#Genocide Mention CW

[vague-humanoid]

@el-shab-hussein

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Why do Americans call the settlers "Pilgrims"? Was there actually a large population that saw settling the Americas as some sort of religious mission, or is it just part of the mythos?

Personally I think Thanksgiving as a modern holiday is in pretty poor taste regardless as the core tradition is from what I understand pretty much pure genocide apologetics (in an explicit, purposeful way that is not true of many other calendar holidays), but I think that a good step to improving the situation would be to flush out any needless mystique, if that is what it is.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

so i've been writing up a lot of sdmi meta lately, sometimes pretty scathingly and sometimes with a lot of praise, and man it is a real whiplash to go from 'sdmi did a fantastic job showing how a marginalized person--a villain, even--being body-shamed even one time is Fucked, and a major signal that the person who does it is abusive and about to do him serious harm,' to

'so people in the show constantly make unnecessary, derogatory, degrading comments about the abuser's body. he is an extremely marginalized person who has been dehumanized from birth for having that body, up to and including being considered legal property; he has been tortured in a pressure cooker of abuse targeted at his minority status for a quarter of his life. this is Quirky and Witty and Whimsical, no one has a problem with it, and we are going to just skate right on by that without ever even acknowledging that he's oppressed. moving along now'

like, in pericky's case it's interesting to explore how ricky does say some genuinely extremely shitty, bigoted things to pericles that are presumably part of why he snaps and hits him, but he's doing that in the context of being abused, and pericles is reacting to it in the context of abusing him. ricky's not a great person and does not spend his time around great people, but he's trying to stand up for himself with the verbal and emotional vocabulary he has available. the person he's trying to draw on for the strength and the beliefs to do that with--the language to do that with--is his only real example of someone in pericles' life who has never, ever bowed to him.

......aaaaaaaand she's super fucking racist. and is the one who makes the bulk of the body-shaming comments about pericles in the show. so no wonder ricky turned around and incorporated that into trying to imitate her.

but see, she also has a reason to be racist/ableist to pericles: he preyed on and traumatized her and the people she loved, and ruined all their lives (and tbh, my personal read is that he was probably pretty emotionally abusive to her when she was a teenager). like, sure, that's a lot less of an immediate reason not to take someone to task over being shitty about their abuser than Currently Being Abused the way ricky is. cassidy's a grown adult who's had two decades of distance from him to heal, and has had plenty of opportunity in the meantime to unpack that hey! your abuser was one (1) shitty person from this extremely vulnerable demographic of people who have otherwise never done jack shit to you! maybe don't do things like call them 'it' and threaten to put them down because you're mad at that one guy! just a thought.

but still, she had a reason, right? right.

and when marcie uses the fact that he's much smaller and weaker than her to grab him and threaten to break his neck; tortures him in a way that can only be done to him because of the kind of body that he has; and intentionally calls him the wrong species to compare him to a nonsapient animal, with the connotation of preparing him to be cooked and eaten ('one wrong move and i pluck this ugly little chicken').... well shit, dude, you can't exactly hold that against her under the circumstances, can you? just, like, gestures at EVERYTHING that's happened, including the fact that he'd just spent god knows how long torturing her by keeping her trapped in a box, and she's a teenage girl who's doing this to hold the line with the knowledge that she's about to die violently. which she does. at pericles' orders. like, jesus, that's not exactly a situation to lecture someone about Problematic Language.

after all: she had a reason. right?

right.

this is something i see over and over, especially in sci-fi/fantasy settings where it's easy for the writers to make up their own social contexts, exaggerate Bad Things to the extreme, or both.

on the one side of this equation you have the hatebait: a minority character who's written to be Super Evil and Monstrous and Hateable, who says slurs and kicks babies into traffic and often as not is a sexual predator--the worst of the worst, and you'd never defend someone like that, would you? they deserve any bad thing that happens to them, don't they? anything they say they don't like about their situation (god forbid want to change) must just be an excuse, a sob story, maybe outright hypocritical given how they treat other people, right?

awesome, glad we've got that out of the way. now we can move on to the part where you cheer for brutal violence targeted at that minority, or at least go 'well, that's rough i guess, but they're a Really Bad Guy, so....'

(one of my least favorite examples of this ever is the trope where the villain in their True Form(tm) is physically small, weak, disabled, and/or Really Really Old, and when they're defeated they're stripped down to that state to hurt/humiliate/imprison/kill them. and/or watch horrific things happen to their body as a direct result of being removed from the source of their size/youth/power/basic fucking life support. it is DEEPLY distressing and i hate it so much.)

it is really fucking upsetting how well this works. i tend to get really invested in characters like this.

so we have our object of 'justified' bigotry, hatred, and violence. but then you have the other half of the equation:

the person who Always Has a Reason.

there's been a lot said about the appeal of bodice-ripper fantasies: they're popular in large part because in a sex-negative society women are shamed for their sexuality and for wanting sex, and there's catharsis for some people in stories about being Allowed to cut loose and enjoy it because you had no choice in the matter. nobody can blame you for that, right?

(in real life they can and will, because society is shit about survivors and hates us. but that's real life; this is the safety of your own fantasy to work things through, with no voices spouting bullshit at you except the ones you're allowing to talk for the express purpose of telling them to shut up.)

so there's that. and somewhere there is an excellent post about SPN, and similarly full-of-whump shows marketed to the same demographic of men, being maybe the same thing for those men in a different way: if Every Possible Terrible Gutwrenching Devastating Loss and Trauma and Torture happens to you, then surely it won't make you any less of a man if you cry and break down, show weakness and pain. nobody can blame you for that, right?

(i don't know where that post went. if anyone has the link to pass on i'll add it here, because it is a Really Good Post and worth reading.)

all well and good so far. understandable.

and then you get to the person who Always Has a Reason. and what they Always Have a Reason for is bigotry, hatred, and violence toward minorities. or representations of real-life minorities with a hasty oppression-swap fantasy AU slapped on.

they oppressed the character's people. they tortured them. they murdered their family. they genocided their planet. they're abusing them. they raped them. they ruined their life. maybe the character is a kid who's young and in over their head and going through enough shit already, and can't really be held up to the standards of an adult who's not currently experiencing War Crimes.

you wouldn't begrudge them defending themself, right? you wouldn't begrudge them hating their tormentors and lashing out at them when they get the chance, and savoring it when they land a blow (no matter how low)? you wouldn't expect them to be a hundred percent progressive and politically correct and careful of their language in the face of that?

nobody could blame them for that, right? right.

right.

(funnily enough: it doesn't go the other way. the minority hatebait is always a hundred percent responsible for any shitty thing they do in retaliation for what they're subjected to, or attempt they make to stop it. often as not, their actions mean that whatever injustice they were yammering about should be dismissed for everyone suffering under it, because this guy used it as an Excuse and that's why you can't have nice things (basic rights).)

anyway, yeah, this is. a Thing and i see it a Lot. and it does really chap me how extreme and totally unaddressed it is in sdmi, because if you don't let the framing get away with hatebait and Always Having a Reason, then pericles makes for a really really complex and compelling exploration of someone who's been dealt a shit hand and suffered terribly also happening to be the miserable, hateful old cunt who wrecked generations of your family because they desperately needed help and didn't get it.

[stories-of-the-multiverse]

((Starter fore @remnantsouls ))

Charlie winced when of course, she felt no pulse from the body she was checking. Poor guy bled out before she could get to them...

She sighed as she stood, holding onto herself.

Alright, don't give up now, Charlie. The moment you do, whatever survivor there is is done for for sure!

She jogged forward, eyes briefly scanning the bodies as she passed.

There has to be someone, someone she could help. Someone she could give at least another year!

Someone that-!

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw an inky black trail among the crimson. And she felt her blood go ice cold.

An unfortunate truth was, an average of ten percent of victims of these genocides were Hellborn. Those that could not afford to live in the other Rings, or even in Hellborn only settlements like Imp City. Either the Exorcists couldn't tell the difference, or didn't care. Perhaps a mixture of both.

Demons are demons, after all...

And it looks like she might find another example of this statistic...

Uneasily, she followed the trail into the alley...

"... Oh my god...!"

Another fun bit about the Exterminations? Most Exorcists were notorious for playing with their food. Not just in chasing their targets, but finding increasingly cruel ways to end their lives.

And taking literally an arm and a leg from them...?!

Charlie rushed to the incubus's side, hurriedly checking his pulse.

Still alive...!

"Ca-Can you hear me?! I- H-Hold on-!"

She took out the kit she was carrying, bandages and guaze being snatched up as she hoped the empathic link with her goat bois would bring them here.

She started with the shoulder, putting the gauze over the bloody socket and hurriedly winding the bandage over it while being careful maneuvering his remaining arm out of the way.

If it weren't for the threat of the blood loss, she would have cleaned the wound first. Infections were a bitch down here. But right now she had to do something about the bleeding.

She hoped her hands were steadier than she felt...

[blackcur-rants]

Why in all the worlds there are is the Collector basically just a weirder, darker, quirkier version of Avatar Aang?

Think about it. Creative, highly energetic kid from a highly traditionalist culture associated with the sky that fancies itself as observers and gatherers of information but who wants to break free from all of this “duty” in order to go out and play with other beings, with this desire for freedom resulting in them being sealed away for centuries if not millennia. Then they get woken up and are instantly caught up in the machinations of a genocidal Emperor and eventually look for companionship in rare beings left over from before they were imprisoned.

@disregardcanon @niconebula @sepublic

[xxlordalexanderxx]

Think about it, my lord. Her kingdom is a fragmented monster colony, her people are thieves and criminals, and- well... What does a Donna compare to the Royals you court? Regent of Monsters, Queen of the Narrows- would you really have such a riminal as her as your queen?

"Why do you CARE? I don't even know you.

I'VE COMMITED GENOCIDE. I ORIGINALLY USERPED MY THRONE BECAUSE I WAS MAD I THAT I DIDN'T GET WHAT I WANTED.

I' am not above her.

You sound as though all my other lovers are royals. I'm only courting one royal out of all of them.

[rays-animorphs]

Speaking of horrible implications, I got a moment of fridge logic after going to bed after finishing the hork bajir chronicles last night. The Yeerks aren’t know for respecting the ecological stability of planets they take over, and the Arn created the Hork-Bajir to manage the trees to preserve the right balance of gases in the atmosphere, with them believing that without the Hork-Bajir tending to the trees that the planet would lose a breathable atmosphere. After the Yeerk takeover, that planet is biologically dead. There’s no returning. And the Arn…well, they made sure they weren’t useful Yeerk hosts. They’re gone too. (Unless the Andalites did a refugee mission? Doesn’t sound like them tbh.)

That’s at least one actual genocide to the Yeerks then.

[estrogenism]

idk i wish people would talk more about papua when it comes to occupied nations.

free papua.

[kitkatabasis]

Well, it seems this video is relevant as ever:

(Although of course it's not just the porn they're trying to get rid of now. And, frankly, never was...)

[thund3randrain]

"But palestinians are homophobic and transphobic and would kill you why are you supporting them?"

Listen. Every single person in palestine could hate me personally and want me dead. Every. Single. One. And I would still support them bc:

That's just fucking racist to assume that every single person in palestine is homo/transphobic just bc its an arab country and it completely ignores the existance of queer palestinians

A country that has been stuck in a constant state of aparteid and been attacked and crushed by israel since 1948 is not a place where good social progress would happen

Even if those points are invalid, that still does not justify a fucking genocide. Men women and children are being slaughtered and again, every single one could hate me personally and I wouldn't support their genocide bc that is just fucked up and evil

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i've said it before, but the more i think about it the more i pin down exactly what the biggest fundamental issue is with lorien legacies, and that is that it tries to mix its metaphors while also pretending to be an explicit recreation of Certain Real World Dynamics where you really need to know what the fuck you are saying.

like, fantasy metaphors don't always have to be a 1:1 for real world historical events. you need to very carefully examine the real-world components of what you're portraying--what you're saying--with said metaphors, respectively and in the context of each other, that's true. they can even shed some interesting light on each other--the situation with the cêpans on lorien before the war is an interesting inversion of ableism as a structure on earth, and it's interesting to examine how non-fantasy, non-inverted ableism nests into that. and setrákus' whole thing could be a good commentary on Certain Parts of the transhumanist movement that need addressing, and on cultural appropriation, and on how scratch an ableist and you'll find a racist and vice versa, because Fascists is the Same. and the care involved in this process, of course, goes many times over when the thing you're tackling is a heavy subject like genocide.

but if you're drawing a straight, explicit-or-borderline-explicit line directly between your fantasy metaphor and real-world history? hooooly fuck you need to be SO on top of recreating that history as accurately as you can. you do NOT want to fuck up your commentary on What Happened Irl by erasing the contributing factors, putting blame in the wrong places, or perpetuating lies about what was happening in order to justify or perpetuate it or cover it up. if your villains are a ham-handed metaphor for manifest destiny YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT MANIFEST DESTINY IS, HOW IT HAPPENED, ITS AFTERMATH, AND ITS GOALS.

LL doesn't just drop the ball here, it spikes the ball so hard it noclips into the backrooms. even if they had had an ounce of self-awareness about the fantasy dynamic they were creating with lorien, mogadore, and by extension earth, they absolutely should not have brought real-world history into it to make their goofy evil cartoon aliens Deep. it's fascinating to pick apart as a trainwreck but jeeeeeeesus, man.

[quizkiller]

Seeing this makes me quite sad

STOP PROMOTING A SERIES THAT MAKES FUN OF SEXUAL ABUSE

AND DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE!

[dyspunktional-revan]

Being an antizionist Jew, very much not the only one around, and seeing goyim talk about how allegedly antizionists just mean “zionist” to say “Jew”, is sure fucking something.

Also, no matter if you’re a goy or if you’re Jewish, *this* is equating zionism and Judaism. Fuck you.

Zionist does not mean Jew and zionist is not a fucking “certain kind of Jew”. Zionism is an ideology that must have. no. place. No matter who carries it, and we very much do remember goyische zionists.

_

Edit: tankies fuck off, you are not any better just because it’s different genocides and empires you support.

[everdoeswriting]

i think a lot about how vex got off pretty much scott free at the end of s11. everyone was just like oh it was vex all along man we knew you were no good. shame on you. finger wags and all that. like dude just got turned into an ice cube for a minute and then banished again, that was pretty much it.

such wasted potential here. he deserved a slow, painful death after causing so much suffering to both zane and the people of the never realm. he deserved to be "betrayed" by zane. stabbed with an icicle through the heart. he needed karma to come GET HIM.

[theabyssqueen]

Chara is our partner, not our victim (rant)

Warning: may sound like Chara hate to some, but Chara is actually one of my favorite characters in Undertale since childhood. I love them. Please keep this in mind while reading this.

Undertale fandom (especially on Youtube and ESPECIALLY Tiktok) try to use critical thought and realise after 8 years that Chara is just as responsible for the Genocide route and is a willing participant in it challenge (impossible)

Like how can you think that Chara is punishing you for your sins at the end of Genocide or is disgusted with you if they helped you throughout it all?

We do not corrupt them.

We do not manipulate them.

Chara is your partner on equal grounds. They make it very clear right at the end of Genocide that you were never in control.

I repeat: we are NEVER in control of Chara.

Treating them as a lost and confused baby without any freedom of choice or thought is a disservice to the character.

Proof under the cut.

The Genocide Run has strict requirements for it to be started. For red text to appear, you need to kill 20 monsters in the Ruins, fully clearing them out. Yet, if you kill the first Froggit you meet, AND 19 monsters, Genocide does not begin. Why is that? I thought Chara was corrupted by all the LV and EXP we are gaining!

It's because Chara doesn't care if the first Froggit is killed or not. Only the monsters after it count.

Additionally, the last chance that Genocide can be aborted is right before Mettaton NEO, at which point, you should be at LV 15. Thing is, this LV can be reached even during a Neutral Run, by grinding 39 Knight Knights in the CORE. Yet, red text still doesn't appear.

Sparing monsters in Genocide is possible and doesn't deter Chara from the Run (but only if it's a common encounter).

Chara berates you if Snowdrake gets away and Genocide is aborted immediately.

Chara keeps count of the monsters needed to be killed and will stop you from advancing further in some sections if there are still monsters left.

They could easily just not do all of that.

Frisk's independent actions out of the Player's control during Genocide are actually not theirs, but Chara's. Chara kills Flowey, Asgore, and Sans. And while an argument could be made for us influencing Chara into killing Sans, the same cannot be made for Asgore's and Flowey's deaths. There isn't even any FIGHT button for us to press. The only thing we are doing at this point is advancing dialogue.

And this is considering that Flowey and Asgore were/are both Chara's family, or at least akin to one.

Listen, I get it. I also hate when people put all the blame on Chara. I also dislike when people just stamp "evil" onto them and erase all possible nuance. But that doesn't mean that we should go right into the opposite direction and act as if they're innocent or righteous.

At the end of Genocide, no matter your input on the matter, Chara ends the world. Not just you, not just the monsters still left alive in the Underground, but the whole universe. That indescribably outweighs all the misdeeds we have done during the Run.

Just think about it. Is really killing EVERYONE in the world justifiable, if you do it to punish someone? Even a murderer? To make them "see the consequences of their actions"?

How does that make sense?

How does that elevate them from you in any capacity?

Is it because they talk of "perverted sentimentality", which evades even them? Chara only talks about it if you try to return to the world you had a part in destroying. Chara only talks about if on the 2nd+ Genocide Run you do not comply with erasing everything.

In fact, if you play along, they compliment you. And they don't say anything about your feelings on the matter.

Killing and erasing is encouraged. If you do so, in Chara's eyes, you are a beneficial and trustworthy partner.

And the photo. The photo that appears at the end of Soulless Pacifist if you leave Toriel. Instead of Frisk, Chara is shown, and everyone else's faces are crossed out, implying that they are dead.

Some argue that this is just Chara trying to scare you, or remind you of all the murder you've committed, keeping you responsible.

Alphys is scribbled out.

It is impossible to kill Alphys in Genocide.

It's possible she kills herself during some pretty bad Neutral Runs. Not to mention that, in general, a lot of Neutral Runs are just as, if not worse than Genocide.

Why won't Chara guilt trip you for having done them, then?

And I just can't wrap my mind around someone thinking that Chara is literally pulling a "just a prank bro" here. Especially considering that this is never shown or hinted at to be the case.

And as the icing on the cake, look at the text that appears after the end of Genocide in the Undertale Demo:

To me, at this point, thinking that Chara is innocent is just denial.

Yes, Chara offers trying out a different route next time. Yet they sure as hell won't stop encouraging it if it is started all over again. No matter if it's the 1st, 2nd, or 100th time you decide to kill everyone to wipe out the world, Chara will play along. This is considering the fact that their dialogue changes on the 2nd Genocide, and thus, proof that Chara's memory is unaffected by RESETs or ERASEs.

Yes, Chara says that YOU were the one who lead this world to ruin. But in my opinion, considering their offer for you to try out a different path, and their actions in Soulless Pacifist (which are, again, out of their own volition and unprompted), Chara's ultimate goal is to take over your/Frisk's soul. Which is why the point fingers and erase their contribution in all the murder, to try and make you feel guilty for it, seeing how you clearly do not wish to part with this world so easily.

Evidently, they've succeeded.

Chara would never get what they want at the end, if not for your help. And you wouldn't get what you want, if not for Chara's help.

The Player and Chara are partners. Let's never forget that.

Credit to the Undertale Text Project for the screenshots and to the nochocolate blog for opening my eyes all those years ago. I love you nochoco.

[dappercritter]

I reblog a lot of political posts on here so I guess it's only natural I'd make one myself at some point. Anyways... (*deep breath*)

While Genocide Joe absolutely deserve to have his approval ratings plummet for ongoing support of the IDF's brutal invasion of Gaza, I worry about what this means for the elections this year.

I worry about how many people realize that refusing to vote blue at all in November to protest a genocide could lead to another one in their own country over an angrier Trump.

Palestinian lives matter, do not get me wrong. Do not stop talking about Palestine. But we all know Trump's not going to fix it. He's going to endorse it.

Just like how he'll endorse America becoming its worst possible self at this point.

I don't know if it will get as bad as Gaza, but I know that I have a lot of friends who mean so much to me that could be put in serious danger if the government doubles down on rolling back basic human rights. Especially internet privacy and protection for queer people.

I know it's sickening to see another POTUS endorse another attack on an Arab country with all the horrific casualties it entails, but listen.

I watched the last one endorse turning the country into a living nightmare with influence still felt today, wondering if my friends--my only real friends at the time--would make it if he got another term.

It's not a perfect solution I know. But unless you guys are ready to storm the White House for different reasons this year, and you have a plan to keep this kind of scenario from ever happening again, you need to vote in the Democrat primaries and/or vote Democrat in the November elections.

And yes,

Palestine still matters.

But so does the trans community.

So does the gay community.

So does the ace community.

So does the black community.

So does America's own muslim and arab communities.

So does every community living in America under threat.