#Deferred Object

[charcubed]

people who refer to dean winchester as "queer" specifically to avoid calling him bi are cowards btw

[lavideenrose]

[sparrows4bats]

Dick Grayson is the victim of his own choices when it comes to Jondami. Aka Dick sets up Jondami, this time on purpose, but quickly regrets it.

Damian grew up to be a beautiful, kind young man, and Dick can't be prouder of him.

When he left Robin to be a doctor Dick had his feelings about it (ie hes growing up so fast! Make it stop!) but respected Damians' choice and gave as much support as possible as he went to med school and started his internship and residentancy. Damian is an adult now, accomplished and intelligent and Dick couldn't be more happy.

The only issue is other people's reactions to Damian.

Ever since, he was reintroduced to hero society for his medical expertise under the code name Nightengale (Tim chose it and suffered Damian's wrath for weeks) Every young hero Dick knows has delevoped 'an admiration' for his baby brother. (They want to get into his pants, but Dick refuses to even think about it), and Dick can't take it anymore!

He deals with this with every member of his family, and eventually, the love lorn stares die down.

But with Damian, they seem to only be increasing over time as he saves more lives and endears the younger heroes with treats and stories of his many pets.

That is his baby, and if they don't stop with the lecherous gazes soon Dick is enacting contingency plans!

It's getting plain dangerous! With the other bats, the way to impress them was competency, but because Nightengale is rarely in active combat, his admirers have resorted to injuring themselves or exaggerating symptoms to get his attention. It's gotten so bad that Bruce had to put out a League Wide memo on safety and, somehow, had gotten Damian to teach a first aid class. But that only made it worse! Nightengale claimed even more hearts during the class! He had an army of suitors practising CPR and gave everyone his com frequency at the end in case of emergency!

Dick has walked in on way too many conversations discussing Damians' datebility. He almost murdered the poor soul that started describing what they thought the doctor would be like in bed. (They were so lucky Kory was there to hold him back from disfiguring the pervert.)

The worst part is that as soon as it was revealed that Nightengale is a bat. Nightwing, the friendliest bat, was inundated with questions about the doctor. A brave few even asked him to put in a good word for them!

Dick needs this to stop. Now.

So he starts to think. How did the wave of crushes end for the rest of his family? Dick realised they only stopped after the object of their affections started dating another hero.

So all Dick has to do was set Damian up with someone. (He despairs at the thought, but anything is better than watching people he is meant to trust with his life oogle his little Robin as Damian just tries to do his job.)

So Dick Grayson makes a list of attributes any partner has to have. (Not that any of them will ever be good enough to deserve him.)

The person he sets Damian up with has to be a good hero, non judgemental about Damian's past, be able to handle his more acerbic attitude, and just crazy enough to keep up with a bat. They have to be competent, intelligent, and willing to defer to Damian when he makes his own choices but stubborn enough to dissaude his more reckless behaviour. They have to be kind, an animal lover, and willing to move heaven and earth for his baby brother at the bare minimum.

Most important of all, they can't under any circumstances have a reputation for dating around or being a massive perv. Damian is his mother's son, and as much as he tries to deny it, a true romantic. If Damian falls in love, there's no doubt in Dicks mind that Damian will remain loyal. If he's not careful, Damians' compassion and incredible capacity for forgiveness will be his doom.

So Dick needs someone who would never dream of taking advantage of another's heart.

Dick is left with a surprisingly short list. He considers asking the rest of the family for help but can't risk it getting back to Damian.

Then, after a half hour of despair. It hits him. Jonathan Kent!

They are childhood Friends, Jon knows all about Damian's childhood, they trust each other, Jon think Damians insults are funny, respects his decisions, loves animals, and would literally break the world to protect him. Jon doesn't date much, usually committed relationships, and is interested in men! It's perfect!

Dick mentored Jon himself. He's a good guy and definitely wouldn't take advantage of Damians' loyalty.

So, with his decision made Dick begins his plan to set them up.

It's a delicate operation if he goes right out and says it there's no way Damian will go with it. So he starts assigning Jon to Nightengale at the Watchtower during low activity.

He smiles as he watches the two laugh over restocking the medbay.

Next, he gets Damian to bring Superman 2.0 to visit the children at the paediatric hospital he works at as a day job. Jon happily agrees and afterwards meets Dick with a bright blush in his face and a sappy smile that doesn't fade.

Dick makes up excuses for them to hang out, training, humanitarian missions, and abusing superspeed and flight to ensure Damian is fed after long shifts.

The two are definitely interested in each. It's cute. Jon starts glaring and hanging around Damian whenever the other heroes start flirting. Damian lets Jon help him with projects, and the two are never out of each others sight for more than two minutes.

The plan is progressing beautifully, but they need just one more little push.

It happens without Dicks intervention, in the worst possible way.

Nightengale is out during an invasion, fighting and providing emergency medical help when he's hit. Hard.

Dick doesn't see it happen. But turns to see Jon with red eyes standing in front of a bleeding Damian as he takes down hundreds of the aliens. There are very few times Dick has really understood the power the Supers hold. This is like watching a vengeful God. But no hostile gets anywhere near Damian again.

The rest retreat after the carnage, but Jon doesn't care. He gathers Damian in his arms and flies away. Hours later, the batfamily finds them at a hospital, Damian is out of surgery, and Jon is sitting holding his hand. Both out of their hero gear, Thank God.

Jon doesn't even acknowledge their presence just keeps staring at Damian who is out cold.

Bruce starts to lecture him but stops when Clark very firmly drags him from the room. Dick watches the two in silence and slowly takes the chair on Damians other side.

"Thank you, for keeping him safe."

Jon just brushes Damians cheek and replies, "Always."

Jon doesn't leave until Damian is released a few days later. Damian moves back into the Manor temporarily to continue to heal. Jon visits him everyday.

Dick is celebrating his success. The two are well on their way to a relationship, and all of Damians admirers have backed off and only enquire about his health now.

Life is good.

Until he walks in on a Naked Jon Kent in Damians bed. He screams and flees before he can see anything else.

After he has calmed down and given them a chance to dress, he returns to lecture Damian about strenuous activity only to be lectured in turn about holistic pain management and rehabilitation after surgical intervention.

Dick shuts up, glares at Jon, and ensures Damian hasn't disturbed his stitches.

It would be fine if that was the only time he found the Super menace feeling up his baby.

He has, somehow, in his quest to save Damian from the lecherous assholes of the Watchtower, set him up with a pervert!

Everywhere he looks, he finds them canoodling, and Jon doesn't seem to fear him nearly enough. The little shit can't seem to keep his hands to himself!

The worst of it is when he and a few titans walk into the medbay after Damian goes back to work and finds the two of them using one of the beds!

They have no shame, and the titans spread news about the encounter to everyone. (At least Damian would be harem disperses) But Dick now wants to bleach his eyes out of skull.

But Damian is happy, so he resists the urge to break out the kryptonite.

That is until, one day, he notices a ring on Damians' finger during a hangout between the two brothers.

"You're engaged to Jon!!"

"No Richard."

Dick breathes a sigh of relief.

"We eloped."

"WHAT??"

Dick Grayson has many regrets.

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Deltarune's central conflict seems to be coalescing around the tension between being trapped in the amber of the past versus embracing the liquid uncertainty of the future - and how the fear that keeps us trapped in said past can rob us of the potential joys of said future.

Long post under the read more - you've been warned :P

Hometown has been frozen in time for a long time. Its residents cling to the illusion of a glorified past with such vigour that it has completely arrested the town's development. We see it in stages - first, with Asriel's departure to college and everyone waiting for their "golden boy" to come back home so they can bask in his immaculate aura once more. Next, we see Asgore's seeming inability to let go of his former relationship with Toriel, pouring so much of his time and energy into trying to make her return to that idealised family unit with him. Then there is Father Alvin, whose perceived inadequacy compared to his father Gerson literally manifests in him keeping his funerary object in his church desk drawer.

Struggling against that prevailing wind are the young and the restless. Undyne bristles against the stagnation of her surroundings, fuming as she directs traffic and files paperwork with an energy more appropriate for foiling a bank robbery. Rudy Holiday lies dying in hospital yet still wishes for his surviving daughter to be able to live her life to the fullest. Catti wishes to escape the yoke of her family's cloying earnestness and explore her identity through the medium of goth and incantations. And returning to Asriel, you expect that he might have seen in going away to collage a chance to escape the tar pit of his surroundings, to make something of himself other than how his family and peers saw him - an unchanging, static image of a past that no longer exists.

Of course, some people are trapped by a past they would rather eschew but do not know how to. Berdly is forever running from his own perceived inadequacy but can never quite escape it. Susie's experiences growing up cemented a conviction in her that she was fundamentally "bad", a concept that she still struggles with despite her and her newfound friends' efforts to defy it. And Noelle finds herself trapped between the desire to move forward into the future and a reverence to a past that once seemed so sweet.

The dark worlds also exhibit this struggle. The darkners eagerly await the return of their lightner "gods", the beings which gave them a purpose to live by. Queen's stated goal is to trap all lightners in her candied games and glowing screens, an endless present containing only superficial distractions and little in the way of meaning. Tenna recognises himself a relic of a bygone past, but is seduced into believing that he can turn back the clock and make the Dreemurrs adore him like they used to.

The purposes they were imbued with gave their lives direction, but that same purpose threatens to crystalise and ossify the very notion of their future, turning it into something more akin to glass or stone. The prophecy is the ultimate manifestation of this idea - a perfect, immutable record of the future that cannot be averted or defaced. Etched in glass, the future it predicts seems so fragile, but break it and a perfect replica will take its place a little further along. You can defer and delay, but you can never escape its crystalline prison. You are just as trapped by the future as you are by the past.

And so, we come to Carol and December Holiday, and Kris Dreemurr - representative of the past, the future, and the present, respectively.

There was always a sense that December felt constrained by Hometown - her mother's town - and her family - her mother's family. That she was rebellious and impulsive and wanted to make something of herself, be her own person instead of what was expected of her as the elder sister of the Holiday children and daughter to the mayor. She promised Noelle (Elly) that one day she'd take her to the city with its brilliant lights and the promise of a brighter future... or at least, a more interesting one. She wrote her own songs that preached about her desire for freedom and her drive to attain it by any means necessary. December was a shooting star tearing through the world, racing towards uncertainty with a hand eagerly reached out to grasp it.

And then, she disappeared, and that bright future was snatched from her in one fell swoop. Now, she is only the Lost Girl - her bedroom untouched as an eternal shrine which must never be desecrated, her rebelliousness canonised and lionised as an artefact of the past, reduced to a passive rendition of the lost Lenore, frozen in amber as a caricature of who and what she once was, and not who she might yet have become.

However bad Dess's disappearance might have hurt Noelle, it seems to have completely broken Carol. The character we meet in Chapter 4 is cold, rigid, inflexible. Her will in her household, and across hometown itself, is absolute, unflinching, irrefutable. She is compelled to control everything within her considerable dominion, right down to the minutiae. While she is not singlehandedly responsbile for Hometown's paralysis, she is its prime architect. And she is also apparently willing to risk wiping it all off the map for a chance - a chance - to bring December back from wherever she's gone. To this end Carol is ruthless, merciless, will do anything up to and including coercing a vulnerable teenager to assist her in her plans. The future and the present both are irrelevant - all that matters is getting her daughter back.

For the sake of the past where she had both of her daughters, Carol froze the clock and arrested Hometown in an eternal present. Now she seeks to turn that same clock back, to forsake the prospect of the future's myriad possibilities for the cast-iron solidity of what she once had. Everything she does is for the sake of her family, her daughter, her perfect life. And she's willing to do it regardless of what the family in question might actually want or need.

And trapped perfectly between these two forces, like a fly caught in a web who sees the spider approaching them, is Kris. We can infer that they looked up to Dess growing up, and the way she was completely unfettered by the stagnation of her surroundings, didn't care what other people thought of her. She would likely have represented hope for Kris that they, too, could be anything they wanted to be... until suddenly, she was gone. And perhaps that might have been okay, given enough time - perhaps they might have mourned, but kept her example alive in their mind and tried to move forward.

But Carol stopped them. Like she stopped everything else. Saw how much they cared for her. Fed them tales about bringing her back. Made them promise. And held that promise over their head like a sword of Damocles. In this way, she molded them into yet another extension of her will with a control far more adroit and complete than anything the player could possibly muster.

Find her.

You promised.

Don't forget.

But another force exerts its will upon Kris - the Player. When Kris is crushed by the weight of their perceived responsibilities, when they are rendered catatonic by the sheer impossibility of their situation... we are the ones who march them forward. We are the ones who bring them to Ralsei and Susie, new friends who represent hope for a brighter future despite the darkness. We are the ones who FORCE them to make choices again, FORCE them to assume the mantle of a hero, in defiance of the villain they may well believe themself to be. We show them another way, however forceful and inelegant our methods, however much they may fight us along that way.

Are we any better than Carol in this regard? No, I wouldn't presume that we are - our intrusion into their life is every bit a violation as her transgressions. Unlike Carol, however, we are broadly invested in Deltarune's future, rather than its past. There may only be one path, one ending... and yet still we are invested in seeing that future take shape, whatever it may be. We reflect on a past that isn't ours, but unlike Carol we take that past and use it to inform what happens in the future, instead of trying to control it. For us, the future is not set in stone, or written in glass... the future teems with uncertainty, and we cannot help but reach for it, enthralled by the possibilities it contains.

It's possible that December Holiday may yet be saved from whatever fate might have befallen her... but the damage done to Kris, and the danger to the world that has resulted from that desire begs the question: even if we COULD save December... should we? More poignantly - if December could see the chaos and the hurt that was wrought in the service of bringing her back... would she want to be brought back in the first place?

At this juncture we cannot say, we cannot know. All we can do now is wait for the promised new future.

[ceilidho]

priceghost to me is so peak up until the very moment when they might have sex. Idk how to explain this LMAOOO I just find that ship so compelling and mind numbingly hot when it’s Price wielding control over his half feral guard dog and manipulating their connection borne of blood and dirt, so in command over Simon that he can stick his fingers in his mouth to feel around his teeth without fear of being bit. and even when Simon’s standing beside him, taller than Price is, it still FEELS like Simon is kneeling at his feet, subservient. the way Simon defers to him, will ignore higher ups if Price disagrees - he’s Price’s own private militia in a way. he’ll kill, fuck, and torture whoever Price tells him to, and if he ever questions Price’s judgment, it’s almost an ambivalent thing, like just a thought he’s mulling over with no real intent of ever questioning him.

and Price sees Simon as both a dog and a man. an object and a person. he’d mourn him forever if he lost him, in a way he’d never mourn anyone else, but when he gets hurt, the rage Price feels is like when someone breaks one of his prized possessions. Simon can never escape that objectification, nor does he want to because sometimes Simon isn’t even sure if he is a person. Sometimes it’s more comfortable to exist as an object, as a sword to be wielded.

anyway that’s so insanely hot to me than any actual fucking bores me - not personally my thing. But everything else…..chefs kiss

[canine-economy]

Daisuke’s Death and the Invisible Abuse of “Privileged” Children

tw: extensive discussions of child emotional abuse

Another mouthwashing text analysis before I post any polished art? Shocker. But I really really appreciate the reception on my Swansea post, especially as a new account! This Daisuke-centric analysis is gonna be a quick one (< this was a lie. long read ahead!) but he is a character who resonates deeply personally with me as a victim of childhood abuse that resembled some of his experiences. I do plan on doing a larger analysis of his character, but the abridged version necessary for this piece goes as follows:

Daisuke’s treatment in the narrative—both his implied home life and Jimmy’s taking advantage of him to go into the vent—is another one of this game’s excellent portrayals of normalized (and thus invisibilized) abuse. Children are often cited as one of the most vulnerable classes of people, if not the most vulnerable (I acknowledge that Daisuke is not a child, but Mouthwashing implies that this narrative of his inadequacy has persisted throughout his upbringing and, to this day, he is dictated tasks and lacks independence, treated like a dependent. His youth is also an undisputed feature of his character and, most importantly, the cast treats him like a kid). Children’s dependency on adults and our willingness as a society to accept that the adults in their lives provide the most objective perspective on these young people renders them particularly prone to abuse easily swept under the rug or “justified” by wardens who possess the power to dictate the narrative. Jimmy’s engagement with Daisuke is an extension of the latter’s vulnerability. The co-pilot’s assertion that “he’ll be fine (…) mommy and daddy have him covered” at the birthday party represents a deference to Daisuke’s parents as adequate caretakers who will ensure his longevity and comfort on the basis of their wealth. And we know that Daisuke’s parents think the same—the Q&As reveal that they believe they are doing the best to secure their son a good future. However, the same Q&As indicate that they don’t actually engage with or understand Daisuke’s interests and that their approach to parenting him is entirely understood through their personal beliefs, not those of their son. And Daisuke clearly carries that quite close to his heart. He seems to struggle with identity and acceptance, seeking validation in the form of praise. Daisuke is defined through what he can do for others and not what he independently brings to the table, because that has never mattered where he grew up. The consequences of his parents’ failure to meet his emotional needs ultimately conditioned Daisuke to be perfectly available to be taken advantage of in a corporate setting defined by capitalist attitudes and hierarchies.

While it’s not concrete to say that Daisuke grew up in an emotionally abusive household, it is most important that we cannot dismiss the possibility and that his behavior as the outcome of some obvious degree of neglect is well-aligned with this theory. Moreover, the young man who comes out of that household is easily targeted by Jimmy’s abusive tendencies as a direct result of what he internalizes growing up. Daisuke is apparently financially well-off (contextually we can’t be sure if Daisuke’s family is upper class, middle class, or somewhere in between), and with that comes privilege. Even the way he packs—multiple personalized outfits, entertainment devices, etc—reveal that he’s used to certain comforts and hasn’t yet acclimated to the harsh expectations of companies like the Pony Express. But, especially where young people are concerned, it is all too easy to allow this privilege to act as a curtain between abuse and the outside world. We can acknowledge the privilege that he undoubtedly enjoys and also recognize that it benefits his parents much more than it benefits him as a young person.

Emotional abuse is complex and extremely damaging and Daisuke *does* show symptoms of at least being constantly verbally accosted and emotionally neglected by his parents to the point of permanently warping his sense of self. It also generated his overreliance on authority figures to tell him how to keep himself safe in their world. His mother apparently insulted him to his face (“such a slacker, she said”, and being reprimanded for being too talkative [from the Daisuke teaser]), and a lot of his negative self talk (“total screw-up”, “fuck up”, etc) is reminiscent of how people define themselves by parroting what they are called after internalizing consistent externally-imposed definitions of their identity. While these are not surefire indicators of abuse and I am not willing to diagnose a situation as abusive purely predicated on these factors, the behaviors Daisuke exhibits as a result share many commonalities with those of victims of childhood abuse. In fact, just about every time Daisuke speaks about himself in Mouthwashing, he mentions his failures and his work. It’s not lost on me that the teaser for the whole character is him pondering his mother and how she might not recognize him if he isn’t noisy and obnoxious. He personally puts a lot of stock in their assessment of him as lazy and annoying, but nevertheless tries to accomplish learning through the internship. Furthermore, Daisuke takes on a lot of his mother’s pain, hoping she doesn’t blame herself for the negative things that happen to him (even though in the same scene he reveals that she’s the reason he’s on the stranded Tulpar at all), indicating that he has taken responsibility for the feelings of people in his life even when those people are not his to care for and even bear responsibility for his pain.

Now in young adulthood, Daisuke rarely seems to have any sense of self beyond his parents and his work aside from one-off quips about baseball and babes. It suggests that he has always had to prioritize his parents’ desires growing up to avoid being treated unfairly and even cruelly, stunting his self-discovery. In abusive situations, your understanding of safety and your pursuit thereof are radically impacted and we see this manifest in Daisuke’s continuing willingness to accept those in command as the pinnacle of safety over what one might consider logical, personal acts of self-preservation. He equates safety with obedience, and I contend that that equivalence suggests a lot about how his parents reprimanded deviance from their plans. And not to be that guy, but it is kind of outright cruel to dump your utterly inexperienced teenager-to-early-20-something on a 1 year, no contact, unsafe space voyage in a failing industry knowing that he doesn’t have the necessary skillset yet. That’s what his parents do when they aren’t satisfied with his progress, and it’s intense and disproportionate and alarming! Especially for the dependent! They toss him into the deep end of the corporate machine and insist he learns to swim in such an oppressive, stifling atmosphere. It’s no surprise that he drowns, especially when he himself can’t recognize this as an unrealistic expectation and tackles it with everything he’s got because his parents are theoretically always right about what he needs. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that normalized emotional abuse from the home and how it maps onto a victim’s adult life is a topic Mouthwashing would endeavor to touch on, because visibilizing invisible abuses of power in heteropatriarchal capitalist schemes is arguably the central undertaking of the game.

I don’t think Daisuke has evil parents or anything, rather that what we accept as “good parenting” and “good mentorship” is often negligent with regard to emotional needs and can easily become a source of heavy trauma for the children and mentees if that emotional aspect is stretched too thin in the pursuit of success. Not all abuse is intentional, and the dev Q&As imply that Daisuke’s parents thought they were sincerely investing in his future. They cared, just not in the best way for his wellbeing. Because capitalism emphasizes the individualistic pursuit of success above all else, it’s no wonder that a parent would think that the best thing they can give their kid is an avenue to prosper financially. But in doing so, Daisuke’s parents deny him the opportunity to define himself, to experience agency, and to build up confidence. Effectively, they create a young man so vulnerable to abuse by higher-ups (a manifestation of abuse that is often intentional at the systemic level) that he decides to climb into that vent at Jimmy’s discretion under the pretense that he will make somebody proud. Because that’s how Daisuke has been raised to understand himself and his place—the presumed screw-up boy as a default, making you proud by doing the right thing, who has learned to pursue that achievement to avoid the condescension and disproportionate backlash (e.g. the internship itself) that comes with failure. Everything circles back to his parents’ expectations that he makes for a good worker. When the cocktail knocks Swansea out, Daisuke makes an offhand comment about getting a bad reference—even in the most dire of circumstances, he can’t stop thinking about their capitalistic expectations for his “good” future.

I find that Daisuke really is such a good subtle portrayal of how parents with resources can get away with emotionally stunting their children because we perceive their ability to put a roof over their heads, food on their plate, etc as adequate parenting and even a privilege for the child when it should be the bare minimum. Jimmy certainly buys into it, and even some of the fandom parrots that, really and truly believing Daisuke is some good-for-nothing kid who doesn’t try hard when all we see is him working, including climbing into the vents to try and help despite not being assigned the work (foam scene, not his death). I find this reception shows how inclined we are to accept those narratives of the privileged child’s inadequacy before we address the parent for not fulfilling a child’s emotional needs, which are just as important if not more than the material.

To wrap this up with a quick discussion of the symbolism of his death in the context of the emotional abuse of children (which is the reason I made this whole post but I can’t talk about this guy without going off): Daisuke getting so badly injured trying to do what’s right is a very physical manifestation of the suffering he was already going through. It is the pain of constantly people-pleasing and of holding it all in when he’s lashed out at. He gets injured at all in the pursuit of appeasing Jimmy and (theoretically) Swansea, both of whom he blindly trusts despite how they treat him because he has always been expected to just adhere to the adults with authority in his life. Being talked down to by them is not new and has never been a reason to question their judgement. Daisuke sees this as a product of his own inadequacy as implied by other people, and not of external cruelty. He was raised not to question the system for fear of repercussions.

Jimmy is perfectly situated to coerce him into a dangerous situation because Daisuke has never been taught to say no. The safest option for a scared child is to trust their mentors, and an adult Daisuke does just that. Even Swansea’s teachings of safety are dismantled by Jimmy’s tactical use of captainhood to break the camel’s back. Authority. Daisuke must always listen to authority. Jimmy knows the vent isn’t safe. Swansea tells him directly and he observes the foam incident (if from a distance). For as much as he acts like he cares about taking responsibility for Daisuke’s safety, his individualistic pursuit of “fixing” things manifests in Jimmy again taking advantage of a vulnerable person on the ship. Jimmy doesn’t reconcile Daisuke’s eagerness to help with lessons on safety like Swansea does, but rather uses it only when it benefits him. Daisuke is taught by his upbringing to accept this kind of treatment—for safety, defer to the leader in the room even if it hurts and you don’t want to do it (just like he didn’t want to be on the Tulpar in the first place).

Then, once the intern is out of the vent and mortally wounded, Jimmy applies the mouthwash (a product to be sold, hauled in the interest of the corporation) to “help” sanitize the wounds. But the sugar content negates medical utility and only worsens the pain. We can interpret this as the application of material privilege, “sweetness”, that wasn’t actually any help at all to solve the deep wounds left by emotional pains. Mouthwash rids you of the bad taste but doesn’t kill all the underlying germs. One could argue further that in this scene, the mouthwash is specifically representative of the Pony Express internship: a rare stepping stone in the corporate hustle gained through privilege and presented as a boon. Like the mouthwash, the internship is imposed on Daisuke to try and “help” him succeed and be better, but it only elevates the pain by irritating the wounds and ends in his agonizing demise. However, this fine-tuned comparison isn’t necessary to my point. I find the broad implications of the mouthwash as an antiseptic immensely representative of parents and caretakers who don’t seem abusive to the outside world but who are actually subversively hurting their children and ultimately conditioning them to be victimized by capitalist attitudes. Our deference to material comforts and corporate opportunities as indicators of wellness renders us blind to where caretakers fail to address the emotional needs of young people. At the end of the day, Daisuke is still killed by the values his parents have instilled in him. It’s always the “captain’s” (literal or figurative) orders that seal the deal and cut off any of his autonomous doubt or dictation (for example, his desire to listen to Swansea and not go in the vent). His parents’ symbolic and saccharine gestures mean very little in the scheme of creating a person who can survive the pressures of the “real world” when malicious actors (JIMMY.) and the capitalist enterprise as a whole bear down on the cracks of an emotionally taxing youth.

A/N: Maybe I’m thinking about all of this too hard, but the beauty of Mouthwashing is that I’m never quite sure that’s the case as this game feels so deliberate. Based on my experiences, I’ve long found this to be a really important analysis to posit and I finally had the time to put it into words. I feel like Daisuke as a symbol is often overlooked by the fandom. He’s enjoyed, yes, but not really broken down like the others are. That diminishing of his importance and his feelings about the situation also feels like a symptom of his age. But that’s neither here nor there—like I said, I believe I could do a much more in-depth analysis of Daisuke as a victim of subtle abuse but this will have to do for now. A lot of my major points have been made, anyway! Perhaps video format would be best for something longer-form. 🌺

[literaryvein-reblogs]

more words for characterization (pt. 3)

Mentality

abhorrence, absentmindedness, abstraction, ache, aggravation, agonize, alarm, allergy, amazement, angst, anticipation, apathy, assurance, attention, attrition, awe, bathos, behalf, belonging, bitterness, boast, bosom, breast, buoyancy/buoyance, capitulation, care, censure, cheer, clemency, cogitation, comfort, complex, compulsion, conception, confusion, consideration, constancy, content, contrition, corollary, credit, curiosity, darkness, decision, deference, delight, delirium, dementia, dependence/dependency, design, despair, difficulty, disaffection, discipline, discomfiture, discontent, discrimination, disinclination, disorder, disquiet, distraction, disturbance, dolor, dumps, ecstasy, elation, emotion, enjoyment, envy, esprit de corps, exaltation, excitement, exhilaration, expectation, exultation, fat city, felicity, firmness, fog, forbearance, foresight, forgetfulness, frame of mind, free will, fret, frustration, funk, fury, glee, gratification, grief, happiness, heart, heartbreak, heaven, hoopla, huff, humanity, humor, idiocy, impulse, indignity, insight, introspection, jealousy, joy, kick, lament/lamentation, letdown, levity, madness, mania, melancholy, merriment/merrymaking, mirth, monotony, mope, mortification, mourning, nausea, neglect, nervous breakdown, neurosis, objection, observance, obsession, optimism, outlook, panic, paroxysm, pathos, penance, perception, pessimism, pity, Pollyanna, pout, precognition, premonition, presence, psyche, push, qualm, rage, rapture, red herring, rejoice, repent, repose, resent, resignation, resolution, restlessness, ruckus, sadness, satisfaction, security, self-satisfaction, sensibility, sentiment, servitude, simmer, slump, solace, sorrow, soul-searching, status quo, strain, stress, surprise, sympathy, telepathy, temperament, tension, tolerance, torpor, trance, triumph, umbrage, unrest, vanity, waver, wonder, worry, zeal, zest

Attributes of Mentality: aback, absconder, absent-minded, absorbing, accustomed, affected, afraid, aghast, alert, amatory, angry, apathetic, apprehensive, assumed, attentive, averse, bad, beaten, believable, berserk, bewildered, bigoted, bleak, blue, breathless, broad-minded, brokenhearted, burning, captive, cautious, cheerful, chipper, clairvoyant, compassionate, concerned, confused, contemplative, contented, crabby/crabbed, crazy, cross, curious, daffy, dearly, dejected, delirious, depressed, desolate, desperately, disaffected, disbelieving, disconcerted, discontented/discontent, discouraging, disenchanted, disgusted, disillusioned, disinterested, dispirited, dissident, distressed, doleful, dotty, down, downcast, dumbfounded, elated, emotional, enamored, enraged, excited, exultant, fed up, firm, flushed, forgetful, forlorn, frenetic, frightened, fulfilled, furious, glad, gleeful, glum, grateful, grief-stricken, gut, half-baked, happily, hard, hard-boiled, harried, headstrong, heartsick, high, hopeful, huffy, hysterical, ill-tempered, impassioned, inattentive, inconsolable, indifferent, indiscriminate, insane, insecure, intent, interested, intoxicated, irate, irresolute, jaundiced, jovial, joyful/joyous, jubilant, keen, languid, lethargic, livid, lonesome, loony, low, lukewarm, mad, malleable, manic/maniacal, mental, mindful, mirthful, mixed-up, morbid, mournful, narrow-minded, nerveless, neurotic, new age, normal, numb, nuts/nutty, objectivity, observant, obsessed, off-guard, one-sided, on the fence, opposed/opposing, overjoyed, partial, pensive, pent-up, petrified, phlegmatic, platonic, pooped, predisposed, prepared, profound, provincial, psyched, psychological, pumped, punch-drunk, puzzled, rabid, radical, rapacious, realistic, regretful, restless, rigid, rueful, salacious, sanguine, saturnine, sectarian, self-assured, sensitive, sick, skeptical, small-minded, solicitous, sore, sorry, sound, spellbound, steady, strong, stupefied, sulky, susceptible, tearful, tender, testy, thirsty, thoughtless, tired, torn, tough, ugly, unbalanced, uncaring, uncommitted, undecided, unemotional, unfeeling, uninterested, unsound, untroubled, upbeat, versed, wacky, wary, weary, wide-awake, wishful, woebegone, wrathful, wretched

NOTE

The above are concepts classified according to subject and usage. It not only helps writers and thinkers to organize their ideas but leads them from those very ideas to the words that can best express them.

It was, in part, created to turn an idea into a specific word. By linking together the main entries that share similar concepts, the index makes possible creative semantic connections between words in our language, stimulating thought and broadening vocabulary. Writing Resources PDFs

Source ⚜ Writing Basics & Refreshers ⚜ On Vocabulary ⚜ Part 1 ⚜ Part 2

[witherby]

how would the batfam have gone about Flit's initial presentation of their secondary gender? (as in when they first showed signs of presenting and presented).

Oh, great question!

Early signs:

You're developing a slight fever and your scent is changing. Gone is the milky, powdery, pup scent everybody has when they're young, and now it's developing into something noticeable.

Tim immediately starts placing bets on what you'll become. He thinks you'll be another beta. Dick is factoring in your spunky little attitude and assumes you'll become an alpha like him. Bruce does not know or care; he just wants you to have a healthy presentation with no complications. Hal already instinctively knows what you'll be. Something in his gut is already aware you'll be an Omega and he's gathering nesting materials for you to ease the transition.

You start scenting your family members more as your secondary glands develop. Has your dad always had this really strong, dark chocolate scent? Has Alfred always smelled like the tea he drinks? You're quickly learning how to discern their moods from their scents as well, and whatever sensations or feelings they're trying to push through them. Jason gives you a big squeeze and you smell lovepacklove, and you cry because that's so nice that it can be conveyed so instinctively!

The Shift:

Your fever reaches a crescendo and your body feels unbelievably sore. You can do little else but lie in bed and breathe through it. Your scent is sharpening and developing further as your caste reaches maturity.

Hal nests you with clothes pilfered from the entire family. Everybody takes shifts keeping an eye on you and ensuring you're healthy and hydrated through the process. Their scents all keep you comforted and help you feel safe while you're in such a vulnerable condition for the next day and a half. At this point, it's clear that you're presenting as an Omega, and only two of them are really surprised.

Post-Presentation:

It's a bit of a sensory overload for a while. Everything feels like it's been shifted a little to the left, and you now have to navigate the world of scents and deferment and challenges and heats. God, you didn't realize how fucking annoying a heat was until you started experiencing them for yourself.

But you don't mind the change overall. In a family of emotionally-stunted vigilantes, now you can read them a hell of a lot better with a quick whiff. Your dad is not indifferent to you wanting to start a cafe that caters to heroes, civilians, and villains after all — he's actually broadcasting panicpupdanger pretty fucking loudly in his scent despite the straight face.

Your family helps you navigate this new layer of the world, too, gently correcting your mistakes when you accidentally keep challenging Dick for the TV remote (it's not an accident, you wanna put your fucking show on!) or keep deferring to Tim over what you should eat for dinner (it's not an accident, you can't make up your mind between tacos or spaghetti and want him to pick).

All in all, they're very supportive of your changes and want to help you become a confident Omega!

Bonus: Conner

This boy did not go through a natural presentation. Lex Luthor implanted information about secondary sexes in his mind when he was cooking in the tank, but not how to navigate them. He's the freakiest alpha to ever alpha when he pops out. Deferring to people he shouldn't. Deferring to objects he shouldn't. Challenging everybody and everything unintentionally. Ignoring actual Challenges posed against him. Unsure how to mask his scent so his emotions are on full fucking display 24/7/365. Ruts are a confusing mess for him. Conner needs some help.

"I'm sorry, I'm not Challenging your bat plushy on purpose I just don't know how to reel these instincts in. I've been alive for two months. I also think we're meant to be together forever. Can I bite you? My body is screaming at me to bite you. You can bite me back. Maybe. You might break your teeth trying actually. I'm so sorry. You smell amazing btw. That was weird to say? I'm sorry. I'm Conner what's your name?"

[probablyasocialecologist]

The New York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid�� using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept. The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees. The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.” While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times staffers told The Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.

[...]

Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians. In January, The Intercept published an analysis of New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times coverage of the war from October 7 through November 24 — a period mostly before the new Times guidance was issued. The Intercept analysis showed that the major newspapers reserved terms like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” almost exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks. The analysis found that, as of November 24, the New York Times had described Israeli deaths as a “massacre” on 53 occasions and those of Palestinians just once. The ratio for the use of “slaughter” was 22 to 1, even as the documented number of Palestinians killed climbed to around 15,000.

[stevieschrodinger]

The stone wall is chilly at Eddie's back, but he relishes the relief it offers in the stuffy hall. Every brazier is lit, a hog turning over in the massive fireplace. The queen is entertaining again, dignitaries and minor neighboring royals visiting to celebrate another successful season. Plentiful crops. Peace. All that sort of stuff.

"He's here you know, I've seen him," Chrissy sidles up to him. She's done something to the skirts of her maids outfit, twisted them up somehow to the point of being vaguely indecent. She only does it to tease the Queen; everyone in the hall knows if they lay so much as a fingertip on their Queens beloved paramour they're likely to loose an arm. A punishment no doubt delivered by sir Steven, the queens favored knight.

"Of course he's here, our royal highness wouldn't be in public without his protection."

Chrissy hums, "you going to go find him?"

Eddie shrugs, "maybe?"

"Not after another kiss?"

Eddie rolls his eyes, "it isn't like that and it wasn't...he was very gentlemanly." And he was, it was so chaste, as soft as a butterflies wing. And then Steve had left and now Eddie is...uncertain.

"Bet you wish he wasn't though," Chrissy's tone is lewd.

"Easy for you to say, we can't all be the Queens bed warmer."

"Slattern."

"Sow."

They watch the crowed absently for a while, making merry, doing no doubt irreparable damage to the wine cellar.

"You have a feeling about him though," Chrissy idles. Wheedling.

"He can always see me," Eddie admits.

"What, always?"

"Well...he knows I'm there, somehow. Like he can sense me."

She turns to him, gesturing Eddie up and down, "what, even when you're all the way invisible?"

Eddie nods, "and when I'm a bird...he can tell, somehow."

"Really?" Chrissy leans in like Eddie's just revealed the most interesting thing ever, "but you look just like every other scraggly crow-"

"Excuse you-"

"Okay, so slightly above average plumage but not...discernible. I've seen you as birds loads of times, but it's not like I could pick you out of a crowed."

"He can."

"Huh. Well can't you just...cast a spell or something to find out-"

Eddie sighs deeply, "Chris-"

She raises her hands defensively, "I know I know 'My magic only affects myself an inanimate objects,'" Chrissy recites in what is an unfortunately accurate caricature of Eddie.

They're silent again, Chrissy nudging Eddie with a lethal elbow when Steve appears on the dais, checking in with Queen Robin. He's beautiful. No helmet tonight, and he's got the fancy armor on, in deference to the event no doubt. He has to look the part as head of the Queens Guard. He's so shiny.

Eddie sighs, lovelorn and pathetic.

"If you're going to do something you better do it soon, his parents have him betrothed to some noble someones daughter."

Eddie swallows thickly, "and it would be very sensible of him to pursue that. Pretty wife will produce pretty kids and they can live on their no doubt very pretty dowry. It's a good match, both of their stations would benefit."

"Eddie...you are the kingdoms wizard, the only magic user at court...you're not nobody." Eddie shrugs. "What if I told you...what if I told you I definitely know it's not what he wants."

Eddie drags his eyes away from where Steve is standing, scanning the room like a holy beacon of protection. "And how would you know that exactly."

Chrissy shrugs a shoulder demurely, "they are best friends. They talk to each other. And then Robin talks to me."

Eddie scoffs, "if that's what you call it."

Chrissy elbows him again, "look just...talk to him, okay?" She squeezes Eddie's arm through his robe before she moves away.

"I know it's you," Steve says into the darkness, the same way he always does.

Eddie, briefly, debates remaining hidden. He likes the cool air out here on the balcony, and his seat on the wall is comfortable. He lets himself reappear, despite his misgivings. Even though he's sitting right next to where Steve is leaning, Steve doesn't startle. Steve never startles.

Everyone else does.

"Having a good night?" Eddie asks, keeping his eyes out on the view, the horizon, the stars.

The leather straps that hold Steve's shiny armor shift quietly as he shrugs. Steve's always very quiet, everything about his armor well oiled and well cared for, "not sure yet."

That peaks Eddie's attention, and he turns, "what will be the decider?"

Steve smiles, beautiful, perfect, his hair flopping over his forehead, "if I'm about to get another kiss or not."

Eddie turns away, huffing, "heard there's a wedding in the offing."

"Not if I get a better offer."

Eddie huffs again, Steve's hands are warm where they come to rest on his shoulders, warm through Eddie's woolen cloak, warm against the chill of the late evening. Eddie swallows thickly, reaching up, and Steve tangles their fingers together where they rest on Eddie's shoulder.

There's a soft kiss to Eddie's curls.

"Your parents going to cause trouble?"

"They can try. I don't know if you knew this but my best friend is the actual Queen."

Eddie doesn't want to laugh, he doesn't want to give Steve the satisfaction, but it slips out regardless. Eddie starts to turn, swinging his legs over the wall, letting Steve help him to slide the rest of the way, robes catching on the stone.

"Come here, my little blackbird."

"Actually I'm a crow-"

Steve shuts him up with a kiss.

[unsolicited-opinions]

Feelings Don’t Care About Your Facts

Have you noticed that a lot of people on social media don't ever feel compelled to explain themselves?

You've seen this, right?

The folks who proclaim a strong moral view on a controversial topic...then use any excuse to avoid supporting it when they get any polite pushback or questions? The way personal feelings are elevated above objective facts or reasoning? The way they avoid or shut down any meaningful discussion?

I think this is caused by a set of related ideas and biases which are in ascendence and I think younger generations are more vulnerable to being manipulated by bad actors who capitalize on them.

Before we get into that, let's look at some of the ways this phenomenon manifests on social media...and the sorts of biases/concepts at play.

___

"I’m just speaking my truth."

Translation: "Challenging the conclusions I draw from my emotional experience is immoral."

This converts subjective perception into absolute truth, which not only discourages fact-checking, counterpoints, or curiosity, but labels them as oppressive.

Bias/Concept: Emotional Reasoning, Subjective Validation

___

"I don't have the emotional labor for this."

Translation: "I don't want be feel challenged, only validated."

This frames disengagement as a righteous act of self-care, rather than avoidance of intellectual discomfort.

Bias/Concept: Therapeutic Culture

___

"I feel attacked."

Translation: "You’ve introduced an idea that unsettles me."

This reframes an intellectual disagreement as personal harm, making the speaker immune to critique.

Bias/Concept: Emotional Reasoning

___

"That’s problematic"

Too often, this means "This topic made me feel bad, conflicted, or uncertain - and I don’t want to examine why."

It shuts down discussion without defining terms or explaining logic. It implies moral failure without needing to explain the moral reasoning.

Bias/Concept: Concept Creep, Virtue Signaling

___

"Centering [X] is violence."

Translation: "I disagree with your priorities and framing that as harm makes me morally right."

This uses inflated, exaggerated, hyperbolic language to shut down any competing narratives or uncomfortable truths.

Bias/Concept: Concept Creep, Emotional Reasoning

___

"It's not my job to educate you."

Translation: "I don’t want to explain, defend, or support my belief. That would risk them being challenged on their merits. I just want my feelings validated and for my community to affirm I have expressed the correct views."

This avoids meaningful dialogue by asserting moral high ground and demanding deference...without reciprocity.

Bias/Concept: Virtue Signaling, Social Identity Theory

___

"As a [victim identity], I shouldn’t have to…"

Translation: "My group affiliation makes my views untouchable, questioning them makes you a bigot."

This uses identity to shield ideas from scrutiny. Lived experience becomes a veto power over disagreement.

Bias/Concept: Social Identity Theory, Motte and Bailey

___

"This is trauma-informed."

Translation: "You can’t question this without being insensitive"

This weaponizes therapeutic language to preempt dissent. (My therapist HATES this one.)

Bias/Concept: Concept Creep, Therapeutic Culture

___

"That’s giving [insert negative vibe or label]"

Translation: "Your argument feels like something I’ve been told to distrust"

This uses emotional associations instead of logic to delegitimize a person or point.

Bias/Concept: Emotional Reasoning, Subjective Validation

___

Do you see it?

Facts which conflict with feelings aren’t debated - they’re deemed hostile, even violent.

What all of these have in common is the primacy of emotion over reason.

Emotion isn’t the start of a thought for the people who make a habit of these behaviors - it's a substitute for thinking.

I don’t believe this shift is driven by malice or conscious dishonesty. Most people haven’t stopped caring about truth - they’ve simply come to discern what truth is through emotional resonance instead of through evidence or reasoning.

"Truth" now arrives on screens dressed in vibes and aesthetic cues tailored for their existing biases, bypassing critical thought and offering the dopamine-releasing comfort of certainty without the messy, time-consuming burden of understanding.

When Emotion Becomes Authority

Here's a recent example which is getting some deserved mockery in the last day or so:

I know, I know. listening to Theo Von talk about war is like listening a possum try to to sell you on cryptocurrency.

Scratch that - Theo Von is what we'd expect to see if a pair of Truck Nutz were to gain sentience in a laboratory accident.

Theo couldn't speak for his generation any more than a broken Roomba could speak for Artificial General Intelligence, but he's doing something here which is alarmingly and increasingly common for his generation of media personalities. He's using his feelings as a replacement for thinking.

...it feels to me...it just feels to me like it's a genocide that's happening...

Theo doesn’t check facts, definitions, sources, or context because he doesn’t have to. He just invokes a vibe, a moral mood. "It feels like genocide." That’s enough.

Theo has 3.9 million subscribers on YouTube. Estimates suggest his total reach is about 16.2 million people.

The Era of Vibe-Governed Reality

In 2025, truth is not discerned though evidence or reasoning, but through emotional resonance.

Feelings are like the new science, but they're peer-reviewed only by your immediate social circle and validated by the count of reshares.

This is NOT a crotchety right-wing Fox News viewer shaking his fist at clouds and ranting about "kids these days."

This isn't even a critique of liberalism or leftism (because I'm a lifelong left-leaning liberal who grew up in a liberal/socialist family).

It's an examination of what has become a common strategy for mass manipulation which is alarmingly effective, especially with younger generations.

The Water We Swim In

Political operatives and influlence campaigns from every perspective are capitalizing on it, too. Influence campaigns from Russia, Iran, and Qatar; PACs; lobbyist firms...everybody - and we don't really notice these maipulations any longer. Why don't we notice them?

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water? -David Foster Wallace

We don't notice because we're swimming in them.

Every day, we see provocative social media posts which prioritize shock value and emotional impact, aiming to capture attention and convey political stances through intense feelings rather than through facts or reasoned arguments.

Appeals to emotion have been used to bypass logic and reasoning for millennia.

You're probably familiar with these:

Every time anyone ever said "think of the children," you're supposed to clutch your pearls in fear and horror.

US War propaganda in WWII used emotional appeals like "I WANT YOU" or addressed attrocities meant to hit Americans in their emotional center.

Joseph Goebbel's speaches and films used fear, disgust, and resentment to enflame existing negative German feelings against Jews and other minorities.

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe constructed scenes of immense emotional intensity to provoke outrage and sympathy, especially among white Northern readers in hopes of galvinizing anti-slavery sentiment.

So appeals to emotion aren't new and aren't always dishonest.

What's new is the increasing, overwhelming spread of this way of reaching conclusions in our public discourse replacing other modes of communication, other means of persuasion, and other ways of "knowing" anything.

What's new is that our post-truth, postmodern academic models validate this.

What's new is how this is being weaponized against us, especially younger generations.

How We Turned "I Feel" Into the New "I Know"

This shift didn’t happen overnight. It’s the product of decades of cultural, technological, and psychological changes converging to create a perfect storm where feelings have become a replacement for thinking.

First, there’s the growing cultural emphasis on authenticity and personal experience as the highest forms of truth. This began as a perfectly reasonable corrective to rigid institutional authority and exclusionary narratives but has morphed into a worldview where subjective emotion is treated as inherently more valid than objective evidence.

At the same time, therapeutic culture expanded its reach beyond therapy offices into everyday life, encouraging people to view disagreements as trauma, debates as emotional violence, and intellectual challenge as psychological harm. The result of this is a protective reflex to avoid uncomfortable facts or nuanced arguments that might trigger emotional distress.

If this sounds familiar, note that it's something I've touched on before. The people doing this habitually don't take their positions based on moral principles, facts, context, nuance or reasoning because what motivates them is emotional comfort.

(Experiment: Keep this idea in mind while you're scrolling online and see it that rings true when people will not or cannot support their assertions.)

Social media platforms are engineered to maximize engagement, right? The fastest way to do that is by appealing directly to emotion—especially outrage, fear, and identity affirmation. Algorithms reward the most emotionally charged content because it keeps users scrolling, sharing, and commenting. Nuance, complexity, or even honest uncertainty rarely go viral; they don’t light up dopamine circuits the same way.

That's bad enough for our mental health, our intellects, and our public discourse, but the greatest danger is in how these emotional shortcuts to baseless conclusions create fertile ground for bad actors who want to manipulate public opinion en masse.

Your Feels, Their Power: A Beginner’s Guide to Being Played

Whether it’s state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, political operatives, or interest groups, these manipulators know exactly how to weaponize the primacy of emotion.

Russian Interference in the 2024 U.S. Elections

In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. elections, Russian state actors engaged in disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining Democratic candidates and bolstering Republican ones. These efforts included spreading false narratives about candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, such as fabricated stories of personal misconduct. The campaigns utilized social media platforms to disseminate emotionally charged content that resonated with specific voter demographics.

Operation Overload Targeting USAID

A Russian disinformation campaign known as "Operation Overload" targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by producing AI-generated fake news videos. One such video falsely claimed that USAID paid Hollywood celebrities to promote Ukrainian President Zelensky. This content gained significant traction after being shared by high-profile individuals on social media, illustrating how emotional manipulation can amplify disinformation.

Far-Right Exploitation of Social Media Platforms

Far-right groups have effectively used platforms like Instagram and TikTok to disseminate emotionally charged content targeting young audiences. By leveraging visually engaging media and exploiting platform algorithms, these groups spread divisive messages that often go unchecked due to inadequate content moderation.

Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior in Anti-Vaccine Campaign

During the COVID-19 pandemic, coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) networks spread anti-vaccine misinformation across social media platforms. These networks used fake and duplicate accounts to amplify emotionally charged narratives, undermining public health efforts and exploiting fears related to the pandemic.

Bad actors craft messages designed not to inform or persuade through reason but to resonate emotionally - often through fear, anger, or identity-based grievance.

These messages bypass critical thinking by activating deeply held feelings or tribal loyalties.

Younger generations, raised in a world flooded with emotional messaging and taught to prioritize feelings as a moral compass, are especially vulnerable.

Social media doesn’t just deliver content, it delivers community validation. Likes, shares, and emojis, no shit, reinforce emotional responses as truths.

This isn’t just an accidental byproduct. It’s a deliberate strategy and it's been developed to an art form.

Polarization: By amplifying outrage and framing complex issues as zero-sum battles of good vs. evil, manipulators ensure people become entrenched in their “side” and reject any nuance.

Echo Chambers: Algorithms funnel users into filter bubbles where their emotional beliefs are constantly reinforced and opposing views are demonized or erased.

Identity Weaponization: Bad actors exploit identity politics to turn social groups into ideological fortresses where dissent is branded as betrayal or bigotry, shutting down dialogue and scrutiny.

Emotional Hijacking: They flood social feeds with rapid-fire emotional content, making thoughtful reflection impossible and replacing reasoned debate with knee-jerk reactions.

The result is a feedback loop. Emotional responses breed more emotional content, which breeds more disengagement from facts, nuance, or evidence...and the cycle repeats.

If you wonder why almost every attempt to have honest conversations about politics, culture, or identity have become so fraught and fractious, this is why.

So what can we do about it?

We’re definitely not going to get the platofrms to change their algorithms.

We’re not going to manage to out-meme every bit of authoritarian / antisemitic / bigoted propaganda.

We can't stop people from replacing thinking with feeling.

Maybe, though, we can push back in meaningful ways by starting with how we think, speak, and engage.

Feelings Are Real - But They’re Not Facts

Start with yourself. Recognize that emotions matter, but they don’t get the final word. Treat your emotional reactions as data, not conclusions.

Ask: Why am I reacting this way? Is there more to the story? Your habitual curiosity can interrupt the feedback loop.

Seek Discomfort (The Good Kind)

If everything you read confirms what you already believe, you’re not learning, you’re marinating. Deliberately engage with credible voices you disagree with. Not to convert, but to understand. Intellectual discomfort isn't harm, it’s a way to grow.

Don’t Outsource Your Thinking

If your arguments are mostly reshares and TikTok duets, you might be mistaking social validation for understanding. Read full articles. Watch entire interviews. When an assertion really appeals to you, ask yourself: "What evidence is this based on?" Then fact-check the evidence.

Value Nuance - Even When It’s Boring

Nuance doesn’t trend. It’s slow, hard, and less emotionally satisfying than hot takes.

It's’s also where truth lives. Learn to sit with complexity. Practice saying things like "It’s complicated," "I’m not sure yet," or "Both things can be true.

Stop Feeding the Rage Machine

Every time you rage-share a headline without reading it, or dunk on someone for clout, you are feeding the same system you claim to hate. Don’t give your attention to people or platforms that reward outrage over insight. (I need to work on this.)

Reward Substance Over Vibes

Like, comment on, and share posts that show integrity, humility, and reasoned thinking - even if they’re not flashy. That’s how we might tilt the algorithm. Influence is a numbers game. Elevate voices that model real thought.

Normalize Saying "I Don’t Know"

Admitting uncertainty isn't weakness, it’s maturity. It’s how real conversations happen. When someone asks for your take, it’s okay to say, "I’m still figuring it out" or "I want to learn more first." You're not required to have a take on everything.

Ask Better Questions

When someone makes an emotional claim, don’t attack - ask. Not "How could you believe that?" but "What led you to that view?"

Good faith questions can defuse bad faith conversations.

Protect Conversations Like They Matter (Because They Do)

Modeling intellectual honesty and emotional maturity in your own circles has a ripple effect. Be the one who brings it back to evidence, back to reason, back to shared humanity. Conversations are culture-shaping.

Remember That Culture Is a Team Sport

We got into this mess together, and we’ll get out the same way. Culture is just the cumulative effect of individual choices repeated at scale. Choose better. Think better. Talk better.

You don’t have to be louder than the noise.

You just have to be saner.

[artemisia-black]

Marge as a mirror for Petunia's class anxiety

Re-reading PoA for the billionth time (thank you insomnia), I found Marge and Petunia’s dynamic fascinating.

The few scenes of them together reveal much about their relationship. Marge, with her overbearing confidence and crass behaviour, embodies everything Petunia cannot afford to be: loud, unapologetic, and entirely unbothered by societal judgment. Petunia’s deference to Marge is not born of affection or respect but of necessity (a desperate bid to secure her tenuous position within the Dursley family and, by extension, the social status she clings to so desperately).

From the moment Marge strides into the Dursley home, the imbalance of power between the two women is clear. Marge ignores Harry entirely, treating him like a "hat stand," and greets Petunia with a brusque, physical dominance, "bumping her large jaw against Petunia’s bony cheekbone." This awkward, perfunctory exchange is far from a warm familial embrace; it is a collision of two bodies that reflects the transactional and hierarchical nature of their relationship. Marge’s large jaw (symbolic of her overbearing personality) contrasts with Petunia’s "bony cheekbone," underscoring Petunia’s fragility, both physical and social. This brusque greeting sets the tone for the rest of their interactions, where Marge’s dominance and Petunia’s submissiveness are repeatedly reinforced.

This dynamic becomes even clearer in the kitchen, where Marge’s dog, Ripper, disrupts the pristine order Petunia painstakingly maintains. Despite her evident dislike of animals (Harry observes her "wince slightly as tea and drool flecked her clean floor"), Petunia says nothing, allowing Ripper free rein. This small act of submission symbolises a broader pattern: Petunia is willing to sacrifice her comfort and preferences to maintain Marge’s approval. The scene illustrates how Petunia’s obsession with control and refinement crumbles in the face of Marge’s unapologetic intrusion.

The tension between Petunia’s forced refinement and Marge’s unapologetic crassness comes to a head during Marge’s final dinner:

"‘Aah,’ said Aunt Marge, smacking her lips and putting the empty brandy glass back down. ‘Excellent nosh, Petunia. It’s normally just a fry-up for me of an evening, with twelve dogs to look after.’ She burped richly and patted her great tweed stomach."

Here, Petunia’s exaggerated manners (such as sipping coffee with her "little finger sticking out") highlight her performance of refinement, a middle-class aspiration to maintain appearances. Marge, however, is wholly unconcerned with such performances. Her casual dismissal of Petunia’s elaborate dinner—"It’s normally just a fry-up for me"—strips Petunia’s efforts of their meaning. Marge’s behaviour (which includes "burping richly" and patting her stomach) is not a lapse in decorum but an expression of her confidence and entitlement. She does not perform respectability because she feels no need to prove it; her unbothered nature is tied to her place in Vernon’s family and the social hierarchy it represents. 

Petunia’s deference to Marge extends beyond hosting, reaching into darker territory: her complicity in Marge’s mistreatment of Harry. At Dudley’s fifth birthday party, Marge strikes Harry with her walking stick to stop him from beating Dudley at musical statues (an act of casual violence Petunia allows without objection). Years later, Marge gifts Dudley a "computerised robot" for Christmas while presenting Harry with a box of dog biscuits. These acts of cruelty are not merely expressions of Marge’s disdain for Harry but also tests of Petunia’s loyalty. By remaining silent, Petunia reinforces the household hierarchy and aligns herself with Marge and Vernon. Harry’s humiliation becomes a scapegoat for Petunia’s insecurities (deflecting attention from the precariousness of her own position within the family).

This dynamic reaches its sharpest expression during Marge’s comments about bloodlines:

"‘It all comes down to blood, as I was saying the other day. Bad blood will out. Now, I’m not saying anything against your family, Petunia—I mean, your sister was a bad egg. But it’s no wonder Harry turned out the way he did, bad blood will out in the end.’"

The qualifier, "I’m not saying anything against your family," is transparently disingenuous (as Marge proceeds to disparage Lily directly). This backhanded insult cuts to the heart of Petunia’s anxieties. Marge’s comments about "bad blood" are not just an attack on Harry but a veiled critique of Petunia’s background (drawing attention to the very aspects of her identity she seeks to suppress: her connection to Lily and her working-class roots). Petunia’s silence here is significant. Rather than defending Lily or Harry, she aligns herself with Marge’s prejudices (prioritising her need to conform to Vernon’s family over her own familial bonds). This act of complicity underscores Petunia’s internalised shame and her desperation to distance herself from the parts of her identity that threaten her constructed respectability.

Ultimately, Petunia’s relationship with Marge highlights the fragility of her middle-class aspirations. Marge’s confidence and rejection of societal judgment starkly contrast with Petunia’s anxious performance of refinement (exposing the futility of her efforts to maintain control). Petunia’s silence, her meticulous hosting, and her complicity in Marge’s cruelty all reflect the deep insecurities that define her character. Beneath the brittle facade of china cups and polished floors lies a woman desperate to preserve a respectability that remains forever out of reach.

[vhaenaera]

A wedding of Fire & Blood

The Great Hall of Dragonstone was draped in crimson and black, its high walls shimmering with the light of braziers and candelabras. The rich scent of incense mingled with the salt of the sea, battering the ancient stone, setting the stage for a ceremony steeped in tradition and foreboding destiny.

In keeping with ancient Valyrian custom, Queen Visenya had united her children in wedlock to secure the legacy of Maegor even without the acknowledgment of the King who remained in Kings Landing, unknowing to this event. The union was sealed when the first drop of the princess’s blood was shed beneath a rising blood moon—a fateful night when destiny was writ in scarlet and gold. Without heed for her own will, Vhaena was arrayed in the regal finery of her forebears: ceremonial robes of deep scarlets and rich creams trimmed with gold thread, her silver hair intricately braided and interwoven with pearls and gold ringlets, her neck heavy from both duty and the gold around it. Though her violet eyes were cast downward in reluctant deference, her presence at the altar marked the beginning of an unyielding bond. Her brother-groom, the young Prince Maegor—ten years of age and two years her junior—stood with a resolve far beyond his tender years, his posture proud and his spirit unbending, for he knew his duty.

At the centre of the hall, Vhaena’s delicate form shone against the deep hues of the chamber, every detail of her appearance echoing the weight of expectation. Nearby, Visenya Targaryen, tall and commanding in a gown as dark as midnight and an armour-like bodice that spoke of her unyielding authority, watched over the proceedings. In one hand she held the ancestral Valyrian steel sword, Dark Sister, keeping it standing beneath her hand as if it were an extension of her will. Her chin held high as she watched the event, her eyes stern and assuring no objection nor mishaps to disturb the wedding.

The ceremony began in earnest as Visenya took role of priest, intoning ancient words. The incantation—“Father flame, mother mountain. We are the blood of the dragon”—resounded through the hall in High Valyrian, binding the fates of those gathered.

Vhaena’s fingers trembled as she accepted the ceremonial blade from Visenya. With a hesitant glance toward her mother’s stern nod, she stepped toward her brother at the altar. There, the ritual demanded a sacrifice of blood—a slit across the palm. As the blade’s tip met Maegor’s skin, his slight wince was swallowed by the unyielding determination in his violet eyes. In a mirrored act, he extended the blade towards her, and with a quiet resolve, Vhaena pressed forward with both blood and tears pricking from her, allowing the crimson droplets to mingle, sealing their bond.

Queen Visenya stepped between them, raising their joined, bloodstained hands high. “Jorrāelagon ēzi ossēnagon,” she proclaimed—“Let their blood be bound as one.” With that, a strand of obsidian ribbon—threaded with hues of gold and red—was wrapped tightly around their clasped hands, a knot of fate that would never be undone and soaked with their blood.

As the final vows were whispered in soft High Valyrian, the hall erupted with chants of “Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor”—a declaration that a dragon was not a slave. Vhaena lowered her head, her cheeks burning with the weight of both duty and reluctant submission, while Maegor’s gaze, assessing yet unyielding, bore into hers.

Visenya nodded, her expression severe yet satisfied. Placing a commanding hand on each of her children’s shoulders, she intoned, “The blood of the dragon is pure. And so it shall remain.” In that solemn moment, amidst the flickering light and the echo of ancient words, the bond forged by custom and sealed in blood affirmed a legacy as enduring and fierce as the dragon’s flame.

Vhaena’s thoughts roiled like the waves battering the cliffs beyond, a tempest of dread and guilt consuming her. She could not help but wonder how her father and Aenys would receive the news of her wedding—nor could she quell the fear of the looks that would cross their faces when they did.

—

P.S. if my high Valyrian is wrong, please lmk!

[cumplanecrash]

1300 words and two days worth of writing on the Shizun Babies AU, following immediately off of prev. It's a huge chunk of Shen Jiu POV, but splitting it would have been awkward because a cetain benefactor likes to yap Li Xiaolang and Li Meiling are expies of characters from Cardcaptor Sakura, because when I picture short people, Syaoran is still the first person to come to mind lol

Shen Jiu was so tired.

He had been tired in the way that sat in his bones as he woke and seeped into his muscles through to his skin as sat up in his bed for a long time before he'd made a foolish wish, and he'd been content to sleep ever since. He thought, sometimes, that he'd been born tired, and he'd certainly died tired. It was the core of his soul.

It was impossible to sleep through the familiarly strange, monotone voice coming from nowhere.

[Loading... Loading...] Shen Jiu's old benefactor kept saying, interrupting the sleep it had granted him in the first place, back when he'd been on the verge of death, being told he wasn't allowed to die, and offered an ["Exciting Compromise Opportunity"]. He wasn't exactly sure he was happy to hear those anti-musical tones again.

[New Quest Available!

"Like Stealing Candy".

Objectives:

1. Do not allow NPCs to learn about any previously gained advantages from this System despite speech compelling curse. Currently 12/12.

2. Do not allow Protagonist "Luo Binghe" to learn about any previously gained advantages from this System despite speech compelling curse. Currently 1/1.

3. Do not allow NPCs to learn origins of Host "Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu". Currently 12/12.

4. Do not allow Protagonist "Luo Binghe" to learn origins of Host "Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu". Currently 1/1.

5. Figure out how to return to your adult self. Currently 0/1.

+1. Enjoy Five (5) or more heartwarming Unique Childhood Scenes! Currently 0/5. (Can Exceed for Extra Rewards.)

Rewards:

-Return to adult self.

-Optional scenes.

-Point bonuses and penalties multiplied by 10 until next major story event, "Endless Abyss and Endless Hatred, Subtitle TBA".

Penalties for Failure:

-Host "Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu" will be returned from whence he came.

-Host "Shen Jiu | Original Shen Qingqiu will receive a Reputation Point penalty of twice what Host "Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu" has managed to increase."]

"Noisy." Honestly, Shen Jiu only smacked the literal answer to his prayers because his 'benefactor' was too incorporeal to take the hit. "Xiao Jiu is trying to sleep."

[Host must complete the quest to return to the previous state. This System apologizes that Host was caught in the quest triggered by another Host.]

Ugh. Everything fell onto his shoulders, as usual. There were no competents, even in wish granting god-spirit-things.

Shen Jiu opened his eyes, staring into his own face if he was a particularly pampered child. The boy -- Shen Yuan, based on his own self address and the voice in his head -- stared at him with wide, fearful eyes, the oversized guan balanced on his small head leaning precariously to one side as he took in the situation. Really, what had he ever done to Shen Yuan, other than sleep?

Well, the first thing he'd done to him was smack him, and it was entirely possible the spirit was only as old as he'd taken over Shen Qingqiu's life for.

"Xiao Jiu apologizes to Gege," he said, contrite, and really, whoever had laid this curse on them? Stay fucking dead. 'Xiao Jiu', he hadn't been called that since his damn balls dropped, except by Zhangmen-shixiong when he was trying to get Shen Jiu to stop pushing him away for his own safety. Not by the whores whose time he paid handsomely for, not by the cultivators and nobles trying to cozy up to a man with no small political power, not even by any of the men he'd had to call 'Master'. What the fuck. 'Xiao Jiu'. Sure he looks small, but he still remembers being an adult.

'Gege' had been an entirely conscious choice. Let the children defer to the Shizun who had actually seen them excel, where Shen Jiu's techniques for success were apparently irreplicable. Also, he was maybe getting better rewards for being heartwarming? And The Beast, currently present, was apparently important enough for his benefactor's plans to be worthy of singling out, so worth it to start now.

"Xiao Jiu doesn't need to apologize," said Shen Yuan, eyes widening almost immediately from the distressing softness he'd leveled at Shen Jiu. "Xiao Jiu surely had an unpleasant awaken-- A-Yuan would like to express how disconcerting it is to have his word choices twisted like this!!"

"That's the worst part!!" Shen Jiu agreed eagerly.

"Li-shijie, Li-shixiong," said a voice behind Shen Jiu, and oh, his Yingying had grown into every inch the calamitous beauty he'd known she would. If any of these dogs so much as breathed in her direction, he would bite their throats out. "If you brought spare robes, this shimei knows a shrinking spell that should get them close enough to get Shizun and Shizun into the carriage in the village."

Wait.

Shen Jiu hurried and pooled the fabric of their robes between their now separate bodies, blushing furiously.

"Can we not use the spell to shrink Shizun's own robes?" Asked Luo Binghe, with an acceptable level of professional courtesy. Spiteful boy, his attitude had just gotten worse and worse with each beating, but a few years of pampering had him acting almost well enough to have earned the privilege. Backwards assed teaching, but Shen Jiu couldn't deny the results when they stared him in the face.

Ning Yingying shook her head, and explained the thing Shen Jiu had needed to figure out the hard way during his own youth. "It pushes the fibers closer together, so it can only change things by perhaps a dozen cun at the absolute limit. Shizun's robes are, naturally, the longest available, and already have a high thread-count."

Cheap hemp robes could be shrunk that much, and made much softer as a result, but it had been decades since Shen Jiu had made use of that hack.

"Yingying-jiejie can surely find something even more appropriate back at the sect," Shen Jiu said, accepting the robes from Li Xiaolang. Shen Yuan could borrow from Li Meiling; he'd clearly been skirting the lines of feminity when he'd gotten dressed that day, and if he was a new spirit rudely bound to Shen Jiu's life already-in-progress, he deserved the chance to experiment.

Yingying smiled so kindly at him, Shen Jiu nearly burst into tears on the spot. The curse was partially to blame, for sure -- it was literally enforcing childlike mannerisms on them -- but also, it was just like her to smile at him even the rest of his disciples blatantly realized who he must be and grew suspicious. (Former disciples? Or was that only for when the disciple was kicked out, rather than the master abdicating?)

He couldn't even look at the clothes to distract himself, because Ning Yingying was gently taking them from his hands to work her spell.

"Make Shang-ge do it," said Shen Yuan flippantly. "It's not like he has anything better to do." Then Shen Yuan frowned. "A-Yuan did not mean to put respect on Shang-ge's name."

"Gege had better," Shen Jiu told him very seriously. "Or he'll replace all our inner robes with Fire-Spider silk again." It was so itchy and he'd had a performance that day, it was etched in Shen Jiu's memory forever.

"No," Shen Yuan said with appropriate shocked awe. "That's evil."

"Shang-ge can walk through walls," Shen Jiu told him seriously, accepting the re-sized robes back from Ning Yingying. "Xiao Jiu has seen it with his own eyes!"

"Nuh-uh," Shen Yuan said, handing over his own pile, before his eyes widened. "Oh, he totally can and I know how he does it."

"No way!" Shen Jiu exclaimed! "Xiao Jiu wants to know!"

"A-Yuan will tell Xiao Jiu when we're older," Shen Yuan denied, at the same time his old benefactor informed him [Trying to avert the major story event "Endless Abyss and Endless Hatred, Subtitle TBA" will result in a Punishment Protocol.]

Huh. Shang-shidi's mysterious means of youthful revenge apparently had something to do with the Endless Abyss? Worthy of investigation, but not in front of an audience.

Next

[girlactionfigure]

humiliation and the Jewish dhimmi

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

"Haj Muhammad Said al-Husseini, the mufti of Gaza, issued a fatwa against land sales to Jews arguing that, as a result of Zionism, the Jews had lost their status as dhimmi or wards of Islam and any Muslim or Christian who hekped them would be regarded as an apostate or infidel. In 1935 the first ulama or gathering of Muslim religious scholars issued a similar fatwa."

- "1948 as Jihad" by Benny Morris

WHAT IS A DHIMMI?

Following Muhammad’s death in 632, the Arab Islamic empires conquered lands exponentially quickly. As a result of this rapid colonization, the Muslim authorities were faced with the “problem” of how to handle the conquered Indigenous peoples that resisted conversion to Islam.

This “problem” was solved with a treaty known as the Pact of Umar. This so-called treaty allowed select religious and cultural minorities (known as “People of the Book”) to practice their beliefs so long as they paid the “jizya” tax and abided by a set of restrictive, second-class citizenship laws.

Apologists for dhimmitude often whitewash this status, noting that it afforded minorities “protection.” But paying someone so that they don’t kill you is not protection; it’s extortion. 

The Ottoman Empire did not abolish dhimmi status until 1856, though it’s worth noting that even then, Jews were still not entirely equal under the law. Most notably, Jews were restricted from certain land purchases and from a number of activities at the Western Wall, including blowing the shofar, bringing chairs or Jewish ritual objects, and speaking or praying loudly.

DHIMMI LAWS

Jews were forbidden from building new synagogues. Synagogues could not be taller than mosques and the homes of Jews could not be taller than the homes of Muslims. Jews could not raise their voices during Muslim prayer times. Jewish children could not be taught the Quran. Jewish funerals had to be quiet and Jews could not be buried near Muslims. Jews had to show deference to Muslims; for example, if a Muslim wished to sit where a Jew was sitting, the Jewish person had to give up their seat. Muslims were prohibited from converting to Judaism. Jews had to dress differently than Muslims. Jews had to wear identifying yellow belts or turbans and had to cut off their sidelocks. Jews could not ride the same animals as Muslims and could not use a saddle. Jews were forbidden from taking Muslim titles. Jews could not own weapons. Jews had to host Muslim passerbys for 3 days. Jews could not govern, lead, or employ Muslims. Jews could not buy a Muslim prisoner or slaves who had been allotted to Muslims. Jews could not engrave Arabic inscriptions on signet seals. Jewish witnesses were not admissible in court. Jews were subject to a “jizya” tax. Jews could not join the military or work for the government. When harmed by a Muslim, Jews had to purchase Muslim witnesses, which left Jews with virtually no legal recourse. Jews could not marry a Muslim woman. Jews could not criticize Islam or the Quran on penalty of death.

THE IDEOLOGY OF HAMAS

Hamas is an Islamist terrorist group. Islamists believe that the doctrines of the religion of Islam should be congruent with those of the state. Islamists work to implement nation-states governed under Islamic Law (Sharia), emphasize pan-Islamic unity (in most cases, hoping for an eventual worldwide Islamic Caliphate, or empire), support the creation of Islamic theocracies, and reject all non-Muslim influences. 

Islamist ideology can be traced back to Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928. Al-Banna viewed the 1924 dissolution of the last Islamic Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, and the European colonization of the Middle East, beginning with France’s 1830 occupation of Algeria, as an affront to Islam. The early 20th century was a period of rapid secularization in the Middle East, when Arab nationalism threatened to replace pan-Islamic identity with a pan-Arab identity. Al-Banna opposed all of this, hoping to return to “authentic” Islamic practice through the (re)establishment of the Islamic Caliphate.

Hamas emerged as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas, too, seeks to return to “authentic Islamic practice,” as outlined in their original Charter. By this they mean, essentially, that they wish to go back in time, to a time when Jews were dhimmis.

"Hamas did not hold their 'ceremony' for hostage Hisham Al-Sayed 'out of respect for the Bedouin-Israeli community': it was out of disrespect for the Jews. Their shame-honor culture dictates that only 'dhimmi' Jews get to be humiliated. This is why the coffins of the murdered hostages were designed with special handles to be carried at 'foot level,' rather than the usual ones intended to be carried at 'shoulder level': the Jew must always be reminded that he is inferior."

- Lyn Julius, author of  Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight

HUMILIATION AND THE DHIMMI

Dhimmi laws were inherently humiliating, in that they reminded dhimmis of their inferior status in society. For example, dhimmis had to show deference to Muslims, dress distinctively, and more. 

While the Quran itself does not proscribe “humiliating treatment” along with the payment of the jizya tax, historically, Muslim empires largely humiliated their dhimmi subjects during tax collection. For example, in the 16th century, Islamic scholar Ahmad Sirhindi wrote, “The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honor and might of Islam.” 

In some places, Jewish dhimmis were forced to carry out humiliating acts; for example, in Yemen, Jews were made to clean excrement. 

Oftentimes, dhimmis were forced to pay the jizya tax on foot, rather than on horse, so that they would be reminded of their lower status.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

rootsmetals

let’s talk about what those perverse, degrading hostage release ceremonies are actually about.

[sleepydissonantwhispers]

i am an object.

i want to be displayed to be sexually pleasing.

It is so pleasurable to serve my Master by being displayed in any way he would choose. Wearing lingerie, or simply latex, or a complex fetish outfit to show everyone i am his proper toy.

Any chance to obey fills me with joy, satisfaction, with deep pleasure. Being displayed as Master's pretty toy, any way Master wishes, fills me with an aching need to serve and stand at his side, to display my complete obedience and deference to Master.