#and no fascism isn't back and it's not going to be back in most of the western world

[orc-apologist]

it's funny how when you'll give actual explanations as to why people are racist or transphobic or something similar, like how that happens and why it's happening now out of all times, that go beyond "white people/cishet people evil" so many people will instantly attack you for "apologia"

I think it kinda comes from this idea that identity politics has pushed that people of the unmarked categories like male white and cishet can't possibly struggle with things in life. but economic crises, which we have been in for 16 years now, affect everyone that's not part of the ruling class. prolonged economic instability alienates people from the status quo, from established parties, rhetoric and such. they begin to look elsewhere for solutions. the powers that be know to counteract this with reactionary politics. using scapegoating they'll promise the return to an (often imaginary) better yesterday, the very definition of reactionary politics.

these ideas sound plausible and actionable. things used to be better after all. those scapegoats used to not be there (as visibly) after all.

the way of solving this isn't to go "waaahh people are evil and fascism is back, woe is me" but to a) point out that these reactionary politics are not going to solve the problem because they are not the cause b) point out the actual cause of the problem (capitalism) c) offer actual alternatives (organizing, strikes, expropriating the bourgeoisie, and eventually total labor democracy)

#and no fascism isn't back and it's not going to be back in most of the western world #there's a difference between a military or police dictatorship which is what the US might degenerate into under trump #and actual fascism #most of the things everyone points to as fascist aren't actually fascist they're just reactionary #even genocide isn't unique to fascism. israel for example is a liberal democracy and it's still committing genocide. #all you need for genocide is a class society. its political manifestation is irrelevant tho some forms are certainly easier to do a genocid #in #it's important to understand that so you have no illusions in liberal democracy which is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie #fascism isn't this generally evil society that we are constantly at the brink of falling back into #it was a very specific historical phenomenon #in which the petty bourgeoisie were used by totalitarian reactionaries as a battering ram against the working class #to violently suppress labor organization strikes and the potential downfall of capitalism and the rise of socialism #that was its role in germany italy and spain #it wouldn't work anymore today in the western world because the petty bourgeoisie has dwindled in numbers #as they are doomed to in the monopolization process of capitalist market anarchy #they are no longer a significant percentage of the population and no longer have the numbers to suppress the working class like that #because that's what differentiates fascism from a military dictatorship for example #a military dictatorship is a small group of people violently wrangling control of the state from its current holders #and abusing ALL of society for their personal gain. including the ruling class. marxists call this bonapartism #because napoleon bonaparte was the first to do so under capitalism #most importantly this means a military dictatorship does not have a mass base and relies on ruling by the sword #which makes it highly unstable and turns all of society against it #fascism was so dangerous because it DID have a mass base! the petty bourgeoisie! #vast amounts of them were in total support of fascist rule and actively pursued it. it wasn't just a small group of people. #this made the systems a lot more stable and a lot more powerful because they had large parts of society at their bidding #that sort of power and stability can no longer occur because their social base has mostly disappeared #they can whip up enough reactionary anger in the working class to perhaps GET to power #but as soon as a fascist politician starts going after unions strikes wages #launching the incredibly direct attacks against the working class that fascism always did #that voter base is going to turn against them very quickly

[flouryhedgehog]

Voting is a tool.

By which I mean, voting is just a tool; it isn't sacred or magical.

And by which I also mean, voting is one tool that is good for one kind of purpose. If it isn't suitable for the goal you're trying to achieve, you need different tools.

Every time someone makes a post on here rightly criticizing Joe Biden's support for genocide, there's at least one person in the notes saying "but remember, you still have to vote for him!" or, "did you know Trump wants to deport Muslims?" or, "then who do you want me to vote for?"

But that's like going into a plant nursery and demanding they sell you the correct drill bit for planting a tree. They will never sell you the drill bit you want, because the drill bit you want--the drill bit suitable for planting trees--doesn't exist, and also plant nurseries don't sell drill bits.

Standing in the plant nursery asking about drill bits will probably initially get you people explaining to you where to find a shovel, and a watering can, and some mulch, because those are tools that will help you plant the tree. If you ignore the attempts to educate you, and start yelling about how they must just want you to throw away your drill, and also they probably hate trees and hate you and want you, personally, to suffer in a world without shade, you'll start getting different answers, like "please stop shouting" and "I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

Because you're demanding that they tell you how to use the wrong tool for the job. They can never give you the answer you want; the answer you want doesn't exist.

I can't tell you who to vote for to prevent the rise of fascism in the United States, both because you can't prevent something that's already happened, and because you can't vote your way out of fascism.

You need different tools; you need to ask different questions and be willing to sit with the answers, even if they aren't the answers you want.

Boycotts are a tool. Protests are a tool. Shutting down highways, physically blocking weapons shipments, picketing arms companies, those are tools. So is going to your library and checking out books about Palestine, and about decolonization generally.

Instead of asking which war criminal you should vote for, perhaps ask how you can organize members of your community to support and look after each other and keep each other safe. Perhaps ask how you can support Land Back and prison abolition. Ask how you can organize a union in your workplace.

The tool you're most comfortable using isn't going to work for this job. Learn how to use another.

#palestine #joe biden #genocide joe #us politics

[cobragardens]

5 Good Omens Timefucks that Haunt Me

1.

Why is this here? Why is this line included? Is it just to add texture, to imply that larger world of corporate fascism of which Crowley and Aziraphale are subjects and victims and little worker bees? If so, why "They've started early" specifically? Why not "I wouldn't have expected that shrub to be the first to go" or "Aw, I liked that rock formation"?

Crawly doesn't make this comment in an offhand way: he sounds a bit taken aback and not thrilled that things have kicked off sooner than he anticipated. But it doesn't ultimately seem to make any difference to this scene, so why do we, the audience, need to know Hell started early?

2.

This one I'm not as confident will turn out to be significant, because iirc it appears in the book, which was a complete story when written, and because it serves a narrative purpose: it puts Agnes Nutter in charge of the situation, not her murderers. By backfooting Witchfinder Major Pulsifer, Agnes startles him enough she's able to walk past him without Pulsifer seizing her and discovering the extra 80 lbs of gunpowder and roofing nails in her skirts.

But. Agnes Nutter's sense of time is Nice and Accurate, and she notices the witchburning party are late and remarks on it to herself before she says anything to Pulsifer. So assuming a few minutes to position Agnes, tie her to the stake, and read the charges and conviction against her, Pulsifer and Agnes' neighbors are 12-15 minutes later than they should be. Why?

If the book answers this question, I don't recall; the show does not. And again, it seems to make no ultimate difference to this scene.

I'm not saying this was even purposely included in S1 as a timefuck. I am suggesting that as Gaiman seems to be fucking with time or timelines in this story, even if he and Pratchett didn't plan it like this when discussing the sequel, a retcon is hardly out of the question.

3.

As others have pointed out, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 is 45-55 minutes long. If you're listening to it on 78s instead of LPs because you are a CRAZY PERSON, it's going to take you more like 1 hour 5 minutes, because one side of a 78 holds, at most, 5 minutes of music, so every 5 minutes you have to get up and flip or switch the record.

Shostakovich wrote his 5th symphony in response to criticism in the state newspaper (possibly penned by Stalin himself) that his previous work didn't suck the Communist Party's dick hard enough--the kind of criticism that put him in danger of being sent to prison or killed. At the time it was first performed in 1937, Symphony No. 5 was considered a massive triumph, walking the line perfectly between Shostakovich's artistic standards and the Communist Party's demands of him.

The choice is symbolically significant, but it's a symphony, so whoever's censoring it isn't censoring lyrics or information. Again, why? Why is a 45-55-minute symphony only 21 minutes long? What did the time thief do with the 24-34 minutes?

4.

Here's the rug that covers the portal to Heaven in Episode 1:

Here's the rug in Ep. 2:

Aziraphale does not change this rug for the party. We know this bc we see it in Episode 5 when Mrs Sandwich enters the bookshop and the party is in full swing:

Now here's Aziraphale moving the circular rug to expose the portal to Heaven:

But here's Crowley, putting the rug back:

Why are there two different rugs?

5.

Every end credits track has the first line of "Everyday" embedded in it But after the line from "Everyday," at the end of Episode 4, the theme skips twice like a vinyl record, and then is stopped by whoever controls the turntable and restarted, with several seconds of music having been skipped over.

This is not the first time it has mattered to a character in Good Omens what we in the audience see and hear. I argue here that God asks Aziraphale what he did with the flaming sword She gave him in order to show us the audience who Aziraphale is. God also addresses us the audience directly in S1, not only narrating about characters omnisciently but speaking to us about Herself in first person.

Now we evidently have a second character who has gone meta and is changing what we the audience experience of this story, and--indications are good--the story itself.

#good omens #good omens s2 #good omens meta #good omens timefucks #good omens chronology #good omens discontinuity #good omens as metafiction

[iamadequate1]

OK, people are still being jerks

It's just a stupid show! Why do you care or give money to this when Bad Thing is happening in the world?? Omg, you are so embarrassing!

I tell you, a Bad Thing has been happening every day of my life on this earth, and I still want some enjoyment out of my squishy mortal existence.

There is an emotional burden to living. We can't live our lives stressed and in anxiety all of our waking moments. We need entertainment, leisure, and play. This helps our brains rest.

But if we're going to Go There because of these "activists", let's talk about fascism a bit, shall we? So many of us read 1984 in school, right? With the Newspeak and novel-writing machines? It's a dystopia that cuts language down and prints out its entertainment without a creative process behind it. Fascism is anti-intellectual and has a disdain for the arts, only wanting to recycle the past. Fascism marginalizes those with less power. Fascism wants to control all of the mass media. Fascism reveres corporations. ... fascism is bad, btw.

Representation in media is important. Stories are a big part of how we pass down history, share culture, and build community in a society. No, the shows that people are upset about losing may not be Shakespeare, but most things aren't. I was going to go on a longer rant here, but you know what? You Get It or you Don't. The arts and telling inclusive stories are Important, even if it's not Life-or-Death. People can care about more than one thing at once.

If we're looking at what's happening with Max right now, they're cutting out queer shows, shows with large BIPOC casts, and shows with female leads. We're watching these streamers and companies dissolve into one another (WBD/Max wants to merge with Paramount, remember). We're watching shows that aren't led by cishet white males disappear and shows that aren't cookie cutter, strictly-by-the-numbers IPs or procedurals or cheap reality shows disappear. Maybe we'd be allowed to get bare minimum tokenism if we're lucky, and if we're extra lucky, get some marketing! There are some exceptions in streamers... now. Two years ago, HBO Max was the place where new stories could be told safely, and nothing is stepping in to take its place now. Sure, some bad shows may have been canceled back in the day, but that isn't what's happening right now, is it?

People creating these stories deserve a living wage, even if they don't pump out Record Profits, and storytellers (and the audience!) should have some safety in being able to finish the story in some manner. Almost all of the financial difficulties facing Max now are due to mismanagement at the executive level, not quality of products. Any show that does something new or tells a different perspective does not last. It's not even about "numbers." Our Flag Means Death outperformed everything, but here we are. OFMD is a rarity now that it has the loud and passionate fanbase to make waves.

So, here are some petitions for three shows canceled this week on Max. (Remember Max is planning to throw over $125M at a season of TERFy wizards) Fandoms should support each other!

Our Flag Means Death

Rap Sh!t

Julia

#our flag means death #ofmd #renew as a crew #save ofmd #rap sh!t #julia hbo #hbo max #max #david zaslav

[decolonize-the-left]

Okay, I'm also a little on the confused train. I vote third party and independent in my local elections when their policies (as they often are) are better than the local democrats. I vote for some local democrats when they, as in my community they happen to be, black activists who organized the entire of the blm movement in my city and then moved to campaigning for city council and stuff. I participate in mutual aid, I use my free time to bake bread for, and then deliver the bread and naltrexone to unhoused encampments. I advocate for every school in my area to teach actual native history. I distribute land back and esims for gaza pamphlets all over my city. I volunteer at soup kitchens a couple times a month, ect. I "donate" monthly "rent" to the tribes on whos land i live. I am currently at the least protest voting uncommitted in my states primary.

But like, I do bump up against... I don't want to vote for Biden. But if Trump wins, he's states he's going to put his everything into not only the genocide in Palestine, but hella racist internal policies beyond what we already have, stripping voting rights, stripping any existing social safety nets, removing anit hate crime protections, ect

So like. Yes. I am thinking about how indigenous communities would be impacted, at least in the short term. Among many others.

My final vote isn't decided yet

Do you really think it will prevent harm to vulnerable people to risk another trump term?

Not trying to be an asshole, asking you bc I respect you

*scare quotes are to imply that I think that language is shallow and not useful but I don't know what else to say

Please don't block me I'm being completely sincere about being deeply empathetic to your anger and share in it, but also confused and scared about the right course of action and the reasoning behind it

My opinions stem from my own organizing and activism.

I think it's going over a lot of heads that the same way we organize for landback or BLM and leave zines around to have progress in dismantling those, we ALSO need to be organizing behind 3rd party candidates to dismantle the 2 party system.

Like how helpful would it be to Any of those causes if someone said that instead of organizing for landback or donating or helping houseless people you should just vote for Biden?

That'd be ridiculous. Biden doesn't have any intention of significantly helping with any of those things and he's no substitute for the activism that's being done or still needed right?

So why are we as organizers accepting this logic when it comes to one of the most powerful positions in the world?

Why are we settling and saying he's the "realistic" choice and accepting it when we Know there are other options and avenues because we've Already worked in them?

I don't understand this and if You could shed some light I would in All Honesty appreciate it.

It's ACTUALLY confusing as hell to me that people I respect and work with and see as peers and comrades think that harm reduction is the best way to vote. It's confusing that instead of advocating for other avenues and educating people about other options or working for 3rd party campaigns or leaving educational zines around throughout election cycles and campaigns..... They say they're just gonna vote for Biden.

Yeah Trump sucks. I'd never deny that. I'd never deny he's dangerous. I just Also don't see how Blue Fascism is different from Red Fascism. It's all fascism and idk why we think Blue Fascism is an acceptable trade off when we literally Do Not have to keep making this trade.

The fact so many of us regularly feel like we don't have a choice is a testament to democracy already being dead, you know? Idk what we're saying 'yeah but the other fascists could be worse so let's just keep our heads down' as leftists.

I'm gonna be very real here, my concern is the future of humanity at this point. Point blank. White supremacy is an evil ideology that has harmed every person it touches while also making sure they help perpetuate it. In the last 5 years I've watched Nazis come back, several genocides, climate change and the death of winter, and police kill a man trying to protect a forest. Our president is more concerned with his campaign than the people he's killing or the families he's exploiting to do it.

Someone is going to have to risk something in order to stop a machine this big from killing all of us. The earth my child is going to inherit is going to be unrecognizable to me. She'll be lucky if she's never a climate refugee, just as it's Only luck that she's here in the first place after the USA tried to kill off the native Americans.

My concern is Everyone. And I know it seems backwards as hell to risk something so awful, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices to have something better.

I'd give anything to save my daughter from the future she's currently on track to inherit. And that doesn't mean that I don't love her. It's a testament to how much worse I genuinely believe things will get if we continue down this path accepting anything As Long As It's Not As Awful As It Could Be.

We would lie down and Vote to have robot dogs surveil our neighborhoods for immigrants and drag queens at this point "as long as it's not trump" and doesn't that terrify you more than he does?

It terrifies me.

There's no way that's harm reduction when we are NOT being harmed that way right now. That's Increasing the harm. A harm guarantee that you were tricked you into signing under threat of something worse.

#asked #answered #electoral politics #trump #leftist #socialist #anarchist #communist

[tanadrin]

i fired up civ 5 recently bc i wanted to see how it compared to my memory of it, and if anything it's actually much, much worse.

one unit per tile just... does not work with the idiom of the civilization series! units are not like armies in a GSG, they're like units in an RTS game: grist for the meatgrinder. you build them and throw them at your enemy and if they lose combat, they die. they don't retreat and recover morale, you don't get a chance to reposition and try again, they just go poof. but now in addition to that, you can only fit one unit of a type on a given tile, which means combat is forcibly spread out over a huge space. it's slow, slowed down further by the fact that it now takes a couple turns to fully resolve a fight--i guess the idea is that you can have your injured units fall back, except because of the way units get blocked in now, no you can't!--but you still need tons of units to take cities.

which means they didn't get rid of doomstacks. doomstacks are still logistically necessary to win wars! they just made them really fucking annoying to move around the map.

and on top of that, because OUPT applies to all units, it means you are also constantly having your scouts and workers and other civilian units being blocked in by your own units of the same type, or other players' units of the same type, meaning if you sign an open borders treaty with the AI you are frequently signing up to having your own units' movement being jammed up in the worst way by computer players. and on top of all THAT the units cancel their movement orders if the destination tile is blocked, even if the destination tile is on the other side of the map and you can't see it--which means, basically, any long-distance movement order is liable to be randomly canceled if an AI unit ends its turn on your destination tile.

it feels janky at every single level. the worst possible fix to something that wasn't even really a problem--and if they really wanted to they could have implemented some kind of very basic attrition mechanic. or some other kind of soft cap.

and and and on top of all that, it makes roads and railroads substantially less useful, bc frequently you cannot actually fit all your guys on one road or railroad--but you can't just carpet your territory in roads now like you used to do, because roads cost maintenance per turn. just. ugh. fractally bad decisionmaking! like different people were working at different ends of the design doc and not communicating at all!

the global happiness system means expansion is soft capped early in the game, which makes it feel less like an empire management game than a game of managing four to five cities. since very many units are now hard capped by resource availability now, and expansion is limited, AFAICT in most normal games this means you get like.. two swordsmen? ever? mainly it's strong attack units that are capped in this way, but their defensive counters are uncapped, which means actually playing strategically with your army composition is more annoyance than it's worth. in practice, what this incentives is just building the best trash unit you can afford en masse and throwing them at the enemy, but, of course, see the problems with OUPT.

they took out civics and replaced them with Social Policy trees. but everybody has the same set of social policy trees. and there's a bit of a tradeoff here in which trees you choose to fill out first, but you never then switch those old trees out for new ones like civics. they're just permanent bonuses. so there's no sense of, like, choosing your government type.

and then in BNW i guess they realized people missed that, and created Ideologies, which are just a bonus extra-big social policy tree where you get to pick between liberal democracy, communism, and fascism. but of course there's only three. and this isn't unlocked until the late game.

what they really should have done is added more civics and rather than just having you progress from early game civics to late game civics made all civics contextually useful. and maybe given you some extra civics that were unlocked early in the game so you could strategize around them.

as a part of this change culture is now more load-bearing, but cultural victory is just... weird and stupidly complicated. you have to build tourism, and do archeology, and build wonders that provide slots for great works that your three different kinds of great artist create, and all this other crap. versus domination, where you just conquer the other guys. or science, where you just build your spaceship. it's dumb and bad and awkward.

there's no conquest victory now. only domination. but because of the way domination works, it's now not possible to move your capital manually. this is awful and i hate it! let me move my capital, damn it!

buildings no longer go obsolete, which means that if i am founding a city in the year 1973, i still need to build a City Walls in it before i can build a Military Base. this feels ridiculous. and the series already kinda has this problem where it feels like late game it takes forever to get a city really up and running--don't make it even worse by making me build shit from classical antiquity before i can build modern facilities!

the AI is not very bright. they don't expand very much. on big maps, most of the map will remain empty most of the game, at least up through mid-level difficulties i usually play at (that are supposed to be "standard", so I assume the game is balanced around them)

diplomacy is irritatingly primitive. there are few ongoing agreements. declarations of friendship all last a fixed amount of time. the AI is constantly interrupting you to tell you it doesn't like you or it does like you or you and another AI player all like each other. just expose an opinion modifier and be done with it! harun al-rashid and i don't need to pass notes like it's grade school!

they nerfed the range of air units and especially nukes. which feels really weird. the 20th century saw the invention of strategic bombers that had a range of thousands of miles. why can mine only reach cities right next to my own? why do my nuclear missiles have a pathetic range? sure, sub-launched nukes are a thing, but they're only one part of a proper nuclear triad. there's no MAD anymore!

especially because the world congress can order you to stop building nukes and there's nothing you can do about it. you can't defy world congress bans and suffer a penalty. international law has some kind of magical force that even if you are the undisputed hegemon you cannot help but obey. this is very stupid! especially because they could not think of anything interesting for the world congress to do, so it's all shit like banning random luxury goods.

all the stuff i do like--the city-states, the hex grid, the core idea of the trade route system--is swallowed by annoying bullshit. to take the trade route example: you can make money by setting up trade routes. it can be quite lucrative! and you have to protect your trade routes from bandits and shit. but the menu for issuing trade route orders is a mess--way too much scrolling, you can't sort by lucrativeness of destinations, you have to constantly re-issue trade route orders, and the last trade route a unit was on isn't highlighted, or sorted to the top or anything like that. so it's lots of scrolling around, it's very annoying, and it's repetitive as hell.

the real stick in the eye is that this game was not only reviewed well, it was reviewed glowingly when it came out. which is bizarre to me! yes, it looks nice. the art is good and the music is pretty. but it feels awful to play! it is on almost every single metric less fun than civ 4! civ 3 is more fun, and civ 3 was terrible. i hope to god firaxis was bribing people left and right for good reviews because the only alternative explanation i can think of is that everybody who was reviewing strategy games in 2010 was also in the grip of a brutal glue-sniffing habit.

#allegedly there are mods to fix OUPT #but i couldn't get them working #and also apparently the game doesn't support modded multiplayer at all?! #jon shafer were you kicked in the head by a horse #why did that sound reasonable to you?!

[jewish-sideblog]

i have a question. i don’t mean this horribly!! but per this post you reblogged: https://www.tumblr.com/jewish-sideblog/744967243590434816, you believe to call what’s going on in palestine a genocide is antisemitic. can you elaborate on that, please?

I don't want to get in the habit of addressing things other people have said in posts I reblog, because those aren't my words and a reblog isn't a blanket endorsement of everything other people have said. But this topic is really important, so I'll weigh in just this once.

The primary concern I have with the use of the term genocide is Holocaust Inversion. Most people don't have a conception of genocide outside of the holocaust, so the usage of the word genocide is often an obvious ploy to weaponize Jewish suffering against Jewish people. Its sole purpose is to equate Israelis to Nazis and Jewish government to fascism.

Yet, there is a lot of death in Gaza right now. Horrible death, needless death. I think any erasure of that is as horrible as Oct. 7th denial. To outright deny that a genocide is happening exclusively because of the historical reality of the Holocaust isn't just or beneficial. So we have to look at it objectively. As I said earlier today, I'm not an international relations expert, so the following is my understanding and should be taken with large grains of salt.

"Genocide" as a war crime is extremely similar to murder as an individual crime. The key component (besides death) is intention. If you kill someone on accident in most English-speaking countries, you'll likely be charged with manslaughter, not murder. Similarly, genocide requires the intentional destruction of a population of people, well beyond the necessary realities of civilian casualty in active war zones. Death itself, even in large numbers, does not a genocide make. Civilians will always die on the battlefield. Always.

The International Criminal Court says that Israel has to meet standards of care in Gaza to ensure that genocide does not occur, meaning they don't think one has already occurred. There's some dispute on whether or not those standards are being met-- Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say that Israel is failing to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while the Israeli government issued sealed documents to the Hague last month detailing their compliance measures. It'll take a while to hear back on those. Personally, I think starving Gaza is an obvious measure of intention to destroy Palestinian civilians.

Anybody is obviously welcome to disagree with the highest court of international law in the world. But the fact that the experts seem hesitant to make that determination gives me pause. Why are so many people keen to bring Israel to the Hague, not Russia for their indiscriminate killing of Ukrainians or the Houthis for manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in Yemen? Hamas, one of the governments of internationally-recognized Palestine, fully admits to intending to destroy the Jewish people in part. They say they'll do it again if they get half the chance. Why is only the Jewish state called out as a unique, genocidal evil? Must we label Palestinian deaths as a genocide in order to mourn them effectively? Aren't hundreds dead a day reason enough to mourn and to push for peace?

Again, I don't want to deny the allegations of genocide any more than I want to accept them. I'm following the experts on this one. And so far, the experts say "maybe". As long as they say "maybe", anybody who insists on definitely and absolutely labelling it as a genocide creeps at least suspiciously close to Holocaust Inversion in my eyes.

[nicosraf]

You liked a Tweet about saying how wanting to dismantle the Christofacist System is genocide. Xtianity is and always has been genocidal to people like me you bigot. You can hide behind your book being Queer but we know

I wasn't going to respond because I'm still not convinced you're being sincere, but I'll be sincere! I can't find the tweet I liked, but I remember it, I think. This is the last time I'm going to respond to you. But I do hope you read this.

On Twitter, someone shared that a Tiktok user supposedly dreamed that all the Christians were taken away in a Rapture and the world became a better place. Someone quoted that tweet saying that wishing an entire religion was gone was a fascist/genocidal position, which it is! Even if the religion is awful, it's genocidal to want a group of people dead, you know, for what they believe. It's just the definition of the word. Don't be afraid of it.

I'm really fascinated by your use of "people like me" and "we know." Why do you think I'm not like you? You don't know anything about me. I don't know anything about you. I could ask, but you could lie, so I won't. I know that you know yourself though. So, why aren't I like you? And who is we? You are you in community with?

Is that community stronger than the one you hold with me? If it is, why?

Do you think I'm a Christian? I've never said I am. I've never talked about my beliefs. And I won't because they're personal to me.

"Genocidal to people like me" - I keep coming back to this. You know, I really know genocide. I worked as a reporting fellow, and I met a journalist from Kashmir that wrote about the ethnic cleansing conflict. We had a good discussion making comparisons between the militarization occurring there and with the displaced people I was working with at the time along the Mexico-America border. I've seen genocide. I'm familiar with the de-humanization, the treatment like your people are dirty and need to be kept out and eradicated.

In Mexico, priests are murdered a lot. Sometimes it's really violent. Dismemberments and hangings and all that. It's really dangerous to be a priest in Mexico, but in some communities, they run the migrant homes, argue with paramilitaries. You ask, "Why are you doing this?" And they'll say it's their faith, it's why they became a priest. They believe in goodness.

I knew a priest who was threatened by organized crime. They told him to hand over the Cubans in his care. He said he wouldn't. And then he was "disappeared", and it's been 2 years now. We'll probably never find him. I can still see him really vividly in my head. His glasses, his hands clasped together.

At the same time, my poor Mexico has only adopted Christianity through genocide, right? I've written about that too. The Franciscans and the children of the noble Nahua-indigenous people who worked together to destroy the indigenous religion; they ran into the villages and stole the wooden figurines and burned them. And, you know, when Hernan Cortes introduced a statue of Mary to the indigenous people, it's said that they took her and put her beside a statue of an indigenous goddess. Cortes was so mad that he threw a violent tantrum.

Historically, Latin Americans have been seen as bad Christians. I've seen why. In my home town, there is a statue of the goddess of death. Her name is Santa Muerte. At the same time, most people who worship her will call themselves Christian. Christianity means different things to different people, religion usually does.

Christianity is not fascism, actually. I guess I'll die on that hill. Christianity isn't the white American evangelicals you might know calling for rapture and apocalypse. To me, it's been priests in migrant shelters, it's been Latin Americans clutching their rosaries because they spent days kidnapped and tortured. It's also been something that is deeply heretical – a death goddess – but still Christian because this person has decided it is.

It's also a horror to me. I was put in conversion therapy. I will never be a regular person because of what was done to me. I was put in a Christian school where I was harassed over my clothes by nuns, saw violent homophobic and transphobic attacks in front of me routinely. I will never be comfortable with my identity because of Christianity. I will spend the rest of my life suffering because of what was done to me, by people I trusted.

But I know genocide. I know what it looks like, I know what it is. And if you want 2.6 billion people dead, then I'll say that's a lot of innocent people dead. That's genocide. A lot of those in the third world, a lot of colonized people who've made Christianity their own.

I don't know how old you are. For your sake, I'll assume you're my age. In which case, I'm not going to say "touch grass." Instead, just, please, volunteer at a migrant shelter, volunteer at a soup kitchen, work to protect the rights of un-housed people, organize a strike. Speak with your neighbors and ask them if they ever want to hang out, how their jobs are going.

A book written by a trans gay Mexican poking fun at Christian lore and exploring his interest in angels is not.... worth saying all this. Again, I'm not going to reply if you send me anything like this again. But I hope your week goes well. I hope that you go to sleep cozy. And if you're afraid of how scary things are for queer/trans folk, then I'm with you. I really am. You know, I self-published to avoid the book getting banned by fascist-Christians, and when I first announced ABM, I was harassed by Christians; they told me they would burn my book.

I hope you can find some peace in between all the fear. I wish that for both of us.

#mine #ask #maybeee #delete later #maybe ill turn anon off but only maybe

[demongirlgarlicbread]

Paradox games are.. interesting. We can put it like that. I'm talking specifically about the propensity for doing truly abominable thing within the world of the game. Stellaris and it's intergalactic slavery and genocide. Hearts of Iron and how it lets you establish a fascist regime over all the world. Crusader Kings and how you can get.. well.. medieval. And Europa Universalis, where you engage in colonial expansion and genocide as a matter of course.

EU4 stands out as the most uncomfortable to play, when you sit back from the ducats and the development and the drilling.

It's not like Stellaris, where the scales are too big to ever really grasp what you're doing. There's too much abstraction. You can't look at a pop and say "this is X amount of people I've enslaved or condemned to genocide."

It's not like Hoi4, where in the interests of creating a wargaming experience, the only relevance fascism has to the game is the alliances your country makes, the type of puppet state you establish, and the buffs you get from your focus tree. TNO is as of yet the only Hoi4 experience we've had that grapples with fascism. What it means, what it does, what it is. And it's in essence a visual novel grafted onto the game, near completely divorced from the standard experience. One of the stories it tells is in fact a repudiation of the standard Hoi4 experience, that of a world conquest. What does that say about the game?

CK2, on the other hand, is very personal. The stories you tell with the game are about people, after all. Love, lust, rage, hatred. Scheming, fighting, praying. Cruelty, kindness, apathy, fervor. It does the opposite of the two games mentioned above, and brings into sharp focus the individual lives of the rulers. Every part of the mechanics and the flavor is centered around telling the tale of an individual monarch and their dynasty.

And that's an interesting question, mechanics. How do the mechanics of a game influence your experience with it? And I'm not talking about the basic functions of mechanics here or anything. I'm not talking about whether or not the game is fun to play, or well designed. I'm talking about the way the interaction of the mechanics with the setting of the game influences the way you think about it.

In Stellaris, you think about the grand scale. Of great empires, of massive economies. You're far beyond the concerns of manpower. Far beyond the focus of the individual on the ground. You have no time for that. There are stars to explore, civilizations to conquer, and a galaxy to colonize. Stellaris is a very dehumanizing game. The closest you get to stories on the ground are events talking about large societal trends, or the archaeological digs. I don't think anything with your leaders counts, really. They're paragons, isolates, and more representative of groups than they are themselves. Stellaris isn't a game about people. It's a game about civilizational machines, beyond your ability to comprehend.

In Hoi4, you think about war. Your goal is to get to a war economy and a high conscription law as fast as possible, produce as much war material as you can, and then go about the business of fighting the second world war. Hoi4 is so incredibly focused on war in its mechanics that it presents an utterly alien dichotomy the moment you sit down to think about it. You, the commander in chief of this nation of many millions of people, are actively encouraged to rush towards the death of millions. Because doing right by your country, fighting a limited war, only doing as much as is necessary to defend yourself to ensure the best life for your people, that's not only boring, it's non-optimal gameplay. This is exacerbated to such a degree that it's the opinion of most persons that the democratic nations, the most passive and reactive nations, are the most unfun to play. You are encouraged by the mechanics of the game and how it provides enjoyment to be a warmongering tyrant, because fighting war is the purpose of the thing. For a game about the second world war, it seems incredibly uninterested in actually portraying anything but the most surface level, historybro understanding of it. Particularly when it comes to atrocity. It's a game about civilizational machines, grinding into one another and desperately asking you to forget about the civilian dead.

Then EU4. It's a game that starts in 1444, and ends in 1836, and chronicles the history of the world in a wholly and entirely eurocentric manner. Your goal is not so much to conquer the world(though you may) but to become a dominant global power through your mastery of science, diplomacy, the economy, snd the military. As one might expect, one of the primary mechanics of this game is colonization. Another primary mechanic is culture and religion. Like all things in EU4, these mechanics can be somewhat labyrinthine to those who are inexperienced with the game. So I'll spare any readers an in depth dissertation on how it works. The gist of things is that each province has a religion and a culture, representing the beliefs and way of life of those living there. Ethnicity too, one might presume. When you colonize a territory, you over the course of a number of years turn it from a stateless, uncontrolled province to one with your own culture and religion. Except, the land is not uninhabited. It is with only a very few exceptions, never uninhabited. There are people there. Cultures and religions. Helpfully marked down with population stats, as well as 'aggressiveness' and 'ferocity' stats to let any potential colonizers know what to expect. As though these people are simply animals, and should be dealt with like animals.

When you colonize, of course, people will fight back. Native uprisings, they're called. So you need to station troops there, to protect your invasion and your genocide. But since your troops can only be in so many places at once, well. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some way to get the inevitable fight over with? In comes the 'attack natives' button, marked with a helpful graphic of a stylized man wearing a stylized war bonnet running from a stylized sword. With one to three applications of sword mana, you can commit genocide at your leisure, and reduce the population in the province to zero so your settlers have an easier time of things.

And so the game goes. For captured territory, there's a religion conversion button and a culture conversion button. The mechanics, through their simulation of people simply desiring to be free, make it optimal to crack down, restrict autonomy, crush rebellions, and homogenize all religion and culture. You are playing as an absolutist monarch, after all. Though even the republics aren't any better, because they're under the same mechanical pressures as the monarchies.

So it's interesting, how these mechanics influence your view of the world that the game presents. You get to see, in close to real time, how your empire snuffs out peoples and cultures and faiths, all for the sake of power and money. And these are good things for you, the player. Because the good numbers go up, and the bad numbers go down. You make more money, you have to deal with less unrest, and your name on the map grows larger. Press button, kill people, receive dopamine. All in a way that's so incredibly difficult to divorce yourself from, because the mechanics invite you to actively take part in the atrocities. And they make them fun. And satisfying. And it's on a scale that is very, very, very possible to comprehend. It's a game about civilizational machines crushing peoples under their heels, all while inviting you to look and see with just enough detail to make out the dead.

If you're going to play Paradox games, then you need to go into them knowing damn well what the difference is between what they're portraying and how they're portraying it. So you don't reduce the very real people who survived the horrors of colonialism to numbers on a screen.

#just some late night thoughts #externalizing what's been brewing for a while while we play colonialism sim #this sort of thought process always crops up when we play eu4 #and I'm glad of it #perspective is important #eu4 #paradox #hoi4 #stellaris #ck2 #grand strategy

[dr-donogood]

Hey! Idk if this still interests you or not but I saw your post saying Richtofen isn’t a n@zi

I also believe this and have done a lot of research but I think I have trouble with finding sources as I haven’t been able to find anything that shows that he is against fascism + hates it, which makes it difficult to argue that he isn’t one when talking to others about it.

Do you have proof or some sort of instance that either states or hints towards this that could help with the argument that he is against n@zis?

I’d appreciate any info you give!

Hello anon! Oh wow It has been a hot second since I've Codsed my Zombies. I'm not sure how much you know already. So I'll just go down the list of things I remeber! And i'll make this a bit beginner freindly, just in case anyone needs to show this to someone.

Also feel free to add to it!!! Or feel free to point out if I misspoke it HAS been a bit...

1) For starters, although the lore reason for Richtofen's outfit is unknown (most anything i could say here would be pure speculation and HC), we do know that he was originally just a re-used asset from the main game. He comes from the villian character Heinrich Amsel. When COD Zombies (previously Nazi Zombies) first started out, all the characters were blank slate re-used and slightly recolored assets. They ofc later gave them all names and stories (although testing the waters at first, a lot of early story got ret-conned. Such as Richtofen being a back ally surgeon.) But they unfortunately never re-designed him outside of removing the swastika :( but I also belive it's important beacuse I feel like it's one of the only things ppl bring up when the try and say Richtofen is a nazi, and I feel like it holds no weight beacuse of these things.

(Here is Heinrich Amsel. As u can see, clearly where Richtofen's original model comes from.)

2) lore stuff is dificult to pile evidance for due to how the lore in the game itself is presented. If you want the freshest and best sources (aside from meticulously beating every easter egg and finding all the secrets) YouTube videos with the quotes/Easter eggs/secrets are your best bet aside from going in game and grabbing them yourself. I can't particularly remeber what exsact maps may be able to help you. Aside from Classified!

It's just generally a real important part of the basic lore that Richtofen isn't a Nazi and hates them. It's kinda what kicks off....everything that happend. Im sure anyone could get this information from any reliable Cod Zombies lore video (i uhhh don't know which ones are reliable i haven't watched any! Probably check out Mr.RoflWaffles?). For starters, Richtofen was always a spy. He worked for the Illuminati before Maxis asked him to join Group 935, and Richtofen only joined so he could feed information back to the Illuminati. It's also important to note that Group 935 was not originally associated with Nazis. Maxis made a deal with the nazis without anyone's permission (funding and test subjects in exchange for weapons and super soldiers.) And that was one of many things that pissed Richtofen off so badly that he gathered everyone up to make a secret section of Group 935, that both worked with the allies, and planned on killing off Maxis. (Ofc his goal was later shifted and corupted by the Apothicons. But this is about how Richtofen isn't a Nazi, not questioning him as a dubious person. There was also all of the moon shit, Maxis not caring about Richtofen's experiments, a whole boat load of resons that Richtofen wanted that man dead.)

(Also. Richtofen never fought in ww2 and ww2 is already over by the time the zombie breakout happens.)

Here is a link to the Film Reels in Classified, many of which talk about how Richtofen was working against Maxis (and the nazis) and even has some verbal confirmation from Richtofen about his distaste for nazis.

Also here is also the Kronorium! As far as I know, it should still be a reliable sorce! (Like i said, it's been a while). And I think it's a bit better than the wiki (which still says his nationality is nazi german...instead of just saying he's german....) there is plenty of stuff in the interactive book that explains

https://kronorium.com/

2) here are some instances of his voice actor, Nolan North, confirming that he isn't a Nazi! (Thank you @jamieaiken919 for digging these up for me!!!)

And did that's kinda all I have for now! Like I said anyone is free to add!

#cod zombies #edward richtofen #tw nazi #nazi tw #man i made that original post when i was 13-14ish that was a while ago #i was also kinda cringe as shit back then but at least i was right about COD Zombies!!!

[katherinakaina]

Think what you will of Daniil Dankovsky but his story is NOT a white savior story. Not even a little bit.

And it's peculiar, isn't it? We are so accustomed to white savior narrative, so when we see a character who's in the perfect spot to become one, but doesn't, we read him as hostile. How can you see this struggling population and NOT decide to lead the revolution to save them? Are you a heartless monster?

Racism in Pathologic is not its strongest storyline. But it is fairly realistic. It shows all aspects of discrimination. Starting with slave labor segregation and lynchings and ending with prejudice microaggressions and cultural appropriation (*coughs* Stamatins) simultaneously with cultural genocide. We see how the whole society is shaped by this conflict and there's not a part of it that isn't affected by colonialism. Once again the town on Gorkhon is our world.

And into this centuries worth of history arrives a dude on a completely unrelated mission. And he is appalled by what he sees but what is he going to do? Singlehandedly solve racism? Maybe one day, but here and now he has a bit of a more urgent situation at hand.

In the end Daniil seems to be resenting the town. Not as much as to destroy it just out of pure hate. But he will not go out of his way to save it either. And he thinks (I think he is correct) he has a valid reason why it should be destroyed (still, it shouldn't be).

People sometimes read his hatred for the town as his disdain for the local culture but the culture is racist! Most of the town is segregated white settlement. Most of the people Daniil interacts with are white racists and he hates them.

He doesn't believe in local myths but why would he? He was not raised with them and he does not fetishize them either (*coughs* Vlad the Younger). He does believe in local medicine and his own vaccine is based on Isidor's methodology (that's why Rubin actually creates it, not Daniil). So he is willing to adopt the practices that are useful but now I gather people will say he exploits them (which is a more interesting point, I'm surprised that I've never seen it made before).

So yes, Daniil doesn't abandon everything to save the Steppe culture and liberate the Kin. He believes that the town's foundation is rotten to the core. The plague is a metaphor for fascism and it keeps coming back. We have to start anew. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. And Daniil is willing to bulldoze all of it.

You could even say that in some galaxy brain take way he IS a white savior, because he destroys the entire system. But no. The future utopia led by the Kains does not look like a multiracial democracy. It seems like the Kin were pretty much severed from their land and culture even more, if they even survived at all. It is not good. I disagree with the utopian ending.

Daniil is not a character who can do it alone. A white guy will not be able to consider everything when it comes to the perfect future. He can't figure it out. He is not a savior. It is not because he's malicious. But oh boy does he have shortcomings.

Give him a girl friend and a steppe friend. I bet they'll be able to get along.

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #daniil dankovsky #artemy burakh #racism in media #colonialism in media

[sepublic]

As I try to dig into Harumi's whole mindset, I think her revenge logic can be boiled down to idol worship. She doesn't blame Pythor (as much) for the Great Devourer, because Pythor is the designated bad guy, that's what he's supposed to do, he can't let her down if she never had any expectations for him.

But the ninja? Harumi, in her childish wonder, idolized the ninja, practically worshipped them; She had an understandably juvenile understanding of Good VS Evil, of Good always prevailing, of conflict always being black and white and glamorous and in the end, justice wins. Everything is tied up easily.

So then why are her parents dead, why has Harumi lost everything, while everyone celebrates and acts as if the day is saved? It is very much NOT saved in her eyes, how is everyone able to just move on and invalidate her trauma?!?

Harumi idolizes the ninja, she expects them to be perfect heroes because if she can't believe in them, she can't believe in anything; It's why she makes a cult. A cult of personality. She latches onto the idea of Lord Garmadon as someone who can save her, who can accomplish what needs to be done, someone who is perfect and who will never fail her, and maybe you can link this to Harumi missing her parents as steady, dependable figures in her life she can rely on.

She's a stunted child; Harumi still expects for there to be someone to save her, to protect her, to coddle her. Most children grow out of this in a healthy, reasonable way, but Harumi's circumstances were anything but that. And you could tie that into how Lloyd was also forced to grow up fast... except in Harumi's case, she did not survive the crucible, she did not emerge 'stronger' for it.

Looking into her diary, Harumi idolizes Lord Garmadon, but when he becomes chill and more like the ninja who failed her, that's when Harumi becomes disappointed in him. This isn't the Garmadon SHE wants, she wants someone who she can rely and trust on, a Big Brother figure that makes her feel safe through any means possible.

That's why she brings back Garmadon as Lord Garmadon, while ignoring his human side, because Harumi explicitly hates that. She is someone who projects all of her hopes and needs and desires onto someone else, and when they inevitably fall short because they're human (for lack of a better term), Harumi feels personally insulted that she wasted all of her faith on them.

So Harumi's motives aren't just revenge, even if that does factor a lot into it; It's also a very unhealthy approach to life that involves a leader to take care of everything. A perfect savior, a Chosen One even, which pairs well with Lloyd being raised as one; A lot of his trauma and abandonment stems from his expected role. If Lloyd is the one who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders, Harumi is the one he is supposed to save, who expects him to handle it perfectly, and blames him when it doesn't turn out as it should.

It's a very childish and simplistic way of viewing the world, obviously. It also makes Harumi sympathetic to dictatorship and fascism, because there needs to be a strong, concentrated ruler who decides everything for everyone, and destroys the designated bad guys as they're supposed to. So with all that in mind, it does make sense that Harumi would pledge allegiance to the Overlord; He promises strength and security, he doesn't hesitate at all.

Harumi isn't just vendetta-fueled, because otherwise she'd be going after the Serpentine, just as much; If she just wanted revenge on the ninja, she wouldn't have bothered with Garmadon specifically, wouldn't have worshipped him so fanatically. It's about stability and structure for her, and she hates the ninja for not doing what they should've done long ago. Her being raised by the Emperor and Empress of Ninjago may have also influenced Harumi's beliefs; Her adopted parents being merely symbolic may have been a source of frustration, as like many kids, she'd buy into the fantasy of the noble king who has the divine right and can be trusted to handle everything. So experiencing the ineffectual, performative reality this role has become would've enraged Harumi.

Both the ninja AND the Emperor/Empress have failed her; Now what? Harumi isn't simply short-sighted revenge like Aspheera is, she actually IS ideological, now that I think about it. She has actual goals, a continuous endgame for how society should function afterwards. Harumi hates the ninja because they're so close and yet so far, they ARE in that position to end it all, but they just won't go far enough yet! She's like those people who get really salty over why Batman won't kill the Joker or anyone else, except this all real life stuff with real life ramifications.

Harumi is toxic, she's codependent, she latches onto people in the most unhealthy way, as we see with Lloyd. She's a worshipper who needs a God to follow, someone to tell Harumi what to do and how to live her life; Because she's still that scared child who lost her parents before she could grow independent of them, and needs someone else to provide that same sense of security.

Harumi does care about people in a twisted, misguided way; She helps that girl and her parents whom she finds uncomfortably familiar. But conceptually, I think it does make sense that in Crystalized, Harumi continues to latch onto someone like the Overlord, and continues to resort to these extreme measures for safety. She might let go of the rage, but Harumi is still scared and desperate for a way to resolve the strife and conflict perfectly, which is where the Overlord steps in.

Her actual arc, in practice, could've been handled better though; In particular, it'd have been nice to see Harumi realize that the very idea of worshipping an idol, even a literal god like the Overlord, is doomed to fail, and it's not just a matter of needing the right person in the position for it. The system itself is inherently broken; The dictatorship, the blind worship. There is no perfect solution/ending, Harumi's just gonna have to keep fighting and accept her fear. So in addition to realizing the Overlord doesn't fit the role either, Harumi realizes the role itself shouldn't exist either.

#ninjago #harumi jade #character analysis #sons of garmadon #hunted #crystalized

[damndroid]

Fionna and Cake: The Escapist Fantasies of Suicide and Apocalypse

One of the first things just about everyone noticed during episode 1 of the new Fionna and Cake miniseries is the incredibly dark lyrics of the opening theme, "Not Myself".

I'm not really feeling like myself today

Hated every job I've had

What's wrong with me?

Everyday's the same

Painfully mundane

'Cause I'm running from my feelings

And my fear of sudden change

Every time I leave my room I wanna die

Even when I'm with my friends

I'm alone inside

'Cause nothing really matters

And I don't know what's sadder The fact I even try

Or that my hopes and dreams are shattered

I'm not really feeling like myself today

Ay ay ay ay

We see another take on the same theme with Simon. As himself, he is incapable of helping Fionna. Losing himself to the madness of the crown in order to be useful again isn't just a sacrifice, it's a suicide.

It strikes a chord, but I initially struggled to see how these themes expanded through the rest of the show. I also struggled to reconcile why, if Fiona is struggling with suicidal ideation, the culmination of her arc in episode 10 is her realizing that the world she lives in, while flawed, is worth fighting for.

And then it hit me: suicidal ideation and apocalyptic ideation are fundamentally the same escapist fantasy.

When I've struggled with suicidal ideation, it has often been through the lens of a release from the responsibility of being part of the world. When you struggle with the constant tasks of keeping yourself fed and clothed, the responsibility you have to the people in your life to be kind, communicative, understanding, and supportive seem out of reach. You begin to feel like, well -

But damndroid, you whimper. What's apocalyptic ideation? What does that have to do with this?

Well, the fantasy that Fionna entertains for most of the series isn't suicide. She wants to replace her world with a magical one full of adventure and promise.

It's only over the course of the series that she realizes that the realization of this fantasy means destroying the world she knows and the people in it.

This kind of fantasy of being able to let go of a mundane, doomed world is something that I think most people in my age group are familiar with. Our media landscape has been saturated with apocalypse for decades. We love stories about sad dads in a world where civilization has collapsed figuring out how to help their daughters (Simon included). This is a reflection of the fact that our world feels doomed. Climate change, the perpetual economic collapses of late stage capitalism, the endless wars of imperial domination, the rise of a new global wave of fascism. It's too much.

If the world is going to die, it's certainly a lot more fun and easy to think about adventures in the aftermath than about the complex process of its death and what we have to do now. This is the core of apocalyptic ideation: the problems that we have a responsibility to help solve seem insurmountable and out of reach. It's easier to imagine a world where we have already failed.

In her superb video essay The World Is Not Ending (please watch it please pleasepleasepleaseplease), Sophie touches on this idea, primarily though a criticism/extension of Mark Fisher's famous quote "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." Sophie continues this thought:

"If we are trapped by the conviction that we cannot possibly win, imagining others remaining idle is the thing keeping us stuck. If we want to come unstuck, we need to have confidence in each other…the sooner we fight back, the better the world gets to be as a result”

I guess this whole spiel is an excuse for me to say this: we only get one world.

It's not dying. It's being killed.

And not fighting back is suicide.

#Fionna and Cake #Fionna and Cake spoilers #tw:suicide #tw: suicidal ideation #suicide #suicidal ideation

[thedreadvampy]

watched monkey man. Thoughts:

dev patel is a really good actor

it's a beautifully put together film visually, the action flows great and the close focus and different speeds are really engaging.

also really enjoyed the sound design for the most part although Roxanne was a pretty funny needle drop for the strip club scene

haha this film is not even in the vicinity of fucking around. not since del toro's peak has a film been so utterly resistant to subtlety when it comes to You Understanding What It Thinks Of Fascism. which I appreciate, to be clear. it is right and good to beat hindutva fascist murderers to death with a shoe.

I was legitimately really emotionally moved by the protagonist's character arc and I thought it handled the trauma and sexual violence elements in ways that were sensitive and not gratuitous

having said that I did feel like it dropped a lot of threads I would have liked to see carried through more fully, and I think that hurt its attempts to be sensitive about gendered violence.

outside of the protagonist there isn't really much of an arc to the female characters - other than the temple guardian, the hijras aren't really given any character or individuation other than as an en masse backdrop to dev patel's badassification, and although it's sick as hell to see them kick some ass at the end, they kind of fall into the background, without their actions or deaths being given much dramatic weight.

Similarly the sex worker character gets two moments of significant characterisation - when she talks to him outside early on and when she fucks up the hotel owner at the end - and that implies an arc of her moving from resignation to hope but imo a lot of what we actually see of her in between those moments is only through the lens of how her mistreatment triggers the protagonist into thinking about his mother's assault.

So I don't think it's intentional and it clearly reads as though we're meant to understand both the hijra community and the sex worker as the protagonist's allies and comrades, but because we only really see them through the lens of how they move his story forwards, it does at times feel like it falls back into a trope of 'women and marginalised people's abuse happens in order to motivate a man to do manly violence' and none of the women depicted as the subject of violence - not the hijras, not the sex worker, not his mother - are the focus of power and subjectivity in the story. The mother comes closest in that - she's clearly established as involved in resistance and she acts both to protect her child and defend herself, and is also humanised and characterised - whereas the present-day women are kind of instrumentalised - they don't have particularly defined personalities and they mostly exist to inspire the protagonist to act by their suffering, and to be inspired to act by his example.

Other than the gender/power aspect where it gets a bit male saviour-y, there were a few other characters I felt like I was expecting to come back or be expanded on that just didn't.

The dog was one element - it was very built up early on, obviously it plays a part in his first failed attempt, then it just falls off the film which is weird cause it felt like they were introducing a thematic throughline.

also the guy from the hotel - I was already kind of confused about his motivation for going with Dev Patel in the police chase, since I thought we'd established him as being profit motivated rather than having a significant relationship with the protagonist, and then we see him on and off throughout the second act, which feels like it's building to him having some significant part to play, and perhaps it's understanding why he chose to align with the terrorist against his employer. then after the Dev-Patel-Has-Leveled-Up ring fight scene, where he's Dev Patel's biggest fan, he fully vanishes from the film never to be seen again. I do not know what I'm meant to take from this character.

couple more thoughts

the priest character is a really strong villain and that final fight was really really good, it truly did keep me on the edge of my seat.

I'm a little bit in love with the mother

man he REALLY wanted to bite that guy's nose off in the brothel fight. he literally goes in to bite the nose off THREE SEPARATE TIMES before he successfully does it. there are other bits of him to attack, I just think.

based on the trailer and the marketing, I really expected it to be gorier I think? there are some conceptually gnarly injuries and kills but the camera speeds by then pretty fast and the bulk of the film is not about the spectacle of violence. this isn't a complaint but it wasn't what I anticipated.

for me I think actually the only thing that made me wince was the bleach thing. and also I'm no pharmacist but I feel like snorting bleach should have fucked singh up more than it did, he seemed surprisingly fine other than a mild nosebleed.

speaking of bleach - really enjoyed that setup and payoff and callback but like the bit where he bleached the mask was very cool and then he only wore it for like 1 minute of screen time then took it straight off again before even entering the hotel. I just feel like he's not fully committing to this Hanuman thing.

ooh I really liked the bit right before the final fight kicks off where Not-Modi is addressing the room full of donors and it's so full of references to the British Raj and highlighting Not-Modi's public school accent, I thought that made really good points about the commonality of oppression. I also appreciated the moment where Dev Patel chooses to let Not-Modi, the political outcrop, go, and instead go after the ideological heart of the movement.

look it's been said but the bit where he bounces off the window in the first act is such a good choice. it's funny and it's also tense. works well.

all told I had a good time, and I liked that it was as on the nose and specific about its goals as possible, although I did feel like it dropped some threads which made it feel weaker than it otherwise might - I think that while I liked the first act, some of it could have been trimmed back in favour of fleshing out some of the side characters in the back half of the film so that they felt a bit less instrumentalised and a bit more human, which was done really well with the mother imo. overall I reckon 8.5/10.

#red said #monkey man

[legobatman08]

listen the fuck up, i think (HOPE) all of yall are antifa on here, but for WHATEVER REASON, the only time y'all care about fascism is when it happens in countries you know a lot about. I'm tired of the only political shit discussed being America or some fucking western European country.

there's a very prominent neo-nazi party in georgia (WHICH MY CLASSMATE IS A PART OF????), with extreme conservative and puritan views. see the armbands and the flag in the back? that's the georgian neo-nazi symbol. don't ask me why the faces are blurred, my source for this is the nazi classmate himself, and he blurred it.

brief summary of how this sorry excuse of an organization formed: they broke into a nightclub because "DANCING IS SINFUL", destroyed the club obviously, beat up everyone who was there (girls, guys, university students, bartenders, EVERYONE). where was the police, you may ask? one of them was drunk and JOINED these shitheads, the rest showed up hours later for "unrelated reasons" and pretended none of it happened. you'll see that cops doing jack shit will become a reoccurring theme in this post. this all branches from the extreme upholding of "orthodox christian values" - they're doing all this in "God's name", AND THE CHURCH SUPPORTS IT. obviously, fascism in Georgia existed even before these fucking cunts, but they're growing stronger and recruiting more people these days.

SO, WHAT PROMPTED ME TO MAKE THIS POST? these days, they've gotten more physically aggressive. here are some examples:

they asked a random guy in the streets about his opinion on fascism, when he said he doesn't like it (FUCKING OBVIOUSLY), they beat him up (the police did JACK SHIT and pretended that the part security cameras glitched out WHEN THE NAZIS LITERALLY FILMED A VIDEO OF THEM DOING IT)

they killed a dog and kept beating it after death, and they beat up cats in the street (they filmed these as a video too)

they beat up the leader of a governmental organization Girchi, which is the most progressive party we have right now (with anti-governmental, anti-russian, and antifa anarchistic ideologies)

the Girchi leader was supposed to hold a lecture about politics for kids and uni students at a summer camp thing, and the nazis ATTACKED THE CAMPSITE AND THREW STONES AT PEOPLE.

update on the first one: an armed man in civilian clothes entered his HOSPITAL ROOM, some women tried to stop him, TURNS OUT HE WAS A COP, AND NOW THE POLICE IS PRESSING CHARGES FOR "ATTACKING A POLICE OFFICER"??????

1 - They didn't know he was a cop, 2 - they didn't even attack him just tried to stop him from going to the kid's bed because he was a threat, 3 - HOW THE FUCK ELSE WOULD YOU REACT IF A STRANGER WITH A GUN ENTERED YOUR KID'S HOSPITAL ROOM AND TRIED TO GO NEAR HIM?????

anyways, this shit is scary. the nazi party is recruiting minors, like my classmate, so that if they ever get arrested, the minors will have to be released because OBVIOUSLY nobody's gonna HAVE A 14 YEAR OLD ROT IN PRISON. even if they were all adults, as i mentioned, the police don't care, because they're doing this in the name of Christianity. they're posting xenophobic, homophobic, conservative and very christian nazi bullshit so that they can make people believe that they want what's best for people, BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THE MAJORITY OF GEORGIA SHARES THOSE IDEOLOGIES. their name is literally "Geo National Unity" TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE THEY'RE DOING THIS TO "HELP" US. EVEN IF THEIR IDEAS WERE MORALLY CORRECT, WHY THE FUCK AREN'T THEY BEHIND BARS FOR WHAT THEY'RE DOING??

i know I'm not the most coherent source of information, i know this just looks like a stupid rant, but this information isn't accessible in English, which means NOBODY OTHER THAN US GEORGIANS KNOWS WHATS GOING ON. the later this shit stops, the more fascists there'll be in Georgia, because no one wants to put a stop to this. cops are fucking pigs, as always.

I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS. I'M TIRED OF SEEING SWASTIKA GRAFFITI ON WALLS AND SCHOOL DESKS. I'M SICK OF FEELING THREATENED JUST BECAUSE I'M OPENLY ANTI-NAZI AND SOMEWHAT OPENLY QUEER. I'M SICK OF RELIGION BEING AN EXCUSE FOR THESE FUCKING DEGENERATES. NOBODYS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. I'm sorry for getting fucking emotional on a post that's supposed to be informational, but SOMEONE had to fucking say it. progressive people in non-western countries are in fucking hell, because nobody acknowledges any problems in places that doesn't concern them. anyways please fucking reblog this, for awareness and for help and what-fucking-ever. thank you for reading.

#acab #geo national unity #neo nazis #antifa #let me know what other tags i can use for this so people actually fucking see it #georgian politics

[antifainternational]

Hello. Some times ago, while eating at a fast food, I realized that the guy eating not far from me was a white supremacist (had a lot of dogwhistle tatoos, the most obvious being "white power" stylized with germanic runes, so not much room for doubts). I stayed there not knowing how to react until he eventually left, so not much happened, but the event is still somewhat on my mind. Should I have done something? if so, what could I have done? I thought about making a scene, as to expose him to everyone present, but seeing how "out" he was about his belief, it is possible that it would have been dangerous. Do you have any advices on what actions I could take if i were to encounter a similar situation again? Thank you for your time and for all the work you do.

Hmm, this is a tough one and how you react is going to depend on a lot of things, like: 1) How Safe Do You Feel Engaging With Him? Is it a setting where you think it's unlikely to escalate into a physical thing? Do you feel like you could handle this person if it came down to that? Are there people with you to back you up and can you definitely rely on them to back you up? Are there people with him that might back him up? Is he armed/could he be armed? 2) How Do You Want To Approach Him? Members of our collective have run into this scenario before and approached it from all sorts of angles, depending on the situation, from "hey, what's up with that tattoo?" to "this is not an area for white supremacists to hang out and you need to leave now" to "if we catch you here again and you're still repping that nazi shit you're going to get a beatdown" and we've received responses that ranged from "oh, yeah, I used to be into that but I'm not anymore and I was planning on getting a cover-up tat" to a full-on brawl with a group of bikers who happened to choose the same restaurant we were at (good times!). 3) What other options do you have? If directly approaching the dude isn't the best play, what else could you do? -if you're pretty sure other people around will be totally & vocally on-side with you, maybe you could very loudly announce his presence and the meaning of his tattoos. -maybe you want to very discreetly follow him for a bit and see what kind of transportation he's using, where he might live, who he's friends with in the area, etc. -maybe after he's gone you can talk to people in the area and ask if they realized what he was about and what they thought about it. -maybe you come back later when it's safe to do so and plaster the area with anti-fascist graffiti, posters, or stickers (we have some of the latter for you here), so when he returns he's well-aware that he's in hostile territory. We do think everyone should do something in those situations, Anon, because denying fascists public space is an important aspect of anti-fascism. This twitter thread about a bartender kicking nazis out on-sight no matter what they're doing explains the principle quite well. Making it impossible for nazis to exist publicly without opposition makes it extremely hard for them to recruit, organize, or hurt people.