#like yeah sure you know better than me you antisemitic fuck

[monsterblogging]

"I know JK Rowing is a terrible person but her books are so good-"

You sure about that?

I mean, just for a start, have you taken a good look at her fantasy creatures lately? A whole bunch of them are straight-up based on malicious and dehumanizing stereotypes about actual people.

Remember the werewolves? And being a werewolf was made into a kind of metaphor for having AIDS?

And you know how AIDS was first associated with gay men? And how conservatives back in the day were claiming gay men were preying on children in order to convert them to gayness?

Remember how Fenrir Greyback preyed on children in particular? Yeah, she put that subtext in there. She was an adult in the 90's. She knew damn well what she was doing.

Remember the house elves? Remember how most of them loved to serve and needed to have a home and a master or else they just wouldn't know what to do with themselves?

Did you know that's literally what slavers in the American South said about the Black people they kept enslaved? Go look up the happy slave myth.

Do I even need to get into the goblins and the antisemitic tropes they're based on? No, folkloric goblins were not gold-hoarding bankers waiting for their chance to stab humanity in the back.

"But the characters are so good!"

Are you kidding me?

Most of her characters are pretty one-dimensional, including Harry. Her idea of making a morally complicated character is giving a tragic past to a bully. Numerous characters are little more than stereotypes. (Looking at Fleur right now.) Literally anybody, including you, can easily make dozens of characters just as good, if not better. (It doesn't exactly take a lot of character designing skill to go, "hey, actually, having a sad backstory doesn't make it okay to bully children" or "hey, maybe I should not base a character on the first stereotype that pops into my head.")

"But the rest of the worldbuilding!"

Sorry, but her worldbuilding is just as basic as her characters. Magical castles and secret passages are stock tropes. Magical people who keep their true nature secret from humanity is the premise of pretty much every White Wolf TTRPG. Most of her fantasy creatures are just common European fairy tale and folklore creatures with shitty stereotypes projected onto them.

I'm not saying "basic worldbuilding bad." I'm saying, you could do just as good, if not better, with minimal effort.

Also there's her magical bioessentialism, where only Harry's abusive blood relatives could provide him with supernatural protection from Voldemort. Rowling thus effectively declared that non-biological family isn't quite real family, and that abusive biofamily can give you some essential thing that a loving, supportive family that isn't related to you just can't.

The Hogwarts houses are one of the most insidious elements of her worldbuilding. The idea of being sorted gives you a little dopamine hit because wow now you have a li'l niche where you belong!

But the actual function of the houses and sorting system and the House Cup is teaching children to see each other as rivals, and ensure that the most toxic views of the upper class get passed on to every new batch of kids sorted into Slytherin.

Hogwarts effectively prepares children for a dystopia where magic serves to distract its citizens from how nightmarishly awful it is. Economic inequality is so bad that people like Arthur and Molly Weasley can barely afford to put their kids through school, casual sadism is just an accepted norm in everyday society, and non-humans are second class citizens. Rowling sorta acts like she thinks this is a bad thing with certain lines she gave to Dumbledore, but in the end, her special boy protagonist becomes an auror; IE, a defender of the status quo. So.

If you've never seen it, Lily Simpson's video goes into even more detail on how the worldbuilding of Harry Potter is actually incredibly fucked up, and how it betrays small-minded attitudes on Rowling's part. There's no separating the art from this artist, because Rowling's rotten values pour out of nearly every page.

Yes, there are many things in Harry Potter that evoke feelings and inspire people, but there's absolutely nothing in it that this series has a monopoly on. You can find those same experiences in much, much better media.

#harry potter #jk rowling #Youtube

[phantomram-b00]

Why is Harry Potter trending (or was)? Can it not? Like deadass I’m being fr can it plz not. Especially that J.K Rowling is a massive TERF, a raging antisemite, and disgustingly try to deny that trans people were not affected by the Holocaust (which she was ratio’d by George Takei).

“Proof?”

Way ahead of you: (Tw: transphobia, racism, antisemitism, holocaust, Harry Potter)

Oh and don’t get me started how Hogwart Legacy, you know that game that was sworn Jk Rowling wasn’t apart of (yeah sure-) is blood libel story. Not to mention that trans people have told you not to especially since there is a canonical transgender character named Sirona. (People said Sirona is a Celtic goddess for healing. but- come on. You can’t bullshit out of this one. There are OTHER NAMES TO NAME A TRANSGENDER CHARACTER— it make those joke with how Jk Rowling naming not far off. Because it like naming a nonbinary character “NoGendora” or smth (before you say, I’m nonbinary myself—) so idc if it already have a meaning, it still is tone deaf to name a transgender women Sirona).

“But but- you can separate the art from the artist?”

Yes. You can separate art from the artist. HOWEVER before you celebrate thinking you had a gotcha moment. You can only separate if the art itself isn’t problematic or is bigotry itself. Harry Potter is as mention in the links. Not to mention, Harry Potter himself become a cop despite the cop in that world didn’t do jack shit. And don’t get me started on how they handle the whole elf slavery. Also there is heavy fatphobia in this story, proof, look at how they would talk about Harry’s abusive aunt and uncle from his mother’s side. Don’t get me started how she would describe Rita Skeeter. There even a black character who’s last names is Shacklebolt— do I need to say more (if I’m missing any other examples please tell me)

Not to mention she benefits off of it and uses her money to donate to transphobia and just don’t give a flying fuck if she offend people (which seem to usually be the case for trans/homophobia but moving on). like, this is who you wanna support? You still want to read this wizard book when there are other that don’t have transphobia, racist, antisemitic, or any problematic rhetoric and are objectively better than Harry Potter? Really? You wanna die on this hill?

Look. I used to like Harry Potter. but that was before I knew what a dirtbag of a fucking human she is (I didn’t really have social media at the time), and I cringe as I wish I learn sooner that she was a deplorable person who hates trans people like myself (nonbinary respectfully). But, I can happily say Fuck Harry Potter that series can burn in a trash for all I care and I hope the hbo series flops on its ass. And also fuck Jk Rowling, she can fuck off for all I care. That being said, If you support Harry Potter/Jk Rowling, unfollow me. Block me. Because I do not support Harry Potter/Jk Rowling. Because Trans rights/Gender Equality, Human rights are infinitely more important than a basic ass wizard book/movie with a even basic ass magic system when there are objectively better wizard/magic books that are respectful.

Anyway, that being said, Trans and basic human rights matter 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵 🤭

Click here before liking the post

#jk rowling #tw: harry potter #tw: antisemitism #Tw: transphobia #Tw: racism #fuck harry potter #harry potter #I’m just pissed off like wtf #I’m sorry if I sound upset I just again not having the best year but overall Harry Potter trending is upsetting #transgender #trans #trans rights #basic human rights #fuck jk Rowling

[vaspider]

Okay, so I hope I don't come off as really confrontational and I'm sorry if it does. I've started to notice an increasing number of posts on your blog that seem to be critical of things trans women do on an intra-community level. I wasn't going to say anything before, but someone you reblogged mentioned that they were starting to keep an archive of what they called "Trans radfem behavior" and that concerned me a bit.

I have -- for years -- been extremely critical of cop behavior within the community or divisive behavior within the community. I have been critical of fellow lesbians when they have gone after aces and bi people. I have been critical of fellow transmascs when they say shitty things. My most quoted, most reblogged, most 'taken and posted on other sites', most linked on Reddit (fucking apparently) post is one about divisiveness and respectability politics within the community, how those things fail us and set us up to be split up and devoured by the cishets, and a call for radical inclusiveness within the community as the only way forward.

This isn't new. I've always been like this.

I have also always been critical of the idea that identity is a shield for shitty behavior. Whether that's disabled people acting like they can't be ableist, queer people acting like they can't say homophobic shit, Jews who think they can't act in an antisemitic way, or trans people acting transphobic or saying transphobic things, this is not a new concept for me, nor one I'll move away from. It is an unfortunate thing that disabled ableists and trans radfems exist, but they do, and I've gotten tired of the idea that we have to pretend someone isn't saying shitty things because of their identity.

For a long time, one of the topics I shied away from was discussing the divisions within the trans community specifically, because -- quite frankly -- I've seen the dogpiling that tends to happen to transmascs when we criticize the shitty, bioessentialist, 'man bad woman good' behaviors of a very small but very vocal section of the online transfem community.

But shying away from talking about that is just fucking cowardice, and I've never been able to stand for cowardice within myself. So yeah, you're definitely seeing more criticism of shitty intracommunity behavior within the trans community with me. I have never been one to criticize shitty behavior restricted to identity, however, and I have surely been critical of shit behavior regardless of whether or not the person saying it is a trans man, a trans woman, or any other group of people.

You will continue to see me criticize shitty behavior, because I am absolutely fed up with the way that this community treats itself, and you will see me talk about the things that happen as they happen. Right now, there's an awful lot of shitty behavior aimed at trans men and transmascs on this site, including some from trans women. It's absolutely unconscionable to talk about raping people, or to use words like "theyfab," "cuntboy," and "zippertits" to refer to transmascs. That's what's happening, so yep, you're gonna see that on my Tumblr.

The solution here is not to be concerned about me talking about it, but to be concerned about the people doing that. Talking about shit behavior isn't the problem. The shit behavior is the problem, and it's important to both talk about the shit behavior so it fucking stops, and to talk about the shit behavior very clearly as the actions of the people who took them and not the actions of a community. It sucks that there are transfems and trans women who think it's okay to treat transmascs and trans men the way that some transmascs on here are being treated right now. Those transfem folx should know better than to pull that shit, because they know what it's like to be the target of that kind of behavior.

That said, I am absolutely not responsible for what other people say or do. I am not aware of having reblogged or endorsed the idea of starting an archive of 'trans radfem shit,' so I'm very confused as to why exactly you're talking to me about it as if I said it or endorsed it or as if it has anything to do with me, or why it would be bad to talk about the way in which trans people of any gender can fall prey to radfem manipulation. Maybe the person talking about it specified they were tracking trans women, but even the ask you sent me says 'trans radfem behavior,' so I'm assuming it would be trans people of any gender, right? If not, why are you linking those ideas together?

Like, I didn't say it, I didn't endorse it, I'm not responsible for it, but what exactly would be wrong with talking about how radfem mindsets infect our community in the first place? The manner in which too many trans people find it easy to fall into the bioessentialist thinking of radfems is a community problem.

tl;dr: I criticize everybody when they act like fools, and I'm not responsible for some random thing that 'somebody I reblogged' said.

#transgender #trans #spider speaks

[socialist-microwave-laser]

Confused about the whole Taika zionist, bc I saw his name on that list of actors thanking Biden for the support to Israel. Does that not make him a zionist? Genuinely asking.

disclaimer that rn i'n having horrible brain fog and have been in the throes of a pots episode for literally three days now, and i'm typing this from jnder my service dog rn bc he won't stol alerting. so weirdoes stalking my blog don't crucify me here if i say something slightly wrong

anyway okay so i think assigning an entire incredibly deeply complicated political and religious belief to somebody because they happened to sign onr thing (which like if we're gonns talk about rhe performativity of actirs signing things and how they mean nothing, i think it's also important that we look at this as a sort of response to anger that someone may be keeping silent on an issue. how many times have y'all seen people getting pissed about someone not talking about current evenrd. if you get mad at someone for the performativity of posting a black square on instagram to end racism, you need to also understand the forces rhat may compel a person to do that, yk). i'm not taika waititi and i'm asshming none of the people talking about this are either, so none of us know what level of engagement he gave to the letter or how closely it actually aligns with his political and religious beliefs

basicallt anyway. when i signed a peititon written by mostly marxist-leninists and socialists to demand better wages on my college campus, i was saying we need better wages. the fact that mls and socialists also signed that petition does not mean that i'm suddenly not an anarchist

my vision is getting blurry and i can tell this is so meandering but. he has never said he's a zionist, he only said he's anti-hamas. when celebrities (especially jewish and muslim celebrities) are being pressured to speak out on something that is so impossible to get accurate information and is so emotionally fraught, they're a lot more likely to engage with somethjng full of dogwhistles and propaganda like that letter. i've made so many posts about how wrong and narrow the goysche definition of zionism is—because why the fuck else would "zionist" be an insult than people having no idea how jews use this term

also, about the theory that one of the ofmd actors was let go bc of being pro-palestine, i would hope that by this point people have learned to be a bit more skeptical when people are like "omg wtf i was only being pro-palestine and now i'm in troubke." i'm sure that has happened, but so many people have said that and thrn it's found out that oops sctuslky they were being super antisemitic. i'm not calling that actor an antisemite or a liar or whatever but it's so important that in the absence of like. yknow. evidence. we be a bit more critical

i'm hoping that made any sort of sense. i'm fighting for my life rn 😭 anyway thank you for like actually being eeapectful i hsve so many asks chilling in the ask box that sre like accusing me of loving genocide and all that? anyway yeah long story short: zionism is a very complicated political umbrella that i have stopped even hoping for goyim to learn what they actually mean, and people cannot be labeled that for adding their name to a letter when we have no idea what level of engagement they actually gave to the letter

also sorry another thing. the post this ask is in response to is specifically about people dismissing a movie about rhe holocaust made by a jew bc said jew is apparently a Bad Jew™️ so that's evidence enough that none of these assholes have any idea what the fuck they're talking about

#jumblr #anarchist #asks #anonymous #zionism definition #taika waititi #the way i forgot to hit post on this bc of the aforementioned brain fog 😭😭😭 my mom told me i gotta go to urgent care tomorrow bc this is da #three of me barely being able to sit upright without my vision going blurry #how are y'all dokng #tsiyyonus definition

[intern-seraph]

Hey, sorry if this is a weird question but. I was wondering if you knew of any blogs specifically for responding to/arguing against leftist antisemitism? I want to be a good ally to Jewish people, but also I Am Not Immune To Propaganda and sometimes I just don't quite notice the implications, you know?

There's been a few posts going around recently, where there's screenshots with the water filter, and someone responding to them like "yeah this is actually pretty fucked up for x and y reasons". Those have been really helpful because, while some of them are much more obviously antisemitic, some of them I'm not sure I would've noticed, and now I'm a bit better educated. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Again, sorry if this is a weird question, and I hope you have a good day!

none that i'd recommend tbh? i feel like laser focusing on something can get to the point of seeing it everywhere, and there's also a risk of becoming reactionary abt it if that makes sense. the blogs i do rec are mainly other jews' blogs, especially the ones you've prob seen me rb from.

my main rec for recognizing leftist antisemitism is familiarizing yourself with antisemitic tropes. some of the most common ones you'll see:

Blood libel: Originated in medieval Christian Europe, spread throughout Afroeurasia and persists today. The accusation that Jews kidnap gentile (Orig. Christian) children to do nefarious things (Orig. and still relatively commonly "blood rituals" or "taking their blood to use in making Matzah") with. You'll see this often alongside "Jews rule the world" antisemitism.

Jews rule the world/Zionist-occupied government/Evil Cabals: What it says on the tin. If you see some shit about how "Oh isn't it SUSPICIOUS how many billionaires/millionaires/rich people are Jewish?" or "The ZIONIST-CONTROLLED MEDIA is suppressing this!", that's a variant on this canard.

Khazar theory: Antisemitic pseudoscientific theory that Ashkenazi Jews aren't ackshually descended from the Judeans who were forcibly exiled from our homeland, but instead descended from Turkic Khazars who converted to Judaism. Easily disproven by actual genetic studies that show that uh yeah all ethnically Jewish folks, Ashkies included, are descended from common ancestors that originated in the Levant. Also Yiddish is derived from, y'know, not Turkic languages. There are definitely Khazar Jews, but they make up a small number of an already small population. Variants you'll probably see of this are basically anything saying that Ashkies are somehow less Jewish than other Jews, that we're all White People (Jewish connection to Whiteness is Complicated) who have no connection to the Levant, How Could Ashkenazim Be From There When Some Of Them Are BLONDE?, etc. Shit like that.

stalin shit: a lot of modern leftist antisemitism has its roots in soviet antisemitism, which used "zionist" as another word for "jew" in order to pretend to not be antisemitic. people still do that today. if you see a post where "zionist" can be replaced with "jew" and it reads word-for-word like a classic antisemitic trope, well, you know. don't trust anyone who stans stalin (or modern russia to be honest. tankies (derogatory)).

this is non-exhaustive ofc. here are also blogs i recommend blocking asap (with / in their names to inhibit name-searching); they're all in the same far-left antisemitic atrocity apologist circle (i.e. assad stans, putin stans, holodomor deniers, uyghur oppression deniers, CCP stans, houthi stans, etc):

her/ita/gep/osts (north korea stan, which is fucking insane. beloved tumblr funnyman who implicitly blames jews for the actions of the israeli govt in multiple gross posts and has targeted multiple jewish bloggers, prompting mass harassment)

ko/ms/om/ol/ka (nasty character all around. claimed she was banned for being pro-palestine, it's actually prob because she's been reported before for being a fucking racist antisemitic freak lmao)

tx/tt/le/ta/le (ew)

bre/nda/nic/us (happily antisemitic. homophobic too, as a treat i guess)

blo/g/lik/ea/ne/gyp/tian (egyptian nationalist. don't ask her what happened to cairo's jews. makes nasty posts that outright state that jews should feel guilty for current events ON JEWISH HOLIDAYS.)

whe/nma/gic/fil/led/the/air (infamously antisemitic. block.)

a-si/ent-/ecli/pse ("Happy Holocaust Memorial Day")

ara/bia/n-k/nig/ht (extremely and openly antisemitic kid. just, like, don't engage)

nat/ive/ne/ws (tweet screenshots aren't news. loooooves spreading disinfo and misinfo)

ap/as-/95 (part of the tankie committee)

les/bia/nch/emi/cal/pla/nt (i think she's a jew but she's, like, the tankie tumblr pet jew istg. she's also an asshole. girl they will gladly turn you over once you outlive your usefulness 😬)

other advice: anyone who claims to be "anti-zionist NOT antisemitic" who only ever fixates on jews and jewish orgs instead of the christian zionists who vastly outnumber the entire jewish population is lying, they're antisemitic (whether they realize it or not). houthi stans generally are stupid jew-haters who would rather support the ethnic cleansing, racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and chattel slavery party than possibly say that Someone Who Rejects The Enemy(tm) is, yknow, not morally pure. people who are abnormal about ashkenazim are generally abnormal about non-ashkies, too, but in a different and still nasty way. if someone claims that "everything was fine before the Zionists(tm) attacked", they are wrong. do some research on the history of jewish life in the region and it's very clearly wrong. if someone says that they're tired of jews and jewish feelings and jewish safety being a focus, they probably don't feel particularly kind things about us in general. fact-check claims. screenshots aren't news. people who are okay with widespread civilian death/suffering in one direction probably only desire vengeance more than anything else, which does nothing for anyone and is a net loss. anyone baying for blood is suspect, anyone without a concrete solution/plan beyond "burn it down" is not going to do much constructive work in terms of delivering justice.

#ask #i-looktothe-stars #o7 godspeed #unfortunately a lot of this comes down to training your eye #it's a rough and wild world out there #steeped in a fine blend of centuries of antisemitism #antisemitism #seraph speaks #sorry for how scattered this is #and my allergy to the shift key

[beevean]

Honestly that callout is the inevitable end of what we already mentioned abt nfcv criticisms:

-Loud annoying fucks make obvious racism fueled criticism of n!Annette

-Fandom considers this to be the sum of nfcv critics

-You n other fellas make criticism of n!Annette based on how her character was adapted, her story arc, interactions, etc

-"You're so racist n misogynistic!!!" Dogpiling

And you did acknowledge the unfair backlash against her in good faith and if ppl had disagreements it could be like "nah i dont agree bc x and i think you're being insensitive abt y bc z". Hell, if i got told i said something insensitive i'd rectify and apologize but nope. You're a bigot now congratulations :/

And (and im gonna get a bit political here sorry for that) forever gonna hate how nocturne made me have to speak abt all the nuances of the french revolution bc it is true that France was and is an imperialistic country w racism issues, but said history and issues can't be reduced into "white men bad, rich bad, 21th century 'murica politics" (specially considering how this is an Usamerican show, aka imperialistic country w racism issues that casually has France's politics on a leash lol)

It's all so annoying I just want a good adaptation of the funny beat up Dracula games

Pd: one of the things i like abt nocturne is her redesign lol. It doesn't has anything to do w the og but it's very good looking👍

Yeah, I knew I would be brushed off as one of those genuinely racist people whose criticism of Annette begins and ends with "MUH POLITICS, MUH WOKE" without knowing shit about history or even being a fan of the games. It's still annoying :V I always, always pointed out that those people exist and they have poisoned the conversation too much. But no, scream to me about how black women deserve to be in fandoms I guess. Yeah, I know. Good thing I didn't target you, isn't it.

And as other people have pointed out in the nothes, NFCV is genuinely all sorts of -ist and -phobic, there was a huge post that blew up about the blatant antisemitic implications of a "vampire cabal" owning all the slaves, so if you really want to play white savior, the show you're defending has plenty of material already :^)

And yes. I know this is going to sound like those MUH WOKE people, but I swear I don't mean it in the same way: Castlevania is not the franchise that should deal with real life politics. Not the games, nor the show. It's about humans vs. vampires. It has always been about human vs. vampires, or any sort of monster. Yes, N!Isaac had a past of slavery, but 1) it was highly historically inaccurate, since NFCV takes place before the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slaves in that area tended to be European, 2) it was still lowkey racist, as if black people can only be slaves, as if Isaac doesn't have already an in-built backstory of being persecuted for his powers, and 3) it was, at the end of the day, an insignificant factor of NFCV's lore. It justified one antagonist's misanthropy. It wasn't the literal core of the show. Nothing about the original show, let alone the damn games, would lead me to think "mmh, I sure would love to see important, complex historical events played out in this setting!".

(N!Annette is very cute, I concur lol. A much better design than N!Isaac. I appreciate that she's dressed in yellow like the original Annette :>)

#anti netflixvania

[josiebelladonna]

Israel-

-has sent 1 billion dollars a year to gaza with nothing expected in return, even with the blockade to keep h*mas out

-has diverted 1 gigawatt of electricity to gaza every year to keep their lights on

-has dedicated 17000+ jobs to gazans even in the face of october 7—and in fact, someone who lives on the strip can readily come to israel for work (granted, they need to fill out paperwork and have a work visa, but you need to do that anyway just like anywhere else in the world)

-has dedicated infrastructure and healthcare with no cost to the patient to anyone in gaza—the infrastructure is meant specifically for homes, and not subterranean tunnels or missiles either

-has actually done a lot of good for gaza, more than anyone realizes, and what’s astounding is it’s virtually unknown out here in the west like you have to talk to someone who actually lives over there or at least hails from there in order to learn about it

-genuinely doesn’t want this conflict (and they sure as fuck didn’t ask for antisemitism to make the biggest, ugliest, most despicable entrance ever to the point of making allies shake in their boots, either). the only ones who do are their government officials and let me tell you, they’re letting those filthy pigs have it. trust me, the people of israel and the jewish diaspora didn’t ask for this because they actually don’t hate the palestinians… unlike h*mas and all of you screaming pree falestine. yeah, you may not realize it now and you may think i’m crazy but you will realize it eventually… and you’ll be looking at the existential crisis of the century.

-has signed peace treaties with all the countries around them, save for saudi arabia, iran, and palestine (by the way , i should also mention that every geography site i’ve ever frequented list it as “palestinian territories”, and yet they have a full-on government as if they’re a legit country… seems a little odd when the region has been referred to by many names for thousands of years, namely “land of israel” 🤔); they were about to with the former and then october 7 happened.

-as for the west bank, you know they’re all indigenous to the land despite how much anyone wants to deny it. sure, people have done stupid things over there but listen, they can work past them, especially when you’ve been persecuted (often for no reason) for thousands of years and all you want is to chillax in the desert, bro (also, see my previous reblog on antisemitism and how it’s as old as time itself). but if every country on earth has done it before, so can they.

-said it before and i’ll say it again: these chants coming from the pro-palestine crowd (i refuse to say them because at this point, they leave a bad taste in my mouth; they’re literally like the n-word or g*psy for me at this point) are antisemitic as fuck and calling for an end to the diaspora. plus! to make matters worse! if you know where these chants are coming from, if you have done any kind of reading (actual reading, not pulling this shit from tiktok or blog posts or—i’m sorry ahead of time, i really am—things based out of islamic countries, but especially from qatar), you would know that they do nothing for the palestinians themselves but infantilize their government! it doesn’t give them clean water or better living conditions or anything (plus, it’s not israel’s fault!!!) and this conflict has nothing to do with the rest of the world! write it all you want, call me a zionist all you want, you are not going to do anything for palestine! the only thing that can be done is let them sort it out themselves! god, the hypocrisy of pro-palestine is FLABBERGASTING!

some cuntwaffle on the internet: “genocide apartheid and those who agree with you are complicit we’re STRIKING!”

palestine: “y do u hate us”

#israel #i/p conflict #antisemitism #text #trying to be a good gentile

[sky-chau]

Hi, my name is Sky-Chau. I've been on this platform since I was 13. I'm 20 now and as such I've learned a lot and come to realize a lot of the things I've said done and believed, in the past were genuinely fucked up and harmful to both myself and the people I've come to know as my friends. Some of it was ignorance and niavate, but not all of it. In the grand scheme of things, my intent at the time is irrelevant as none of that changes the negative impact it had on the people around me, and for that impact, I am deeply sorry.

I'm not perfect, no one is. I'm a firm believer that evil is not an inherent thing you are but rather a thing you do. By classifying evil as a behavior, it allows people to grow and change for the better. You don't have to forgive me or anyone else that's hurt you. That's up to you and your own personal comfort and safety. I'm not asking you to forgive anyone.

Forgiven or not, I'd like to make a few things clear going forward. Some of these are corrections to things I've said in the past and others are things that I want to make sure anyone who follows me understands. In no particular order:

1) Trans women are women, and whether or not any individual identifies as always having been a woman or having grown out of a comfortable agab childhood into a woman, doesn't change their current woman status and is ultimately none of my business as it's a descriptor of a lived experience.

The same goes for trans men and NBs.

Experiences of dysphoria and the choice to medically transition is none of anyone's business. Trans people can do whatever makes them comfortable, and anyone who insists there's such a thing as "faking it" is missing the point. It's about people's lives, for a lot of people it's not a choice. For other people being transgender is a choice and that's equally valid. People have a right to control and express their own gender identity in whatever way helps them thrive.

I can say without a doubt policing other people's identities, is most definitely not making your own life any better.

2) Black lives matter, the culture and dialects of black people are important. Any non-black person in America should be conscious of the safety, benefits, and advantages that we received from slavery, systemic exclusion of black people from economic opportunities, and inequality. (Note that consciousness doesn't mean personal guilt.)

3) Cis men and masculinity are not the enemy. The phrase toxic masculinity refers to the ways that our cultures idea of manhood harms society and individual men. Any proposed solutions for gender inequality under feminism need to do more than simply elevate women. In the same way the high matinence aesthetic expectations of femininity need to be abolished, the crushing and dangerous social expectations of masculinity need to be dissolved.

The construct of gender hurts everyone in different ways. Men shouldn't have to put themselves in danger by signing up for the draft or working construction. These should be opt in choices for anyone of any gender.

4) No culture is primitive. Every society holds a different set of values and priorities. A society that prioritizes the health of the earth is going to use their enginuity differently than a society that prioritizes wealth and the future of it's children.

5) Antisemitism is both very real and ancient. Listen to Jewish people when they voice their concerns.

6) My lesbian flag sucked. Despite my deep convictions about its design whilst I was in highschool. The symbolism comes off as rather performative in hindsight as yeah, that's the level of maturity and understanding of the world I was at when I made it. I can't stop you from using it but just know that I currently consider my plan to solve the "too many lesbian flags" problem by proposing yet another flag to be foolish and dumb.

7) Everyone is still learning, all the time. It's not your job to teach them, though kudos to you if you have the mental strength to try. For many people deep in an ideological rabbit hole, being taught will not necessarily make them learn. At least not right away. Ideological change doesn't happen overnight.

#apology #sky-chau #feel free to reblog this #i dont mind either way

[pobopolybius]

Heyy flag anon here!! Now that anon is back I can tell you to kill yourself take care of yourself and actually have a wonderful day!! <3

On another note, I may be an anon coward, but I am not a pm anon coward so could you please tell me what happened with the whole pm situation?? Like why people were comparing it to JKR. I know nothing about pm (its one of the "stuff-I-don't-know-shit-about-but-still-find-somewhat-interesting" things from my og ask). If its too much or you don't wanna talk about it that's okay too, I just thought I would ask!! Again, have a nice day sorry for being annoying lol!!

You're not annoying anon, don't worry! And it's nice to see you again! Lemme put this under the cut bc. While it's a brief explanation it's still long

A very VERY brief explanation abt the pm situation, a group of incels on a korean forum (iirc. It's a forum. Or just a website) ended up harassing PM, going as far as storming into their HQ, to demand that the CG artist Vellmori be fired due to Vell being a feminist. Kim Jihoon, CEO of the company, ended up caving and fired her, and I will be saying allegedly for legal reasons, via phone call in the middle of the night, which is a labour violation.

The situation spiralled, and two other major artists, that being the ones for Leviathan and Wonderlab, ended up coming forward about their poor treatment, about rushes and pressure, and so a bunch of people have been boycotting the game to show solidarity to the artists that were fired unjustly bc Kim Jihoon is a manbaby who can't think shit through (second time he caves to pressure).

Thing is yeah, KJH fucked up royally. He's a scumbag who needs to treat his workers better and I think he has to step down from the position of CEO as soon as possible. But the key difference is, unlike Rowling who uses her works and money to force feed people her shit views, as I mentioned in that old post, he doesn't shoehorn misoginystic views into his work, and doesn't give money to anti-women companies that make sure the life of all women is hell no matter what.

People comparing still enjoying the stories of pm games to liking rowling are basically just people thinking they know what they're talking about, saying that project moon, as a group, including the workers who have fuck off nothing to do with it, are all to blame and hoping the company goes bankrupt because "clearly that is supporting the artists and not hurting workers who have nothing to do with KJH's decisions".

It's just a mess, and people are treating this like a youtuber did an oopsie and that this is fandom drama rather than a legal issue that is being solved with legal matters and not just a situation where KJH can say "oh I'm sorry" and things will go back to normal.

SORRY FOR RAMBLING once again this is very brief and I didn't go fully into depth but ywah. If you see anyone comparing this situation to supporting a racist antisemitic terf's racist antisemitic transphobic works, just roll your eyes and ignore them LMAO

#asks

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

I note with some dismay that the whole affair over Azhar Ali is being broadly categorised as an ‘antisemitic row’ or just generally something based on antisemitism, when what he did pretty obviously and unequivocally was criticise Israel. You know? The state of Israel? The state? We’re still tussling on the whole “Is criticising Israel the same as criticising all Jews?” issue and that’s kind of depressing.

Because there’s people out there who will use Israel as an ever-so-clever and ever-so-subtle way of sneaking in some antisemitic nonsense because there are people out there who seem to spend every hour of every day feverishly working out some new, secret way of rolling out the same tired, aggravatingly stupid cannards against Jews. That’s just life, apparently, even in the future. That’s also depressing.

(Seriously, it never fails to knock the wind out of my sails whenever I get some peek into the endless arms race between those who hate the Jews (and really need a better hobby) and those who have to keep track of those who hate the Jews and have to keep track of their ever-expanding list of weirdo secret signals and code words. “Ah! He’s turned around three times and tapped his foot and glanced at the moon! We all know what that means! It means he thinks Hitler was alright!” No! No we didn’t know that! And I’m annoyed now that I do!

Also, as a further aside, that that whole fourteen words and double-H thing remains popular is mind-numbing. It is the dumbest shit. The bar is so low.)

But Israel is also, you know, a state. It takes up physical space. It is a thing. It does stuff. That stuff sometimes impacts places that are not Israel. And if you police people’s opinions on this in a way that’s set up to instantly brand any negative stances as just inherently anti-jew, well, that’s not helpful, is it? Were the protests they were having against judicial reform in Israel also antisemitic because those people were criticising Israeli policy? That seems to be the logic you’re using.

That said, Azhar’s actual statement – that Israel let October Seventh go ahead to serve as an excuse to roll into Gaza – is stupid. Antisemitic? Eh, you can argue the toss on that and I’m sure you’ll find people who’ll go to their graves insisting it is, but I’m less sure. The insinuation that the present administration of Israel, being as it is mostly rightwing nutbags, would want an excuse to go into Gaza? Not crazy. That they’d let an attack like that happen so they could have an excuse? No, sorry. Not buying that.

It sits alongside “Nine-eleven was an inside job”, it’s that kind of thinking. Both attacks were “Allowed to happen” in the sense that in both cases there was fairly obvious information relayed that something was about to go down and then nothing was done about it. So the problem here is complacency more than actual malice. It wasn’t “Muwhahaha I’m going to let people die so I can do a thing!” it was “Yeah yeah sure warnings whatever look I got problems of my own right now oh shit oh fuck what is happening” followed by, you know,  a lot of airstrikes.

But that’s me.

And this is all leaving aside of course Labour continuing to cover itself in glory by, for once, standing by someone only to then give up. Why they’d stand by this and not the people, oh, calling for a ceasefire or saying something like “From the river to the sea” or, oh, going on a picket line I’ve no idea given that this was a non-starter from the, er, start.

As said, what he said was fucking dumb. Just really dumb.

Sigh.

[jyndor]

I’m rewatching the Puppetmaster for ~research~ and ugh.This is such a good episode but I cannot stand the treatment of Hama and also Katara’s special bending ability. And I’m gonna talk about it because I can’t help myself. But I also want to offer a solution maybe something that the writers could have done instead. Granted I’m a white US American so while I am about to talk about imperialism, anti-indigenous racism and racialized misogyny, I am coming from a position of privilege here and ymmv. It’s important that we as fans (especially white fans) acknowledge the things that our favorite stories can do better so that we can make our fandoms safer for everyone.

And btw fans of color have been talking about this so I definitely am going to be quoting some phenomenal bits of critique I have read on here. Also you should follow @shewhotellsstories and @visibilityofcolor for anti-racist fandom commentary.

I am also going to talk about grooming, so just be aware if that is a trigger for you.

I. Hama as a Campfire Horror Story Monster

The episode starts out with the Gaang camping in a creepy forest telling ghost stories to each other. Set to spooky music, Katara tells a story about something that happened to Kya, a friend named Nini (likely) dying in a snowstorm and then haunting her family’s home as a ghost. Immediately after, Toph hears people screaming under the ground - and then Hama finds them and invites them to her inn.

Every so often, Hama says something spooky with the spooky music playing. Katara immediately takes to Hama, but the others (especially Sokka) find her pretty unnerving. Katara says she reminds her of Gran Gran before Sokka starts snooping around and finds a bunch of puppets and a comb from the Southern Water Tribe. It’s the standard horror movie fakeout.

Every so often we get an artfully placed hint about Hama’s agenda - pulling water out of thin air, showing Katara that “plants - and all living things” are made of water. And oh yeah, she makes herself ice claws. Cool skill, but in the context of the episode, a little more unnerving.

The “moon monster” that Old Man Ding mentions, the alleged Moon spirit, turns out to be Hama (of course) and the tension builds to a peak as the Gaang rush to save Katara from the “dark puppetmaster” that has imprisoned the villagers.

Meanwhile Hama and Katara stand under the full moon washed in spooky cool lighting with an ominous breeze around them. You see Hama practically transform into a monster in a way sort of reminiscent to a werewolf - her fingers become claw-like, her veins pop out. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s a coincidence that as she reveals her true agenda, she becomes less human in appearance. Which... okay I’ll get to that later.

While I can’t say that Katara fits the Final Girl trope very well, I do think it’s interesting to note that horror movies often do feature women as heroes who defeat the monster/killer/whatever and usually the Final Girl is used to allow audiences to experience the full horror of the villain, which absolutely is how Katara is used here. Yes, her friends come to help, but she saves everyone in the end (my queen).

So here’s why that’s bullshit.

Framing Hama as a horror story monster make sense when you don’t think about the Implications of framing the indigenous woman POW living surrounded by people who have benefited from Fire Nation imperialism. It does - it’s a common trope: the reclusive witch who first seems kindly to some lost/wandering children before revealing her true intention - to use them for her own purposes. Yeah, I know they’re playing on Hansel and Gretel. But yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit on that too - drawing on a c*nnabalistic witch for inspiration when you’re writing an indigenous woman character is probably not the way to go.

II. Hama the Puppetmaster* and Groomer

A puppet master is obviously a puppeteer, and Hama has puppets (creepy though they may be). But in terms of the underlying meaning, she’s a chessmaster, an Emperor Palpatine/Dick Cheney kind of master manipulator who works mostly through other people. What most people would consider a psychopath (in layman’s terms). When her friendly mask falls, she is terrifying.

She is cold, calculating, manipulative as fuck - she isolates Katara almost immediately. Hama uses Katara’s desire to connect with her culture to groom her to become a weapon. It’s actually such a good example of grooming that it has to be purposeful:

Targeting a victim - Hama hears that Katara and Sokka are from the SWT. She also hears Katara tell a story about Kya. To Hama, a waterbender from her own culture is a hell of a target.

Gaining trust - Hama reaches out to Katara in particular, is especially kind to her, gives her individual attention that the others don’t get. She prepares a SWT feast for them and tells the Gaang about her heritage when they go snooping.

Filling a need - so once Hama has given Katara reason to trust her about waterbending, she promises Katara to pass on SWT waterbending heritage that only Hama knows. She fills a unique need of Katara’s.

Isolation - From then on out, we don’t see Katara with the rest of the Gaang until the end of the episode. Hama seems like a normal teacher but she does start to drop little hints, pushing Katara very gently to see how she will react to her real agenda and desensitizing Katara to what would otherwise seem unacceptable coming from someone else who hasn’t established that unique trust. “You’ve got to keep an open mind, Katara.”

So this would be the point at which Hama would make sexual contact but this is metaphorical so that obviously doesn’t happen. What does happen is Hama pushes Katara’s limits. She makes her pretty uncomfortable with the idea of killing the fire lilies for water, but when Hama appeals to their shared history of marginalization she gets over it.

Maintaining control: Hama makes her final move, which is obviously bloodbending, and reveals her true agenda - and when Katara refuses to manipulative living beings’ blood, Hama violates her bodily agency. And not only this, but she pushes Katara into bloodbending when she victimizes the Gaang, fully realizing her control. 

Hama sees it as a victory, and telling Katara breaks down at the end in one of the most emotional scenes in the show. She feels like so many of us have felt at some point: violated, betrayed by someone we trusted. And then they never really deal with that.

I actually think that’s the point of The Puppetmaster, especially given ATLA being a show for children. I think it’s supposed to be a metaphor for csa.

And... okay.

Undoubtedly it is important to send these messages to kids. And yes, people usually are victimized by those closest to them, by those in their own communities. But not indigenous women. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but according to the National Congress of American Indians, Native American women  and girls are more likely to be sexually assaulted by non-NA men. 57% of cases are perpetrated by white men. Not the people in their communities.

Choosing to tell this story with an indigenous woman POW (who very likely would have been victimized herself lbr) is a choice that I find really aggravating. When writers tell stories with a Point, it is incredibly important for those writers to understand the implications of what they are saying about the characters who they are using to make that point.

Like I’m not saying don’t make that point, or don’t use Katara (who would in real life be at a higher risk of sexual violence than the others) to make it, but why make the perpetrator someone who is statistically unlikely to be Katara’s abuser? I’m not sure I have a good answer to that question. My guess is, like with making Hama animalistic and about as unsympathetic as it gets, the writers just had blinders on about the cultural implications of what they were saying.

Not even considering the whole victimizing-the-“innocents”-of-the-Fire-Nation-town plot, Hama’s not a good person. This is probably because she was driven mad by the need for revenge, which, eurgh okay, but still it’s very apparent that she is not interested in winning over Katara’s support directly or honestly.

* also the antisemitic history of this trope hmm.

III. Hama and The Victims of Genocide Victimizing Oppressors #NotAllFireNation

Okay. So this is the part that I think annoys me the most because it’s so bad. Like, imagine for a minute that you’re a white guy and you’re gonna tell a story about a victim of genocide who is completely divorced from her culture and homeland, and furthermore is an escaped prisoner of war who has radicalized in prison - okay it just hit me, I know what they MIGHT have been going for, like maybe some kind of anti-Gitmo statement? But that didn’t happen. People who were stolen away from Iraq and imprisoned illegally in Guantanamo Bay, and who were released after being detained illegally, haven’t really shown any real radicalization. They’re pissed at the US for victimizing them, but like that seems pretty fair considering so many of them did nothing wrong.

That’s been the US government’s excuse for not releasing innocent people who were detained illegally. The idea that prisoners of war radicalized in Gitmo so they can’t be released because they’ll attack the US is propaganda. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, but that’s where it comes from.

Considering the time period ATLA was written, considering how much of it was inspired by the US wars of aggression and imperialism, considering how political ATLA is (and why it was so popular during its initial run - during the years that Bush lost a ton of popularity) I think if that’s what they were thinking about, that’s not great.

But for all of Avatar’s good messaging on imperialism and war, it’s still written from a white US American mindset. Well surely I’m not responsible, surely you shouldn’t imprison and abuse me, a random white girl in the States. It’s my government, which I cannot control because of two-party politics or some shit.

So first off, that’s shitty because oppression is often about systems, not individuals. Sure we need to always consider the individual experiences of people who are victimized, but the people who are benefiting from imperialism? Me? Fuck if I care if someone in El Salvador or Iraq or Chile or idk any of the countries we have meddled in, let alone from a marginalized community in the United States, hates white US Americans for what our government has done - and that’s even silly because white US citizens support our government. Like we think the institutions are sound, although sometimes we don’t support the guy in charge. We think the cops are going to help us, even though that isn’t really the case.

Why frame it about what she’s doing to the Fire Nation civilians at all? Why make Hama the villain? I don’t think they wanted her to be unsympathetic, I mean they tell her story and I don’t think anyone would conclude that it doesn’t justify her desire for revenge, but why tell this story through a victim of genocide?

Recently I saw a post by @sunkin-akh where they point out that Hama basically quotes Malcolm X:

I was literally just watching the Hama episode again and I just noticed for the first time that while forcing Katara to bloodbend she says that they must fight back against the Fire Nation (and she used this exact phrase) “by any means necessary”, which is Frantz Fanon’s phrase popularized by Malcolm X during the Civil Rights Movement (iirc). They directly compared Black liberation to Hama’s evil acts and it disgusted me.

The full context:

Hama: The choice [to use bloodbending] is not yours. The power exists. And it’s your duty to use the gifts you’ve been given to win this war. Katara, they tried to wipe us out, our entire culture, your mother.

Katara: I know.

Hama: Then you should understand what I’m talking about. We’re the last waterbenders of the Southern Tribe, we have to fight these people whenever we can, wherever they are, with any means necessary.

I find that so appalling because it is framing resistance, specifically anti-racist resistance, as barbaric and monstrous. And given the way that Hama is portrayed at this point, about as inhuman as anyone in ATLA, that is extra gross.

Finally, after Katara defeats Hama, she is lead away by the authorities in CHAINS.

So now the FN cops are the good authorities who we’re gonna trust a SWT waterbender with? I mean she’s a villain so we’re probably not supposed to feel bad for her, like yeah sure the FN is usually bad but she’s a criminal so it’s okay that they take a POW back into custody.

No, no, no.

I know I am reading into this far more than the writers intended - but that’s kind of the point of critically engaging with media. Because shockingly writers don’t always question their choices - they are people and have implicit biases just like all of us. When those writers come from a privileged culture that has colonized the culture they are using as “inspiration” for their story, they need to be extra mindful of how they represent those people.

IV: How To Write Hama

Well, I’m not gonna talk over indigenous fans on this one on specifics, and you should read this rewrite by @kispesan​  but my thoughts generally are:

lose the horror framing it’s just not right for this context and this character

don’t frame Malcolm X as a villain because that’s nasty and racist

have Katara learn to use bloodbending in ways that she is comfortable with (and not just like once in one episode where she’s extra vengeful and the hero of the show doesn’t approve of her actions JFC) and don’t make the dark-skinned girl the only character whose special bending skill is dubious (I know she also has healing but still)

bring Hama home

have indigenous people in the writers room

Anyway, I’ve gone on wayyy too long. Let me know if I am speaking out of turn please if you feel that I am. and I’m sure I had other thoughts but if you want to read some other good pieces of Hama meta, I’ve listed some below:

post and another post by @marsreds​

this post and this post by @visibilityofcolor​

this post by @shewhotellsstories​

anyway katara is a queen and should have been allowed to heal, and hama never should have been irredeemable because if you can make iroh redeemable, if the show was going to redeem AZULA, you can make hama redeemable.

#hama #racism #atla fandom #fandom racism #katara #some amazing people on here who i hope don't get mad i mentioned them #grooming tw #racism tw #i sure hope i remembered everything i wanted to say butttt