#but that is no excuse to oppress another group of people. there are other ways to be safe and happy i promise
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as a jew, seeing what all of these israeli leaders have said is sickening. as a jew, anti-palestinian rhetoric is sickening. as a jew, zionism is sickening.
how dare my people -- a people who've been massacred, ethnically cleansed, dehumanized, forcibly removed, and discriminated on religious grounds for their entire existence -- do the same to another people? how dare we turn our backs on them, when they suffer like we have?
i understand that so much of us have been fed zionist propaganda our entire lives; the same happened to me. i understand the desire for a homeland where we don't have to fear antisemitism at every turn; i want that too. but it doesn't take much thought to understand that a homeland for us, which actively oppresses and kills another people, is antithetical to what we want.
if you, as a member of an oppressed group, believe that your freedom and safety can only exist when you oppress another group, you are acting no better than the people who oppressed you. such a belief is horrible, and cynical, and wrong.
as a jew, i want jewish people to be happy and safe and connected to our heritage; as a jew, i also want other peoples to be happy and safe and connected to their heritage.
don't call the palestinians "amalek". you are turning us into amalek.
doesn't the torah tell us to have empathy for those beaten down by the world? doesn't the torah tell us to make the world a better place? doesn't the torah tell us to free people of their shackles and help them escape oppression?
i have so many israeli aunts and uncles and cousins; i fear for their safety. of course, my parents do as well. i'm worried that this fear, in addition to anything they were led to believe earlier in life, is placing my parents even deeper in the zionist camp. but it doesn't have to be this way! my relatives' safety does not rely on the continued oppression of gaza!
it is easy to be uninformed, to be swayed by propaganda, to blindly hope that israel was founded in good faith -- but we can't lie to ourselves. a world steeped in senseless hatred (which we are now promoting!) could never be a home for us. none of us are free, liberated, equal, until all of us are.
as a jew, to other jews, i implore that we stand with our palestinian siblings. i want us all to be happy and safe. i want us all to live in harmony -- in the holy land and around the world. that is what we all deserve. <3
#melonposting#i apologize for not reblogging/posting much stuff about israel/palestine until now#i kept having this fear that my mom would see and get angry at me#but what do i care? i want both jews and palestinians to be happy#oh yeah. and i keep hearing the argument that 'jews living in the holy land before israel was established weren't treated well'#i don't know if that's true or not... but does it matter?#like of course antisemitism is horrible. but that can be dealt with#forcibly taking over their land is not the answer#like if israel were never a thing and people saw that jews living in the holy land didn't have rights#they'd do something about it!#and if you think they wouldn't (which is a fair thing to think)... well then you should do something about it!!!#don't solve oppression with more oppression you idiot!!!!!#no positive change will ever come to a world which doesn't think positive change can happen#and oppression is not positive change.#and it also pains me how so much of zionist rhetoric feeds off of post-holocaust fear#and i get it. i get that in the mid 20th century we were so scared and angry after the holocaust#and that we desperately wanted a safe haven#i will never not empathize with that fear and rage because it's justified#but that is no excuse to oppress another group of people. there are other ways to be safe and happy i promise#just stop hurting each other... please... you're not helping anyone...#palestine#israel#zionism
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Idk why calling transmasc people "cunts" & "bitches" in an insulting way is so normalised by fellow transmascs and trans guys in the Anti-Transmasculinity and transandrophobia tags.... like you realise you're just doing toxic masculinity and transphobia right?
Trans women never asked you to do this and it's pretty transmisogynistic and chauvinistic to claim you're doing it on their behalf or to fight for their liberation when it's actually the same self centred bullshit that predatory cishet men do when they go "I'm a feminist and all men are trash (but not mee I'm one of the good ones)"
the tone of many of these kinds of posts is very "I'm not like those other guys I'm one of the cool guys who is better than all the whiny boys who are behaving like girls (Derogatory) for talking about Anti-Transmasculinity and I'm gonna prove how feminist I am by calling them cunts and bitches and telling them they aren't real men because IMO 'real men' (white pericishet abled men) don't face gender based oppression or talk about facing it"
it's just very thinly veiled truscum "you're a transtrender for talking about Anti-Transmasculinity " BS trying to hide behind "I'm defending trans women & fighting transmisogyny by calling out these whiny bitchcunt tboys who won't man up and suffer in silence for the good of trans women like I do" when you're not even centring trans women in this kind of "advocacy";
you're just doing the classic thing of making it all about your own insecurities with masculinity and attacking other trans people for not being 'stoic' enough about transphobia and violence they face & claiming that trans women benefit from our erasure and silence .
Like you realise most trans women don't see you hurting trans dudes, misgendering them or mocking trans survivors of DV & SA and go "woo yeah this helps me fight transmisogyny & SA and DV against trans women please tell another guy that he deserves to be SA'd or detransitioned for being whiny"
and it's pretty telling of your unexamined transmisogynistic assumptions about how this behaviour must somehow benefit trans women that your first go to for "how can I be an ally to trans women? " is apparently to seek out trans guys and tell them they deserve sexual or domestic violence while calling them bitches and cunts and misgendering them to try to threaten them into silence on issues that effect them
... Just yuck behaviour like how to say you agree with terf rhetoric about trans women being pro DV and SA MRAs without saying it.
Seriously if you want to advocate for trans women and trans fems (and trans neuts) try to actually listen to them and stop trying to use them and their struggle for liberation (which is inextricably entwined with our own) as an excuse to play out this tired self obsessed "I'm more of a real man than you" dominance paradigm BS
And also maybe while you're at it listen to some of your fellow trans men and transmascs talking about their own issues and don't be so quick to assume without cause that they're blaming trans women for Anti-Transmasculinity existing in the first place or that they think trans women as a group are oppressing them.
Like there's a HUGE difference between talking about societal violence from cis people, lateral in community violence and anti transmasculinity and going into terf GC & radfem BS that claims that trans women are "using mAlE pRiVeLeGe to rule the trans community and oppress the poor TIFs" & listening to the good faith discussions and understanding what people actually mean when they talk about Anti-Transmasculinity and transandrophobia actuall helps you to quickly identify and discard BS terf rhetoric that tries to pretend to be pro transmasc rather than just writing off anyone speaking on these issues as "you're just a detransitioner (Derogatory) in waiting you're not a real trans man because real men don't have or talk about problems"
#transmisogyny#Anti transmasculinity#Transandrophobia#Rape culture#Toxic masculinity#chauvinistic saviour complex
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looked at the notes for the post you reblogged "A brief History of Mizrahi Jews in Arabic countries and Their expulsion" and was a little sickened by all the comments saying "see this is why we need Israel cause you fuckers are forgetting Jewish history." genuine question because it's something i grapple with myself every day as a jew. but how can we convince others in our community that our suffering is not the Most Special, the Most Noble, that our suffering does not give us the right to exact the same thing on another population of people? I feel like talking to other jews sometimes, both online and offline, they genuinely don't understand that other people can experience hardship, and they say things that make me think they've grown up being taught we're the only people in the whole world who have ever suffered?? sorry if this got a little rambly i just... needed to get my thoughts out ig
Sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for a while, but you brought up an interesting point. I think it’s a problem within most marginalized communities. Because of the hardships we have faced, sometimes we are overly defensive of our in-group, and we dismiss, downplay, or even excuse injustices happening to other communities. Like for example, think how many times you’ve seen white gay people talk over people of color because they seem to think that homophobia is the “truest” form of oppression, and that talking about racism “distracts from the real problems.”
Jews are not exempt from falling victim to this mentality. Jews are just people, and people can be wrong, or cruel, or immoral. In every community there are going to be bad people, and people who are willing to look the other way. It’s a fact of life.
However, I do not believe that the burden is on you to “fix” the Jewish community. Obviously it’s good to try to bring people over where you can, but you are never going to convince every Jew to be ideologically perfect. There will always be people in every community who say or do bad things. You should not feel guilty about this, because you are only responsible for your own actions. Do not internalize the idea that Jews are a monolith, you are not responsible for the actions of other Jews.
As Jews we should be proud that our community has a long tradition of activism and standing up to injustice, and we are often at the forefront of social progress. That is an intrinsic value of our teachings, whether or not each individual Jew abides by that. And many, many Jews around the world ARE speaking up about the atrocities committed by the Israeli government. Many are also having their hearts and minds changed because of how much publicity there’s been around Palestine recently, and how a lot of previous misinformation about Israel is being challenged.
I hope this made sense and wasn’t too rambly, but basically just. Don’t put the weight of other people’s actions on your own shoulders
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I gotta say, I am seriously fucking concerned with the amount of people here who seem to wholeheartedly believe that the correct answer to the genocide against Palestine is ANOTHER genocide except the other way around. Please stand back for 2 minutes and seriously think about whether you think it’s ever a helpful or just cause to advocate for the deaths of millions of people, especially when plenty of said people are Jews whose families fled there after barely surviving the Holocaust because hardly anywhere else would treat them like human beings or accept them at all since the antisemitism that allowed the Holocaust to happen was not solely in Germany and didn’t magically disappear after the war ended.
Look. The situation is simple when you boil it down to this: Israel is bombing and starving Palestinians like fish in a barrel and doesn’t want to allow aid to Gaza, which consists of a population of over 50% children. Israel allowed the Nakba and displacement of Palestinians for decades and tries to hide it from public view. This is genocide. The Israeli government is at fault for this. Israel holds the power here because they have the power to bomb and starve millions of people and force them out of their homes, and Palestine certainly does not. It’s an utterly horrific, inhumane thing to do with no excuses for it and it needs to stop. This is the simple part that is glaringly obvious for everyone to see and it’s almost laughable for anyone to deny it.
Okay. You’ve successfully identified the main problem and the “bad guy,” if you want to put it in childish simplistic terms. So the question now is: what next? Say Israel agrees to an immediate ceasefire. What do you, impassioned activist on the internet, propose should be done to solve this situation after that? What should be done to free the Israeli hostages? Do you think the UK and the US, two of the most powerful countries in the world who actively help Israel commit its atrocities against Palestine, will ever do anything to help the Palestinians once Israel loses its power, even if better governments are eventually elected? How should the Palestinian land be claimed back? Where should all the Israeli citizens go? Should they all be forced out to Europe and America, even if that isn’t where they originate from, where the already-rife antisemitism has spiked even further since October 7th and Jews who live thousands of miles from Israel and have nothing to do with Israel’s actions face horrific hate crimes every day? Do Israeli children deserve that? Who’s going to pay for their travel and accommodation? Or, should they all be allowed to stay there and live side by side with the Palestinians? Do you think most Palestinians would be happy to remain neighbours with the citizens of the country that has oppressed them so fiercely for over 75 years, even if said citizens didn’t partake in it or in fact opposed it? What about the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Arab or Palestinian? Do you hold the same opinion of foreign settlers in Israel as you do its citizens whom have made a home there for many generations? How do you discern between settlers and “real” Israelis? Do you see any difference between them at all? Why? And what should be done about Hamas, the group that openly calls for the genocide of all Jews around the world and commits war crimes against Israeli citizens? How much of the history behind Israel’s occupation of Palestine are you aware of? Do you think the British government should be held accountable for splitting Palestine in the first place? How would you go about that? Would it be fair to punish the British people for their government’s actions when British citizens didn’t vote for it? How does that compare to your view of Israel and its citizens, and why?
I am absolutely NOT asking trick questions here or trying to “gotcha!” anyone. I am asking these questions precisely BECAUSE they are extremely difficult to answer, with several of them contradicting each other, and they are meant to get an emotional reaction out of you. I certainly don’t know what the “correct” answers to most of those questions are, and that’s exactly my point: there is no simple answer to a problem that has been going on for decades with such a wide, complex history. Historians and political experts who know all the facts and have studied this shit for years don’t know the answer and it’s honestly insulting to all the people suffering to log on every day and see so many people go “actually 😌 I, a random 20-30 something year old on the internet who isn’t even touched by what’s happening in Palestine, have figured it out before everyone else! Just delete an entire country and all its citizens off the map 😊 This is a moral thing to suggest! And if you disagree with me you’re promoting Zionism/terrorism 😘” There are no simple answers and if you think there is one — and especially if you think that answer is to kick citizens out of the country their family has lived in for generations — then you are both wilfully ignorant and evidently fuelled more by hatred than an actual desire for peace and an end to death and oppression and I don’t believe there is a crumb of sincerity in your activism.
Am I naive enough to think that fighting against oppression and occupation is always going to be peaceful? Obviously not. But you’ve got to think about where and when said violence is actually going to be beneficial, and where and when it’s violence purely for the sake of violence, which is NEVER justified. You can’t advocate for human rights and then turn around and say “oh, but not for you.” EVERYONE deserves food and water. EVERYONE deserves shelter. EVERYONE deserves to receive treatment for sickness or injury. NOBODY deserves cruel and unusual punishment or torture. And EVERYONE deserves to be alive. Those are essential human rights that should never, ever be denied wherever it is possible to give them, and disagreeing with that reflects extremely poorly on you and your principles. Think about what narrative you are pushing when you claim an entire people “deserves” bad things. The constant dehumanisation I see happening in online activism (and far too often in real life too) is actually terrifying and if you want to do some real good in the world, I need everyone reading this to examine their potential internal prejudices, even the ones you don’t think you have, and think about who exactly you’re helping when you express thoughts that perpetuate them, and who you may be harming in the process.
Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…
Here are some useful resources if you want to make a difference and help people:
Standing Together (an Israeli movement advocating for ceasefire and peace between Israelis and Palestinians)
Zochrot (an Instagram page that seeks to educate the public about the Nakba)
Parents’ Circle (an organisation run by relatives of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict who advocate for peace)
Operation Olive Branch (a Google Doc of Palestinian families seeking evacuation)
Mesarvot Network (an Instagram page run by young Israelis seeking to refuse the IDF draft and end military violence committed by both Hamas and the IDF)
Other Gaza aid organisations to donate to
#I’ve kept this in for too long I had to say something#I wonder if anyone will call me a Zionist for saying that Israelis are people who don’t deserve death#Despite the fact I’ve been spreading awareness for the Palestinians all this time#Tumblr activists when you don’t advocate for human suffering: 😡😡😡#Tumblr activists when you don’t treat a genocide like a sports game: 😡😡😡#Tumblr activists when you think death is bad: 😡😡😡#Tumblr activists when a Jewish person exists: 😡😡😡#I’m not Jewish but if I was I would likely be too scared to post this oop#Do you know how many Jewish mutuals I have who advocate for Palestine to be free#But they receive antisemitic abuse and get called Zionists for not wanting Israelis to die#I’ve been too scared to say all this for a while tbh#But if people have a problem with me saying ‘I want as little suffering to anyone to happen as possible’#Then are those really people I want around me?#Oh fuck British politicians for supporting genocide btw#free palestine#free gaza#gaza aid#palestine resources#israel palestine conflict#i/p#genocide#ethnic cleansing#human rights#antisemitism#islamophobia#holocaust#activism#fuck the tories#fuck labour#long post
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Can't believe I'm being cancelled for disliking gypsies, one of the most misogynistic groups out there who sell girls as young as 10 for gold and money, don't let them get education, etc. Unless you've lived close to them and experienced the whole extent of that culture, stfu
This is a tweet said by a ‘radical feminist’ known on radtwt and this is exactly why I only follow Black, Asian, Indigenous and Roma feminists now. White radfems will excuse their racism under the guise of feminism yet when it comes to actually being feminist and helping Roma women? They’re silent. I can’t believe someone would say this and not think to themselves ‘this is even more reason why I must ally with Roma women against oppressive aspects of their culture’ but instead she goes full nazi and later on says how Roma are ‘forever condemned to be lower caste’ and lives a ‘cringe’ existence without ever thinking about the racism they experience that makes their existence so ‘lower caste’ and ‘cringe’. I’m sorry to bring this to you, I know it could be triggering, but you are the most active Roma radfem I follow right now (the few I follow on twitter have been on hiatus or either suspended :/) and I needed to get this off my chest. I’ve been so annoyed at radfem spaces lately because of bs like this, where white radfems will go on about how they can’t be oppressive because they’re women and all women are oppressed only to turn around and be oppressive racist assholes.
I know the user you are talking about, I'm going to include screenshots for context:
She was first called out in early June by a Romani feminist and another feminist on Twitter. Unfortunately many of the reactions are like this,
I think some of those users are actual fascists, because some feminists would rather ally with the far right than support Romani women.
Then you've got the usual jokes about Europeans being just like Hitler because it would kill Gadje to actually take anti-Roma racism seriously for once instead of turning it into an Internet meme,
Tbh I have seen this sentiment echoed in many radfem spaces, not just on Twitter. A few months ago I received an ask that said "why should I care about Romani women when their culture is so sexist in the first place". A woman commented on one of my posts about racialized misogyny against Romnia with "stop playing the victim, if people don't like you it's because your culture sucks". (I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to find those posts rn)
I totally understand why you'd only follow radfems of colour, I think I follow only a few white radfems as well. White feminists always try and undermine their white privilege because they think being a woman means they can't be oppressors. It's a very one dimensional way to understand how oppression works. I could go on and on about this but I think you summed it up pretty well. They're not only ignoring their race and class privilege, they are also being actively bigoted against woc.
I have heard that misandristlana was Afghan (but living in the UK), I can't find a proof for it because she has been suspended though. In any case it's a huge no hope for women moment but I am really not surprised by this, non-Romani women typically never show support to Romani women so I stopped expecting anything from them. We can only count on ourselves to liberate ourselves. That's why I prioritize fellow Romani women before other women
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A closer look to Transandrophobia
TL;DR: I think that it is GOOD as trans mascs to talk about our specific struggles that we face when taking, choosing and talking about masculinity and transness BUT I think there should be more nuance and careful as to how we approach the topic as not to fall into misogynistic patterns and other pitfalls.
On one hand I understand the grievances inherited with begin a trans masculine person and having a cis woman try to enact transphobic abuse against you, especially if done behind the veil of femininity (seen as submissive) and you begin a masculine person (seen as inherently violent): Most of the transphobia I faced was exactly like that, try to use femininity as an excuse to abuse me, sometimes even as something to try and control me with, a monstrous masculine "other-me" that could only be tamed if I could try to be more, well, woman-y. I was just begin openly me: which is masculine.
It's also important to point out that a lot of the blogs to first coined the term we're POC trans men, that was no coincidence, a lot of femininity, a white one to be more specific was used against MOC, it was a way to keep control over them as an insidiously evolved form of racism, that pointed at gender roles, instead of race. That’s why trans men of color we’re the first to point out the problem on certain spaces, we already knew the tactic, in this case a form of transphobia that was camouflaged to pass around more progressive circles but especially targeted trans men.
Although I understand the issue transandrophia tries to point out (Which is transphobia but just directed at trans mascs specifically.) I also cannot get 100% behind the term because yes, we talk a lot about cis women doing the harm, again, due to deeply ingrained gender roles that even the oppressed now feels the need to correct to another oppressed group. I've also seen the glaring empty spot for cis men in the discussion, we already take them for granted to be transphobic, almost as if the abuse we get from women is worst due to already having it taken for granted that they we're going to ally with us. In a way its giving cis men more of a leeway, perpetuating the cycle of patriarchal control into the micro cosmos that is progressive spaces. We should hold other men accountable, god, we should, we all bark but no bite.
There is an inherent danger on this discussion which is again to fall into the same patterns of old; as masculine people thinking we are owed something from our feminine contra parts, companions, friends, family, etc. And the resentment begin solely that a debt not paid, instead of the actual harm which is transphobia.
The danger is attracting actual misogynist trans mascs to use the term as not a way to describe a particular instance of transphobia but to use it as leverage towards fems and not any fems, trans women would be the first affected by this, instead of the cis women (and by this I mean a group of them, not cis women as a whole, god no.) that want to perpetuate gender roles for their own gain. Younger trans mascs, trans men in particular, could fall into these bad faith actors, we already seen it with transmedicalism and of things created by POC that then are coined by white people for wildly different means.
My conclusion is: The point is to break these cycles of abuse, we should talk about our issues, of course! But we also we should be on the lookout as not to recent our fem counterparts, cis, trans, in the middle, damn even more feminine leaning trans mascs. Just because of a few decided to use their gender as a way to enact harm towards you, that doesn’t mean it’s a rule of thumb: It might surprise you how trans positive some people turn out to be but also how misogynistic some trans mascs turn out to be.
It’s all about looking into ourselves and confront our own bias, to heal our own traumas, as much as that means a bruised ego to keep in check as not to grieve for a subconscious privilege that was promised but loosed from the patriarchy but for the actual harm that is done: Abuse, transphobia and denial of our basic right of begin ourselves.
#transandrophobia#like i cant fucking take another round of trans men making a fool of themselves and begin fucking assholes towards trans women/cis women#like healthy masculinity i think it should be also confronting the inherent bias of living on a mysoginistic culture yknow what im saying??#and how that affects everyone on very different levels and reactions#but for the love of god pleaseee remain kind#like i dont like the word bc it looks like a 'reaction' to trans*misoginy which again could be used by bad faith actors#but i do understand what it's trying to say#tw: transphobia#tw: misoginy
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i might be mistaken and so sorry if i am but i’m pretty sure you made a post about the “annoying selfish punk” tendencies that ashton has and was wondering if you could go a little bit more into what you mean by it? i love ashton so much but punk subculture is something i have no experience with and the premise of that post was really interesting
I did write that post! My thoughts on that are largely informed by the fact that my sister and her partner and many of her friends are in The Scene. I am not part of the subculture, but I am adjacent to it in a way where I know a lot of punks.
The short of what I meant there—and the long version is long—is that punk subculture has a lot going for it and has many philosophical virtues and ideals. However, the (for lack of a better word) energy of the subculture does have a tendency to attract many people for the wrong reasons who do otherwise uphold those values, just as it does in many other subcultures and groups, especially those subcultures built around improving social conditions or in response to suffocating conditions like punk is.
To be clear, before I launch into the whole thing: I do not think that all of this applies to Ashton. I'm just unpacking my experiences in the kinds of punks who are very self-centered in frustrating ways. It's a type that Ashton overlaps with and has SOME things in common with, enough to make them also very frustrating in a well-developed way, but not all of this applies to them.
A number of people in the scene are attracted to it because they simply want to defer responsibility for dissatisfaction in their lives or because they are trying to validate this feeling that they've been kept from something by someone else. Notice that these feelings are very similar to what Ashton expresses drove them to make the decision to take the shard: wanting someone else to blame, wanting to feel robbed. The subculture attracts people who center themselves and their personal grievances in this way alongside people who genuinely center the community-oriented ideals of punk. They're punk because they're trying to settle a score more than they're interested in improving things for everyone, uplifting community, etc.
Like any space that champions the virtues of community-centered values and fighting against structural oppression, punk also attracts some who value Being Seen doing something virtuous much more than they value ensuring that meaningful, important, constructive work is done. Being more invested in being Seen fighting The Man to the point that you resent less visible and rewarding but important solidarity and support work is selfish and self-centered. This attitude is not limited to punks, not at all, but punk has its folks who are there just to be self-righteous and holier-than-thou. There's a decent number of punks one very much feels compelled to remind that this should be out of love for people and community, not out of love for the fight, because many are drawn to punk in search of an excuse to be combative and break things and start fights (as opposed to doing that to defend and advance against oppression).
It has its share of people too who engage in the scene because they want to feel superior to Normies. So, they go to punk shows and listen to punk music and do it all because they're pretentious and want to feel superior.
The genuine ideals of punk about hope and community and joy and uplifting one another and raging against the structural oppression of the world are very real, even if they take forms often more varied, difficult, messy, and polarizing across history than many on Tumblr and Twitter care to admit. But, at least from my experience from my proximity to people in the scene, it also attracts people who want to be seen as Important, or want to feel like someone else kept them from being Special, or want to be validated in their self-righteousness. Some will claim that these kinds of people are not ACTUALLY punk, but No True Scotsman is a fallacy for punks too since these are very much people who like punk music, engage in the scene, and even participate in community action and upholding of other punk values—but they are doing so for self-centered, selfish, self-aggrandizing, self-flattering reasons. And they are frustrating and insufferable people.
I wrote that post after 3.74: "Roots Between Worlds", but we can see that a lot of the same sentiments I've said here are echoed in Ashton's assessment of their own behavior in 3.78: "Fractured", and all those things he said is exactly why I said what I said how there are some punks who are frustratingly self-centered.
#CR spoilers#Critical Role things#This is nonrebloggable bc not being super glowing about punk is a touchy subject on this website.
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I’m trying to put into words why I feel so defensive over Thorfinn’s pacifism. Plenty of fans who like the non-violent direction still say things about it which make me cringe. Like “he’s gone too far with his beliefs” or “he needs to be realistic” or “he’ll have to figure out when violence is okay and when it isn’t.”
I have agreed with critiques of pacifism before. I don’t like it when people living privileged lives start to preach to oppressed groups, telling them not to fight for freedom. I don’t think moralizing is the right response to violence in general. Whether or not violence is “right” isn’t the question. We never know what’s right from wrong with certainty. The only thing we can do is look at the circumstances surrounding violence and decide how to proceed. I’m also not immune to enjoying, even celebrating, liberatory violence, which I believe exists.
However, in real life, what percentage of the time is violence positive in any way? For violence to be liberatory or justified, violence must already have been done. This non-justified, aggressive violence is far more common than violence done in self-defense, as not everyone has the ability to stand up for themselves. For the people who can fight back, being forced to commit violence is usually traumatizing. But in fiction, violence is more often portrayed in a positive light; heroes commit justified or “badass” violence, and those who act in self-defense come out on top. With Vinland Saga, Yukimura wanted to create one, just one story where violence isn’t justified, where the characters look for another way instead of making excuses.
Since Thorfinn is a former warrior who has no right to judge others, his character sidesteps being preachy. Additionally, his main foil is Canute, who uses violence to try to reach the same ends and is framed as understandable and pragmatic by the narrative. The work presents multiple perspectives on violence, enriching its themes, but I strongly believe that to the end, Thorfinn will never compromise his beliefs. Not everyone in the world has to believe the same way that he does, but it is right and good that he maintain his pacifism. Readers looking for complexity in a work often want characters to reach a middle ground, like this automatically means they’ve grown, but some of my favorite stories focus on protagonists who cling to ideals and resist change. Through being forced to test out their ideals in real life, they become wiser, better people, more able to live in accordance with their values. That is what I believe Yukimura is going for with Thorfinn’s character.
In my heart of hearts, I believe that Thorfinn is right. He’s never once said that violence is always wrong, only that it should be a last resort. He hasn’t killed anyone since his vow of non-violence, but he’s had to bust some heads. In a recent chapter, he said there’s no such thing as righteous violence; that’s not the same thing as necessary violence. He can do it—but he hates it. If you’ve ever felt a thrill of enjoyment in hurting someone, you know how seductive it is. Developing a disgust for violence is healthy antidote to this tendency.
Reading the Vinland arc, I fully agree with other readers that Thorfinn is naive. I just disagree on whether his pacifism is a part of that naivety. When I examine the story so far, Thorfinn’s failures as a leader mostly stem from his lack of experience. He spent 10 years of his life fighting, then he became a slave, and then he became a merchant. Technically, he has a lot more life experience than most readers. But there’s plenty of things he doesn’t understand because he’s never been exposed to them, like the settlers’ investment in private property. Further, Thorfinn has a kind of simplicity to him, maybe caused by his rebirth, the way he was emptied out and then filled back up. He’s surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, true and honest friends seeking the same goal as him. He also knows how to deal with enemies, warriors who make their intentions clear. Where Thorfinn has failed is in dealing with manipulators and opportunists, paranoids and backstabbers. He isn’t good at understanding people who might cooperate with him while harboring ill intentions or irrational beliefs. It was very naive of him, and the rest of his people, that they didn’t check new members for weapons before leaving for Vinland. I’ve felt from the start that Thorfinn shouldn’t have allowed Ivar and his group to come at all, and he hasn’t been able to handle them very well, not recognizing the threat they pose.
But I’ve seen people equate these failures with his pacifism. That’s where I disagree. If the settlement wasn’t peaceful, it would have already failed, like the one that Leif’s brother started. If Thorfinn wasn’t constantly reigning in the violence of others and trying to communicate peaceful intentions to the natives, war would have broken out a long time ago. It is a simple fact that if you approach people with mistrust, superiority, and violence, you will create an enemy, while if you approach them with openness, humility, and generosity, you will create a friend. It’s interesting how quickly people jump to calling pacifism unrealistic or immature, when violence is usually the true example of those things.
Regardless of whether Thorfinn is right or wrong, naive or wise, it is possible that Vinland will fail. He may not be able to hold it together. But is this because of his non-violent ways? After all, Canute’s violence will ultimately fail as well—historically, his stable kingdom collapsed after his death. Vinland Saga portrays human beings who long for something better while remaining trapped in their failures and misfortunes. Yet the story still praises the efforts of those who try. Following their ideals, foolish as they may be, they attempt to shape the world. This theme is introduced all the way at the beginning with Thors, hurting his family’s livelihood to save a dying slave. There is a nobility and strength in continuing to pursue what you believe is right, regardless of the outcome. That is the only way for us to live fulfilled lives.
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Author Weaseling their narratives.
I want to state this now before it leaves my brain, just a small penny of thought.
After pages are uploaded and the Author not using a script. He will IMMEDITALTY try to cover up the holes and fix it the next pages or so. Then messes up continuity along those lines.
Yes, cause that's better to wait it out then do anything at all. Ranach and Avanti can sneak in the territory during the night and wait to slaughter EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM. The territory of meteor is vast with minimum eyes, they can't keep watch for 24/7 simultaneously.
Like for one, When the Avanti beast came into Home and everyone questioned why he didn't just kill the meteor tribe?? Kiq. made pages to answer the question to the audience, literally Him telling the audience why something is not logically going or going against what doesn't make sense - ya feel me??
I would think knowing a family member dying, would pushed you to make sure your other family member is over their safe, you literally stated it to Rhovanion of them being an oppressive tribe and dangerous group.
When Everyone questioned Why Roamer didn't go help Ronja and save her from a inbreeding, oppressing, Sexual assaulting, tribe instead of going swimming and hanging out in midnight guard. Kique had to make an excuse for it.
CH. 13 PG 807 & 809 - Yes, let us give more justification for the tribe to easily state the capitol ' meteor is killing members left and right again' to have the matriarch to annihilate them on the spot. Good idea guys. Have majority of the Tribes' who hates meteor with tangible proof and track record to put more endangerment over Ronja's pups. I might as well left the group after that with Javo, Galti and Alva.
Another is when Roamer murdered bear dog and when people got hurt about that he tried to justify it and praise the Garystu characters. more so having Ronja not do anything cause Roamer literally been disobedient the moment he got separated from the pack and followed two strangers the beginning of Home. Also stopped people from commenting cause he didn't like people pointing it out.
He did it before of killing dogs or shunning hem to Justify they are BAD , they are the VILLAINS when they're anything but that.
Jonna. Kargo before his death. Fairikh. Ruan. Aira etc.
Let me remind you that kique doesn't have a script, and when he does it's by volunteers before he burns the bridges with them and then back to square one again. He has a Patreon that the pages are ahead of the public, so he can produce pages to cover tracks before they present to the public.
He already probably doing one now or has not made the pages to Justify the ' Golden ' Lioness to give a starting couple a child without consent. It's already bad when you have to prove what's morally wrong to be right or worse to romanticized it. What's sad the hybrid cubs will be brushed off.
CH. 12 PG 738 & 739
CH. 11 PG 607 & 608
Ronja's kids have been on the way-side and we have only have scenes when Roamer needs comfort involving when Rogio is NOT there or Ronja is involved to do parenting.
If this is supposed to be just a slice of life type of comic, I would like to see something that pertains it and not dragged stupidity, and teenage drama on fully grown adults.
Diarko now in the mix will be forgotten, cause his purpose was to save Rogio and Kargo. Now to be a child to 3 dogs that are NOT FIT TO BE PARENTS, NOR METEOR and he already has a mother.
The author probably already has a page to Have his mother who has a high distrust of dogs and practically everyone else, leaving their only cub to a bunch of strangers. I don't need to look at the blur page of patreon to know he already has one, the repetitive pattern of evidence is on the Public pages on it's own will suffice.
She's literally going to a decent tribe in the beaches so why not bring her son with him??!! where she knows they're Safe?? like that's not how mothers and maternity instincts work. The only reason Diarko stays is because the author wants his toxic, soon to be Poly to have a kid around and have them look good, a means to look like saints.
It's very obvious its going to be poly, there is too many signs to show it and Rogio is that much of a possessive, manipulative prick to have Roamer and Kargo under his paws.
He did it to Ranach,
CH. 7 PG 293 & CH. 9 356 - Yeah, its all Kargos fault despite Ferah and Rogio was there and kept the secret too. Plus Ferah is the one to start it , but since Kargo had a heart to be honest, he gets the short end of the stick and labeled a bastard.
He did to Roamer...
Trust me y'all there's a lot more of these of Ronja seeking Rogio for mostly everything. I guess Vandi, Kargo and Ferah don't hold much weight. Soon it'll be the Larpdog of Whispervale, cause Ronja can't think for herself as a leader.
...and Ronja might as well make Rogio a Leader cause she's laying it on him for everything even to the voice of reason. He's literally a Garystu with plot amour. How does everyone not know anything but Rogio does?
I rather trust Vandi and Vigr over Rogio - heck take Shiverfall Eopi.Could easily take the trip their and bring Diarko along so he can visit his mother and not be forgotten.
Shiverfall tribe is BIGGER then meteor, meteor literally did Nothing - NOTHING to show it's a safe place to be. Ronja, Roamer, Rogio, Kargo should know that, The mother is Blind - BLIND!! FOR PETE'S SAKE and it makes me so damn upset that she can't see it and the tribe is not going to tell her and put her only son in danger with a falling tribe.
Because everyone is going to be happy and ' d'awww' of Diarko staying with the OTP3.
Akleja already is also forgotten and just in the background in silence without knowing much of who they are as an individual, except they are Vandi's X Fuss's pup and were the first pup to be born free which should be a VERY BIG THING. You need more then just putting traits in Wiki cause a lot of the traits don't correlate to the Webcomic.
He probably already doing and did pages to not make Feaf look bad and answer why Zahira and Raimos didn't have the kids.
-----
He has done it countless times and has edited pages to Justify them under people's noses and they don't bat an eye of it.
#kique#asmundrhome#home#home comic#kique7#kiquenordin#asmundr#asmundrcomic#kique nordin#bad dog comics#penny for my thoughts#questionable mindset#questionable choices#aaaahhhh#stop the madness#comic#bad writing#bad webcomics#continuity errors#inconsistency#toxic relationship#toxic characters#red flags#grinds my gears#wake me up inside
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Feeding Alligators 28 - The Art of War
Y'all reach the grove. Battle plans ensue.
On AO3.
You can feel the Grove before you round the last bend and actually lay eyes on the damn thing. That heavy, oppressive dread. The goblin bodies have been cleared out, and there don’t appear to be any new ones. Hopefully, it’s been quiet while y’all were gone.
The gate lifts when the tiefling guards recognize y’all (and ain’t it interesting that it’s the very people that bitch wants to kick out who seem to be doing most of the heavy lifting, so to speak). You pass a young couple inside stacking their stuff into a wagon. Once in the cave, the others break off to talk to the trader, and you clock three more tieflings arguing with each other down the way.
Last time, you veered right. You can’t really speak, but you can still snoop. This time, you turn left. An old tiefling cooks at a cauldron. A blacksmith bangs away at a forge (you want to go over and watch so bad; you ain’t seen blacksmithing before).
But before all that, is the clacking and grunting. There, in another shaft of sunlight, a wooden platform. Training dummies stand in a line. Several tiefling whap at them with wooden swords. But it’s the gaggle of kids and the Black man talking to them in a low, easy tone that draws you in.
The kids look scared. One seems to be on the verge of tears. It’s this one the man takes a knee to talk to. Hand on then scrawny shoulder. Head ducked low so he can peer up at the wet face.
You know a pep talk, even if you don’t know the words.
He’s training them to fight. Training all of them to fight. They’re being kicked out with the looming threat of goblins; of course they’re teaching the kids defense.
Jesus.
The man stands. Readjusts the grip the kid has on the practice sword. Guides them to a dummy. A bash at the knees. A jab to the groin. All things within a kid’s reach. All things more likely to incapacitate than kill.
He backs off, lets the kid have another few goes. Claps and his voice carries an exuberant warmth. Enough that the kid swipes their face with a forearm and hacks at the dummy again.
The man turns, surveying the others, and that’s when he spots you. Faint recognition sparks in his eyes—eye, you see as you get closer; the other is artificial. You saw him before, during that goblin fight. Only a flash or two—you were hanging back and mostly trying to stay out of the way.
His eyebrows lift all friendly and he says something.
To which you can only smile and make a vague hand gesture to your ear. “Don’t speak y’all’s language, sorry.”
Though the “sorry” is in Faerunese.
The man nods slowly. Looks behind you and spots your companions—now clear of the trader and making their way over.
You turn back to the one-eyed man as he opens his mouth, and the goddamn worm flails in your skull. You’re distantly aware of shouting behind you, the man slams a hand to his head, and then your knees almost buckle and you stagger over to the fence—
Red skin. Black horn. Eyes liquid gold and the demon woman literally burns as an ax the size of your torso splits down—
Horror and urgency. A monster on the loose. She’ll carve a path of blood and bone up and down the Coast if you can’t find her, stop her—
The whammy passes. You hang, limp, over the fence and pant. Voices call around you. A child. You lift your head to see the man—
Wyll.
—see him comforting the crying kid again. Then footsteps jog up behind you as the rest of the group hightails it over, Astarion’s lilting voice sharp in annoyance.
Fuck, that brain shit is jarring when it isn’t Gale.
Everyone talks around you. Introductions and what the fucks, if you had to guess. Dude got brainwormed, too. You’d sensed concern in him. Where Gale had been shielded and Astarion a hot mess, Wyll had felt…collected. Worried, but channeled, like storm water redirected into an arroyo. All of his emotions serve a purpose.
Part of that worry is for the tieflings.
“Hello,” you say, hoping that passes as a form of “excuse me.” It nabs Gale’s attention, and to him you say, “Talk shadow druid.”
Wyll picks up on that with a frown. Repeats it slower, but shakes his head. More conversation—fucking running out of that potion, goddamnit.
“Go noun talk,” he says. Or that’s the part you pick up on, anyway.
Gale thanks him. Turns to leave.
But this guy has a brainworm, too. He seems a capable fighter, and, unlike everyone else (you included), doesn’t seem like a complete douchebag.
“Wyll,” you say. “You, um. You walk, talk, all of us? Walk, we sleep over there, eat. All of us also?”
Fuck, this is fucking hard. Come with us, you try to say. Join us in activities. Hopefully it made some sort of sense and wasn’t just babbled gibberish.
Astarion scoffs. But Wyll looks to Gale, says something with his head tilted. A “I’m considering, however” gesture.
The thoughts you’d seen. The demon woman. He’s hunting her. Worried about stopping her.
The last thing y’all need is another fight. But. But people working together, gadugi, got your ancestors through ten thousand years and a whole ass genocide, so hey.
“We all,” you say, swirl your finger to gesture to the group. Then make a stabbing motion. “We all, you. Bad fire tiefling.” Stab again.
Take the meaning, Wyll. Please, please have understood that.
He nods again, slowly. Gale meets your eye—the rest of the group bitching, some more quietly than others (Astarion)—and nods as well. Then Wyll is clapping Gale’s forearm, before holding out a hand to you.
Look at you, making friends and allies.
Now, to start a possible coup.
***
The person Wyll sent y’all to talk to is a druid woman whispering to birds. Neat. You let Gale and Wyll do all the talking, while you watch Bird Lady. The second she hears “shadow druid” her face darkens.
Well shit. There’s your answer.
She’s agitated, now. Talking low, looking around. You catch Kahga’s name a couple of times, that Halsin guy as well. You need to communicate. You don’t have the vocabulary to pantomime this.
You tap Gale’s shoulder and temple-tap. The muscles of his jaw clench, but he nods.
Initiating the mind-whammy is, somehow, even more disorienting when you’re the one starting it. The world shifts, and you can see yourself standing there—
Oh my fucking god, you are such a mess, you look half dead and greasy—
Focus, Gale thinks.
You close your eyes. Both sets. How many for Kahga, how many for Halsin?
It is… a whole trip to feel Gale’s brain forming words and speaking them. If your lids weren’t shut, you’d be cross-eyed and drooling right now.
Five or six for Kahga certainly. More every day, Gale translates. Must act soon. Now. Before tide shifts.
Tell her gather Halsin ’s people. Armed—
A spike of alarm through him, but also the others (oh goddamnit, it’s a group chat again fuck) and you feel disgust, disappointment, and amusement.
Scheming, as in derogatory. Has to be Lae’zel.
Winning, you think and picture wolves on an elk. Which seems to slap Shadowheart right out of the group chat. More numbers, no fight, easier victory—
The connection sloughs off. You gasp and blink at the sudden daylight. Sway a moment until your balance kicks back in.
Lae’zel is, indeed, curling her lip. She wants a fight. Wants honor or glory or whatever stupidass thing her people and that fuck off sword value.
But you don’t want a fight. You want to win. And that means setting the pieces so the enemy never has a warning, never has a chance to respond. Because the enemy is bigger than you, stronger, more numerous, more influential. They have more power than you can ever claim, and trying to fight something like that is suicide.
You know how to bide your time, suck it up, and wait for the right moment. How to strike in the dead of night and be gone before anyone even knows you’re missing. Beyond reach before they can lift a finger.
Fairness is for people who can afford to lose.
Astarion stares at you until you notice, and looks away, pretending he wasn’t absolutely doing just that.
Gale must present your idea to Bird Lady. She looks grim as fuck as she sends her last birds off. As she turns and surveys the circle of druids around their idol, chanting as magical, green haze fills the air around them.
Her eyes are scared when she looks to you.
Which leaves the tieflings. The terrified kids swinging wooden swords around. The tieflings as a whole clearly don’t know how to fight if Wyll has to teach their children. You think of the skinny one that don’t talk, of the pipsqueak y’all saved from the harpies. If this goes bad, they need to stay out of it, stay hidden and safe.
“Wyll,” you say. “Tieflings also. No this here. Walk over there. All them shh.”
You mime crouching. Put a hand over your mouth, motion under Bird Lady’s bench.
Wyll’s gaze is sharp. His nod swift. He says something to Gale, who turns and nods at you. Well takes off at what could almost pass as a casual stroll, if you hadn’t seen the tight expression on his face.
“Tieflings,” Gale says and a verb. One he demonstrates ducking down. Hopefully it’s “to hide.”
Good. That’s good. Keep the civilians out of this. Keep the kids the fuck away from this.
The door to Kahga stands twenty feet to your left. You itch to slip in there, get things over with (or run for the hills because what the fuck are you playing at here). But you need to give them time. They got to get everybody ready, and you can’t draw attention to yourselves just yet.
So you look over to the man in the foppish had trying to talk to a bear, and let your feet guide you, and clasp your free hand into a tight fist so no one can see how it shakes.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#baldur's gate iii#astarion#astarion x tav#fanfic#it's a goddamn isekai#i'm not sorry#feeding alligators fic#plus size tav#demisexual tav#slow burn#astarion fanfic
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TTRPG Characters Need Trauma In Their Backstories.
I saw someone post online that you can make a TTRPG character with no trauma in their backstory and I want to say that it's wrong, online, because it is. Like in the most literal sense you could make a character who lives in an utterly utopian world but how many TTRPG campaigns are about living in a Utopia hanging out with your friends enjoying a day with no conflict? However, I want to engage with the idea of trauma here, what it is, why it's actually important to address and why the idea of a trauma free character irks me so much.
What Is Trauma?
Trauma isn't just the angsty back story of a little boy seeing his whole Ninja Clan murdered by his big brother or having a dragon eat his pet dog and now he's on a quest for vengeance. Trauma is part of existing in this world. Trauma is part of existing in this world, Hierarchy, Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Violence, Poverty, Struggle all of these things lead to trauma. Existing outside the norm can be traumatic as you are faced with the norm in general. Trauma is existing in a world with conflict.
Even if your character has never faced bigotry personally, if it exists in the world there is a trauma inherit to knowing it exists in the world. That effects how you come to terms with who you are, how you present to others, how you can engage in relationships with others, how you relate to each others from the same group. Even if everyone accepts your character as they come out as Trans and the world doesn't have transphobia, the process itself can be a traumatic, dealing with dysphoria, watching your body grow and change but not be where you want it to be, that alone can be a little traumatic.
Then there is violence, the majority of people in this discussion are D&D players and violence is kinda inherent to that system as it is to most TTRPG systems. if your going out and killing things, even if there wild animals, it is traumatic to end a life. Another living thing had to die for you to eat, that is reality sometimes but having to kill it that is a process that maybe can be moved into a spiritual belief but it is in the moment, a touch of trauma. Not to mention when we get into fighting and potentially killing other sentient life that can talk to you. If your killing a hoard of green people because being born green makes you evil or whatever it is that happens in the dungeons that's still ending life, life people who live a life outside of whatever it is their doing that is the sin in which they must be murdered. That's traumatic. Even if you never kill the blood, the threat to your own life, that is traumatic.
Then there is money, if money exists then either you've been lucky, privileged or your just lying when you say there has been no trauma. Knowing there are things you want that you simply can't have because you don't have the coin to get it. Living in conditions that could be better. Missing meals or having to work for those meals lest you starve is traumatic. Even a fairly stable life that requires your labor OR ELSE you die is still traumatic. Just because no one is holding a gun to your head doesn't mean that the struggle to stay alive doesn't fucking hurt.
The Inherent Propaganda Of Worlds Without Trauma
When you start saying my character can have no trauma we start to excuse the systems of control, that if you aren't happy, that is in some way your own fault or someone else's fault, that we could just simply live without that. If your world has kingdoms how can you not have trauma if your in the under classes having to labor for your land, to your right to live? Saying well we have a very good ruler is making propaganda that monarchy can work, that a very good ruler could make everyone's lives very perfect and that this system is fine and good actually.
Similarly in a modern super hero game saying like there is no racism but there is jails and criminals says these systems are justified that oppress people by race and were created to oppress people by race but they don't have to. You start to make a myth that there are people who do crimes for purely crime reasons and that they need to be put away in a box and have their agency removed and that these people deserve the torture of a restricted existence. It ignores the root cause of crime and the systemic functions of these systems in favor of "wholesome content".
If we have some future with companies still existing and money still existing but we're living like a perfect scifi life then we're saying the system of capitalism can be reformed. We're creating a justification for a system that oppresses people.
I could keep going and going with examples but ultimately ignoring that trauma exists all together is myth making and unless this world is utopian
Deep Trauma Doesn't Mean No Fun
The last thing I want to talk about is Deep Trauma, the kind of trauma that people probably actually mean when they say they want more TTRPG characters that don't have trauma. The I was hate crimed, I was an orphan, I was a child solider, my brother killed my Ninja clan shit. That doesn't mean the character can't be silly, fun, wholesome, sweet or amazing.
The thief who had to steal to eat and live can still be silly, fun, and light hearted, I mean Disney has made two princes that are wholesome little thief guys but they had a traumatic backstory. it just doesn't linger on it.
Queer people alive right now have dealt with tons of oppression but can still be ridiculously funny, insightful, friendly, and upbeat. Even as we actively face a wave of hate the majority of a lot of our lives is being happy and just being ourselves. There are moments of sorrow for some a lot more than a moment but that doesn't mean they aren't nice to be around.
When we start staying someone who has suffered a lot is inherently bad for our tables we're saying in a sense that people who have had hard lives suck to be around. We're pretending that trauma makes you unpleasant. People who have suffered a lot can be your best friend, your partner, your pal, your family, by saying these deep sorrows are annoying or bad inherently and not just played badly we say a lot about the people we want in our lives and what we find acceptable in a human experience.
[From Thirsty Sword Lesbians by Marty Tina G.]
Closing Thoughts
Say what you mean when you say you don't want characters with Trauma at the table which is probably, you don't want an angst fest or a pity party or to delve deep into hard topics or even topics that are out of your lane. Say the things you don't want to engage with and the tone you want to set. That doesn't mean trauma doesn't exist though because it's just part of the air we breath.
People are complicated and messy and we deserve to explore the breath of human existence at the table. There are games about just living a good little life but especially when we're in the context of games about fighting things I find it just so frustrating to see the idea that it is even possible to exist without some kind of trauma.
Let's all have fun in TTRPGs but let's also be critical about what we're saying with the TTRPGs we play or we we are trying to "normalize" at our tables. If you want to help me pay for my Trauma recovery you can give me money over on Patreon or Ko-fi, I sure do live paying for meds and stuff so please consider it if you got the cash.
#ttrpgs#TTRPG#TTRPGS#TTRPGs#Table Top#Roleplaying#Roleplay#RP#Backstory#Lore#Character Writing#Characters#OC#OCs#D&D#Overt references to Naruto that weren't needed
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Lol why tf u mad that Inej “murdered two people of an oppressed minority” (lol) when she’s Suli and it’s said explicitly that Suli have been treated like trash by Ravka, she has no loyalty to that swamp
Eh, because she literally broke into their home- the only safe place they were supposed to have- with specific intention to kidnap and sell into slavery another member of said minority and helped to get in another guy, who was there just to kill its inhabitants?!
The fact she's Suli doesn't give her a pass on murder of other minorities? Or another forms of violence against other opressed groups? It doesn't make her automatically right and unable to be chauvinist trash herself?! Because treatment of Suli in Ravka doesn't say anything about Grisha?! Because another of so called heroes is both Suli AND Grisha and no one seems to mind, so even if your point about Ravka was valid in some way, it hardly applies to Little Palace?!
Because wrongs done by a third party doesn't excuse your agression against others or even entitle you to it?!
Bacause being member of distrusted group doesn't give you any right to break into other people's houses with violent intentions- people, who's done exactly NOTHING to you?!
#reply#Shadow and Bone#season 1#Inej Ghafa#Pavel & Polina#Little Palace#Grisha#Suli#Ravka#grishanalyticritical#anti S&B writers#I won't tag anti Inej#because I'm only anti writers.#They did her dirty.
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mover, money, senator, spy
Andor has got me curious about what roles the Organas are playing off-screen in the early rebellion during this period. How those roles fits in with the organisation of the alliance during this period when secrecy and information control are paramount for hidden agents like them.
Mon Mothma is terribly alone in the Senate – the sole voice calling out against the empire – so Bail isn’t in there juggling stones alongside her. This makes sense. Attempting political resistance through the official channels is futile; the real reason Mon continues to persist is to avoid the ISB asking the questions they would if she stopped. Mon can safely play the opposition in the Senate because she has no support; if Bail stands up to applaud her stone juggling speeches it puts them both at risk for no gain.
Where Mon is playing the wet liberal in desperate denial about the irrelevance of her once prestigious position, I think the Organas are playing the wet liberals seduced by the fruits of complicity. Content to allow the empire to do terrible things to people they aren’t connected to so long as Alderaan is left in peace. Accepting the empire’s excuses for its increasingly oppressive policies.
Bail’s job, from what we’ve seen elsewhere, is the mover. Because he’s using his diplomatic immunity to avoid the empire’s stop-and-searches in his official personal vessels, he can’t afford to have ISB tails stuck to him – it is imperative that he tows Palpatine’s line and does it convincingly. Transporting legal things at volume is one obvious activity; rations, med-kits, water purifiers etc. are goods that would be purchased, stocked, and distributed by charitable relief efforts while also being useful to guerrilla groups like Saw Guerrera’s. Arms smuggling would be trickier because Alderaan – being pacifist – wouldn’t have much in the way of contacts dealing in military tech. I’m sure Bail eventually got in on it, but also that it took much longer because it could only be done with him as the middleman in a longer supply route.
While Mon and Bail both know the other is part of the rebellion, I believe they have “drifted apart” since the proclamation of the empire. So far, the Organas don’t appear to be tied in to Luthen Rael’s network of rebel cells. Because both families are well placed to play the money, there’s less benefit and more risk to coordinating. The Organas are funding another network with another collection of hidden operatives, working separately from Luthen’s so they can’t incriminate each other if one is discovered.
However, while Mon starts the series crushingly isolated, all three Organas – Breha, Bail, and Leia – are in on the conspiracy together, in addition to whatever other members of their personal circle they have brought in. This puts them in a stronger position and gives them a bit more flexibility in how they can leverage their official positions. Leia is still being groomed to take on the mover role Bail is currently operating; she won’t take up his mantle as Alderaan’s Senator until she comes of age at sixteen. That leaves Breha.
We don’t see much of Breha so her role in the rebellion is more speculative. A good chunk of her time must be spent doing official work and managing the delicate political situation as Alderaan’s Queen. Like with Bail, her rebel role must leverage her official position because as a public figure neither of them can deviate too far from the routine of their royal role without drawing suspicion, and because it would be such a wasted opportunity not to. I think the Organas are a step ahead of Mon and Tay Kolma in using charitable trusts to disguise a stream of disappearing money, so that’s one thing. Another possibility is organising visas and other paperwork for false identities. Breha served as her own Minister for Education and Alderaan’s universities are galaxy-class; research grants for areas of study can place agents where they need to be, student visas can be issued under false names, and people hiring employees inter-planet would be more likely to check graduation records than birth records.
A question this raises though is, who plays the role of the coordinator for the Organas’ network in the way Luthen and Kleya Marki do for Mon’s? Because I don’t think it can be any of the Organas themselves. Coordinators need to meet too many contacts; high-profile public figures are too likely to be recognised.
Luthen and Kleya’s profession as high-end antique dealers is excellent cover for their rebel activities. The art and antiques trade is a socially accepted means of money laundering and making shady investments among the rich. They can meet with both buyers from the upper crust like Mon and Vel Sartha, as well as shadier contacts who want to sell their totally legally sourced and not at all fake artefacts to them. It gives Luthen a ready-made excuse not only to travel, but to travel to worlds where the empire is oppressing the population and grinding away at the local culture, because he could be looking to pick up under-priced looted treasures. Meanwhile, Kleya stays put on Coruscant to meet with agents traveling to and through the capital – even though it is Imperial Centre the sheer volume of traffic can help evade notice – and to catch incoming transmissions.
It makes sense to have the coordinator role occupied by a duo because if one of them dies the other can carry on the work, hopefully without losing any contacts, or if one of them is captured then the other one can warn their network before destroying their methods of communication. Co-workers, spouses, siblings – people who can spend substantial amounts of time alone together without it raising questions.
Having both networks’ coordinators working in the antiques trade is possible, but unlikely. At least one of them must be part of the Organas’ close circle to facilitate the addition of rebel locations to Bail’s diplomatic and charitable flight schedule. An employee of the Organas’ totally-not-a-rebel-front foundation is likely. For the other, let’s say a research academic with a fat travel grant; xeno-anthropologist, mineral surveyor, etc. Odds are they weren’t strongly enough connected to explain away all of their secret discussion time when they joined the rebellion, so they are fake-married for the cause.
#Meanwhile in a Galaxy Far Far Away#star wars meta#Mon Mothma#Bail Organa#Breha Organa#Luthen Rael#Kleya Marki#the Rebel Alliance#star wars andor#andor spoilers
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TL;DR - if you’re trying to use chanukah this year for zionist propaganda as either a:
goy who’s trying to use it as an excuse to ramp up your antisemitism, or
zionist who’s trying to use it as an excuse to ramp up anti-Palestinian sentiment, or
that lovely combination of BOTH we see from christian fundies/evangelists
then I wish you a very happy GET FUCKED.
I still truly can not wrap my head around how people are taking -
“Jewish holiday remembering a fight back against an occupying force for the right to continue living our lives on our own land and continue the religious observances intrinsically linked with our culture, meant not to glorify the violence but to celebrate the refusal to give up and give in even under threat of death”
- and go forth in thinking that the moral of said story is NOT to support Palestine trying to do the same damn thing.
Chanukah still will be joyous for me. It still stands as a bright reminder of jewish resilience and perseverance the fight for our own liberation. But for me it will also be a reminder of vigilance, and the Never Again that we promised after the Shoah - that ANY of the trials we were put through, genocide or occupation or slavery - should never again be visited on another people.
No matter what a group of radicals within them might say or do.
It should be a rally and a reminder not just of our own fight against antisemitism but also to support others in theirs, to CONTINUE coming out around the fucking world to stand in open defense and support of Palestinian liberation and to KEEP trying to stop anyone from putting another people through what we’ve gone through. ESPECIALLY Israel.
Even a half-assed attempt at a good faith reading should understand that the moral of chanukah is in no way, shape, or form to justify the State of Israel’s actions, or that it’s somehow intrinsically a “zionist” holiday. Its literally memorializing a battle AGAINST assimilation and occupation and oppression and massacres.
And anyone who’s not a complete and utter fucking twat is going to recognize that that should translate into supporting Palestine as they face the same exact fight - but at an EXPONENTIALLY increased threat. The kind of power being leveled against them right now boggles the fucking mind. In no way am I trying to diminish what Jews in that era faced but. Bombs, white phosphorous, that kind of DIRECT control over modern resources such as medicine and electricity we’ve come to rely on. UNFATHOMABLE to those days.
And ABOVE all that. I can not fucking stand for EITHER 1) goyim using chanukah as “proof of inherent jewish zionism” to ramp up their antisemitism around the holiday, OR the other end of that equation, 2) radical zionist Jews literally fucking like “if you aren’t zionist i better not see you even fucking TOUCHING chanukah this year” WHICH!!!! i CAN NOT BELIEVE I HAVE ACTUALLY SEEN WITH MY OWN TWO EYES!!!!
BUT THANKS TO MY FUCKING BEOKEN ASS FOR YOU PAGE ALGORITHM (derogatory) WHICH HAS DECIDED TO PUT LITERALLY ANYTHING WITH THE WORDS ISRAEL OR PALESTINE IN FRONT ME. i HAVE LITERALLY SEEN THAT FUCKING POST WORD FOR WORD.
H.
HOW DO YOU MISS THE POINT OF “this week we celebrated the time occupying forces tried to purge our culture from the land we are actively living on, or - failing that - purge us, but we didn’t give up and now we remember that we made it through by having a joyous time with our families” THAT FUCKING BADLY???? THAT YOU THINK THE KEY TAKEAWAY THERE IS “getting the land it happened in” INSTEAD OF “surviving as a nation and a people”
HOW MUCH MORE FUCKING HYPOCRITICAL CAN YOU GET.
#and it may very well just be The American Jew experience but#i just. can’t fucking fathom it.#that i’ve seen it NOT JUST FROM GOYIM#i guess there’s always radicals in any group you’re never gonna get away from that#it’s just so fucking frustrating to try and explain ‘look this kind of belief isn’t inherent to all judaism-‘#only to be smacked in the face with a post by another jew saying EXACTLY THAT#and it’s like fffuuucccckkkk#i gotta stay outta my fucking for you page the algorithm is SHIT
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Let's talk about transgender athletes
this is gonna be a long rant so I'm just gonna put a cut down below. dni if you're a terf or just wanna cause problems.
So, recently in class we were discussing different drugs used illegally and legally in sports and eventually the topic of transgender athletes came up (because of course). However, my professor handled it really well and as a trans athlete (pre transition), I just wanna talk about my feelings on the matter.
Keep in mind that this is my opinion, but I have been studying this in uni and may have more of an insight on how testosterone and estrogen actually affect the body. Anyway, there are two main points I wanna make.
As an afab athlete myself, I compete in a mostly strength based sport (though some technique and skill is necessary). However, I could not even begin to think about competing with my amab counterparts. It would put me at an unfair disadvantage and them an unfair advantage.
The first being that—depending on the time you began taking hormones/how long you've been taking hormones—you most likely won't be able to compete in high level competitions like the olympics. I know that people are going to be upset at this, but please listen. If you began taking hormones around the age you would begin puberty, then by the time you're an adult still presumably taking said hormones, then your levels would most likely be that of a cis person. However, if you're taking hormones after puberty, then the testosterone difference between amab and afab people is *staggering*. This article states that amab people generate 15x more testosterone than afab people. Even if they begin taking hrt, it takes YEARS to even begin to see a significant difference.
But
(and this leads to my second point)
There are numerous advantages and disadvantages for cis people in sports. Whether it be financial status, family history, access to training, facilities, or injury prevention/rehabilitation. If kid A is from a long line of well-off basketball players and has the resources to compete, then he definitely has an advantage over kid B who is from the middle of nowhere with no support and even worse facilities. Fact of the matter is, cis people are unevenly matched up against each other all the time. There are a hundred and one different ways that they may have an advantage or disadvantage over each other. Why is it different for transgender athletes? Scratch that. Why is it different between genders at all?
What I'm trying to say is that, I've met plenty afab people who are stronger than amab guys. I really don't think gender matters that much in a lot of sports. I believe we should start separating athletes based on weight rather than gender. (Of course, that's just my opinion.)
It's just that whenever I hear the topic about transgender athletes in sports, it's always about trans women. It's about how it's "not fair" and they are "doing it on purpose to get an easy win" and a bunch of other excuses to try and justify not letting them play. Surprisingly, I don't often (if at all) hear the same argument about trans men. On the surface, a lot of these debates about trans athletes is good ole' transphobia. But if you look deeper, it's really just misogyny. Most people don't even care about the sport, they just want another avenue to oppress a group of people.
Basically, the situation is not as black and white as most would like to believe, and there's a lot of nuance involved when trying to understand this topic. It's unfortunate that many trans athletes have to even deal with this extra bs in order to compete.
anyway, end of rant. thanks for reading if you made it this far. there's definitely more I could say on this, but these are the main points I wanted to make.
tldr: while there are inherent biological differences between amab and afab people, that doesn't excuse excluding trans athletes from being able to compete
#transgender athletes#trans women#trans men#sports#athletics#trans athletes#transphobia#misogyny#transgender#lgbtq#lgbtqia#lgbt#my post
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"I'd Rather be fetishized than oppressed"
This is an interesting one, as it comes from a user that claims to be Jewish (unverifiable, but unless the person is suspicious I tend to believe self identification). Also important to note is that while this post does not contain any explicit antisemitism, it does make excuses for antisemitic behaviors.
Philosemitism, at its most basic definition, is a love and respect for Jews. This, on its own, is not a bad thing. However, philosemitism is in many ways simply another facet of antisemitism.
Philosemitism, especially from Christians, often crosses the line from a healthy appreciation of other cultures to a fetishization of Jews. It has roots in supersessionism and replacement theology. I could go on for a long time about why fetishization is bad, but I'm going to focus on a few relevant aspects.
Putting a minority group on a pedestal does harm to the people in that group. By placing Jews in a position where we are expected to be worthy of special reverence, we are being set up to be disappointing.
Jews are "respected" not for being a beautiful, diverse, and very much living culture worthy of celebrating, but instead as tools, either for apocalyptic scenarios (the frequent goal of Christian zionist organizations, more on that in a moment), because of our "connection" to Jesus ("I love Jews! after all, Jesus was a Jew!"), or as some mystical ancestor, a relic of the past that can be used as a tool for interpreting Christianity ("ancient wisdom"). Otherwise we are "appreciated" for stereotypes: being good with money, for example, to the point that in some countries there are traditions of having figurines or paintings of Jews for good luck. How flattering. Especially interesting is that those "praiseworthy" stereotypes are the same ones Jews were first forced into by, and then later persecuted for, by Christians themselves.
Conflating support for Israel for support for Jews. Like many antisemites of a different flavor, philosemitic antisemites often associate all Jews with Israel. Christian zionists believe that the return of Jews to Israel is part of a prophecy. In this prophecy, Jews will return to Israel. They will be given the chance to convert, and only a small portion will accept. The rest will be tortured in hell for eternity, as the messianic age continues. Christian zionist actions are an attempt to speed up the fulfillment of this prophecy. As you can see, supporting Israel is not at all the same as supporting Jews, as they claim. a phrase often heard from them is "I love Jews! I am a strong supporter of Israel!". Or, "I can't be antisemitic! I'm an Israel supporter!"
Now, the specific user you see in this post's argument boils down to this: "At least they aren't killing us!"
This is, if I'm being honest, a pathetic attitude to have. Not being murdered is not exactly the best bar for what is and isn't acceptable. They go on to say that they aren't in favor of fetishization either, but that doesn't change the fact that they think Jews should just suck it up and cope, since we aren't being gassed or beaten in the streets.
They make excuses for the antisemitism. since they see it as not that bad. But excusing antisemitism contributes to the normalization and perpetuation of it. So while they are not themselves explicitly antisemitic, I feel they still deserve a place on this blog.
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