries like the US and UK are incredibly controversial and have devastated vulnerable people and their countries. price, ghost, soap, gaz— any member of the military, especially the special forces, is problematic. they’re not good people and should not be treated like saints, nor should they be idolized for what they do.

that all being said, the concepts of “be mindful and sensitive when making content” and “let people enjoy problematic media” can absolutely, 100%, co-exist. art is not meant to be a paradigm of moral goodness, it has always been a medium for people to explore things that are considered "taboo" in a safe space. there's a reason why "dead dove: do not eat" exists as a genre – with proper warning and precautions put in place, people can explore darker topics. for some, it's morbid interest. for others, it's a way of coping with trauma and experiences they've had in real life.

i want to repeat this just to make it very clear: be mindful and sensitive with the content you're producing. do not romanticize topics that should not be painted in a good light. don't minimize the impact of characters' actions or act like people are in the wrong for being uncomfortable with them. in this fandom especially, people treat atrocities like jokes because we're becoming desensitized to them. it's up to every individual to ensure that they don't forget how impactful a lot of this stuff is in real life. war is not a joke. terrorism is not a joke. people dying is not a joke. do not romanticize any of these things in your content, even if you're exploring the different sides of the people behind these things.

humanize the characters all you want. horrible people are still people, after all. humans are not one-dimensional beings. humanize them, but do not romanticize them.

be kind to victims, be sensitive, and be mindful about what you engage with. no one is perfect, no thing is perfect, but we can always do better. we need to approach every topic through this lens instead of picking and choosing who to support. everyone is deserving of it, everyone is entitled to basic respect. we don't need to compete and argue over who has it worse, we just need to be better across the board. support real victims. don't let media warp your perceptions of reality. be conscious of the content you make and consume.

[sysmedsaresexist]

The Big "Is RAMCOA Antisemitic?" Debunk Post

Because I have to stay relevant, here we go

Let's start with a little speech. A bit of positivity.

You know, there is something good to said about this RAMCOA antisemitism discourse. The majority don't seem to be falling for it at all, and many are becoming more educated about the panic, RAMCOA/OEA and its history (the good and the bad) than ever before

RAMCOA/OEA a very real issue that deserves awareness and advocacy, and so far, I've noticed a massive surge in members of the community researching the ISSTD and the OEA sig's work.

It has brought antisemitism into light in a way that hasn't really been talked about on a large scale in system communities, and most don't know ever existed. Many, genuinely, had no idea that the satanic panic was antisemitic in these ways, and it's putting a lot of pieces together and adding a lot of context that'll help us grow and be better people going forward.

It's been really nice seeing such a positive shift to open, educational conversations, with people genuinely wanting to know the truth and unlearn harmful associations.

SAS stands with RAMCOA and OEA survivors.

So let's get into it.

SRA and The Memory Wars, lasting results

SRA started with Michelle Remembers, a book, in 1980. It resulted in thousands of unsubstantiated claims of abuse, daycare hysteria, set CDD research and OEA abuse back decades, affected millions, and to this day conjures images of cloaked figures sacrificing children.

The ISSTD was formed in 1984, amid the panic, with the goal of quickly developing an effective treatment and documenting the disorder as thoroughly as possible. Many mistakes were made. Clinicians aren't immune to societal panics, and lessons were learned the hard way.

I think an important distinction that many have forgotten is that the ISSTD's principal controversy isn't SRA. SRA didn't start or end with the ISSTD.

While the “Satanic Panic” played out in courts and in mass media, the ISSTD entered “The Memory Wars”, and it's this that they're most controversial for. False, implanted, and fostered memories weren't solely related to SRA. It was used to discredit all types of abuse and violence and is still used to this day to silence victims.

By the 1990s, therapists were being sued, licenses were being revoked, and members were fleeing the ISSTD. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation wouldn't be created for another couple of years, but that doesn't mean its founding members weren't already wreaking havoc.

The FMSF would be created in 1992, and their bigger and better attacks on therapists were brutal and persistent. The legal battles would be especially effective at causing therapists to refuse to work with victims of abuse.

Research on ritual abuse, CDDs, and repressed memories came to a grinding halt.

The Satanic Panic eventually fell into relative silence by 1995, but false memories lived on, loud and cruel.

The FMSF would eventually begin to write college textbooks for the next generation of clinicians. It would survive until 2019.

The ISSTD is still trying to regain its membership. It's only recently that they reached 1500, the highest since 1993.

Antisemitism, blood libel, and the satanic panic

If you're confused about how everything is related, I'm going to make it very simple so you grasp the basic idea.

This is not a history lesson.

Blood Libel, or ritual murder, is the idea that Jewish people sacrificed Christian children in religious rituals. Cloaked figures performing rituals and killing children and animals. The same thing you picture when you think of Satanists and rituals.

For those who recognize the connection (racists), this fuels their sentiments and creates a language for them to speak to each other.

It is true, a basic fact, that for many people, Satanists are anyone who doesn't worship the Christian god. Including and especially Jewish people.

SRA and RAMCOA

Depending on who you ask, the connection is either that:

MYTH: the ISSTD originally called their RAMCOA sig (Special Interest Group) the SRA sig. FACT: The RAMCOA sig, one of twelve ISSTD sigs, was created in 2008. There was never any kind of satanic ritual abuse group or association within the ISSTD.

FACT: Ritual abuse, the RA in RAMCOA, still has ties to SRA and brings to mind everything from the panic. ALSO FACT: That's why the ISSTD has renamed it to the OEA sig.

Hopefully we're all on the same page now.

Who's Grey Faction?

Grey Faction is a group of the TST (The Satanic Temple) and is closely related to the FMSF. While the FMSF generally attacked all types of abuse, GF, being related to Satanism, is focused on recovered memories and the (still alive) satanic panic. They believe that all reports of false memories supports satanic panic conspiracy theories. They continue the FMSF's work.

How did we get here?

Well, TST and GF are on reddit. Syscringe is on reddit. And now syscringe is here.

This is what syscringe bot says every time RAMCOA is brought up.

That link goes to Grey Faction.

So is RAMCOA Antisemitic?

Kind of yeah. It was a really good move of the ISSTD to change the name to OEA sig. They talk about the association on their website and stated they wanted to get away from that. No one won the satanic panic. Ritual abuse is real, but its history is tainted.

The discourse around RAMCOA isn't about helping Jewish people. At least, not for the people pushing the false connection that the ISSTD started and continues to maintain the panic to this day.

It's about discrediting the ISSTD and the trauma theory. It's about silencing victims, even Jewish survivors.

It's about ignoring that the ISSTD is making moves in the right direction.

It's about continuing the idea that false memories exist and that trauma memories can't be trusted or taken at face value. It's about downplaying the depravity of abusers and the lengths they'll go to.

I want to finish this post with a letter from a very dear friend. It's not a mod on this blog, simply someone wishing to stay anonymous.

Uplift Jewish Voices

Hello, I’m Noam, an ethnic and religious Jew. I face antisemitism on the daily and deal with having DID. I am not a RAMCOA survivor, but I have a number of friends who are. Today I’m here to talk about the recent discourse going around regarding whether claiming to have RAMCOA experiences is inherently antisemitic. TLDR: no.

Let’s start with understanding why people think this. The term ritual abuse originated from the term satanic ritual abuse and is often associated with the satanic panic. The satanic panic in the 80s and 90s was extreme and yes, did involve a lot of antisemitic conspiracy theories. People would suggest certain symbols or music or groups of people (often vague, or calling it a nationwide conspiracy) were “brainwashing” these “good Christian children” into satanic practices or straying from rigid Christianity. Jews are often stereotyped as Satanic, controlling things, and murdering and cannibalizing children/babies.

Ritual abuse nowadays is often still associated with Satanic cults, but it has a much broader and less accusatory definition in medical/therapeutic spaces. Per Schröder et al. (2018), “ritual abuse occurs when a religious, political, or spiritual authority uses its position of power and the sovereignty to interpret the respective belief system to manipulate and dominate its followers.” Some examples include repeated forced creation of CSEM, religious and other types of cults (yes, including satanic, but also Christian and other religions), and being forced to abuse others (Schröder et al., 2018). Trafficking is also a type of organized abuse. We know these types of abuses happen. But given the history of RA as a term and the harm claims of SRA caused, how does one determine whether something is a conspiracy theory or actual trauma someone experienced?

This page by the European Commission does a good job of talking about identifying conspiracy theories and the harm they do. I won’t recount the whole thing, but here are some basic things they state conspiracy theories have in common: a secret plot, a group of conspirators, unfounded/unreliable evidence, suggesting everything is connected, dividing the world into good people and bad people, and scapegoating certain groups (“Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” 2020).

What makes (many) stories of RAMCOA different from antisemitic conspiracy theories? I’m glad you asked!

• The secret plot in conspiracy theories often involves a large group of people in on some secret changing something about the world or identifying a secret thing that must have happened to lead to unfortunate current events. RAMCOA tends to stem from people or organizations working on a much smaller scale, and the things they are doing mostly affect the person/people experiencing this abuse. Abusers may try to instill in victims a sense that they control a lot about the world and the events that happen within it, but they don’t.

• A big question I like to ask people who spout conspiracy theories is “who is they (the group of conspirators)?” If they is some generic big bad, the government, “elites” (see the AJC’s Translate Hate Glossary section titled “cosmopolitan elite”), or vague and unknown, it’s usually a dogwhistle for Jews. The person themselves may not realize this, but perhaps they never looked further into the evidence behind these accusations and who those being accused are. RAMCOA perpetrators are not vague to their victims. They often have familial ties or other close relationships with them that allow the abusers to gain their victims’ trust (Schröder et al. 2018). The things they do to abuse people and the methods they use are not vague or mysterious actions to achieve an end. There are specific actions and tactics that cults and authority figures use for RAMCOA.

• Whether evidence is unfounded is a harder thing to distinguish, since many survivors of RAMCOA cope using dissociation or have an amount of dissociative amnesia around traumatic events (Shröder 2018). The Europe Commission suggests three main things to check for in regards to evidence about a claim. Who is the author and why are they writing this? Is the source reliable/reputable? Is the tone and style “balanced and fair or sensationalist and one-dimensional?” (“Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” 2020). I also like to think about, especially with regards to abuse survivors, if this is a conspiracy theory, why are they telling me the things they’re telling me? Most RAMCOA survivors I’ve met avoid talking about their trauma and are more focused on figuring out if what they experienced is real and how to heal from it. They are not trying to convince me of something; they are just sharing their story and looking for support.

• RAMCOA victims I’ve talked to, particularly those with DID, also have a more complex view of their abusers or are trying to come to terms with all the bad things someone they admired, trusted, and/or loved did. Conspiracy theorists tend to separate people into conspirators or innocents. There is no middle ground. Healing for a lot of abuse victims involves realizing that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things; the world is not black and white.

• Scapegoating often involves generalizing and demonizing certain people or groups of people. I find a lack of seeing these “others” as human or wanting anything other than a single, unified goal. It also tends to involve assumptions much more than any personal experience. Anyone with even the slightest connection to a certain ideology is evil. RAMCOA often involves many victims, many of whom understand that other people involved with the organization that hurt them are also victims or have been scared or brainwashed into further perpetuating abuse.

• Also, while satanic panic was largely about going against Christianity, many religious cults are associated with particular sects or communities within Christianity, and they use certain ideologies within the group to deter people from leaving or reporting abuse. Perpetrators claim some sort of punishment or betrayal will be involved in these actions.

Anyways, I want to put emphasis on healing in RAMCOA survivors, where many of the points and purposes of conspiracy theories are antithetical to such a process. People should be allowed to find support, community, and reliable resources about what they have gone through (if it is physically/mentally safe for them to do so). Please do not insist that these traumas aren’t real on the basis of antisemitism from the satanic panic. The survivors I’ve met who talk about parts of their trauma are working hard to come to terms with it themselves and how to cope, and while they may be angry and upset towards their abusers, they do not try to insist to me how evil a group is and that there is a need to take direct action against them. They are just trying to survive.

Now, ritual abuse as a term and the history of its use is something I think needs more discussion. I would love to see more research about how the term evolved within medical/therapeutic spaces and how much of a connection the current definition and use has to antisemitism. But regardless of what we end up calling these types of abuses, there are real examples of them and people who have empirical evidence that they have been through such experiences.

Furthermore, I have a problem with a lot of the claims of antisemitism in relation to RAMCOA coming from goyim (AKA non-Jews). You are not the authority on antisemitism. You do not get to claim to defend us while not speaking to us about the topic. There is so much antisemitism going around, but I find so few people willing to listen to Jews when we talk about the struggles we face. (The SAS mods are an example of exceptions to this. I appreciate the amount I’ve been able to talk to them and how open and supportive they are. I love y’all.) Encouraging hate and disbelief is not helpful to us. What’s helpful is doing your research and learning about how to recognize and combat antisemitism. Take your energy where it’s needed, thank you.

European Commission. (2020, August 12). Identifying conspiracy theories. European Commission. <https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en>

Gerke, J., Fegert, J., Rassenhofer, M., & Fegert, J. M. (2024). Organized sexualized and ritual violence: Results from two representative German samples. Child Abuse & Neglect, 152, 106792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106792

[sadnightforus]

THE FATED STARS (PJS)

SYNOPSIS: Park Jongseong harbors the biggest crush on one of the most popular girls on the campus, you. You, being dared by your friend group to tweet and made a boyfriend application, initially started out as a joke, thinking that no one would applied it. Upon the tweet going viral and many applications being sent in, he decided that he would shoot his shot, even if he doesn’t know a single shit about what is the sun, moon, rising in astronomy. 

GENRES: slice of life, romance, comedy

PAIRING: secret-admirer!jay x f!reader

STARRING: xdinary heroes�� gaon and jooyeon, aespa’s ningning and karina, itzy’s yeji, le sserafim’s kazuha, the whole enhypen.

WARNINGS: a lot of actual unhinged things going on, author is a bit too obsessed with astrology so you’re now forced to learn about it, cussing, some lame sexual jokes (I promised it’s lame), they all tell each other to give up and kts, reader is not jlo’s biggest fan because she’s a mariah carey’s fan. the whole band is so broke for some reason. 

A/N: SURPRISEDDDD…. tried my hands on writing smau because too much angst kills me. I hope you guys enjoy it and if you want to be in the taglist, comment on this one.

STATUS: ON-GOING

FORMAT: SOCIAL MEDIA AU

UPDATED: EVERY TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY

RELEASED DATE: 08 NOVEMBER 2023

END DATE: UNKNOWN.

ASTEROIDS

✭ INTRODUCTION/PROFILES

VICTIMS OF CAPITALISM | 7 DUCKLINGS

✭ MOST POPULAR ASTEROIDS

(001) - BOYFRIEND APPLICATION

(002) - FORM FILLED

(003) - PERSONAL OPINIONS & FAVORS

(UNCUT 003) - FIRST IMPRESSION MATTERS

(004) - CHART ANALYSIS

(005) - MEET UP (+ written)

(006) - SHE HATES ME

(UNCUT 006) - REPLY IF I SHOULD…

(007) - THOUGHTS ON ZODIAC SIGNS?

(008) - BANNED ON KAKAOTALK

(009) - KURT COBAIN’S FANSIGN

(UNCUT 009) - USERNAME CHANGES

(010) - LOSING TO IDGAF WAR

(011) - GOOD THINGS ARE COMING SOON

(012) - THE RECORD STORE HANGOUT (+ written)

(013) - TUMBLR GIRL ERA (SELF SABOTAGE)

(014.01) - BABY

(014.02) - BABY

(015) - SORRY (BUT I’LL DO IT AGAIN) (+ written)

(UNCUT 015) - THE IDOL, THE FAN

(016) - CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENT

(017) - PICKUP LINES TO USE FOR CONCERT GOERS

(018) - CONCERT'S PARADISE (+ written)

(019) - SYNASTRY AND THE SIGNS

(020) - THE COFFEE KISS (+ written)

(021) - ACCEPTING MY FATE

(022) - JEALOUSY? (+ written)

(UNCUT 022) - WHAT TYPE OF LOVER ARE YOU QUIZ

(023) - STEP UP MY GAME

(024) - THE DAY THAT YOU'RE FINALLY MINE (+ written)

(025) - I LET YOU INTO THE DARK SIDE

(UNCUT 025) - FREE CHART READING

(026) - AWKWARD ROMEO AND JUILET

(027) - COUPLE ANNOUNCEMENT

EPILOGUE 001 - TRUST FUND BABY

EPILOGUE 002 - GETTING A GIRLFRIEND IS EASY...

[hoelandah]

Since The Boys wanna make current political comparisons let's see how it stacks up:

Homelander

-raised in a lab, lied to, and dehumanized from birth to be obedient

-rants about elites who run his life (Vought, Stan Edgar, et al)

-fucked a Nazi because he's a love starved, emotionally fucked, mess of a man

-victim of capitalism

-one pretty good son

Trump

-raised in an affluent home where he was more or less seen as a person and given agency

-is the elite

-is a Nazi

-the inevitable result of late stage capitalism

-at least two fail sons

Things they have in common

-bad hair post season one

-aging rapidly

-women and minorities should steer clear (and some men, too, tbh)

(Disclaimer: this is not a Homelander endorsement just an examination of how clumsy and surface level the comparison is.)

More in depth thoughts under cut.

The Boys frustrates me so fucking bad because the writers are fumbling some potentially good political commentary by trying to be "current" and "sticking it to the conservatives." Let it be known that I myself am not conservative, not even close, but media that ham fists to make conservatives mad is just as inept as rightwing media "sticking it to the libs."

It also just...never works. They say never make your work political. This is right yet wrong. Never make you work "CURRENTLY political."

Instead, be "timeless" like Star Trek or Twilight Zone, Tolkien, Orwell, Butler, Atwood and so many more. These authors and stories give political messages that can be transposed and applied to many different places and times. They're nearly universal despite being completely fictionalized events and stories. Being "current" dates your work, it renders you so deeply partial to your point that you can't present your case objectively.

Basically, you are currently living in the mire of bullshit. You're living through actual historical events and thus you don't have a good bird's eye view of the situation. People who lived through World War II couldn't tell you the ins and outs right after it. You cannot give a full picture of the current political stage either.

And finally, the work will only reinforce those who agree (the common lib who actually isn't all that politically literate) and the people you're criticizing will just cognitive dissonance their way through or dismiss it as "woke." You, in the end, add nothing useful to the dialogue.

[tuulikki]

I really appreciate that in your response to the Spotify wrapped post, you didn’t just put, “you are not immune to propaganda”, but actually followed that up with thought-provoking questions that help clarify what that propaganda can look like. That’s really helpful and considerate and I really appreciate how kind and thoughtful your response was. It really helped me recontextualize my experience of and reaction to the misinformation post when it went around. Thank you so much

You're so, so welcome. I'm really glad it helped. If you ever have any follow-up questions or just wanna chat, hit me up

I've fallen for misinformation, propaganda, and conspiratorial thinking in my life. Probably everyone has, to some degree. But I've also been kinda obsessed with the study and analysis of it ever since, so I feel like I'm obligated to try to help people to the degree I can.

I will say, it also "helps" that I have the privilege of not being in anyone's crosshairs and not having a personal connection to the issues, other than the basic moral concerns any decent human being would have. A lot of people don't have that luxury. When people are scared and hurting, it's inhuman to demand that they overcome that and put more energy into fact-checking than do those of us with less pain.

So I guess I'll try to condense some key ideas:

Reblogging ("keep talking about this!") is harmful if it isn't accurate. Inaccuracy contributes to the fog of war, causes agony to people directly involved (they see you on social media: the internet is global!), and discredits the legitimacy of a movement.

Misinformation/disinformation blends truth with lies. Seeing one thing you know to be true next to an unverified statement will make you trust that statement.

Crises make us feel helpless and small. But it is privileging your discomfort over the pain of victims if you shy away from tackling complexity.

Sometimes it feels like a betrayal to reserve a space in yourself for doubt. But disinformation trivializes important issues. If something really matters to you, then you will want it to be accurate.

People will make good-faith inaccuracies. I will. You will. Governments/organizations will. People on the ground will. No one is omniscient. Don't double-down in support of the mistake and don't let one mistake discredit a good source.

People in pain will be duped, lie, or exaggerate. Many are seeking meaning with a greater need than you are. You must find compassion for them.

Our best instincts (justice) and worst instincts (self-righteousness) will be manipulated.

Responsibility for fact-checking falls on those of us whose distress is moral, rather than personal.

Everyone is biased. Humans always care for some people more than others. Find two opposing sources and read both: you'll find the truth somewhere between them.

Truth is a hill worth dying on.

Sorry this is a long post and maybe it's useless but I thought it was important to try

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

A 47 years old mother and her 15 years old son were seriously injured in a Hezbollah rocket attack today, aimed at the northern city of Kiryat Shmona. I'll just point out that even though the Iran-funded terrorism group always claims their attacks on Israelis are a retaliation for this or for that, they chose to open fire at Israel on Oct 7 (when this country was busy with Hamas terrorists still infiltrating it in the south), and they haven't stopped since.

I just wanted to show you what it looks like when Israel's border is being fired at, but please keep in mind that Iron Dome was only implemented in 2011, but we have been fired at by one hostile entity or another (often more than one) for a very long time. I can't remember a time when we weren't afraid of rockets being fired at us. And Iron Dome, as demonstrated again today, with all due respect to it, is like every other defence system: it's not foolproof. Any person who wouldn't accept being at the receiving end of these rocket barrages, has no right to demand that Israel continues to accept this distorted reality.

(audio: Golda Meir)

So this is a reminder that this is what Israel has been dealing with almost non-stop since Oct 7 from several fronts.

Here in Israel, we continue to follow with alarm the rise of antisemitic incidents around the globe. This time, I have to share with you this horrifying bit of news, about a Jewish student, Lahav Shapira, being beaten so badly, that he had to be hospitalized and undergo surgery for the facial injuries that he endured at the hands of an Arab (so called "pro-Palestinian") student. Police says this was following an argument over the war in Gaza, Lahav's family says he and his gf were stalked, then he was jumped, while the attacker shouted, "Why are you posting pictures of kidnapped people?" To make matters worse, this happened in Berlin, and Lahav is the grandson of an Israeli athelete who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Germany, while he was participating in the 1972 Olympic Games. Berlin's Free University's response was weak, focused on explaining that the law prevents them from expelling the attacking student.

While ignorant social media users insist that what's happening to the Palestinians is a genocide, the niece of Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh gave birth in an Israeli hospital. Her baby was born prematurely, and is taken care of in the NICU. Haniyeh has 3 sisters who married Israeli Bedouin Arabs, got Israeli citizenship through that, and live in Israel with full citizen rights. I've worked with so many victims of actual cases of genocide, and NONE went to get medical treatment from the people who were massacring them.

I've now seen Tumblr posts accusing Israel of bombing over one million people in Rafah. These are posts referring to the rescue raid, where Israeli soldiers raided one apartment, SAVED two hostages, and then left. If you're trying to save two hostages from terrorists who would kill their prisoners and themselves first, you wanna sneak in there as discreetly as possible. You wouldn't bomb an entire city. Even Hamas' false spin, blaming Israel of a massacre (and don't forget that Hamas is the organization telling the world how many died during this operation), didn't try to claim that the IDF attacked the whole population of the city. There's something insanely wrong in a reality where people on social media uncritically pass along lies that not even a terrorist organization dares to tell.

The graduating student in the cap is Matan Levi.

He studied law, and was about to have his graduation ceremony when Hamas' massacre took place. He left everything, and went south to fight as a reservist that verey day. On Oct 14, he was hit by a mortar, and when he woke up in the hospital, he discovered that he had lost his eyesight. According to his own account, that was very hard to hear, but his first thought was regarding how this won't break him, how he can move on from this. Since then, he's been accompanied by a former soldier named Amit Barel:

Amit fought and was injured in the Second Lebanon War, back in 2006. He lost his sight, too. He has since developed a career, married, and had kids. He's a part of a program where wounded former soldiers are helping those who have been recently injured to cope with their new challenges. He said that simply seeing that life is possible even with serious injuries is very helpful to a lot of the newly wounded soldiers. I thought it's inspirational, how people can put their misfortune to good use, to help others, how these new bonds and friendships get formed, so I wanted to share the story of this touching project.

But I also wanted to reflect on how Israel is a society of wounded people. Not just physically. We have the collective trauma caused by thousands of years of antisemitic persecution, including the Holocaust and the expulsion of Mizrachi Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, and we have the on going trauma caused by the continued use of violence against us in a war that was started against us in 1947, and has never really ended, whatever form it has taken at different points in time. No one has a right to speak about this conflict, unless they're willing to acknowledge this hurt, too.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[silkentine]

Camille Boucher is her father's favorite daughter. If only he wasn't born in the year 840 and turned into a vampire at the age of 45 during the Siege of Paris. You think your boomer dad isn't very woke? Imagine having one who is older than France. So, being the favorite daughter doesn't amount to much when she has several male siblings. She is, however, the only one of her many siblings who refuses to hunt and kill humans for sustenance and carries great pride in that. It's been 398 years since she's killed a human with her teeth (the bubonic plague made the whole affair very unappetizing).

Despite what you might think, being 425 years old is not easy! You try living through several wars and then see if you're willing to remember them all. Sometimes, facets of Camille's memory spring to mind and she relives the deaths of her mortal friends or lifetimes of her own personal suffering. But, hey, every twenty-something (or those who look like they're in their twenties) has mental issues these days; she's not special. It's better to just put the centuries of trauma on the back-burner most days. She has a relatively easy life otherwise; with her father having dominion over the entire Pacific Northwest, there is very little outside her reach, even if her stupid brothers get to reap most of the lucrative benefits.

Camille's hobbies include: attending college (she has far too many degrees to count, though most of them are in math), looking mysterious at coffee shops, solving puzzles, and conducting independent criminal investigations. She hates cops and avoids them at all costs. Her favorite part of the job is the thrill of investigating a case without being allowed onto the crime scene or access to forensic tools. Keeps the mind sharp.

Her newest undertaking? The Dentona Vampire, a notorious serial killer known for tearing out the throats of their victims (a bad look for the local vampires who'd prefer a more low-key media presence). The Dentona Vampire has been active for about six months now, but Camille has no real leads on who the murderer might be.

That is, until she keeps bumping into the same handsome, long-haired goon who keeps announcing himself publicly as a vampire. He honestly seems too clumsy to be a notorious serial killer, but he's the only interesting thing in her never-ending life at the moment. Even if he can't lead her to a clue about her case, it wouldn't hurt to show him the ropes and teach him how to be a more subtle creature of the night and less of a tacky Anthony Slater-type.*

*Anthony Slater is a fictional vampire and one of the primary love interests in the YA book series, The Crepuscular Saga. Everyone knows he ends up with the girl at the end of the book, but Camille preferred the boyish charm of the werewolf character, Lukas Rust, and secretly wished he'd be the end-game romance.

What's another pet project? She has all the time in the world, and it would be just terrible if her father found out someone was out there telling the humans about the existence of real vampires.

Thank you for reading my massive introduction to my character, Camille Boucher! She was a tricky personality to pin down, but her sense of filial duty and her selfish interest in detective work is the perfect combination to make an overconfident and resentful eldest daughter who refuses to grow up but knows she will never develop into her own if she doesn't. The goon she keeps bumping into is the other protagonist of this work, Bat Valentine. Find out more about him by looking at the "sanguine" tag on my blog.

Some characters that I drew inspiration from for Camille are: Nancy Drew, Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Kaylee Frye from Firefly, Nami from One Piece, and L. Lawliet from Death Note.

[ayaisokay]

The Kids Aren't Alright

* ~ I'm sorry for making this ~ *

Doomers & Fatalism

Regardless of your age, you need a reason to move forward. You need hope. Yet, it's hard to find hope for teens and young adults.

Not a year goes by without an update on the planet's decline (at our hand), wealth is only feeling more unstable and unequally distributed, a pandemic destroyed any hope of sociability for some, and social media does more harm than good when it "connects" people.

There's no true community, nothing to take pride in, there's hardly motivation for ambition or wealth. Hell, we grow up being told we'll be a generation of renters, because it's a statistical improbability than any of us will EVER afford a home without working 3 jobs into our grave.

I can't speak for America, but I know my government haven't made any real effort to prevent renter's from taking that news and slowly inflating rent costs each month.

I'm a part of the generation that is thought to deal with the broadest range of mental health concerns; however, I'm also part of the generation that's most likely to be told to "deal with it," or "grow up," by the people perpetuating our suffering, or the peers that fell victim to toxic hustle culture— enabling the shitty circumstances.

When you start adulthood with so many problems that directly impact your life, most of which come at no fault of your own, you'd hope for help in addressing those matters, but it never comes.

We're told we're lazy, we don't try hard enough, and we've got it easy (which is a demonstrable lie). How is it any surprise we became hopeless doomers? At some point you just get the idea that we were destined to fail.

Threats of War

Now we're told to be ready for World War 3 and I'm struggling to understand why. What values am I defending? Why should I die for a country that doesn't care about me?

Sure, Ukraine and Palestine are in shitty situations, but saying that doesn't require me to do anything. Though they demonstrate something: the government will risk our lives for money, and turn a blind eye to genocide if it suits them.

All that matters is that we're made to feel like our interests align. They don't represent us. They represent themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support either conflict, and I sympathise with the aforementioned nations; however, I am not willing to die for them— I don't think you are. So is it even fair for us to bother complaining? It's not like diplomacy has done a thing so far.

Whether we're roped into a war or not, it doesn't feel like we'd have a choice.

Hobbies and Corporations

Normally I'd propose finding an outlet for everything. I'm not sure that's ideal anymore. Commonplace hobbies like gaming, sports, martial arts, reading, and art, they require 3 things: time, motivation, and effort.

Thanks to hustle culture, holding 3 jobs, running a drop shipping business, and abandoning any meaningful social life is considered just enough and reasonable. That doesn't leave time for personal hobbies, entertainment, or time to actually live. A life like that is no life at all. You're an animal operating on the exclusive goal of survival. You're alive, but you're not living.

Among those of us too physically or mentally scarred to work like our peers, we compassionately took to pen and paper, or software and devices, writing stories, drawing and animating worlds, or making music.

I fear that pocket of joy is getting smaller. AI image generation has already impacted artists, AI voice recreations are already being used in place of some voice actors, and we've all seen the AI voice covers for songs— claiming "you don't need to learn to sing." It didn't take long for me to see "generative AI" being proposed as a source for track samples and stems in music production.

Considering such things, it's hard to motivate yourself to put your work out there. You struggle to justify spending time creating anything, and you're probably not ready to put the effort into producing enough algorithm optimised works per day. After all, no one will see it. No one cares.

That's how it feels.

Social Media

Maybe we still have digital spaces? Really. Are cespools like Twitter spaces you can enjoy? Even Tumblr is quite detached, with small accounts struggling to get so much as a couple likes— nevermind a reblog, and god forbid you get a comment or DM.

That's minor though, it's the relationships that bother me. The ability to lock someone out of your life, within 5 seconds, for the slightest of perceived infractions. You're sensitive and a snowflake if you need boundaries, and you're "rude" and "mean" when you're pushed too far for not establishing them.

You can join a fandom or community and run into those issues, but do you really need more trouble? Ive hung around with furries since I was 13 or 14. It wasn't a furry that SA'd me, and I've never been groomed. But as a child online, I was labelled as a dog fucking groomer (at 15), because I was in a furry community discord server. I don't like to think about how that made the young adult owner of the server feel.

Social media is good for "satirical trolls," who take pleasure in hurting as many people as they can, and then claiming it's OK because they're joking, and you should've known. Is it really worth the effort for anyone else? You know, us "normal people," not bogged down by million strong fanbases, actively managing parasocial relationships and morally questionable stalking.

Closing Statements

I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this post. I guess I'm just another girl crying on the internet when I should save it for the therapy I can't actually afford.

I want to be hopeful, to feel like there's something attainable to desire, or even just things to look forward to. It's been a long time since I woke up and felt there was a good reason to be awake or even alive.

Thanks,

- The Girl That Doesn't Exist

[qqueenofhades]

Is it normal that I’m legitimately so scared of saying pretty morally tame things like “I don’t want to talk about genocide because it makes me severely uncomfortable” or in general expressing my political opinion.

Like i’m not even kidding when I say that all my drafts are just my possibly offensive (probably not) political takes i’m just so scared of everyone leaving me it’s not even funny.

Anyway i also think that if you talk about Palestine but not Ukraine you are a victim of Russian Propaganda™️

I’m sorry I don’t know why i did this have a nice day ok baiiiiiii

Here's the thing. You and every other average social media user should not have to masquerade as a sudden in-depth expert on every single social, political, humanitarian, etc. crisis that we are dealing with in this wretchedly miserable excuse for a timeline. It should not be a baseline expectation on you that when you log onto your little social media in your little average life, you have to come up with The Correct Opinions on everything and if you don't, you're "perpetrating oppression" by not vigorously spreading misinformation, instead of simply admitting that you don't know what to do, you as an average citizen are not in a position of making this change and therefore don't actually have to spend every waking minute obsessing about it, and that maybe, just maybe, you'd like to spend more time informing yourself until and/or IF you decide you want to talk about it. This is the same as the Instagram Activists (TM) who traumatize themselves to the point of PTSD by constantly consuming torture and/or war porn and/or graphic content about murdered children because they "don't have the right to look away." Actually, you do. You are able to make choices to control your personal social media use and to set boundaries as to what you do and do not want to do and/or see, rather than insisting that the only moral choice is to literally mentally destroy yourself with all the weight of human suffering in the world and then expected to act as a de facto expert on all of it, on pain of being Cancelled. This is a stupid, irrational, unhealthy, and generally idiotic expectation. You should not have to take part in it. Nobody should.

Likewise, I think that this is a large part of why people are so scared to voice any opinion that goes against the Prevailing Groupthink: they are afraid of losing friends, of having nasty bad-faith internet trolls say mean things about them, being accused of being a "bad person," or otherwise being guilt-tripped, shamed, and blamed for not centering their entire existence around something that they cannot actually do anything about. Once again, people think the only way you can be Known to Oppose Something Problematic (tm) is if you post on social media about it all the time. Forget whatever you might be doing offline, in your real life, or otherwise; it "doesn't count" if you don't make a big virtuous display of your Rightthink, or you will be viciously harassed. Now, look, I am old and/or tired enough that I don't give a shit what stupid internet users say about me, but I can tell you that I sure did when I was younger, it was incredibly painful to be on the end of those kinds of attacks, and it's (again!) not something you should just have to expect as a baseline level of gaslighting and harassment. As I have said. This is Tumblr. It is a stupid blue website mostly for fandom and/or three in-jokes. This is not a platform where we are expected To Do Social Justice all the time, nor should it be. As for Elon Musk's Twitter: yeah. No.

Also: yes, if you do spend all your waking moments obsessing over Palestine, but say nothing whatsoever about Ukraine and/or openly support Russia, you are in fact very much a victim of Russian Propaganda and you 100% support genocide when it's done by an "anti-western" state that you support for that reason alone. You only care because you can use the cause to make yourself look morally superior, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with opposing genocide on a basic, universal, or fundamental level. The end.

(I hope you have a nice day too. The anger in this is not directed at you. I support everything you've said here and hope that you're able to set healthy boundaries and protect yourself.)

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Responding to yet more unhinged Anti zionists arguments

Because I am not going to waste my precious time and energy on replying to each ignorant person who believes Hamas are a "brave resistance group"

For the millionth time: I do not support the genocide of Palestinians when I say Israelis shouldn't die. I am not deflecting or denying anything, I am making posts about how I and other Israelis have been impacted by October 7th and the war ever since. I am allowed to mourn my people.

Released female Israeli hostages aren't "weaponizing Feminism". Just because some were "only" sexually assaulted and threatened with rape, doesn't mean others aren't raped. Israeli women were targeted on October 7th. Their assault, mutilation, and violent rape were all planned. Hamas terrorists who were caught and interrogated have said so themselves in published recorded interrogations. *** Regarding Mia Shem- I've said before: mocking her appearance isn't making you the great humane person you think you are. I've had some nutjob tell me "Oh well in an interview she said she was only groped and others were raped. She's using feminism and things people care about in order to gain sympathy." She was: -Kidnapped from a party and shot. -Operated on by a veterinarian while in captivity for over 50 days. -Starved ,beaten, mocked , groped and sexually assulted while constantly threatened with being raped. And you're mocking her. Wow that is a new low. Believe Jewish women.

You are constantly backing up your "facts" and statistics with un-credible sources. Let me make this clear one final time: Al Jazeera = racist and antisemitic supports terrorism There isn't a Gaza Ministry of Health- it's Hamas.

Palestinians and Hamas specifically are very racist towards Afro-Palestinian / black people. A quick Google search will lead you to this:

Anti-Black racism in Palestine

The State of Palestine has a community of Afro-Palestinians, many of whom are descendants of the victims of the historical Slavery in Palestine, which ended in the 20th-century.[43]

Racism against African Americans in Palestinian media (Wikipedia)

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has been the subject of some viciously racial personal attacks, alongside vociferous criticism of her policies.[44] These included an anti-black racist cartoon in Palestinian Authority's controlled Press Al Quds. The New York Times reported in 2006:

Her comment that the Israel-Lebanon war represented the "birth pangs of a new Middle East"— coming at a time when television stations were showing images of dead Lebanese children — sparked ridicule and even racist cartoons. A Palestinian newspaper, Al Quds," which "depicted Ms. Rice as pregnant with an armed monkey, and a caption that read, "Rice speaks about the birth of a new Middle East.[45]

The Palestinian media has used racist terms including "black spinster" and "colored dark skin lady."[46][47]

.... The African Palestinians who now live in the two compounds near al-Aqsa mosque have called the area home since 1930.[12] They have experienced prejudice, with some Palestinian Arabs[21] referring to them as "slaves" (abeed) and to their neighbourhood as the "slaves' prison" (habs al-abeed), and their colour has led to objections against them marrying Palestinians with lighter skin.[9][3] According to Mousa Qous, director of the African Community Society and a former member of the PFLP, "Sometimes when a black Palestinian wants to marry a white Palestinian woman, some members of her family might object." Interracial marriage with Afro-Palestinians has become more common in recent years.[8] In colloquial Palestinian Arabic, standard usage prefers the word sumr (dark colour) over sawd, which has an uncouth connotation.[22]

-For further reading I found this research paper to be very detailed: https://d-nb.info/1204258597/34

*** I have to mention this as well since some anti-Zionist brought up MLK as an example for their argument against Israel: you clearly have no idea what you're talking about... he was a Zionist!

Jews and African Americans have historically been allies in their struggles for equality. He literally wrote an open letter titled "Letter to an Anti-Zionist friend", explaining why he supports Zionism. Do your research.

5. Gaza hasn't been under Israel's control since 2006, it is controlled by Hamas! Before that, it was governed by Fatah, Another terrorist organization (Hamas killed all of the Fatah members when they came to power). Hamas = terror organization leaching off the Palestinian people. They want to kill all Jews and are against everything that represents the West. UWNRA - Is filled with Hamas terrorists. UN & ICRC - Both have a long history of being biased against Jews and have failed the Jewish people once again.

6. Israelis don't deserve to die just because they are Israeli. They are not privileged to have a government that (relative to Hamas) cares about their civilians.

7. "From the river to the sea" Is a genocidal chant calling for the death of all Jews / Israelis. The final solution / one solution = killing all Jews, holocaust. Intifadas aren't peaceful or inspiring resistance. It's Terror attacks targeting civilians: Shootings, stabbings, lynchings, school buses exploding, etc.

I have an entire post explaining this, you're welcome to read it but the main takeaway should be: You don't get to decide what's anti-Semitic, Jews do. If Jews tell you this chant threatens them and is antisemitic- it is.

[spacelazarwolf]

Forgive me if I'm wrong about anything. I'm not Jewish but I was raised for a good part of my life by a Jewish stepmom and am planning to convert when my life offers me that stability. But. Something I notice relating to the "Hitler burned queer stuff first" and j general desire to make oneself a victim of Nazism is that American kids are mostly taught about Judaism through like, media that is targeted at non-Jewish people and is trying to almost beg them for empathy. Average gentiles have very little knowledge about Jewish life - both joy and suffering, something that came as a bit of a shock to me as gentile who grew up with stepsiblings/mom celebrating holidays, going to temple, having a sense of community, and being aware of the levels of antisemetic violence in their area. My point is that a lot of people on the left tend to think of Jewish people as like. white people with a different religion. Instead of members of a complex culture. Thus, it's easy to ignore people like Magnus Hirschfield or pretend you could be someone the Nazis targeted. Does any of that make sense? Sorry. U probably know all that already but I'm tired of yelling it at my Catholic friend hehe

oh 100000000% this.

i feel like one piece of media that really portrays this weird attitude of victimization that a lot of white non roma gentiles have when it comes to the holocaust (and before anyone comes for me, i'm not saying queer and trans people aren't targeted by nazis) is "boy in the striped pajamas." it's a film that has been widely criticized by jews and scholars for misrepresenting many elements of the holocaust, and because the main message of it is "wow isn't it sad that this poor little gentile boy died??????" you're not supposed to be sad that millions of jews and roma were being murdered, you're supposed to be sad because bruno's not a jew or roma and was killed on accident. and i feel like that really feeds into this mindset of "it could have been me!!!!! therefore this is actually all about me!!!!!"

i often see queer people say things like "well the jews were released immediately after the war ended but queer people were kept in prisons!!!!!!" as if jews and roma got to just go about their normal lives. what actually happened is that several thousand of them died from health complications caused by starvation and poor living conditions in the camps, and the ones who survived returned to their homes only to face more pogroms, discrimination, or complete denial from their gentile neighbors who had turned a blind eye.

what queer and trans gentiles really need to realize is that when it comes to the holocaust, hitler's targeting of queer and trans people is entirely inseparable from antisemitism. i mean even a lot of modern anti trans sentiments are ultimately rooted in antisemitism. the sooner they realize that, the sooner they can stop acting like we can only care about one group at a time.

[jewishbarbies]

I think the one thing that really ticks me off about the Pro-Palestine cult (yes, I'm calling it a cult because it fits 17/20 signs on the Cult Education Institute, I could explain more in detail if you want) is the victim mentality. No matter what Palestine does, they're always the victim. In a way, it ironically dehumanizes and infantilizes the people of Palestine as being inexperienced and powerless. I've literally seen "well what else were they support to do?" in response to people asking why they think October 7th was okay as if they're too uncivilized to use anything but violence against innocent people. Maybe it's just me, but that seems pretty fucking racist to the people you claim to fight for.

The Holocaust never happened because that wouldn't make Palestine the "greatest genocide". Any form of antisemitism or speaking out about it is shut down because there can only be one victim.

Palestine didn't launch all those wars and bombs during the 75 year span everyone talks about because that means they killed innocent people out of their own free will. It breaks the underdog narrative and bring nuance to the situation, it's cherry picking history.

It doesn't matter how much support Palestine gets on social media and through other governments, it's always "No one is talking about it! We're being oppressed and need to fight!"

It's also my conspiracy theory that it's the reason suicide and martyrdom is so glorified. It's seen as the ultimate dedication. You're considered not doing enough if you don't physically or mentally hurt yourself for Palestine. The harassing people for not wanting to watch gory war videos, putting yourself in harm's way and risking getting arrested or death, dedicating and destroying parts of your life, and idolizing of Aaron Bushnell. It was a tragic and horrible event, but he also clearly needed help, there were much better ways to help Palestine. I'm also just uncomfortable with everyone in Palestine or supporting it being called a martyr that's exactly what Hamas wants all of it's citizens to be.

Sorry, a lot of this is just random thoughts. The war keeps coming up no matter how many accounts and tags I block and I'm tired of it.

something something noble savage trope

[thewinter22]

hi, since you asked genuine questions here's a few explanations:

on oct 7th, hamas broke into israel and murdered, tortured, raped, and kidnapped over a thousand people. it wasn't just a little event. it was the largest slaughter of jews since the holocaust. and it wasn't just jews that were killed, it was arab israelis and bedouins. if you want to learn more, I recommend watching "screams before silence" it's free on youtube BUT huge trigger warning for graphic descriptions of rape and torture. there aren't actual pictures/videos of the rapes in the documentary but there are many eyewitnesses and victims who share their stories.

https://www.screamsbeforesilence.com/

secondly, the term "zionism" doesn't mean what most non-jews think it means. it is a movement started by and for jews, and it is the belief that jews should have a nation in their ancestral homeland (israel). it doesn't mean that all palestinians should die, it doesn't mean that israel needs to solely be jewish (ethnostate). israel is extremely diverse with many different religions and ethnicities, it just has over 50% jews making it a jewish state in the same way that most countries are christian or muslim etc.

gaza, in contrast, has 0 jews since 2005 when israel left gaza.

hamas is a terrorist organization and has a very strict "education" system mostly consisting of teaching children how to become martyrs and shoot guns. palestinians learn from birth to hate jews and israel. hamas's entire ideology is built on jew hatred. for that reason, it is extremely hard to get a ceasefire because hamas keeps rejecting it. bibi netanyahu, who I don't personally like, has agreed to most ceasefire deals, but hamas hasn't. that's why the war is still going on. and let's not forget, hamas still holds many israeli hostages captive.

the reason jews don't feel safe in queer spaces is because currently leftist queers do not acknowledge these facts. they create "anti-zionist spaces" on campuses and in their own communities. 90% of jews are zionists, so when you're anti-zionist, you are inherently antisemitic. anti-zionists have vandalized synagogues, attacked synagogues, raped jews "for justice in palestine", stabbed random jews, and worse. people shout "globalize the intifada" which really just means "globalize genocide of jews".

the fact that so many queer people refuse to believe us when we say we are in danger, say we deserve it even, is why jews don't feel safe in queer spaces. most of us are fine with a state of palestine, but we don't want hamas as their leader because they are a terrorist organization with a goal of killing jews. jews have been a part of so many liberal movements (a black jew founded blm, many jews stood up for gays during the aids crisis, etc) and are still rejected because of backwards misinformation. our problem isn't with palestine or palestinians, our problem is with ignorance and hate that so many leftist spaces are now full of.

if you want to help jews feel safe in queer spaces, acknowledge their pain, acknowledge that hamas is bad, listen to jews when they talk about this conflict. so many queer and leftist ppl treat this conflict like a fandom, it's crazy and disgusting. most of them only learned about this conflict through social media a year ago. listen to jews and don't exclude us from your spaces just because you are too arrogant to look at the other side. that's literally all we're asking.

some instances of anti-zionism being violent and antisemitic:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67145473

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240619-french-teens-charged-with-anti-semitic-rape-in-attack-condemned-by-political-leaders

https://www.jns.org/anti-zionism-is-just-antisemitism-misspelled/

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/10/antisemitic-incidents-hamas-israel-attack-2023-adl

thank you for asking, and thank you for reading.

Thank you for the answers. I was worried people were going to call me ignorant, which I admit I am up until now, and is exactly why I want to learn more about something I never really looked into more deeply because of the various opinions on all sides making it hard to decypher anything objective. It's hard to believe how terribly queer spaces are treating jewish people. Which is not to say I don't believe you. Quite the opposite. I am just shocked. Thank you again

[givemearmstopraywith]

i've spent most of my weekend reading survivor testimony from auschwitz for a research project and i think what im getting is that people have a very very difficult time grasping to the depth of depravity that went on during the holocaust, myself included, because most of what is included in the historical record is too disturbing to portray in media and just "inconsequential" to be taught your average history course (unless you're specifically learning about the holocaust in depth no class is going to talk about the state of the latrines in auschwitz, the fact that it smelled constantly of burnt bones, or exactly what sort of food people had access to). and i think this has led to a real anesthetizing, even sanitizing, of genocide and atrocity in general. it is enabling both reactionary jokesters who make gas chamber jokes and also literal holocaust denial. it is also enables denial of genocide in general, and people who can joke about world war three when there are millions of lives at stake.

israel has played a huge, frankly pivotal, role in sanitizing the holocaust at the expense of survivors and their children. israel has reframed the holocaust as a political and economic tool that can be use to bludgeon colonizer agendas into global consciousness at the expense of humanizing victims. a vast majority of israeli leaders had no direct connection to the holocaust. they did not survive a genocide: they lived in another country. golda meir was american. netanyahu is american. david ben-gurion was happily creating murderous colonizer policies in palestine during the war. it is the sanitization of the holocaust by israel (as well as countries like the us that were absolutely complicit in allowing the holocaust to go on as long as it did) that has led to people being unable to grasp the severity of what's happening in palestine too. and zionists wonder why so many holocaust survivors and their descendents support a free palestine.

[tearwolfe]

I'll borrow a warrior cats book from the library and see how it is before buying a book.. shivers in fear, i did not know that..

yeah for sure do not buy them. there's also a bunch of free PDFs online you can read!! or check them out through libby or whatever online library service your local library uses if you don't mind reading from your phone.

gonna use this chance to highlight issues with warriors under the cut!! because i've spent so much time being with this series i have a lot of thoughts. i want to let you know i am not trying to cancel warriors or anything, there's just a lot of issues and i like talking about it.

CW: misogyny, pedophilia, ablism, racism

Okay, we're going to start with the more annoying aspects. First of all, Warriors is written by a ton of different people. They have the main writers outline the plot, and there's a bunch of other people that fill in all the empty space. Kind of an interesting way to do it, but that's why Warriors is able to publish several books a year. Erin Hunter is just a penname for a group.

INCONSISTENCIES

Why do I bring this up, what's the issue? The inconsistencies, dude. There's so many. Character appearances change between books. Dovewing's eye color changes frequently, for example, to the point where there was an internet war about how she would be represented on the Warriors Wiki. Another example is Mapleshade, a cat that's been prevalent as a villain since Crookedstar's Promise. In that book, she's referred to as a ginger-and-white she-cat, but after that she's been described as a calico (er, tortishelle-and-white, because Erin Hunter is somehow allergic to the word calico). Appearances aren't the only inconsistency. Character personalities are a big issue. After the first arc especially, characters will lose what charm they had in their personalities. Suddenly Spottedleaf is in love with Fireheart/star after she dies, suddenly Yellowfang is unwelcoming towards cats who find themselves breaking the Warrior Code (despite being a codebreaker herself and having compassion toward other cats while she was alive). The authors also seem to have trouble keeping track of characters. On one page Sandstorm leaves camp to go on patrol, and a paragraph later she is seen STILL in camp, talking to someone, despite having been written to leave camp. It's a very bizarre series to read. (Other inconsistencies include miswriting names [Ravepaw incident], using the wrong pronouns, and entirely confusing cats between each other). Heavystep also died a few times because the Erins forgot that he died.

MISOGYNY

Outside of poor writing, we're hit with misogyny. Main female characters, in POV, are written at least a little bit better than any of the other she-cats. However, as soon as the next arc starts and she's put out of the limelight, the authors have to give her a mate, give her kits, and make her a mother. There is only ONE POV she-cat I can think of that didn't die and never had kits. Twigbranch is literally the only one. This isn't a dig at being a mother at all, however whenever the Erins DO make a former main character a mother, that's the only trait they give them. Rarely do these she-cats continue to carry the personalities they were given initially.

It's not even a secret that the fandom dislikes when every she-cat is boiled down to being just a babymaker. The Erins literally killed off a she-cat because the fans didn't like the fact that her only personality trait was mom. Yes, this actually did happen.

There's lots of victim-blaming misogyny with whatever is going on between Squirrelflight and Bramblestar and between Leafpool and StarClan. Bramblestar will literally say the worst things to Squirrelflight and the narrative makes it seem like he's in the right. It's not wrong to display unhealthy relationships in media, but if you're writing a KID'S SERIES, it's extremely irresponsible to constantly write the victim as being wrong. This applies to how StarClan blames Leafpool for everything that's happened to her, despite the fact that Crowfeather was also a part of the equation.

Don't even get me started about Spottedleaf's Heart. In summary, Spottedleaf was groomed by Thisteclaw from when she was a kit (and he was a Warrior), and the narrative only makes Thistleclaw a bad guy because he was training in the Dark Forest, not because he is a predator.

ABLEISM

It's absolutely crazy how ableist this series is. In arc one, we have Brightpaw, an apprentice who gets mauled by dogs, and as Bluestar watched, as what she thought was going to be her death bed, she decided to give her her warrior name- a name that she would be stuck with in StarClan. She chose "Lostface." Brightpaw would eventually recover, loosing one of her eyes in the attack, and would live with being called Lostface until Firestar was able to rename her (to Brightheart). The whole renaming thing feels gross enough, but Brightheart is probably the best case scenario of ableism in Warriors, as she was allowed to function as a regular Warrior in the clan. Cinderpelt wasn't so lucky. She was a Warrior apprentice who got hit by a car, mangling her leg. She was then forced to become a Medicine Cat because she "couldn't hunt or fight" (despite the fact that real world cats are able to function completely normally while missing a limb). Longtail lost his vision in a fight with rabbits and he was retired early to the elder's den, despite wanting to be a Warrior. Jayfeather was blind, so he was made a Medicine Cat despite wanting to be a Warrior. Briarlight was paralyzed, so she was put in the Medicine Cat den most of the time despite wanting to be a Warrior. This is a very common theme in the series. Any cat who isn't fully able-bodied is often made to be a Medicine Cat or an Elder, even if that's not what they want. Literally every single Medicine Cat in ThunderClan since Spottedleaf through to Alderheart never wanted to be a Medicine Cat.

Being a Medicine Cat isn't supposed to be a bad role, but the way Warriors uses it as a cop-out to make disabled cats have a more "plot interesting" role without allowing them to be a Warrior is really weird.

ANTI-INDIGENOUS WRITING

I'm not the most knowledgeable person on this topic, however, many Indigenous readers have brought up a lot of issues the series has in terms of being culturally insensitive to native tribes. There's a well-written document that explains this in full detail.

IT'S KIND OF JUST BAD?

The writing isn't good. This goes back to the multi-writer issue. These people can't keep track of their characters or plot, so a lot of things just sort of fall flat. The best plotlines can be found in some of the novellas and graphic novels, and then I think it's because they're mostly written by one person.

How come StarClan can be so vague to living cats, but when we get POV in StarClan, they just act like normal cats? How come Ashfur randomly was super powerful in the Dark Forest/StarClan, while every other cat wasn't? There's just a lot of unexplained stuff, it's very weird.

Warriors is a very interesting series because it's pretty bad yet the fandom is huge. I definitely recommend watching Warriors Multi-Animator-Projects, reading fancomics, and fix-it fanfics instead of actually reading the books. The fans are so, so talented, it's crazy how a never-ending series of children's cat books has created such an insane fanbase.